Flaxman Reed flushed painfully. "And I to the past—is that what you mean?"
"Yes, I think I do."
"You may be right. I suppose he is very modern—a decadent who would rather die with his day than live an hour behind it—who can't see that the future may have more kindred with the past than with the present. Mind you, I'm not talking of him, but of his school."
"Then you read him? Of course—everybody reads him."
"I've not much time for any reading that lies outside my work. But I read his first book when it came out. Is it from him you get what you call your heterodoxy?"
"No. You have to think these things out for yourself."
Audrey was led into making this statement simply by the desire to please. That eternally feminine instinct told her that at the moment she would be most interesting to Flaxman Reed in the character of a forlorn sceptic. His face sharpened with a sudden distrust.
"What, have you got the malady of the century—the disease of thought? Surely this is something new?"
"It is. One can't go on for ever in the old grooves. One must think."
"Yes; that curse is laid upon us for our sins."