He held the door open for her, and on the threshold she turned to Miss Collett who followed her.
"Are you sure," said she, "that he's the horrid Sybarite you think him?"
"I am," said Brodrick, "whatever Miss Collett thinks me. If it pleases her to think I'm a Sybarite I've got to be a Sybarite."
"I see. And when the rose-leaves are crumpled you bring them to Miss Collett, and she irons them out, and makes them all smooth again, so that you don't know they're the same rose-leaves?"
"The rose-leaves never are crumpled."
"Except by some sudden, unconsidered movement of your own?"
"My movements," said Brodrick, "are never sudden and unconsidered."
"What? Never?"
Miss Collett looked a little surprised at this light-handed treatment of the editor.
And Jane observed Brodrick with a new interest as they sat there in the garden and Miss Collett poured out tea. "Mr. Brodrick," she said to herself, "is going to marry Miss Collett, though he doesn't know it."