May Dashwood still gazed at the portrait but now she lowered her eyelids, looking critically through the narrowed space with her grey eyes.
"No, I don't know what learned men are," she replied very slowly. "I have met so few."
"Jim has taken——" and again Lady Dashwood hesitated.
"Not to Eau Perrier?" almost whispered Mrs. Dashwood.
"Certainly not," exclaimed Lady Dashwood. "I don't think he has touched alcohol since the War. It's nothing so elementary as that. I feel as if I were treacherous in talking about it—and yet I must talk about it—because you have to help me. A really learned man is so——"
"Do you mean that he knows all about Julius Cæsar," said May, "and nothing about himself?"
"I shouldn't mind that so much," said the elder lady, grasping eagerly at this introduction to an analysis of the learned man. "I had better blurt it all out, May. Well—he knows nothing about women——" Lady Dashwood spoke with angry emphasis, but in a whisper.
"Ah!" said Mrs. Dashwood, and now she stared deeply at one particular block of wood that was spitting quietly at the attacking flames. She raised her arm and laid her hand on her aunt Lena's shoulder. Then she squeezed the shoulder slightly as if to gently squeeze out a little more information.
"Jim is—I'm not sure—but I'm suspicious—on the verge of getting into a mess," said her aunt still in a low voice.
"Ah!" said May again. "With some woman?"