“Yes, but they are blind to the exquisite snake-like charm, to the subtle glamour of sin, which is the perfect flower of a well-spent life,” the man peevishly complained.
“You are too hard on them, Mr. Trilling. You expect too much. They are thoroughly inartistic, remember. They cleave to goodness and the Nonconformist conscience, poor deluded souls! There is a great field before you. Go out and show them the beauty of sinfulness; it used to be holiness, you know—but what’s in a name?”
She spoke in a languid, even tone, leaning back in her low chair, and holding a large white fan of feathers, which she moved slowly as she spoke.
“She has picked up the tone, knows all the catch-words and the patter, I suppose. I wonder why I hardly expected it of her?” Carey asked himself. She was sitting under the light of a tall standard lamp. Her waving hair was touched here and there with gleams of dull gold. He remembered that he had never decided on the true color of her eyes or hair, and then he resolutely gave his mind to the confidences of Miss Yorke-Woodville, who was confiding to him her burning desire to write a novel.
Half an hour later, as he was entering the inner drawing-room, he came face to face with Mrs. Travers. She glanced at him hastily, in a startled fashion, then put out her hand, and smiled. Her color rose a little.
“Then you haven’t forgotten me?” Carey said.
“I should be very ungrateful if I had,” she replied softly. “So you have come back from the Wonderlands? But of course you came back long ago?”
“No, I landed on Monday.”
They moved towards some vacant seats near a door opening into the conservatory.
“What have you been doing these five years?” Carey asked, sinking into a low seat beside her.