"Well, I should say that's one of the things that's worrying him," I replied. "I've just read it, and the taste of it's in my mouth still."
She considered the teapot. "We'll give it two minutes and then take the bag out," she remarked. Then, "Oh yes, I've read it. I don't think she need have written it either. But it is written, and there's an end of it. As for Derry, anybody who knows him knows that his whole life's been one marvellous mistake after another. He dodges it somehow in his books, but he knows nothing whatever about women in real life. Never did. Sugar?"
This was hardly what Madge Aird had led me to expect. I had gathered from her that Miss Oliphant and Mrs Bassett had more or less fallen out about that book; in fact Madge had definitely said, "I'm not sure that they speak now." But here was Miss Oliphant, Rose's friend, not only quite inadequately angry on the one hand, but on the other talking about Rose's ignorance of women almost as if he had been as much to blame as Mrs Bassett herself.... Moreover, when a woman tells a man that another man knows nothing about women, the man who is spoken to invariably tries the words on himself to see whether he too is included in the disparagement. My understanding of Miss Oliphant, such as it was, suddenly failed me. I looked at her again to see whether, and if so where, I had made a mistake.
She was doing a perfectly innocent little thing, one that at any other time I might have found charming. Her long fingers were slyly lifting the tops of sandwich after sandwich in search of the kind she wanted. A child does the same thing with sweets—and sometimes goes beyond mere peeping. But the infantility of the gesture jarred on me, and jarred no less when, her eyes meeting mine, she laughed, pouted, and said: "Well, after all, I cut them." I did not smile. Her coolness and unconcern when a friend was savagely attacked disappointed me. As for the portrait that was to have been the excuse for my call on her, I was glad now that it hadn't been mentioned. I now doubted whether I should mention it. I had supposed her to be a woman—not merely a female painter who gave a male sitter tea in her studio.
"I don't understand you," I said, a little curtly I'm afraid. "You speak as if that book was a mere point of view to which she's entitled."
Again she smiled at me, as if she liked me very much.
"Well, she has her point of view. It's evident that you don't know Mrs Bassett."
"Her book's told me all about her that I ever want to know."
"So," she laughed, "you're just showing how cross you can be?"
At that moment there came a ring at the bell. She was on her feet instantly, as if to forestall the little maid. With less tact than ever, I thought, her fingertips touched my shoulder lightly as she passed by me. It was only then that I noticed that the Benares tray held a third cup and saucer.