“He makes a habit of it,” answered Joyce.
Bertram flushed angrily at her retort, though Joyce had spoken with a smile. He knew by the tone of her voice that she intended to hurt him, and it hurt.
“I tell the truth, occasionally, and that’s dreadful, I admit,” he said to Lydia Gradiva.
“Not the truth about Russia, you wicked man. You do not know our poor Russia!”
“I would go even as far as Russia, to get the truth,” said Bertram. “Does anybody know?”
“You mean I lie to you?”
“There are many lies about,” said Bertram, “but I’m not referring to you, especially.”
She whipped his hand with the end of a long necklace of amber beads, so that they stung him. Then she called him a revolutionary monster, a Jacobin.
“I can see you leading the English mob and hoisting the Red Flag over the House of Commons!”
The English “mob!” There it was again. Always the talk came round to the chance of an English revolution. Those people were afraid—even of England!