"He's unsympathetic. Cropped hair watered down, humdrum neckties, composing away from the piano, no animals—it's all against me except the little house."
"Because you take the wholly conventional view of the musician," said her mother. "If I dared to say such a thing to my own child I might add, without telling a dangerous lie, because you are so old-fashioned in your views. You can't forget having read the Vie de Bohême, and having heard, and unfortunately seen, Paderewski when you were a schoolgirl at Brighton."
"It is my beloved mother's fault that I ever was a schoolgirl at Brighton."
"Ah, don't press down that burden of crime upon my soul! Lift it, by freeing yourself from the Brighton tradition, which I ought to have kept for ever from you. And now, Max, tell us, whom does Mr. Heath know?"
"I know very little about his acquaintance. I met him first at Wonderland."
"What's that?" asked Charmian. "It sounds more promising."
"It's gone now, but it was a place in Whitechapel, where they had boxing competitions, Conky Joe against the Nutcracker—that kind of thing."
"I give him up, Te Deum, Conky Joe and all!" she exclaimed in despair.
"Do you mean me to meet him, Max?" asked Mrs. Mansfield.
"Yes. I can't keep him to myself any longer. I must share him with someone who understands. Come to-morrow evening, won't you, after dinner? Heath is dining with me."