Hugo looked down at me and then away.
‘It isn’t a question of “taking time” at all, and of course Sophia is quite different from Paulina. One couldn’t think of them in the same sort of way at all.’
I said:
‘No, they aren’t at all alike.’
My cigarette had gone out. I asked Hugo for the matches. He gave them to me and went on:
He said:
‘I liked just looking at Paulina. Didn’t you? She was beautiful to look at, and she did speak her lines awfully well too, but of course—well, she hadn’t got a mind like Sophia. Sophia is so frightfully interesting. It is like exploring in an unknown sea. . . .’ He laughed, a little apologetically. ‘You never know what Sophia will think or feel about a thing, but it is always real, what she thinks or feels.’
I said:
‘Yes, I think it is,’ and he looked pleased, ‘Of course you were interested in her at school,’ he said. ‘I remember that—you used to talk to me about her a lot, and I think you really described her rather well. But I don’t know how it was—she didn’t interest me a bit that first time I saw her, when you brought her to Yearsly.’
I said: