“No; seriously. I’m not sure that he doesn’t inculcate a lot of good in his way. At least he’s always on the side of the angels.”
“What kind of angels? Tinsel seraphs with paint on their cheeks, playing rag-time harps out of tune! There’s a sickly slaver of sentiment over everything he touches that would make any virtue nauseous.”
“Don’t you want a job as a literary critic Our Special Reviewer, Miss Io Wel—Mrs. Delavan Eyre,” he concluded, in a tone from which the raillery had flattened out.
At that bald betrayal, Io’s color waned slightly. She lifted her water-glass and sipped at it. When she spoke again it was as if an inner scene had been shifted.
“What did you come to New York for?”
“Success.”
“As in all the fables. And you’ve found it. It was almost too easy, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed, not. It was touch and go.”
“Would you have come but for me?”
He stared at her, considering, wondering.