"You turn on the Slop-tap too often," he said. "Quinny, my son, you're a clever little chap, but you're frightfully sloppy. I've read a lot more of your novel...."
"Yes?" said Henry, nervously anxious to hear his criticism.
"Slop!" Gilbert continued. "Just slop, Quinny! Women aren't like lumps of dough that a baker punches into any shape he likes, and they aren't sticks of barley sugar...."
"No, they aren't," Roger interrupted. "Wait till you see my cousin Rachel...."
"Have you got a cousin, Roger? How damned odd!" said Gilbert.
"Yes. I must bring her round here one evening. She's not a bad female ... quite intelligent for her sex. Go on!"
"They're like us, Quinny!" Gilbert continued. "They're good in parts and bad in parts. That's the vital discovery of the twentieth century, and I've made it!..."
Henry had been eager to hear Gilbert's criticism of his novel, but this kind of talk irritated him, though he could not understand why it irritated him, and his irritation drove him to sneers.
"I suppose," he said, "you want to substitute Social Reform and Improved Toryism for Romance. Lordy God, man, do you want to put eugenics and blue-books in place of the love of woman?"
"You're getting cross, Quinny!..."