She nodded and began eating her quail without explaining herself further. Eric was nettled by her tone, for she was taking pains to let him see that she had not liked his play, perhaps even that she despised him for writing it. He half turned to Lady Poynter, but she was deep in conversation with her nephew. For a time he, too, concentrated his attention on the quail; but every one else was talking, and, though Barbara's challenge was too pert to be taken seriously, he felt that half-praise from her was more valuable than the adulation of women like Mrs. Shelley who were content to worship success for its own sake.
"What was the precise meaning of the 'Ah!'?" he enquired lazily.
"'Meaning'; not 'precise meaning.' You surely don't want me to see that you're rather losing your temper and trying to cover it up by being dignified. You've been so careful with your effects, too! … I said 'Ah,' because you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a very clever journalist, I should think."
"Isn't that rash on half an hour's acquaintance?"
"You're forgetting your play—for the first time since it was produced! I felt that, however bad it was as a play, it was first-rate journalism. I've told you that I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it. You mustn't think I didn't enjoy myself. The construction's quite tolerable, and the dialogue's admirable—not a word too much, not a syllable put in for 'cleverness,' no epigrams for epigrams' sake. And you've got a good sense of the theatre."
"I was a dramatic critic for some years. Hence my good press."
"Ah! Well, I felt that night that, if you weren't too old and set, you might live to write a really good play." He bowed slightly. "Have you a cigarette? I hate people smoking in the middle of meals; but Margaret's begun, and I must have something to drown it. Now that, I suppose, would be called an ironical bow, wouldn't it? I mean, in your stage directions? You must guard against that kind of thing, you know."
"I will endeavour to do so, Lady Barbara."
"'Try,' not 'endeavour.' And you mustn't talk like your own characters; you've no idea how debilitating that is. It's bad enough when you try to drag us into the world of your plays, but it's intolerable if you try to drag your plays into our world. Did you ever read a story about a boy who lost all sense of reality by going to the theatre too much? He became dramatic. He slapped his forehead and groaned—— Well, we don't slap our foreheads or groan, however great the provocation. And in moments of stress he would shake hands with people and turn away to hide his emotion. And it wasn't only in gestures, he became dramatic in conduct. When compromising letters came into his hands, he used to burn them unread and without any one looking on, which is manifestly absurd. I forget what happened to him in the end, but I expect he was charged with something he hadn't done to save the husband of the woman he wanted to marry—and whom he'd have made perfectly miserable, if she hadn't taken him in hand very firmly at the outset. And he'd have insisted on having all their quarrels in her bedroom."