"Tea! I thought you were in a desperate hurry to see a French film."
"I'm never in a desperate hurry to do anything when a woman like Marion Sharpe invites me to tea. Have you noticed her eyes? But of course you have. You're her lawyer. That wonderful shading of grey into hazel. And the way her eyebrows lie above them, like the brush-mark of a painter genius. Winged eyebrows, they are. I made a poem about them on the way home. Do you want to hear it?"
"No," Robert said firmly. "Did you enjoy your film?"
"Oh, I didn't go."
"You didn't go!"
"I told you I had tea with Marion instead."
"You mean you have been at The Franchise the whole afternoon!"
"I suppose I have," Nevil said dreamily, "but, by God, it didn't seem more than seven minutes."
"And what happened to your thirst for French cinema?"
"But Marion is French film. Even you must see that!" Robert winced at the "even you." "Why bother with the shadow, when you can be with the reality? Reality. That is her great quality, isn't it? I've never met anyone as real as Marion is."