"At all events," she said, "the great thing is that the book is a success. I have not read it, but I hear there are many clever and witty things in it. Also some wicked things. Of course, if you write wickedness you are sure of an audience. I don't think, Mr. Dunquerque," she added, with a smile, "that it is the business of gentlemen to attack existing institutions."
Jack shook his head.
"It was not my writing. It was the other man. I did what I could to tone him down."
"Have you read the immortal work?" Ladds asked his neighbour. He had not spoken to her yet, but he had eyes in his head, and he was gradually getting interested in the silent girl who sat beside him, and listened with such rapt interest to the conversation.
This great and manifest interest was the only sign to show that Phillis was not accustomed to dinners in society.
Ladds thought that she must be some shy maiden from the country—a little "rustical" perhaps. He noticed now that her eyes were large and bright, that her features were clear and delicate, that she was looking at himself with a curious pity, as if, which was indeed the case, she believed the statement about his having written the wicked things. And then he wondered how so bright a girl had been able to listen to the prosy dogmatics of Mr. Cassilis. Yet she had listened, and with pleasure.
Phillis was at that stage in her worldly education when she would have listened with pleasure to anybody—Mr. Moody, a lecture on astronomy, a penny-reading, an amateur dramatic performance, or an essay in the Edinburgh. For everything was new. She was like the blind man who received his sight and saw men, like trees, walking. Every new face was a new world; every fresh speaker was a new revelation. No one to her was stupid, was a bore, was insincere, was spiteful, was envious, or a humbug, because no one was known. To him who does not know, the inflated india-rubber toy is as solid as a cannon-ball.
"I never read anything," said Phillis, with a half blush. Not that she was ashamed of the fact, but she felt that it would have pleased Captain Ladds had she read his book. "You see, I have never learned to read."
"Oh!"
It was rather a facer to Ladds. Here was a young lady, not being a Spaniard, or a Sicilian, or a Levantine, or a Mexican, or a Paraguayan, or a Brazilian, or belonging to any country where such things are possible, who boldly confessed that she could not read. This in England; this in the year 1875; this in a country positively rendered unpleasant by reason of its multitudinous School Boards and the echoes of their wrangling!