Eve was quite frank.
“He interests me, but I don’t like him.”
“Why not?”
“Instinct! Some people don’t strike one as being clean.”
She described the black velvet room, and the way Massinger dressed. Kate’s nostrils dilated.
“Faugh, that sort of fool! Do you mean to say he receives you in a dressing-gown and sandals?”
“It is part of the pose.”
“I wonder why it is that when a man is clever in the artistic way, he so often behaves like an ass? I thought the art pose was dying out. Can you imagine Bergson, or Ross, or Treves, or Nansen, dressing up and scenting themselves and sitting on a divan? People who play with words seem to get tainted, and too beastly self-conscious.”
“He rather amuses me.”
“Do his lips drop honey? If there is one kind of man I hate it’s the man who talks clever, sentimental slosh.”