At that time she thought of him as a sentimental ass, a man with a fine brain and no common sense. She posed more and more as a very conventional young woman, pretending to be a little shocked by his views of life, and meeting his suggestive friendliness with British obtuseness. She gave him back Ruskin, the Bensons and Carlyle when he talked of Wilde. And yet this pose of hers piqued Massinger all the more sharply, though she did not suspect it. He talked to himself of “educating her,” of “reforming her taste,” and of “teaching her to be a little more sympathetic towards the sweet white frailties of life.”
Early in December Kate’s last evening came, and Eve spent it with her in the Bloomsbury rooms. There were the last odds and ends of packing to be done, the innumerable little feminine necessaries to be stowed away in the corners of the “steamer” trunks. Eve helped, and her more feminine mind offered a dozen suggestions to her more practical friend. Kate Duveen was not a papier poudre woman. She did not travel with a bagful of sacred little silver topped boxes and bottles, and her stockings were never anything else but black.
“Have you got any hazeline and methylated spirit?”
“No.”
“You must get some on the way to the station. Or I’ll get them in the morning. And have you plenty of thick veiling?”
“My complexion is the last thing I ever think of.”
“You have not forgotten the dictionaries, though.”
“No, nor my notebooks and stylo.”
They had supper together, and then sat over the fire with their feet on the steel fender. Kate Duveen had become silent. She was thinking of James Canterton, and the way he had walked into her room that evening.
“Eve!”