Norma, who was leaning back in her chair fanning herself languidly, suddenly bent forward, with curious animation in her cold face.
“I don't know who you are or what you are,” she exclaimed. “Why should you want more than the ordinary futilities of after-dinner talk?”
“Because one has only to look at you,” he replied, “to see that it must be very easy to get. You have beauty inside as well as outside, and everybody owes what is beautiful and good in them to their fellow-creatures.”
“I don't see why. According to you, women ought to go about like mediaeval saints.”
“Every woman is a saint in the depths of her heart,” said Jimmie.
“You are an astonishing person,” replied Norma.
The conversation ended there, for Morland King came up with Constance Deering: he florid, good-looking, perfectly groomed and dressed, the type of the commonplace, well-fed, affluent Briton; she a pretty, fragile butterfly of a woman. Jimmie rose and was led off to another part of the room by his hostess. King dropped into the chair Jimmie had vacated.
“I see you have been sampling my friend Jimmie Padgate. What do you make of him?”
“I have just told him he was an astonishing person,” said Norma.
“Dear old Jimmie! He's the best fellow in the world,” said King, laughing. “A bit Bohemian and eccentric—artists generally are—”