The apostle put up a pince-nez on a bone leg and looked at Hugh.

“I entirely disapprove of that little book,” she said.  “It is misleading and wilfully one-sided.”

“Hester Gresley is a dear friend of mine,” said Sybell, “and I must stand up for her.  She is the sister of our clergyman, who is a very clever man.  In fact, I am not sure he isn’t the cleverest of the two.  She and I have great talks.  We have so much in common.  How strange it seems that she who lives in the depths of the country should have written a story of the East End!”

“That is always so,” said the author of Unashamed, in a sonorous voice.  “The novel has of late been dwarfed to the scope of the young English girl”—­he pronounced it gurl—­“who writes from her imagination and not from her experience.  What true art requires of us is a faithful rendering of a great experience.”

He looked round, as if challenging the world to say that Unashamed was not a lurid personal reminiscence.

Sybell was charmed.  She felt that none of her previous dinner-parties had reached such a high level as this one.

“A faithful rendering of a great experience,” she repeated.  “How I wish Hester were here to hear that.  I often tell her she ought to see life, and cultivated society would do so much for her.  I found her out a year ago, and I’m always begging people to read her book, and I simply long to introduce her to clever people and oblige the world to recognize her talent.”

“I agree with you, it is not yet fully recognized,” said Hugh, in a level voice; “but if The Idyll received only partial recognition, it was, at any rate, enthusiastic.  And it is not forgotten.”

Sybell felt vaguely uncomfortable, and conceived a faint dislike of Hugh as an uncongenial person.

The apostle and the poet began to speak simultaneously, but the female key was the highest, and prevailed.

“We all agree in admiring Miss Gresley’s delicate piece of workmanship,” said the apostle, both elbows on the table after the manner of her kind, “but it is a misfortune to the cause of suffering humanity—­to our cause—­when the books which pretend to set forth certain phases of its existence are written by persons entirely ignorant of the life they describe.”

“How true!” said Sybell.  “I have often thought it, but I never could put it into words as you do.  Oh! how I agree with you and Mr. Harvey!  As I often say to Hester, ’How can you describe anything if you don’t go anywhere or see anything?  I can’t give you my experience.  No one can.’  I said that to her only a month ago, when she refused to come up to London with me.”

Rachel’s white face and neck had taken on them the pink transparent color that generally dwelt only in the curves of her small ears.

“Why do you think Miss Gresley is ignorant of the life she describes?” she said, addressing the apostle.