It was an ugly room, like all its kind; but Blanche had the triumphant quality of rising superior to her background, which is one of the most valuable a woman can possess.  Against the hot, hideous red of the wall-paper and the mass of tawdry ornaments she seemed to gain in simplicity, and that peculiar clearness of hers was intensified.  She was grave, and only gave Ishmael the ghost of a little wan smile on his entry over his tendered bouquet.  She dispensed tea with her firm, rather square hands, hands with short, blunt-tipped fingers that yet were not without the beauty of fitting in with her puma-like solidity of frame; while the way in which she used them was grace itself.  They were the typical hands of a courtesan, but neither she nor Ishmael knew that, though Carminow had marvelled to himself at the fact.

Ishmael was silent, falling in with her mood, and suddenly she fixed her limpid eyes upon him and asked with disconcerting directness: 

“What are you thinking of!”

“I was thinking about you,” he was startled into saying; “I was wondering if it’s true you’re insincere....”

“Who says so ...?  Mr. Killigrew?  He doesn’t like me; I knew it from the first.  I’m sorry; I think he’s rather fine, though I’m not sure I think he’s good for you.  He guesses that, and that’s why he doesn’t like me.”

“Oh, I’m sure he couldn’t be such an ass as to think that,” protested Ishmael.  “Besides, surely I am capable of looking after myself!”

“You’re capable of a good deal, I believe.  You could look after yourself and other people too.  You’re strong, you know.  I suppose you don’t know, or you wouldn’t be you.  But I’m sorry you think like that about me.”

“I don’t.  I mean—­I do sometimes wonder.  You’re so charming to everyone and—­”

“But I’m not insincere because of that, am I?  I wish you hadn’t thought that.  Of course, one meets people, at the theatre and so on, and one doesn’t really know them and can’t get at them, and so one just tries to be very nice to them, but I don’t call that insincere....”

“No.  I didn’t mean to people like that.  But to your friends—­to old Carminow, for instance, and myself....  I sometimes wonder.  And to yourself—­”

“Ah!  I’m not insincere to myself.”

“I sometimes wonder if you know what your real self is.”

“Don’t I?  I do.  Why do you say that, Mr. Ruan?”

“Because you asked me, and because I can’t help saying what I think when I’m asked like that and I think the person’s worth it.”

Blanche had pushed away her cup, and now she folded her arms on the table and bent to him over them.  Her face was very earnest.

“I do know what you mean,” she admitted; “I think I know it better than you do.  And I suppose it’s partly because I’ve no mother and I’ve had to protect myself.  A woman is very like some kinds of animals I’ve heard of—­she has to assume protective colouring.  If I seem to like people that have nothing in common with me it’s because I find it’s the simplest way.  You are different; I don’t have to pretend anything with you.  I think if my real self were beginning to be overlaid you could help me revive her.”