“You mean something by that,” he remarked, with awkward attempt at light fencing.

There was barely a perceptible movement of Cecily’s brows.

“I try to mean something as often as I speak,” she said, in an amused tone.

“In this ease it is a censure.  You take the side of those who find fault with my idealism.”

“Not so; I simply form my own judgment.”

Mr. Bickerdike was nervous at all times in the society of a refined woman; Mrs. Elgar’s quiet rebuke brought the perspiration to his forehead, and made him rub his hands together.  Like many a better man, he could not do justice to the parts he really possessed. save when sitting in solitude with a sheet of paper before him.  Though he had a confused perception that Mrs. Elgar was punishing him for forcing her to speak of his book, he was unable to change the topic and so win her approval for his tact.  In the endeavour to seem at ease, he became blunt.

“And what has your judgment to say on the subject?”

“I think I have already told you, Mr. Bickerdike.”

“You mean by a romance a work that is not soiled with the common realism of to-day.”

“I am willing to mean that.”

“But you will admit, Mrs. Elgar, that my mode of fiction has as much to say for itself as that which you prefer?”

“In asking for one admission you take for granted another.  That is a little confusing.”

It was made sufficiently so to Mr. Bickerdike.  He thrust out his long legs, and exclaimed: 

“I should be grateful to you if you would tell me what your view of the question really is—­I mean, of the question at issue between the two schools of fiction.”

“But will you first make clear to me the characteristics of the school you represent?”

“It would take a long time to do that satisfactorily.  I proceed on the assumption that fiction is poetry, and that poetry deals only with the noble and the pure.”

“Yes,” said Cecily, as he paused for a moment, “I see that it would take too long.  You must deal with so many prejudices—­such, for example, as that which supposes ‘King Lear’ and ‘Othello’ to be poems.”

Mr. Bickerdike began a reply, but it was too late; Mrs. Lessingham had approached with some one else who wished to be presented to Mrs. Elgar, and the novelist could only bite his lips as be moved away to find a more reverent listener.

It was not often that Cecily trifled in this way.  As a rule, her manner of speech was direct and earnest.  She had a very uncommon habit of telling the truth whenever it was possible; rather than utter smooth falsehoods, she would keep silence, and sometimes when to do so was to run much danger of giving offence.  Beautiful women have very different ways of using the privilege their charm assures them; Cecily chose to make it a protection of her integrity.  She was much criticized by acquaintances of her own sex.