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There was something so exquisitely sensual in her look as she lay on the couch, looking at him and chattering in the Lensley style, that he felt inclined to yield himself to her, even if in yielding he should lose everything. "Of course," he said to himself, "this is all imagination. She doesn't want me at all ... she wants Gilbert!"
"I read your novel," she went on. "Did you like it?" "Oh, yes. Of course, I liked it. I suppose you're writing another book now!" He nodded his head, and she went on. "I wish I could write books, but of course I can't. Mr. Lensley says I live books. Isn't that nice of him? Do you put real people in your books, or do you make them all up? Do you know, I think I'll have another cigarette!"
My brains go to bits when I'm with her. I'm all emotion and sensation ... just like those asses Lensley and Boltt. Quinny, fancy spending your life turning out the sort of stuff those two men write. They've written about a dozen books each, and I suppose they're good for twenty or thirty more. I'd rather be a scavenger!" They walked along the Embankment towards Waterloo Bridge.
Boltt, a tall, thin, stooping man, with peering eyes, had discovered "the human note" of which Gilbert's editor prated continually. He was a precise, priggish man, extraordinarily vain though no vainer than Lensley, who, however, had an easy manner that Boltt would never acquire.
Lensley was prattling as if he were determined to discharge an entire novelful of "chatter" at Lady Cecily, and Boltt's little clipped, pedantic voice recited a long rigmarole about a glorious view in France which he had lately seen while motoring in that country. Boltt admired Nature in the way in which any man of careful upbringing would admire a really nice woman....
The heroine of his best-known book was modelled, so people said, on the wife of a Cabinet Minister, and thousands of suburban Englishwomen professed to have an intimate knowledge of the statesman's family life solely because they had read Lensley's novel. It was a flippant, vulgar book, the outcome of a flippant, vulgar mind. Boltt had a wider public than Lensley.
"No, you don't. You were making love to Ninian last night!..." "So that's it, is it?..." "No, it isn't. Ninian doesn't care about you or about any woman. He's not like me, a soft, sloppy fool. You don't love me. If I were to leave you now, you'd find some one to take my place quite easily. Lensley or Boltt!..." "They're too middle-aged, Paddy!" He pushed her away from him.
You can come here and take me to lunch sometimes and go to the theatre with me when Jimphy wants to go to a music-hall, and ... and so on!" He could not rid himself of the notion that she was "chattering" in the Lensley style. "It would be decenter to go away together," he said. She moved away from him angrily. "You're a prig, Paddy!" she exclaimed. "You can go to Ireland. I don't care!"
"Boltt sells a tremendous number of books, don't you, Boltt? More than Lensley does. And that shows, doesn't it? If a chap can sell as many books as Boltt sells ... well, he must be some good. I've never read any of 'em, of course, but then I'm not a chap that reads much. All the same, a chap I know says Boltt's all right, and he's a chap that knows what he's talking about.
They completely ignored Henry after they had been introduced to him. "Mr. Quinn is writing a novel, too!" said Lady Cecily. "Oh, yes!" said Lensley. "Indeed!" Boltt burbled. Thereafter they addressed themselves exclusively to Lady Cecily and her husband. Lensley told Lady Cecily that she was to be the heroine of his next book. "I'm studying you now, dear Lady Cecily!" he said.
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