Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/231

 incredible coarseness in the man, amazingly mixed with his fundamental innocence. But of course you never saw anything of the coarse side of his nature?'

Did the slight upward inflection of his voice leave a statement or a question? Lanice preferred to take it as a statement.

'Indeed,' she murmured, 'and where now is—where now is ''she? ' ''

'Back here in England again, poor soul.'

She thought to herself cleverly, 'In a minute I will ask him where Anthony himself is.'

'Professor Ripley,' she began abruptly, 'may there not be something—oh, just a little truth in Captain Jones's indelicate remarks? I mean, isn't there such a thing as too great a purity even for women? After all, we are not merely souls.'

He laughed approvingly. 'You are, as always, almost incredibly right. But of course I knew you'd think that. It is splendid that you dare say it.'

'Why—why did you know—I'd think that?'

'Last night—the delicious absorption you felt while eating your roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and then the almost seraphic look in your eyes when you see tarts and clotted cream.'

'Oh, Professor Ripley, you are calling me a glutton!'

'Far from it—your appetite is never so broad as it is deep—if you understand what I mean, and then, do you realize, that when I asked you if you had liked Italy, you first told me about the pastelletti and then about the Uffizi!'