Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/114

100 broke in. "'Natural'—thank you! Oh, the horrible people who are natural! What you mean—only you're too charming to say it—is that I'm so utterly taken up with my own interests and feelings that I pipe about them like a canary in a cage. Not to have the things you mention, and above all not to have imagination, is simply not to have tact, than which nothing is more unforgivable and more loathsome. What lovelier proof of my selfishness could I be face to face with than the fact—which I immediately afterwards blushed for—that, coming in to you here a while ago, in the midst of something so important to you, I hadn't the manners to ask you so much as a question about it?"

"Do you mean about Mr. Vidal—after he had gone to his room? You did ask me a question," Rose said; "but you had a subject much more interesting to speak of." She waited an instant before adding: "You spoke of something I haven't ceased to think of." This gave Tony a chance for reference to his discharge of the injunction she had then laid upon him; as a reminder of which Rose further observed: "There's plenty of time for Mr. Vidal."