Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/374

 besides our going to the theatres some of the girls who'd been abroad in the summer would bring home copies of French plays, and we'd read 'em; but of course my father and mother don't know what's going on, and they'd never understand that the only reason you write that way is because so many other people are doing the same thing too. But you mustn't think I was really critical. I thought it was—well, honestly, I was interested in parts of it."

She was indeed too kind, and he told her so.

"Too kind, Mr. Ogle?" she said; and she was troubled, understanding that if she had ever hurt him at all, she had hurt him now, when she honestly meant to be friendly. "I'm afraid you don't say that as if you mean it. I don't know a great deal about plays, of course: I only know"

"Don't!" he interrupted her. "You're going to say you only know what you like, yourself."

"I was going to say I only know what I feel about them. The only other thing you can know about plays, where they're all pretty well done, is what somebody else feels about them, isn't it?"

For a moment he stared at her through the gloom; then he said icily: "I suppose so."

"Well, what I felt about your play"