'Oh yes. Rather a pompous chap, isn't he? But you could do worse than
read _Mensonges_ for the first time.'

'I _have_ done worse. I've been reading Rudyard Kipling for the last
time.'

'Really! Don't you like him? Why?'

'I feel all the time, somehow, as if he were calling me by my Christian
name without an introduction, or as if he wanted me to exchange hats
with him,' she said. 'He's so fearfully familiar with his readers.'

'But you think he keeps at a respectful distance from his characters?
However--why worry about books at all, Mrs Ottley? Flowers, lilies of
the field, and so forth, don't toil or spin; why should they belong to
libraries? I don't think you ever ought to read--except perhaps
sometimes a little poetry, or romance.... You see, that is what you
are, rather, isn't it?'

'Don't you care for books?' she answered, ignoring the compliment. 'I
should have thought you loved them, and knew everything about them. I'm
not sure that I know.'

'You know quite enough, believe me,' he answered earnestly. 'Oh, don't
be cultured--don't talk about Lloyd George! Don't take an intelligent
interest in the subjects of the day!'

'All right; I'll try not.'

She turned with a laugh to Captain Willis, who seemed very depressed.