She continued to regard him blandly, without so much as a flicker of
humour in her serene blue eyes. "Your grandfather used to be very fond
of quoting something from 'Sappho,'" she returned thoughtfully, "or was
it from Mr. Pope? I can't remember which or what it was except that it
was hardly the kind of thing you would recite to a lady."

Trent laughed good-humouredly as he received his coffee cup.

"Well you can't point a moral with Miss Wilde," he rejoined, "you'd be
at liberty to recite her to anybody who had the sense to understand
her."

"Is she very deep?"

"She's profound--she's wonderful--she's a genius."

Mrs. Trent shook her head a little doubtfully. "I don't see that a woman
has any business to be a genius," she remarked. "And I can't help being
prejudiced against women writers, your father always was. It's as if
they really pretended to know as much as a man. When they publish books
I suppose they expect men to read them and that in itself is a kind of
conceit."

Trent yielded the point as he helped himself to the cakes brought in by
an old negro servant.

"Well, I shan't ask Miss Wilde to call on you," he laughed, "so you
won't be apt to run across the learned of your sex."