CHAPTER VI.

FEASTS.


"He doesn't look in the least as I thought he did." It was Eurie who
whispered this, and she nudged Marion's arm by way of emphasis as she
did it.

Marion laughed.

"How did you think he looked?"

"Oh, I don't know--rough, rather."

Whereupon Marion laughed again.

"That is the way some people discriminate," she whispered back. "You
think because he wrote about rough people he must be rough; and when one
writes about people of culture and elegance you think straightway that
he is the personification of those ideas. You forget, you see, that the
world is full to the brim with hypocrisy; and it is easier to be perfect
on paper than it is anywhere else in this world."

"Or to be a sinner either, according to that view of it."

"It is easy enough to be a sinner anywhere. Hush, I want to listen."