In saying the very last words all the severity slipped away out of her voice, and as she smiled again and moved her head, emphasizing humorously her own reproach to herself, she looked almost a girl.
"The 'little' applies to my mind, of course, not to my body; or perhaps I ought to say to my soul, instead of to my body."
"No, 'little' would be the wrong adjective for your soul," Nigel said.
Mrs. Chepstow looked touched, and turned once more away from the light, after Nigel had noticed that she looked touched.
"Have you seen your friend, Doctor Isaacson, to-day?" she said, seeming to make an effort in changing the conversation. "I like that man, though usually I dislike Jews because of their love for money. I like him, and somehow I feel as if he had liked me the other night, as if he had felt kindly towards me."
"Isaacson is a splendid fellow. I haven't seen him again. He has been called away by a case. We were to have ridden together this morning, but he sent to say it was impossible. He has gone into the country."
"Will he be away long?"
"I don't know. I hope not. I want him here badly."
"Oh?"
"I mean that he's congenial to me in many ways, and that congenial spirits are rare."
"You must have troops of friends. You are a man's man."
"I don't know. What is a man's man?"
"A man like you."
"And a woman's man?" he asked, drawing his chair a little towards her.
"Every man's man is a woman's man."
"You say you cannot pretend. Cannot you flatter?"
"I can pretend to that extent, and sometimes do. But why should I flatter you? I don't believe you care a bit about it. You love a kindly truth. Who doesn't? I've just told you a kindly truth."
"I should like to tell you some kindly truths," he said.
"I'm afraid there are not many you, or any one else, could tell. I dare say there are one or two, though, for I believe there is in every one of us a little bit--almost infinitesimal, perhaps--of ineradicable good, a tiny flame which no amount of drenching can ever extinguish."
"I know it."
"Oh, but it does want cherishing--cherishing--cherishing all the time, the tiny flame of ineradicable good."
She took his cup quickly, and began to pour out some more tea for him, like one ashamed of an outburst and striving to cover it up by action.
"Bring Doctor Isaacson to see me one day--if he'll come," she said, in a changed, cool voice, the non-committal voice of the trained woman of the world.