Now, what do you think of him?
D'you think he knows his own mind?
He seems to me a poor thing.

I should say the grey mare was the better horse!" The colour deepened in Irene's face; and James watched her suspiciously.
"Perhaps you don't quite understand Mr.Bosinney," she said.
"Don't understand him!" James hummed out: "Why not ?--you can see he's one of these artistic chaps.

They say he's clever--they all think they're clever.

You know more about him than I do," he added; and again his suspicious glance rested on her.
"He is designing a house for Soames," she said softly, evidently trying to smooth things over.
"That brings me to what I was going to say," continued James; "I don't know what Soames wants with a young man like that; why doesn't he go to a first-rate man ?" "Perhaps Mr.Bosinney is first-rate!" James rose, and took a turn with bent head.
"That's it'," he said, "you young people, you all stick together; you all think you know best!" Halting his tall, lank figure before her, he raised a finger, and levelled it at her bosom, as though bringing an indictment against her beauty: "All I can say is, these artistic people, or whatever they call themselves, they're as unreliable as they can be; and my advice to you is, don't you have too much to do with him!" Irene smiled; and in the curve of her lips was a strange provocation.
She seemed to have lost her deference.

Her breast rose and fell as though with secret anger; she drew her hands inwards from their rest on the arms of her chair until the tips of her fingers met, and her dark eyes looked unfathomably at James.
The latter gloomily scrutinized the floor.
"I tell you my opinion," he said, "it's a pity you haven't got a child to think about, and occupy you!" A brooding look came instantly on Irene's face, and even James became conscious of the rigidity that took possession of her whole figure beneath the softness of its silk and lace clothing.
He was frightened by the effect he had produced, and like most men with but little courage, he sought at once to justify himself by bullying.
"You don't seem to care about going about.