But Katie's hesitations and great gaps of confessed ignorance gave her a little more courage. Katie was at pains to explain that all that she herself knew about it all was that these things were what they _said_, and Dorothy must go to Walter and the books for the rest.
"They're all very expensive books, and I may not really have understood them," she said wistfully. "They must be awfully deep and so on if they're so dear--twelve and fifteen and twenty shillings! But I did try so hard, and sometimes it seemed quite reasonable and plain, especially when the print was nice and big.... Close print always seems so frightfully learned.... And I know I've explained it badly; I haven't Walter's gift of putting things. Amory has, of course. When she and Walter have a really good set-to it makes one feel positively _abject_ about one's ignorance. I doubt if Cosimo can always _quite_ follow them, and I'm quite sure Mr. Strong can't--I know he's only hedging when he says, 'Ah, yes, have you read Fabre on the Ant or Maeterlinck on the Bee?'--and I believe he just glances at the review books that come to the 'Novum' instead of really studying them, as Walter and Amory do. And it's very funny about Mr. Strong," she rattled artlessly on. "Sometimes I've thought that it isn't just that Amory doesn't know what they all go to The Witan for, but that everybody else _does_ know. They all seem to want it to themselves. Of course if Mr. Wilkinson wants Cosimo to stop the 'Novum,' and to start something else for him, it's only natural that he and Mr. Strong should be a little jealous of one another; but Dickie and Mr. Brimby are jealous of the Wyrons, and I suppose I was jealous of Dickie too--and everybody seems jealous of everybody, and Amory of Cosimo, and Amory's always interfering between Britomart Belchamber and the twins' lessons, and that _can't_ be a very good thing for discipline, but Britomart's like me in being rather stupid, and I wish I'd her screw--she gets nearly twice as much as I do. The only people who don't seem jealous of anybody are those Indians. They're _always_ affable. I suppose it's rather nice for them, so far from their own country, having a house to go to...."