About what?
About his book, of course.

How base of her not to have done so already! but how good of him to have overlooked her silence on that great topic! It was not ignorance of its contents that had kept her silent.

To confess the horrid truth, Grizel had read the book suspiciously, looking as through a microscope for something wrong--hoping not to find it, but peering minutely.

The book, she knew, was beautiful; but it was the writer of the book she was peering for--the Tommy she had known so well, what had he grown into?
In her heart she had exulted from the first in his success, and she should have been still more glad (should she not ?) to learn that his subject was woman; but no, that had irritated her.

What was perhaps even worse, she had been still more irritated on hearing that the work was rich in sublime thoughts.