"Of course," I agreed. Really, I don't see what else I could have done.
"Do you remember that wonderful phrase—" and he rattled it off.
"Magnificent, is it not?"
"Magnificent," I said, remembering an appointment instead. "Well, I must be getting on. Good-bye." And, as I walked off, I patted my forehead with my handkerchief and wondered why the day had grown so warm suddenly.
However the next day was even warmer. Henri came to see me with a book under his arm. We all have one special book of our own which we recommend to our acquaintances, regarding the love of it as perhaps the best passport to our friendship. This was Henri's. He was about to test me. I had read and admired his favourite Vaurelle—in the original French. Would I love his darling Laforgue? My reputation as a man, as a writer, as a critic, depended on it. He handed me the book—in French.
"It is all there," he said reverently, as he gave it to me. "All your English masters, they all come from him. Perhaps, most of all, your —— But you shall tell me when you have read it. You shall tell me whom most you seem to see there. Your Meredith? Your Shaw? Your —— But you shall tell me."
"I will tell you," I said faintly.
And I've got to tell him.
Don't think that I shall have any difficulty in reading the book.
Glancing through it just now I came across this:—
"'Kate, avez-vous soupé avant le spectacle?'
'Non, je n'avais guère le coeur à manger.'"