Alistair shrugged his shoulders.
“A man of genius does not like to accept charity. The rich men would expect too much gratitude. They prefer building cathedrals—each poem of Coleridge is worth a cathedral—but you could not expect a millionaire to see that.”
“There are pensions, and literary funds, are there not?”
“Pensions, yes, for the bad writers who have fallen below the level of even the British public. And there are literary funds, yes. I was once asked to act as a steward at one of their annual dinners. The secretary sent me the rules, by which I saw that no grant was ever made to writers whose lives or whose works were open to objection on religious or moral grounds. I wrote back to say that I did not see my way to support a literary fund from whose benefits Shakespeare and Shelley would have been excluded.”
The Princess saw that she was handling a sore. She sighed, and changed the conversation.
After dinner Prince Herbert played billiards with his guest, and their talk ran on the past. Alistair was softened by the boyish memories recalled by his old playfellow, and when he went to bed it was with more peaceful and happier thoughts than had come to him for a long time.
He was sipping his cup of tea in bed the next morning when he heard light footsteps, followed by excited whispering, outside his door. The next moment the handle was turned cautiously, and then the door was thrust open with a bang, and two small boys invaded the room.
“May we come in?” demanded the elder. And satisfied with the expression on Lord Alistair’s face, he turned and beckoned through the doorway.
“It’s all right; don’t be afraid, Tissy.”
The apprehension felt by the unseen Tissy communicated itself to Alistair, who hastened to say: