“That is just what I was going to say,” Vane snapped back, becoming almost rude in his greediness to appropriate the suggestion. “Such a settlement would be like a lighthouse of civilization.”
“I hope not,” Stuart retorted. “We have had too many attempts to civilize the slums. I have come here to barbarize them.”
This time the Chevalier was compelled to acknowledge the master’s superiority.
“You are right,” he heroically confessed. “But I am certain my idea is a good one. It will make a sensation. We shall have pilgrims coming to visit us from all parts of Europe and America.”
And already in his egoistic fancy he pictured himself receiving a stream of reporters in his own cottage, seated in state in some exotic garb, and dictating interviews on the subject of the poetry of the Catholic renascence, which would be wired to the ends of the earth.
Stuart read his thoughts, and smiled rather sadly. Vane’s proposal had pleased him at first, corresponding as it did more or less with the project dimly shaping in his own mind. He had always had a soft corner in his heart for the two brothers. He knew his own need of intellectual fellowship, and both the Vanes, under their absurd affectations, possessed some real taste. Egerton could be a pleasant enough companion on those too rare occasions when he was not iterating the tedious personal note, and Wickham shone as a mildly agreeable moon. Stuart was not blind to their faults, but, then, no master has ever found faultless disciples. If the disciple were equal to the master there would be no masterhood.
As it is natural for a leader to crave for followers, so it is natural that he should bear much from those who seem disposed to follow him. Stuart, without analyzing his motives, had made many efforts to attach the Vanes to himself. He had tried to melt the adamantine selfishness of the elder by generous praise of all in him that was possible to praise. He had tried to fan what little sparks of individuality he had detected in the younger. He had shut his eyes as much as he could to their humiliating vanity and meanness, vices which he hoped might exhale in the sunshine of a little success.
Now he was moved to despair of them. It was evident that the real attraction for Egerton in the project he had embraced so feverishly was not the companionship of congenial minds, but the notoriety conferred by reporters. His soul thirsted not after the praise of the judicious, but after the paragraphs of Fleet Street. Regretfully Alistair made up his mind to abandon the half-formed scheme, unless the two brothers could be persuaded to abandon him. The participation of such a man as Egerton Vane would degrade any movement in which he played a part to the level of his own vanity. It did not deserve even to be called vanity—it was vulgarity. Instead of the vanity of genius, it was the vulgarity of the charlatan.
Happily unconscious of the reflections passing through Lord Alistair’s mind, the Chevalier Vane was occupying his mind with the problem of his neglected volume, which Lady Alistair had laid aside. The poet of the Catholic renascence was anxious to read some of his work to the company, unworthy though they seemed to feel themselves of such a privilege, and he began forcibly turning the conversation towards the end in view.
“The new poetry will be distinguished from the old by its form not less than its spirit,” he proclaimed magisterially. “I have come to the conclusion to discard the sonnet in favor of the acrostic.” (There was an acrostic in the “Rosary of Twilight.”) “Form is the essence of art, and the acrostic represents form in its severest limitations.”