Olive firmly drew him away, still pouring forth this flood of easy nonsense.
At table, Sophy noticed that her husband glanced from her to Amaldi once or twice. His look was hard and hostile. She determined to try to talk as much as possible with both Tyne and Amaldi. This would be easier—as it became at once evident that the dinner would be one of those delightful occasions on which little groups talk together, even across the table.
"When are you going to make me see another beautiful dawn?" asked Tyne abruptly.
Sophy gazed at him. She wondered what was coming, and as he smiled at her in his slow way, she thought how much worse it seemed for a poet to have black teeth than for a mere, ordinary mortal like John Arundel.
"How did I make you see a beautiful dawn?" she asked, knowing that he wanted her to put the question.
"By writing your 'Shadow of a Flame' and letting me read it. Yes—all night I played with those lovely, flickering verses."
"You are too kind to me," she said shyly. "Tell me when I am to read another of your books—that are not shadows of flames, but flames themselves."
"Lovely—lovely!" he murmured. "That is quite lovely of you. But as for a new book—— It is so prosaic to publish a book in London. Nothing really happens. Now in Paris—why—one day all the boulevards blossom like beds of daffodils. You are amazed. You ask, 'Why this delicious flowering?' You are answered—'Paul Bourget has published a new novel.'"
He went airily on for some moments in this strain. From across the table, a clever critic and man of letters was listening with pleased amusement. Suddenly he said:
"Tell me, Oswald, have you ever read the works of an American called Edgar Saltus?"