"Why Edgar Saltus, like a stiletto from the blue? Yes; I have read some of his productions. But why?"
"Because the American boulevards seem to blossom with his flowers of rhetoric in the way that you describe. I have often wanted to parody him. But parody crouches at his feet."
Tyne held up one of his suave, heavy hands.
"Softly, please," he murmured. "Tread softly there. I have a certain tenderness for Mr. Edgar Saltus. I know nothing in literature more touching than the way that passion and grammar struggle for mastery on every one of his wonderful pages!"
Amaldi listened with his quiet smile. He himself was not in a talkative mood that night. Besides, he was one of those men who, while seeming outwardly unconscious of what is not directly in contact with them, notice everything that takes place, and he had caught those dark looks cast by Cecil Chesney at Sophy and himself. Now he was glad to see that she was becoming diverted and roused from her listlessness by the talk of Oswald Tyne and his friend. He also observed that Chesney, too, had apparently changed his humour and was engaged in an animated conversation with the men and women nearest him. After a while, he saw that Chesney was holding forth alone. But it was evidently a perfectly amiable harangue, for the others were listening with animated faces. Still Sophy, who could not catch the gist of her husband's talk, looked suddenly anxious, and Amaldi was relieved when the critic, who had been talking with Tyne, and whose name was Ferrars, said to Sophy:
"Your husband's having a brilliant go at Russian literature, Mrs. Chesney. Are you as keen on that subject as he is?"
"Yes, quite, I think."
"Tolstoy and Dostoievsky are our living Pillars of Hercules," said Ferrars, a little didactically. "They guard the portals of modern literature. They are our colossi—we others fuss and potter about under their huge limbs like pygmies."
"Speak for yourself, Charles," said Tyne coolly. "I may not be a colossus, but I have wings. Gauzy, iridescent, little vans maybe, but sufficient to lift me. I am not what sportsmen call a 'heavyweight' of literature—but I can coruscate, which your colossi cannot. And I am not sure that I don't prefer fireflies to eagles."
"Which do you think greater—Tolstoy or Dostoievsky?" Sophy slipped in, before Ferrars could launch a sarcasm.