‘Of course I call myself a girl,’ answered Miss Macrae. ‘Do you want me to call myself a young lady?’
The poet sighed. ‘I thought you understood me,’ he said. ‘Ah, how to escape, how to reach the undiscovered West!’
‘But Columbus discovered it,’ said Miss Macrae.
‘The undiscovered West of the Celtic heart’s desire,’ explained the bard; ‘the West below the waters! Thither could we twain sail in the magic boat of Bran! Ah see, the sky opens like a flower!’
Indeed, there was a sudden glow of summer lightning.
‘That looks more like rain,’ said Merton, who was standing with the Budes at an opposite corner of the roof.
‘I say, Merton,’ asked Bude, ‘how can you be so uncivil to that man? He took it very well.’
‘A rotter,’ said Merton. ‘He has just got that
stuff by heart, the verse and a lot of the prose, out of a book that I brought down myself, and left in the smoking-room. I can show you the place if you like.’
‘Do, Mr. Merton. But how foolish you are! do be civil to the man,’ whispered Lady Bude, who shared his disbelief in Blake; and at that moment the tinkle of an electric bell in the smoking-room below reached the expectant ears of Mr. Macrae.