Wondering what asinine prank was in the young man's mind, but not wanting to disturb the monologuist by untimely controversy, Selwyn reached for the Sketch, and assumed a deep interest in the very latest picture of London's very latest stage favourite who could neither sing, dance, nor act, and was tremendously popular.
'Excuse me, Lady Durwent,' said the gilded youth when a lull permitted him to speak, 'but would you pass the Daily Mail, please?'
'My dear Horace,' said Elise, 'you haven't taken to reading the Mail?'
'No, dear one. Heaven forbid! I merely write for it.'
'What!' There was an ensemble of astonishment.
'Ra-ther. I sent their contributed page a scholarly little thing from my pen entitled "Should One Kiss in the Park?" If it's in I get three guineas, and I'm going to start for Fiji to escape old Fensome's war.'
'Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, passing the journal along, 'you have a rival.'
With an air of considerable embarrassment the fair-haired contributor to newspapers opened the pages of the Daily Mail, but protesting that he was too bashful to endure the gaze of the curious, he begged permission to retire to the library, there to search in privacy for his literary child.
'I say, Selwyn,' he said, 'you come along too if you're through pecking. Nothing like having the opinion of an expert, even if he is jealous.'
With a promise to return immediately and read the effort aloud, the two men left the table and adjourned to the adjoining room. With a frown of impatience Selwyn was about to demand the reason for his inclusion in the silly affair, when the other stopped him with a gesture and closed the door.