"Bohemians?" Berri repeated. "Why, Bohemians are perfectly horrid things who exist exclusively on Welsh rabbits and use the word 'conventional' as a term of reproach. My aunt knows hundreds of them."
"I wrote a paper once on 'What is a Bohemian?'" Fleetwood put in. "If you would really like to know—but of course you would n't," he broke off sadly; "no one does any more. You clever boys know everything before you come."
"Oh, Mr. Fleetwood, please let us read your paper," we both begged him enthusiastically. I think he was a little flattered, for we would n't allow him to talk about anything else until he had promised to tell me where I could find his article. Berri, however, he refused absolutely, and made me promise, in turn, not to let him know where to look for it and never to quote from it in Berri's presence.
"I know him," he muttered dolefully; "I know these memories that 'turn again and rend you;' I 'm an old man; 'Ich habe gelebt' and ge-suffered."
Well, we had a most delightful dinner. Fleetwood, when he saw that he was n't going to get rid of us, cheered up and made himself very agreeable. He can be charming when he wants to be. He and Berri did most of the talking, although his remarks, as a rule, were addressed to me. The fact is, he likes me because I 'm sympathetic and a good listener, but Berri he finds vastly more interesting. Berri has travelled such a lot, and, besides, he has the knack (I haven't it at all) of being able to discuss things of which he knows nothing in a way that commands not only attention but respect. For instance, they got into a perfectly absorbing squabble over the novelist Henry James, in which Fleetwood deplored and Berri defended what Fleetwood called his "later manner." Fleetwood ended up with,—
"I 've read everything he 's ever done—some of them many times over—and I wrote a paper on him for Lesper's not long ago; but I could n't, conscientiously, come to any other conclusion." To which Berri replied, as he smiled indulgently to himself and broke a bit of bread with his slim brown fingers,—
"I often wonder if you people over here who write things about Harry James from time to time, really comprehend the man at all—notice that I say 'James the man,' not 'James the writer.' 'Le style c'est l'homme,' you know; is n't it Bossuet who tells us that?"
"No, it is n't," said Fleetwood, rather peevishly; "it's Buffon—and he probably stole it from the Latin, 'Stylus virum arguit.'" Fleetwood, of course, knows what he 's talking about. But, nevertheless, I could see that Berri's general air of being foreign and detached and knowing James from the inside—or rather from the other side—impressed him; and as for me, I was simply paralyzed. For I could have testified under oath that Berri had never read a word of Henry James' in his life, and that he 'd never laid eyes on the man. I spoke to him about it afterward and asked him how he dared to do such things.
"Have you ever read anything by James—have you ever seen 'Harry James the man,' as you called him?" I inquired.
"No; of course not," Berri answered. "What difference does it make?"