There comes a little message from him:
Don't forget the dinner. You can wrap up in a cloak if you deem it advisable, and slip in about 7.30 and we can dine in peace.
H. G. Wells.
Whitehall Court, Entrance 4.
We talk of Russia and I find no embarrassment in airing my views, but I soon find myself merely the questioner. Wells talks; and, though he sees with the vision of a dreamer, he brings to his views the practical. As he talks he appears very much like an American. He seems very young and full of "pep."
There is the general feeling that conditions will right themselves in some way. Organisation is needed, he says, and is just as important as disarmament. Education is the only salvation, not only of Russia, but of the rest of the world. Socialism of the right sort will come through proper education. We discuss my prospects of getting into Russia. I want to see it. Wells tells me that I am at the wrong time of the year, that the cold weather coming on would make the trip most inadvisable.
I talk about going to Spain, and he seems surprised to hear that I want to see a bull fight. He asks, "Why?"
I don't know, except that there is something so nakedly elemental about it. There is a picturesque technique about it that must appeal to any artist. Perhaps Frank Harris's "Matador" gave me the impulse, together with my perpetual quest for a new experience. He says it is too cruel to the horses.
I relax as the evening goes on and I find that I am liking him even more than I expected. About midnight we go out on a balcony just off his library, and in the light of a full moon we get a gorgeous view of London. Lying before us in the soft, mellow rays of the moon, London looks as though human, and I feel that we are rather in the Peeping Tom rôle.
I exclaim, "The indecent moon."
He picks me up. "That's good. Where did you get that?"