“How abruptly informative you are! What has happened to you?”
“I’m thinking about this war.”
“Good gracious,” cried Wilmot in mincing amazement. “What an odd subject. Soon you will be telling me that by moonlight you brood upon the Albert Memorial. But perhaps your mind is full of trophies. Perhaps you are picturing to yourself in Piccadilly a second column of Trajan displacing the amorous and acrobatic Cupid who now presides over the painted throng. Come with me some evening to the Long Bar at the Criterion, and while the Maori-like barmaids titter in their dévergondage , we will select the victorious site and picture to ourselves the Boer commanders chained like hairy Scythians to the chariot of whatever absurd general chooses to accept the triumph awarded to him by our legislative bourgeoisie .”
“I think I must be getting on,” said Michael.
“How urgent! You speak like Phaeton or Icarus, and pray remember the calamities that befell them. But seriously, when are you coming to see me?”
“Oh, I’m rather busy,” said Michael briefly.
Wilmot looked at him curiously with his glittering eyes for a moment. Then he spoke again:
“Farewell, Narcissus. Have you learnt that I was but a shallow pool in which to watch your reflection? Did I flatter you too much or not enough? Who shall say? But you know I’m always your friend, and when this love-affair is done, I shall always be interested to hear the legend of it told movingly when and where you will, but perhaps best of all in October when the full moon lies like a huge apricot upon the chimneys of the town. Farewell, Narcissus. Does she display your graces very clearly?”
“I’m not in love with anybody, if that’s what you mean,” said Michael.
“No? But you are on the margin of a strange pool, and soon you will be peeping over the bulrushes to stare at yourself again.”