“Must you go, dear fellow, must you go?” he asked sorrowfully. “There is a bed all ready prepared, for we’d hoped you’d stay the night.”
I explained that I was compelled to return to Hastings that evening, as I had to start on a journey early next morning. Perhaps I had let him overexert himself too much in conversation. Perhaps he had more to say and was disappointed not to be able to say it, for he seemed suddenly tired and sad. The brilliant talker was gone.
“Come again soon, dear fellow. Come again soon,” he said, as he held my hand in a long clasp. And when I had passed out of his sight and he out of mine, his voice followed me pathetically, almost brokenly into the night, “Come again soon, Kernahan. Come again soon, dear boy. Don’t let it be long before we meet again.”
It was not long before we met again, but it was, alas, when I followed to his long home one who, great as was his fame in the eyes of the world as poet, critic, novelist and thinker, is, in the hearts of some of us, who grow old, more dearly remembered as the most unselfish, most steadfast, and most loving of friends.
WHEN STEPHEN PHILLIPS READ
I
One afternoon in the nineties, I called upon my friend Mrs. Chandler Moulton, the American poet. She had taken a first-floor suite of rooms in a large house in the west of London, in which other paying guests were also just then staying. I was shown into the reception room attached to Mrs. Moulton’s suite, and was told that she would be with me in a few minutes. Almost immediately after, another of Mrs. Moulton’s friends, Madame Antoinette Sterling, called, and was shown into the room where I was waiting. We had met before, and fell to chatting. Madame Sterling happened to mention the piece in her repertoire, which was not only her own favourite, but was also that which, in her opinion, best suited her voice. When I said that by some chance I had been so unfortunate as to miss hearing her sing it, she replied quickly:
“If that is so, I will sing it for you now.”