Mrs. Selldon, who had seen several authors and authoresses in her time, and knew that they were as a rule most ordinary, hum-drum kind of people, was quite prepared for her fate. She remembered her astonishment as a girl when, having laughed and cried at the play, and taken the chief actor as her ideal hero, she had had him pointed out to her one day in Regent Street, and found him to be a most commonplace-looking man, the very last person one would have supposed capable of stirring the hearts of a great audience.
Meanwhile dinner progressed, and Mrs. Selldon talked to an empty-headed but loquacious man on her left, and racked her brains for something to say to the alarmingly silent author on her right. She remembered hearing that Charles Dickens would often sit silent through the whole of dinner, observing quietly those about him, but that at dessert he would suddenly come to life and keep the whole table in roars of laughter. She feared that Mr. Shrewsbury meant to imitate the great novelist in the first particular, but was scarcely likely to follow his example in the last. At length she asked him what he thought of the cathedral, and a few tepid remarks followed.
“How unutterably this good lady bores me!” thought the author.
“How odd it is that his characters talk so well in his books, and that he is such a stick!” thought Mrs. Selldon.
“I suppose it’s the effect of cathedral-town atmosphere,” reflected the author.
“I suppose he is eaten up with conceit and won’t trouble himself to talk to me,” thought the hostess.
By the time the fish had been removed they had arrived at a state of mutual contempt. Mindful of the reputation they had to keep up, however, they exerted themselves a little more while the entrées went round.
“Seldom reads, I should fancy, and never thinks!” reflected the author, glancing at Mrs. Selldon’s placid unintellectual face. “What on earth can I say to her?”
“Very unpractical, I am sure,” reflected Mrs. Selldon. “The sort of man who lives in a world of his own, and only lays down his pen to take up a book. What subject shall I start?”
“What delightful weather we have been having the last few days!” observed the author. “Real genuine summer weather at last.” The same remark had been trembling on Mrs. Selldon’s lips. She assented with great cheerfulness and alacrity; and over that invaluable topic, which is always so safe, and so congenial, and so ready to hand, they grew quite friendly, and the conversation for fully five minutes was animated.