“Have another,” suggested Tembarom, moving the box nearer to him.
“No, thank you.” He rose and crossed the room to the wall of book-shelves. And Tembarom's eye was caught again by the fineness of movement and line the evening clothes made manifest. “What a swell he looked when he moved about like that! What a swell, by jings!”
He looked along the line of shelves and presently took a book down and opened it. He turned over its leaves until something arrested his attention, and then he fell to reading. He read several minutes, while Tembarom watched him. The silence was broken by his laughing a little.
“Listen to this,” he said, and began to read something in a language totally unknown to his hearer. “A man who writes that sort of thing about a woman is an old bounder, whether he's a poet or not. There's a small, biting spitefulness about it that's cattish.”
“Who did it?” Tembarom inquired softly. It might be a good idea to lead him on.
“Horace. In spite of his genius, he sometimes makes you feel he was rather a blackguard.”
“Horace!” For the moment T. Tembarom forgot himself. “I always heard he was a sort of Y.M.C.A. old guy—old Horace Greeley. The Tribune was no yellow journal when he had it.”
He was sorry he had spoken the next moment. Strangeways looked puzzled.
“The Tribune,” he hesitated. “The Roman Tribune?”
“No, New York. He started it—old Horace did. But perhaps we're not talking of the same man.”