"Written—yes, but not published. I have written all sorts of things." His voice shook. "Even—verse."
He repented the word as soon as it was uttered. Again his eyes could not move towards hers.
"I know you have," said Irene, in the voice of one who smiles.
"I have never been sure that you knew it—that you received those verses."
"To tell you the truth, I didn't know how to acknowledge them. I never received the dedication of a poem, before or since, and in my awkwardness I put off my thanks till it was too late to send them. But I remember the lines; I think they were beautiful. Shall you ever include them in a volume?"
"I wrote no more, I am no poet. Yet if you had given a word of praise"—he laughed, as one does when emotion is too strong—"I should have written on and on, with a glorious belief in myself."
"Perhaps it was as well, then, that I said nothing. Poetry must come of itself, without praise—don't you think?"
"Yes, I lived it—or tried to live it—instead of putting it into metre."
"That's exactly what I once heard my father say about himself. And he called it consuming his own smoke."
Piers could not but join in her quiet laugh, yet he had never felt a moment less opportune for laughter. As if to prove that she purposely changed the note of their dialogue, Irene reached a volume from the table, and said in the most matter-of-fact voice: