Will looked down and sighed. ’Tis pleasant to be appreciated by a beautiful woman. And every man thinks, if he had but the chance, he could show the world yet the sort of stuff that’s in him. “I only wish I could,” he answered, regretfully. “But I’ve my living to earn. That ties me down still to the treadmill of journalism. When my holiday’s over—the first for two years—I must get back once more, well content, to Fleet Street and drudgery.”
Mrs Palmer sighed too. She felt his difficulty. Her parasol played more nervously on the grass than before. She answered nothing, but she thought a great deal. How small a matter for her to secure this young poet whom she admired so much, six months of leisure for an immortal work—and yet, how impossible! There was only one way, she knew that very well; and the first step towards that way must come, not from her, but from this modest Will Deverill.
’Twas a passing thought, half formed, or scarce half formed, in the pretty widow’s mind. But nothing came of it. As she paused, and sighed, and played trembling with her parasol, and doubted what to answer him, Florian came up once more with the giggling inarticulates, “Well, Mr Wood?” she said, looking up, just by way of saying something, for the pause was an awkward one.
“Pardon me,” the mannikin of culture answered in his impressive way; “my name is Florian.”
“But I can’t call you so,” Mrs Palmer answered, recovering herself, with a merry little laugh.
“It’s usual in Society,” Florian responded with truth. “Just ask Will Deverill.”
Will nodded assent. “Quite true,” he admitted. “Men and women alike in London know him only as Florian. It’s a sort of privilege he has, an attribute of his own. He’s arrogated it to himself, and the world at large acquiesces in his whim, and grants it.”
“It makes things seem so much more real and agreeable, you see, as Dick Swiveller said to the marchioness,” Florian continued blandly. “Now suppose we five form an elective family, a little brotherhood of our own, a freemasonry of culture, and call one another, like brothers and sisters, by our Christian names only! Wouldn’t that be delightful! I’ve just been explaining to Ethel and Eva that I mean henceforth to Ethel and Eva them. Soul gets nearer to soul without these flimsy barriers. I’m Florian; this is Will; and you, Mrs Palmer, your Christian name is——?”
The pretty widow drew back with a little look of alarm. “Oh no,” she said, shortly; “I never could tell you my given name for anything. It’s much too dreadful.” She pulled out a pencil from the pocket at her side. “See here,” she said to Will, writing down one word for him on the silver-cased tablets that hung pendant from her delicate Oriental chatelaine, “there’s a name, if you like, for two Puritan parents to burden the life of their poor innocent child with! Don’t tell Mr Wood—or Florian if he wishes it; he’d make fun of it behind my back, I’m perfectly certain. I know his way. To him nothing, not even a woman’s name, is sacred.”
Will glanced at the word curiously. He couldn’t forbear a quiet smile. “It’s bad enough, I must admit,” he answered, perforce. The Vision of Beauty had been christened Jerusha!