"I had better tell you my name." He entered the room, closed the door, opened a silver cigarette case, and took a card from it which he handed to Mary. "There I am," he said with a smile that showed a set of gleaming white teeth and lit up the pallid face into an extraordinary vivacity.
Mary looked at the card. Then she knew who she was entertaining. On the card were these words: James Fabian Rose. The customary "Mr." was omitted, and there was no address in the corner.
Mary was a self-possessed girl enough, but she was unused to meeting famous people. She looked at the card, gave a little gasp, half of wonder and half of dismay, and then recollected herself.
"Please do sit down, Mr. Rose," she said, "and take off your overcoat—oh, and smoke, please, if you want to—I had no idea."
The tall man smiled. He seemed singularly pleased with the effect he had produced, almost childishly pleased. With a series of agile movements that had no break in them and seemed to be part of the continuous and automatic movement of a machine, he put his soft felt hat on the table, shed, rather than took off his overcoat, produced a box of wooden matches from somewhere, lit a cigarette, and sat down by the fire. He rubbed his hands together and said, "Yes, it is I, what a nice fire you've got"—all in one breath and in his rich, musical voice.
Mary sat down on the other side of the hearth, feeling rather as if she were in some fantastic dream. She said nothing, but looked at the man opposite, remembering all that she had heard of him.
About five-and-forty years of age, James Fabian Rose was one of the most noteworthy personalities of the day. He filled an immense place in the public eye, and it was almost impossible to open a newspaper without finding a paragraph or two about him on any given day. He was so well known that his whole name was seldom or never given in headlines. He was simply referred to as "J. F. R." and every one knew at once who was referred to.
His activities were enormous, and the three chief ones were Socialist leader, dramatist, and novelist. His socialistic lectures were always thronged by all classes of society. His problem plays—in which he always endeavoured to inculcate one or another of his odd but fervent beliefs—were huge successes with cultured people. His novels were only read by literary people, and then merely for their cleverness.
He was a man whom very few understood. He was, for one reason, far too clever to be credible with the popular mind; for, another, far too aware of his cleverness and far too fond of displaying it at inopportune moments. Fantastic paradox was his chief weapon, and many people did not realise his own point of view, which defined paradox as simply truth standing on its head to attract attention.
When he referred to his own novels, which he often did, he always rated them high above Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, and Sir Walter Scott. When he spoke in public of his plays—no infrequent occurrence—it was generally with a word of pity for Shakespeare. He was the head of a large and enthusiastic following of intellectual people, and the anathema of all slow thinkers. Apropos of this last, he would quote Swift's saying that the appearance of a man of genius in the world may always be known by the virulence of dunces.