The girl carried beer to him in a tumbler, giggling.
“No, no—give me the juice of the pagan grape—of such alone is brewed the nectar of the gods!” said a slim man who lounged on a sofa, glass in hand. He was Aubrey, the poet, and he was as beautiful as a woman, and with his mass of dark hair drawn from his brows and hiding his ears he looked like one: “Ah, that dissipation should destroy the complexion, and to be intoxicated should have grown unpoetic—to be drunk and disorderly simply to be sordid! The exquisite orgies of the deliciously wicked Greeks are done. The Bacchic frenzy is dead. Nay, Pan—even Pan—Pan is dead.”
Tears came to the eyes of Andrew Blotte, and he shook his head sadly. The wreath came over one eye.
Lovegood blew his nose dramatically:
“Poor, poor Pan!” said he. “Really it is quite a tearful statement. It had escaped me that it was the anniversary of Pan.” He turned to the girl-model they called Andromache and held out his empty tumbler: “Repeat the dose, therefore, Andromache,” said he; “we must drink to the translation of Pan—since we cannot go to his funeral. Though I don’t wholly give up Pan on Aubrey’s mere report. Poets are so scandalous; they will make any misstatement to fit a rhyme—or blast careers to assist a dramatic situation.”
Rippley withdrew his nose from a foaming glass of beer:
“I wish you poet johnnies would bury Pan,” he said. “You’re always diggin’ ’im up—or the other dead Greeks.”
Aubrey yawned wearily:
“Don’t jabber art, Rippley. You make my head ache....”
Pangbutt roused, and, walking over to Lovegood, asked him in a whisper for the Baddlesmeres’ address. The big man fumbled in the breast-pocket of his shiny black coat.