“We need not get into the quarrelsome stage about it yet,” he said in his big deep voice: “We shall be tearing him to pieces in magazine articles to-morrow and flinging him to the dogs of the lower journalism to snarl at before the year is out.... The failures are always suspicious of popularity.”
Aubrey turned to the mirror again, and said “Bosh!”
Fluffy Reubens winked at the others:
“I don’t see that this chap Anthony Bickersteth’s work is a snap better than Caroline Baddlesmere’s; and he’s prigged a lot of her ideas——”
Aubrey turned round to the room, took up a picturesque literary attitude, elbow on mantel, his cheek leaning on his long fingers, legs crossed, essaying to realize the portraits of the thirties, and, rousing from his adoration of himself, he said petulantly:
“My dear fluffsome Robbins, I have repeatedly told you that Caroline Baddlesmere lacks breadth of view and a man’s humour—to say nothing of that certain something of subtle atmosphere that is called genius.... You really ought not to give me the trouble of reiterating these simple truths.... You compel me to feel as blatantly insistent as a bookmaker on a race-course——”
He was interrupted by the entrance of the old butler, ushering in Bartholomew Doome and Andrew Blotte—Andrew in very much crushed and wrinkled evening dress, and looking unutterably shabby, Doome well groomed.
“Yes,” said he, “yes, yes—I heard what Aubrey was saying; but Aubrey is a poet, not a critic.”
Lovegood laughed a funny deep nasal laugh.