"Go bring her over here. I owe her one or two."
"No, thanks. I don't want to turn Jane's party into a battlefield."
"Never fear. Althy is for trench warfare, she never fights in the open."
"Admire her, don't you, Bobs?"
"Vawstly!"
He moved on to another group, chatting for a few seconds. Then he joined Jane, the poet, and Christiansen, who were in earnest discussion. Jane was speaking.
"I think poetry is like religion, we must get it back into our lives, as a working principle, before it can count with us again. Both have grown so stiff with tradition and Sunday usage that we must work them into the very stuff of our lives to make them real."
"Yes, that is just the case, Mrs. Paxton," the poet agreed. "There is an outcry against the modern, radical poet, but it is because the dear Philistine forgets that Shelley's message and work were as advanced in his time as ours are to-day."
"You will find Mrs. Paxton an omniverous reader of poetry," said Christiansen, "a reader with the appreciation of a poet."
Jerry moved on, irritated in some subtle way at what he named Christiansen's showman manner of exhibiting Jane's good taste. Couldn't the Englishman find out that she had some ideas without Christiansen's help? He, her own husband, had never heard her speak of poetry. How did Christiansen know so much of her interests?