Carl looked at her with suspicion and interest—a trace of gracious attention in this place. He resolved to explore the seeming phenomenon and settled back in his chair, while Mary Aldridge, with a barely audible farewell, walked out of the office.
“Don’t you think you were a little crudely sarcastic in your last remark to Miss Aldridge?” asked Clara Messenger.
“I like an axe sometimes,” said Carl, “although I don’t worship it monotonously. For certain purposes it works far better than the swifter exuberance of a stiletto. Unless a person is unassumingly frank to me I don’t feel that he has earned a delicate retort.”
“Why, it’s impossible to live in the world with a code like that. One would have to become a hermit.”
“No, even hermits are never absolutely isolated. Living on another planet would be the only remedy, I guess.”
“What a curious, lunging person you are! But you shouldn’t have minded Miss Aldridge so much. She’s always afraid that if she openly encourages a young poet he’ll imagine that he’s a genius.”
“That’s a harmless trick of imagination and it doesn’t need any encouragement or censure. It’s a shade better, perhaps, than imagining that you are a fool.”
“What an old-young person you are. When you talk I feel that I’m listening to an insolent essay. I’m not so sure that a poet doesn’t need praise. It’s part of his task to change the polite praise around him to an understanding appreciation, and that can be very necessary and exciting.”
“To a poet the appreciation of other people must be like a glass of lukewarm wine taken after work,” said Carl.
“Well, I know that it means a great deal to me,” said Clara Messenger. “It reassures me that I’m speaking to the hearts and minds of the people around me and I’d feel very unimportant if at least a few people didn’t like my work. One can’t live in a vacuum, after all.”