Mrs. Waring was giving him only half attention, but she pricked up her ears at this statement.
“Marian! What on earth has she to do with this fishing-trip?”
“Nothing, except that I have a message for her from the cool slopes of Parnassus. It’s almost like something you read of in books—her being here waiting for the sacred papyri.”
He tapped his pocket and smiled.
“I hadn’t the slightest idea she was up there waiting,” he continued. “You must confess that it’s rather remarkable! Folding her hands, utterly unconscious of what Fate has in store for her; and poems being written to her, and my fisher-boy on the trail looking for me—and her!”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re driving at, but you’d better keep your verses for somebody else. Marian’s a much more practical girl than Elizabeth; I don’t quite see her receiving messages from the Muses with more than chilly politeness. You may be sure she will profit by Elizabeth’s experience. Elizabeth married a man with an artistic temperament and she’s paid dearly for it. A blow like that falling so close to Marian is bound to have its effect. If you want to win her smiles, don’t appeal to her through poetry. As I was saying the other day, poetry is charming, and sometimes it’s uplifting; but we’re getting away from it. These are changing times, and pretty soon it won’t be respectable to be decent!”
“You said something to the same effect the other day when your garden was full of children. I was greatly disappointed in you; it wasn’t fair to the children to talk that way—even if they didn’t hear you. I was all broken up after that party; I haven’t been the same man since!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to reflect on you or your work; you know that!”
“I know nothing of the kind,” returned the Poet amiably. “You have said it twice, though the first time was enough. I’m a different person; you’ve changed the whole current of my life! I’m making a journey, on a very hot afternoon, that I should never have thought of making if it hadn’t been for your cynical remarks. I’ve taken employment as an agent of Providence, just to prove to you that my little preachments in rhyme are not altogether what our young people call piffle. I’ve come down out of the pulpit, so to speak, to put my sermons into effect—a pretty good thing for all parsons to do. Or, to go back to the starting-point, I’ve hung my harp on the willows that I may fish the more conveniently.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself to make sport of a woman of my years! You had better tell me a funny story,” said Mrs. Waring, fearing that he was laughing at her.