"And does he like it?"
Bob put his head on one side.
"Well, he says it's not bad, some of it."
De Vere flinched at this faint praise.
"Indeed! And what does he like best?" he asked.
"Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning and Shelley, and I say, do you see that bulge in his pocket? That's Catullus. He reads him all day. But here comes Pen. I say, won't you have my bull-pup? I'll let you have him for half a sovereign; I got him for a sovereign, at least, Baker did. I think your poetry's very fine, sir; Mr. Guthrie lent me some."
But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere forgot Bob and the bull-pup, and fell down and worshipped. And the goddess took hold of him, and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a few facts before him and made him gasp.
"I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope," he said, when he was once more standing upright before Aphrodite. "I heard—oh, but it was absurd! I can't believe it."
"Then it is probably true," said the goddess, breathlessly, "for I mean to have my own way and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere. I have been reading the accounts of some fashionable weddings lately, and they made me ill. What you have heard is quite true."
The poet shook his head.