"You should ask Valchester to show you his volume of manuscript poetry," said Walter, laughing. "He is a very untiring and voluminous poet—I might say a second Byron!"
Valchester looked up, flushed and confused—evidently annoyed. He was about to speak when Jaquelina broke out reproachfully:
"Oh! Mr. Valchester—I asked you—and you denied it!"
"Asked him what?" cried Walter, enjoying the situation immensely.
"If he was a poet," said Jaquelina, breathless, "and he said——"
"That no one ever accused me of it," said Valchester. "I confess to some rhymes, Miss Meredith, but to be a poet—a real poet—means more than that."
"Miss Lina, it is only modesty that makes him talk so," said Walter, laughingly. "He has written some very readable rhymes, I assure you."
"Miss Meredith, I hope you will not give credence to Walter's idle gossip," exclaimed Ronald Valchester, really distressed now. "It is as I told you just now, I have rhymed some—I confess it. Of course my verses sound well to Earle—he has not the slightest taste for poetry. True poetry and real doggerel would be alike to him. But the critics might tell me to——"
"Return to your gallipots, as they told the poet-apothecary," laughed Earle.
"Yes," said Valchester, and returned to his reading.