“Or both, but I meant as a writer. She sent me some stories to read, I remember, and I was struck with them. I sent them to Goddard, and I had a pretty little note from her at Port Said to say he’d taken them. Oh, tell me about the people to-night, Trelawney. Remember I’m out of it. What’s the set?”
“Well, there’ll be the usual lot, no doubt,—Blandford, Eversleigh, Archie Morefield, and that young ass Trilling, I suppose.”
“Don’t know any of them. What do they do?”
“Tell them you never heard of them! Trilling will say, ‘How exquisitely subtle!’ or if it’s Eversleigh, ‘How symbolic!’”
“Of what?”
“Oh! anything, nothing. Ask them that too, and they’ll hurl paradoxes and epigrams at you till you’ll begin to doubt your own sanity. You’ll soon see how it’s done; you may even learn to do it yourself. It’s not difficult. Merely remember what a normal man says when he’s asked a plain question, invert it, season to taste with a few passion-colored adjectives, and serve up as languidly as possible.”
“Ah! a few passion-colored adjectives may be useful, I imagine, if that’s the set. Well, go on.”
“Goldfield will be there, I suppose. Oh! and Travers and his wife.”
“Paul Travers? I’ve seen his name now and again. He used to be promising.”
“Yes, he’s brilliant in a way,—the thin, sketchy way that’s in vogue just now. He’s by way of being the high priest of the elect, you know. He’s got plenty of money, only writes when he feels like it. I suspect him of being a brute, a cynical brute. I’m sorry for his wife. I think you’ll be struck with her. She— Ah! here we are.” He threw away his cigar as the hansom drew up before a big house in a gloomy square.