"I would if I were you. They say he does things properly. There'll be an awful crowd—a regular bust-up. He only gives one of these entertainments a year. Dancing and Chinese lanterns and champagne in torrents. Won't you go?"
"Perhaps later in the evening."
Denis was perturbed. He scented a rival in this brutalitarian, though it seemed hardly possible that Angelina should take much notice of him. Meanwhile, he felt in need of some gentlemanly and soothing influence, after such an outpouring of vulgarity. He thought of the bibliographer. He liked Eames; he admired that scholarly detachment. He, too, might end in annotating some masterpiece—who knows? To be a bibliographer—what a calm, studious life!
"I think I'll go to Eames," he remarked.
"Really? A colourless creature, that Eames. As dry as a stick; a typical Don. I promised him a mineralogical map, by the way. You might tell him I haven't forgotten, will you? I wonder what you can see in the man?"
"I rather like him," said Denis. "He knows what he wants."
"That is not enough, my young friend!" replied Marten with decision. "A fellow must want something sensible."
"What do you call sensible?"
"Sanidin, and things like that. Things with pretty names. Eh, Phipps?"
Denis said nothing.