“For example,” she looked down at him. She was now thoroughly reckless and maddened with a cold passion. Her arms, half opened, pressed convulsively together, slowly, involuntarily. Erard blanched, trembled, half moved, and then paused. She swept by him, frightened and aghast. For the first time in her life she was conscious of feebleness: she was not sure of herself.
CHAPTER VI
At that moment the door of the salon opened, and Jennings came forward into the firelight, with his fearlessly erect carriage, as if it were a fine thing to stride through the storms of the world. As Mrs. Wilbur shook hands with him she felt that his face might have been taken from some renaissance bust, so filled it was with the pure fire of life.
Jennings pulled awkwardly at his shrunken travelling coat of pepper and salt, and then perceiving Erard, extended a hand with a frank “How are you?” Mrs. Wilbur ordered candles and fresh tea, curiously pleased with his unexpected appearance, and relieved from the tension of unmotived feeling.
“I met Salters on the street,” Jennings explained. “He told me where to find you. I just escaped from him a few minutes ago. He told me about something he was at work upon. Has he been writing?”
“He has laboured over my cast-off ideas for five years,” Erard replied.
“Well,” the newcomer said kindly, “he’ll write a book some day, I suppose.”
“God knows. It takes only pen, paper, and patience to make a book.”
Mrs. Wilbur remembered the epigram: Erard had used it about Salters four years before.
“You fellows are slanging yourselves in the good old style,” Jennings laughed, as if amused at the gibes of manikins. “And Vivian Vavasour, is she still a prophet with a terrific vocabulary?”