“Simplicity,” breathed Guilford—“a single blossom against
a background of nothing at all.”
“Not—exactly——”
The poet smiled a large, tender smile, and, with inverted thumb, executed a gesture as though making several spots in the air.
“The concentration of composition,” he explained; “the elimination of complexity; the isolation of the concrete in the center of the abstract; something in the midst of nothing. It is a very precious thought, Mr. Wayne.”
“Certainly,” muttered Wayne; and they moved on.
“This,” said the poet, “is what I call my den.”
Wayne, not knowing what to say, sidled around the walls. It was almost bare of furniture; what there was appeared to be of the slab variety.
“I call my house the house beautiful,” murmured Guilford with his large, sweet smile. “Beauty is simplicity; beauty is unconsciousness; beauty is the child of elimination. A single fly in an empty room is beautiful to me, Mr. Wayne.”
“They carry germs,” muttered Wayne, but the poet did not hear him and led the way to another enormous room, bare of everything