“No.”
“I thought you hadn’t.”
“Why?”
“People with lots of friends don’t like me—but then I don’t like them—so that’s that—isn’t it. Let’s draw near the fire. The poor little thing means well, but it can’t reach us at such a distance.”
So they drew up their chairs and talked. They talked of books, of dead men, and of great ambitions. Under the influence of her society Wynne seemed to lose much of his arrogance and cynicism. He spoke of the things he loved naturally and with reverence. Ever and again he would dart to the shelves for a volume and read some passage to the point of the subject they had been discussing. Then he would throw it aside and paraphrase with a clear and almost inspired insight.
“One should always paraphrase,” he said. “One should paraphrase one’s own thoughts and every one else’s. It’s the sure way of getting down to basic facts. If I were to produce a play of Shakespeare’s I should make every actor translate his lines into colloquial schoolboy English. Then we should know he had his meanings right. Some glimmer of that necessity occurred to me the first time I went to a theatre, but now I see how absolutely essential it is.”
The talk always led back to himself. His own ego was the all-important factor.
“Extraordinary wrong most people are in their ideas!”
“When will you start to put them right?”
He looked at her keenly—on guard lest she should be laughing at him. But the question was sincere enough.