Never at that time having been myself guilty of a line of prose or verse, I could only judge of composition by the light of pure reason. To write an entirely imaginative work would be—as the poet said of love—"the devil." An autobiographical novel, I thought, would be like keeping a diary and chopping it into chapters of approximately equal length.
"Have you ever kept a diary a week in advance?" the Seraph asked when I put this view before him.
"Why not wait a week?" I suggested, again in the light of pure reason.
"You'd lose the psychology of expectation—uncertainty."
"I suppose you would," I assented hazily.
"I want to dispose of my premonition on the Rawnsley lines."
"What form does it take?"
His lips parted, and closed again quickly.
"I'll let you know in a week's time," he answered.
Sylvia had not returned when we assembled in the drawing-room, and after waiting long enough to chill the soup and burn the entrée, it was decided to start without her. Nothing of that dinner survives in my memory, from which I infer that cooking and conversation were unrelievedly mediocre. With the appearance of the cigars I moved away from Lady Roden's empty chair to the place vacated by Gladys between Philip and the Seraph.