"I wish you would not pronounce that word as if it rhymed with Fuchsia," I said.
"Well, how do you want me to pronounce it?"
"You know quite well its Lu-chee-ah, and the accent is on the middle syllable, not the first."
"Oh, all right: Lu-CHEE-ah. Ah! what a mouthful! I would rather say Miss Grant!"
"It might be as well if you did," I said, coldly.
Howard looked at me and opened his eyes.
"You are uncommonly sticky to-day," he said, kicking a very old slipper off his swinging foot and catching it on the toe again.
"Well, what about Paris? Let's hear."
"I am so sick of this rotten, wishy-washy England. They won't take my things as they stand, and I'm not going to write 'Tales of my First Feeding Bottle' to please them. So I'm going over to Paris. I shall turn my MSS. into French and publish them there. The language lends itself to perfect lucidity, and the Paris press allows men to write as men. Besides, the French admire word-painting, which is my particular vein. The English don't. They like composition. Here an author's pen must remain always a stick dipped in ink. It must never become what mine is—a painter's brush, wet, dripping, overflowing with oil colour. It struck me you might care to come too, and do the same with your verse. If so—come, by all means."
I looked down at his intelligent face and hoped he would come. Selfish, conceited, and self-sufficient as I may be, there is a strand of weakness made up in my composition that forces me to find the companionship of another intellect whenever possible.