I saw a quick brightness come and go in Gilbert Maryvale’s eyes at that description, as if the eyeball had darted out a little from its station under thatch-brows.
“The winner of the Newman Prize for Lucid Prose, I think, in—let me see—Nineteen-nineteen? May I congratulate you, Mr. Bannerlee, although the time is past? I have read your ‘Poets of Enervation’ with delight.”
“No, Mr. Maryvale, that was not my essay.”
“Surely I haven’t mistaken the name?”
“You have mistaken only the man. ‘Poets of Enervation’ was the overflow of my cousin Norval’s pen. We were in the University together. I made a bid for the Newman myself, but was buried. Norval and I are often mistaken for each other, even in our literary occupations.”
“No doubt you ran him close,” observed the big man twinkingly.
“I’m afraid not. And now, as Mr. Cosgrove has said, I am devoted to dustier things, and the prose I give my time to is far from lucid.”
“But you wring lucidity out of it.”
Maryvale resumed his seat, picked up his hand, as did the rest, for in spite of much invitation I insisted on remaining aloof from the game. Broad capable cheek-bones, sudden forceful chin he had, but I had an awareness there was much more than capability and force in this “complete man of business.” That allusion to the Prize Essay for Lucid Prose was a poser. Was there another trafficker in iron-castings in the United Kingdom who had read “Poets of Enervation”?—or one who would speak of it kindly if he had?
Well, all this was past, half-forgotten in ensuing talk. But now, at one minute to midnight, a new presence was in the Hall, threatening the mirth of the Feast! Anger!