Sylvester put the question idly. He took faint interest in Roderick's iridescent scheme, which seemed to have no bearing upon the realities of life, as he understood them. But he could not help wondering as to the mental attitude of the fools who were providing the money to launch it.
“It's too complicated to explain now,” replied Roderick. “You read the literature I shall send you.” He pulled out his watch. “Dear me! it is ten minutes to six, and I promised to meet Lady Milmo and Miss Defries at the quarter by the statue. They are my two most enthusiastic disciples. Shall we turn and seek them?”
“I think not,” said Sylvester. “I'm too dull a dog for fashionable dames. I should be a discord in the polka, or whatever you call it, of existence.”
Roderick laughed with good-humoured indulgence, showing a set of white, even teeth.
“The same old intransigeant,” said he. “Well, go your ways. I'll convert you to the Colony yet, and make you a director! Auf wiedersehen!”
Sylvester shook hands with him in his glum style and strolled on towards the Marble Arch, glad to be winning homewards again away from the froth of fashion and the jargon of art. He smiled once on his way. It was at the idea of his father, shrewd-headed abhorrer of cranks, putting his hands in his pockets for the Walden Art Colony. Not while there was a lazy miscreant with wife and children in Ayresford, he thought. How could a man of the world like Roderick imagine him to be such a fool?
But Roderick, with his cheery air of confidence, followed the southward stream of people.
“How do, Usher?” said a young man, passing by.
Roderick stopped him. “My dearest boy, I haven't been able to see you to shake you by the hand. The play's immense, colossal. You've marked a new era,—the Marlowe of our time.”
“Very good of you to say so,” murmured the dramatic author.