lames, but flames
themselves."

"Lovely--lovely!" he murmured. "That is quite lovely of you. But as for
a new book---- It is so prosaic to publish a book in London. Nothing
really happens. Now in Paris--why--one day all the boulevards blossom
like beds of daffodils. You are amazed. You ask, 'Why this delicious
flowering?' You are answered--'Paul Bourget has published a new novel.'"

He went airily on for some moments in this strain. From across the
table, a clever critic and man of letters was listening with pleased
amusement. Suddenly he said:

"Tell me, Oswald, have you ever read the works of an American called
Edgar Saltus?"

"Why Edgar Saltus, like a stiletto from the blue? Yes; I have read some
of his productions. But why?"

"Because the American boulevards seem to blossom with his flowers of
rhetoric in the way that you describe. I have often wanted to parody
him. But parody crouches at his feet."

Tyne held up one of his suave, heavy hands.

"Softly, please," he murmured. "Tread softly there. I have a certain
tenderness for Mr. Edgar Saltus. I know nothing in literature more
touching than the way that passion and grammar struggle for mastery on
every one of his wonderful pages!"

Amaldi listened with his quiet smile. He himself was not in a talkative
mood that night. Besides, he was one of those men who, while seeming
outwardly unconscious of what is not directly in contact with them,
notice everything that takes place, and he had caught those dark looks
cast by Cecil Chesney at Sophy and himself. Now he was glad to see that
she was becoming diverted and roused from her listlessness by the talk
of Oswald Tyne and his friend. He also observed that Chesney, too, had
apparently changed his humour and was engaged in an animated
conversation with the men and women nearest him. After a while, he saw
that Chesney was holding forth alone. But it was evidently a perfectly
amiable harangue, for the others were listening with animated faces.
Still Sophy, who could not catch the gist of her husband's talk, looked
suddenly anxious, and Amaldi was relieved when the critic, who had been
talking with Tyne, and whose name was Ferrars, said to Sophy:

"Your husband's having a brilliant go at Russian literature, Mrs.
Chesney. Are you as keen on that subject as he is?"

"Yes, quite, I think."

"Tolstoy and Dostoievsky are our living Pillars of Hercules," said
Ferrars, a little didactically. "They guard the portals of m