ch the poet was unable to suppress entirely--could not break
these off abruptly. Thus, when Margaret's pink note announcing the
studio-warming arrived, he could not possibly accept the notion of
ignoring it, for was he not her true and healthy lover? His
friendship, too, with Lady Thiselton, had even become strengthened in
spite of himself. He could not help telling himself again and again
that she was as firm and true as a rock. And the very man in him that
appreciated her sterling qualities had still a sense of shame at his
having taken money from her, forced though his hand had been. The
vagueness and nebulousness of the future that suited the poet made the
man with his healthy repugnance to debt extremely uncomfortable.
The flow of his existence had thus split up into two currents, but the
stronger by far was the poetic force in him that made for a desperate
playing with life.
Yet several days passed without his being impelled to go to Cleo
again. Even as he had been wont to wait for inspiration, so he waited
now for the spirit to move him to the next step in this life-fantasy.
His time got frittered away, he scarcely knew how. He replied to
several letters from his father, who wrote to him at great length on
particular points of ethics, for the banker had by now seriously set
to work on his _magnum opus_. Two or three times Helen ran in to see
him at tea-time, and did her best to amuse him. The mere reflection
that Ingram must suppose he was but the most casual acquaintance of
Helen's was sufficient for that; so that she had not a very difficult
task, and expressed herself highly pleased at the agreeable mood in
which she was now finding him. She chatted quite freely about Ingram
and the latest developments of his courtship of her. She had refused
him for the fifth time, but he didn't seem the least bit discouraged
yet.
"By the way," she went on, "I've just been reading his biography in a
magazine. Evidently he has not been as frank with his interviewer as
he has been with me. The way I made him confess was just lovely,
though now he makes that a grievance, much to my indignation. All I
said was I couldn't possibly begin to consider his case till I knew
all about him. I made no promise at all. At first, indeed, he was
foolish enough to insist his record was spotless. A man who writes
novels of such sound moral tone! If only he had written naturalistic
novels, I might have believed him."
Morgan wondered if
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