At that moment Sir Philip approaches his wife, with George Lorimer and Beau Lovelace. Thelma's smile at Lorimer is the greeting of an old friend--a sun-bright glance that makes his heart beat a little quicker than usual. He watches her as she turns to be introduced to Lovelace,--while Miss Van Clupp, thinking of the relentless gift of satire with which that brilliant writer is endowed, looks out for "some fun"--for, as she confides in a low tone to Mrs. Marvelle--"she'll never know how to talk to that man!"
"Thelma," says Sir Philip, "this is the celebrated author, Beaufort Lovelace,--you have often heard me speak of him."
She extends both her hands, and her eyes deepen and flash.
"Ah! you are one of those great men whom we all love and admire!" she says, with direct frankness,--and the cynical Beau, who has never yet received so sincere a compliment, feels himself coloring like a school-girl. "I am so very proud to meet you! I have read your wonderful book, 'Azaziel,' and it made me glad and sorry together. For why do you draw a noble example and yet say at the same time that it is impossible to follow it? Because in one breath you inspire us to be good, and yet you tell us we shall never become so! That is not right,--is it?"
Beau meets her questioning glance with a grave smile.
"It is most likely entirely wrong from your point of view, Lady Errington," he said. "Some day we will talk over the matter. You shall show me the error of my ways. Perhaps you will put life, and the troublesome business of living, in quite a new light for me! You see, we novelists have an unfortunate trick of looking at the worst or most ludicrous side of everything--we can't help it! So many apparently lofty and pathetic tragedies turn out, on close examination, to be the meanest and most miserable of farces,--it's no good making them out to be grand Greek poems when they are only base doggerel rhymes. Besides, it's the fashion nowadays to be chiffonniers in literature--to pick up the rags of life and sort them in all their uncomeliness before the morbid eyes of the public. What's the use of spending thought and care on the manufacture of a jewelled diadem, and offering it to the people on a velvet cushion, when they prefer an olla-podrida of cast-off clothing, dried bones and candle-ends? In brief, what would it avail to write as grandly as Shakespeare or Scott, when society clamors for Zola and others of his school?"