Anne came to herself amidst a new thunder of applause. She told herself with a sigh and an angry blush that she was a romantic idiot and the sooner she married and had a little family to think of the better. Heaven knew what folly she might be capable of did she give rein to dreams. She became aware that Warner, compelled to silence, was looking straight at her, and she automatically beat her hands together. He smiled slightly and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. Then some one in the audience called for the popular poem in which he had so vigorously denounced Macaulay's unjust estimate of Byron a few years since, holding up to scorn the brain of the mere man of letters who dared to criticise or even to attempt to understand the abnormal brain and temperament of a great poet. He recited it from memory and then retired followed by a tumult of approval that he well knew he never should evoke again.