Part 2 (1/2)

”Not a novel?”

”Yes.”

”My poor Denis!” exclaimed Mr. Scogan. ”What about?”

Denis felt rather uncomfortable. ”Oh, about the usual things, you know.”

”Of course,” Mr. Scogan groaned. ”I'll describe the plot for you. Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever.

He pa.s.ses through the usual public school and the usual university and comes to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon his shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles delicately in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous Future.”

Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. ”You're entirely wrong,” he said. ”My novel is not in the least like that.” It was a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, only two chapters were written.

He would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked.

Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: ”Why will you young men continue to write about things that are so entirely uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the undergraduate. But you can't expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, to be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, even in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that are so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man--problems of pure aesthetics which don't so much as present themselves to people like myself--that a description of his mental processes is as boring to the ordinary reader as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about artists regarded as artists is unreadable; and a book about artists regarded as lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is really not worth writing again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of literature, just as Professor Radium of 'Comic Cuts' is its stock man of science.”

”I'm sorry to hear I'm as uninteresting as all that,” said Gombauld.

”Not at all, my dear Gombauld,” Mr. Scogan hastened to explain. ”As a lover or a dipsomaniac, I've no doubt of your being a most fascinating specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestly admit it, you're a bore.”

”I entirely disagree with you,” exclaimed Mary. She was somehow always out of breath when she talked. And her speech was punctuated by little gasps. ”I've known a great many artists, and I've always found their mentality very interesting. Especially in Paris. Tschuplitski, for example--I saw a great deal of Tschuplitski in Paris this spring...”

”Ah, but then you're an exception, Mary, you're an exception,” said Mr.

Scogan. ”You are a femme superieure.”

A flush of pleasure turned Mary's face into a harvest moon.

CHAPTER IV.

Denis woke up next morning to find the sun s.h.i.+ning, the sky serene. He decided to wear white flannel trousers--white flannel trousers and a black jacket, with a silk s.h.i.+rt and his new peach-coloured tie. And what shoes? White was the obvious choice, but there was something rather pleasing about the notion of black patent leather. He lay in bed for several minutes considering the problem.

Before he went down--patent leather was his final choice--he looked at himself critically in the gla.s.s. His hair might have been more golden, he reflected. As it was, its yellowness had the hint of a greenish tinge in it. But his forehead was good. His forehead made up in height what his chin lacked in prominence. His nose might have been longer, but it would pa.s.s. His eyes might have been blue and not green. But his coat was very well cut and, discreetly padded, made him seem robuster than he actually was. His legs, in their white casing, were long and elegant.

Satisfied, he descended the stairs. Most of the party had already finished their breakfast. He found himself alone with Jenny.

”I hope you slept well,” he said.

”Yes, isn't it lovely?” Jenny replied, giving two rapid little nods.

”But we had such awful thunderstorms last week.”

Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity. He might talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of meteorology till the end of time. Did one ever establish contact with anyone? We are all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only a little more parallel than most.

”They are very alarming, these thunderstorms,” he said, helping himself to porridge. ”Don't you think so? Or are you above being frightened?”

”No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying down.”

”Why?”

”Because,” said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, ”because lightning goes downwards and not flat ways. When you're lying down you're out of the current.”