"Of course I understand," she said readily. "A poet's field is
universal, and I quite understand that if he writes nice things about
his friends he doesn't mean it."
"Oh, but doesn't he?" said Bones truculently. "Oh, doesn't he, indeed?
That just shows what a fat lot you know about it, jolly old Miss
Marguerite. When I write a poem about a girl----"
"Oh, I see, they're about girls," said she a little coldly.
"About a girl," said Bones, this time so pointedly that his confusion
was transferred immediately to her.
"Anyway, they don't mean anything," she said bravely.
"My dear young miss"--Bones rose, and his voice trembled as he laid his
hand on the typewriter where hers had been a second before--"my dear
old miss," he said, jingling with the letters "a" and "e" as though he
had originally put out his hand to touch the keyboard, and was in no
way surprised and distressed that the little hand which had covered
them had been so hastily withdrawn, "I can only tell you----"
"There is your telephone bell," she said hurriedly. "Shall I answer
it?" And before Bones could reply she had disappeared.
He went back to his flat that night with his mind made up. He would
show her those beautiful verses. He had come to this conclusion many
times before, but his heart had failed him. But he was growing
reckless now. She should see them--priceless verses, written in a most
expensive book, with the monogram "W.M." stamped in gold upon the
cover. And as he footed it briskly up Devonshire Street, he recited: "O Marguerite, thou lovely flower,
I think of thee most every hour,
With eyes of grey and eyes of blue,
That change with every passing hue,
Thy lovely fingers beautifully typing,
How sweet and fragrant is thy writing!
He did not unlock the rosewood door of his flat, but rang the silver
bell.
He preferred this course. Ali, his Coast servant, in his new livery of
blue and silver, made the opening of the door something only less
picturesque than the opening of Parliament. This intention may not
have been unconnected with the fact that there were two or three young
ladies, and very young at that, on the landing, waiting for the door of
the opposite flat to open.
Ali opened the door. The lower half of him was blue and silver, the
upper half was Oxford shirt and braces, for he had been engaged in
cleaning the silver.
"What the deuce do you mean by it?" demanded Bones wrathfully.
"Haven't I given you a good uniform, you blithering jackass? What the
deuce do you mean by opening the door, in front of people, too, dressed
like a--a--dashed naughty boy?"