Within the charmed circle to which he was introduced by Ponto, Gavrolles was popular in the extreme. He possessed all the enthusiasm of the aesthetics, combined with an impudence and a knowledge of the world—especially of the gay world of Paris—which were exquisitely charming. He knew all the wits and poets of the Empire, and his acquaintance with scabreux literature was profound; yet he had sat at the feet of Victor Hugo, and was a Republican by profession. His own verses had been praised by the impeccable Gautier. He could talk glibly of Art for Art’s sake, of the heresy of instruction, of Villon and Bohemia, and of the Renaissance. He wore his hair long, had a willowy droop of the shoulders, and adored the culte of the lily. He had a shrill style, a shrill voice, a shrill disposition. Inspired young ladies found him charming, feeble young gentlemen paid him the homage of imitation.

On his return to London, Gavrolles took rooms in one of the bye-streets near Portland Place. They were rather high up, but he had them furnished in the best ?sthetic style, with a few risky pictures and a small collection of books. ‘Come and see me,’ he would say; ‘I am only a poor artiste, but I have my books, and in these I live.’ On the whole they were not nice books—a Philistine might have even called them nasty; but many of them bore the autographs of the writers, and were priceless accordingly.

About this time the name of Gavrolles began to be a good deal talked about, as that of a young Frenchman with Communist views who had written some delightfully wicked volumes of verse. The ‘Megatherium,’ inspired by Ponto, had a good deal to say about him, classing him in the great bagnio of Art somewhere by the side of Gautier and Baudelaire; and taking occasion at the same time to express its horror of realists like Zola, who called a spade a spade, and reduced the fair features of vice to a caput mortuum.

One night, Crieff, who knew everybody, took Sutherland to the lodgings of Gavrolles, and introduced him. Quite a little symposium was there, including Ponto the fatuous; Cassius Gass, a lean and limp critic from Cambridge; Blanco Serena, and several other painters; young Botticelli Jones, and one or two more callow poets, not to speak of Wallace MacNeill, the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’

Sutherland sat very silent. After the first, quick look at Gavrolles, and a second shock of recognition, he remained quiescent, but quietly observant.

The talk was of ‘Lily and Rue,’ an anonymous poem which had just appeared, and which Ponto had just criticised with admiration.

‘I wonder who is the writer?’ said Botticelli Jones. ‘There are passages in it which are worthy of Byron.’

‘Byron was a Philistine,’ cried Ponto; ‘he could never have written a piece of this kind. Look at the technique of his verse! It would disgrace a schoolboy! No, this is a cameo cut by an artist.’

‘Shall I confess it!’ observed Gavrolles, smiling languidly. ‘I am of Henri Taine’s opinion, and prefer to your Byron our Alfred de Musset.’

Here Crieff, who was puffing carelessly at a briar-root pipe, threw himself back in his chair and laughed loudly.

‘I say! Is it possible you don’t know?’

‘What?’ cried several voices.

‘That MacAlpine——’

A shudder ran through the assemblage at the mention of the hated name.

‘That MacAlpine has acknowledged the authorship of this poem.’

‘What poem?’ demanded Ponto, trembling and turning pale.

‘Why, of “Lily and Eue.” Go and buy the third edition—you’ll find his name on the title-page.’

A terrible silence followed. The men looked in horror at one another. One man rose, livid and ghastly, put his hand to his head and left without a word. It was the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’

‘Poor MacNeill,’ cried Crieff, with another laugh. ‘This is the second trick of the kind that MacAlpine has played him; this is the second time that he has devoted columns of praise to an author whom he would gladly see handed over, like the old heretics, to the secular arm. It only shows what humbug criticism is!’

‘Excuse me,’ said Gass the critic, hysterically, ‘criticism is not humbug. It would be easy to show, on a profounder examination of this disagreeable work, that it is the work of a Philistine. The over-accentuation of the sensuous passages (which, by the way, are not sensuous, but prurient and ponderous), the want of finish in the trochaic couplets, the crudeness of the poetic terminology—’

‘Would all have been evident enough,’ interrupted Crieff, dryly, ‘if MacAlpine’s name had been on the title-page. Without that, even superhuman insight, like yours, could not detect them.’

And he laughed again; but no one joined in the laugh except Blanco Serena, who was not a little amused. There was a general feeling of discomfort, to relieve which Gavrolles went to his bookcase, and took down several new importations from France. Passed from hand to hand, these works were freely and generally discussed; but when they reached Crieff, that rude person again shocked the sensibilities of his companions.

‘The literature of the Lollipop,’ he said with a grin. ‘Somehow I never touch any of it without feeling nasty; “sticky” all over, as it were.’

‘To the mind of a Philistine,’ observed the critic Gass, severely, ‘such things do not appeal. I regret to see that a certain person, who shall be nameless, is drifting more and more into moral Philistinism. Well, he will at least be able to say, “Et ego in Arcadia fui,” when it is too late to return.’

Crieff laughed good-humouredly.

‘I dare say it is my early training,’ he said, ‘and the fact that I was taught to respect all women in the person of my mother. But here is my friend Sutherland, who is a Philistine of Philistines, for he actually believes, with St. Benedict, that the law of purity is binding upon both sexes alike, and in his benighted eyes your Gautier, your Baudelaire, and “hoc genus omne” are simply dirty descendants of Sir Pandarus of Troy.’

‘I sincerely hope you are libelling your friend,’ observed the critic, glancing at Sutherland. ‘Personal purity, as you call it, is simply a reminiscence of asceticism, and one of the many fallacies we owe to the mediaeval perversions of Christianity.’

‘Bosh,’ returned Crieff, bluntly.

Sutherland, who throughout the conversation had scarcely taken his eyes off Gavrolles, now spoke.

‘I am neither an ascetic nor a Puritan, but I must frankly confess that the literature you are discussing excites my strongest abhorrence. Whatever is unfit for a pure woman to read is unfit to be read by a pure man. Would you give these books to your wives and sisters—that is the question?’

‘Certainly,’ cried Ponto from the other side of the room. ‘Provided their aesthetic education had been complete, they would find nothing but pleasure from the perusal. Why in Heaven’s name should Woman remain for ever the slave of Virtue? I would make her the archpriestess of the Beautiful, ministering to mortals in all the passionate nudity of Art.’

‘And you, monsieur?’ said Sutherland, turning suddenly to Gavrolles. ‘What is your opinion?’

‘Oh, I am an artiste,’ answered the Frenchman, with a shrug of the shoulders and an unpleasant smile. ‘I, too, would make woman the priestess of Beauty. Ah, yes, with the greatest of possible pleasure!’

The words were of little meaning, but the tone was significant, and a titter went round the room. Sutherland’s face darkened.

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