The poet simpered that he was happy.
"Of course I have been reading 'Ivy Leaves.' So mournful I thought
them, yet somehow so attractive. How _did_ you write it all?"
Mr. Moggridge confessed amiably that he "didn't quite know."
"Let me see; those lines beginning--"
'O give me wings to--to--'
"I forget for the moment how it goes on."
"'To fly away,'" suggested the bard.
"Ah, exactly; 'to fly away.' So simple--just what one _would_ wish
wings for, you know. It struck me very much when I read it.
When did you think of it, Mr. Moggridge?"
The poet blushed and began to look uncomfortable.
"Ah! you are reticent. Excuse me; I ought not to probe a poet's
soul. Still, I should like to be able to tell my friends--"
"The--the fact is," stammered Mr. Moggridge, "I--I thought of them--
in--my bath."
Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys leaned back and laughed--a pretty rippling laugh
that shook the diamonds upon her throat. Sam guffawed, and by this
action sprang that little rift between the friends that widened
before long into a gulf.
"I shall ask you to copy them into my Album. I always victimise a
lion when I meet one."
This was said with a glance full of compensation. Mr. Moggridge
tried to look very leonine indeed. Across the room another pair of
eyes gently reproached him.
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