But--well, there, he said he’d do it to please me. And he did it. And then Jimmy Whistler published that letter. A very shabby trick--very shabby indeed.’ Of course I do not vouch for the exact words in which Watts-Dunton told me this tale; but this was exactly the tale he told me. I expressed my astonishment. He added that of course he ‘never wanted to see the fellow again after that, and never did.’ But presently, after a long gaze into the coals, he emitted a chuckle, as for earlier memories of ‘such a funny fellow.’ One quite recent memory he had, too. ‘When I took on the name of Dunton, I had a note from him. Just this, with his butterfly signature: Theodore! What’s Dunton? That was very good--very good.... But, of course,’ he added gravely, ‘I took no notice.’ And no doubt, quite apart from the difficulty of finding an answer in the same vein, he did well in not replying. Loyalty to Swinburne forbade. But I see a certain pathos in the unanswered message. It was a message from the hand of an old jester, but also, I think, from the heart of an old man--a signal waved jauntily, but in truth wistfully, across the gulf of years and estrangement; and one could wish it had not been ignored. Some time after Whistler died I wrote for one of the magazines an appreciation of his curious skill in the art of writing. Watts-Dunton told me he had heard of this from Swinburne. ‘I myself,’ he said, ‘very seldom read the magazines. But Algernon always has a look at them.’ There was something to me very droll, and cheery too, in this picture of the illustrious recluse snatching at the current issues of our twaddle. And I was immensely pleased at hearing that my article had ‘interested him very much.’ I inwardly promised myself that as soon as I reached home I would read the article, to see just how it might have struck Swinburne. When in due course I did this, I regretted the tone of the opening sentences, in which I declared myself ‘no book-lover’ and avowed a preference for ‘an uninterrupted view of my fellow-creatures.’ I felt that had I known my article would meet the eye of Swinburne I should have cut out that overture. I dimly remembered a fine passage in one of his books of criticism--something (I preferred not to verify it) about ‘the dotage of duncedom which cannot perceive, or the impudence of insignificance so presumptuous as to doubt, that the elements of life and literature are indivisibly mingled one in another, and that he to whom books are less real than life will assuredly find in men and women as little reality as in his accursed crassness he deserves to discover.’ I quailed, I quailed. But mine is a resilient nature, and I promptly reminded myself that Swinburne’s was a very impersonal one: he would not think the less highly of me, for he never had thought about me in any way whatsoever. All was well. I knew I could revisit The Pines, when next Watts-Dunton should invite me, without misgiving. And to this day