"Oh, yes, you are a case of atavism, no doubt. If I were as good a poet as one of my brother columnists I should have written a poem to you long since. I can see you sweeping northward over the steppes of Russia as the ice-caps retreated . . . reembodied on the Baltic coast or the shores of the North Sea . . . sleeping for ages in one of the Megaliths, to rise again a daughter of the Brythons, or of a Norse Viking . . . west into Anglia to appear once more as a Priestess of the Druids chaunting in a sacred grove . . . or as Boadicea--who knows! But no prose can regenerate that shadowy time. I see it--prehistory--as a swaying mass of ghostly multitudes, but always pressing on--on . . . as we shall appear, no doubt, ten thousand years hence if all histories are destroyed--as no doubt they will be. If I were an epic poet I might possibly find words and rhythm to fit that white vision, but it is wholly beyond the practical vocabulary and mental make-up of a newspaper man of the twentieth century. Some of us write very good poetry indeed, but it is not precisely inspired, and it certainly is not epic. One would have to retire to a cave like Buddha and fast." "You write singularly pure English, in spite of what seems to me a marked individuality of style, and--ah--your apparent delight in slang!" Her voice was quite even, although her eyes had glowed and sparkled and melted at his poetic phantasma of her past (as what woman's would not?). "I find a rather painful effort to be--what do you call it? highbrow?--in some of your writers." "The youngsters. I went through that phase. We all do. But we emerge. I mean, of course, when we have anything to express. Metaphysical verbosity is a friendly refuge. But as a rule years and hard knocks drive us to directness of expression. . . . But poets must begin young. And New York is not exactly a hot-bed of romance." "Do you think that romance is impossible in New York?" she asked irresistibly. "I--oh--well, what is romance? Of course, it is quite possible to fall in love in New York--although anything but the ideal setting. But romance!" "Surely the sense of mystery between a man and woman irresistibly attracted may be as provocative in a great city as in a feudal castle surrounded by an ancient forest--or on one of my Dolomite lakes. Is it not that which constitutes romance--the breathless trembling on the verge of the unexplored--that isolates two human beings as authentically--I am picking up your vocabulary--as if they were alone on a star in space? Is it not possible to dream here in New York?--and surely dreams play their part in romance." Her fingertips, moving delicately on the surface of her lap, had a curious suggestion of playing with fire.