“Ah, Mr Balm!” he said, “you must forgive my astonishment over your confession of ignorance as to that transcendent, that incomparable woman. Yet, in truth, my own acquaintance with her dates but from two years back.” (He took half of the three sandwiches at a bite, before he continued):--“I had always found a refuge in books from the monotony of my sordid, and none too savoury occupation. It was left to that moment to reveal to me the full inner heart and significance of literature. Such eloquence, such fire, such an intimate understanding of the deep workings of the human soul! The melting passion of ‘Night-Lights,’ the exquisite je ne sais quoi of ‘Evadne,’ the sensuous luminosity of the ‘Glow-worm’! Here was a woman, I felt, who had tasted the cup of life to its golden depths.” He sighed, drew himself on a full tumbler of whisky and soda, drained it, sighed again profoundly, and continued, taking another handful of sandwiches:-- “I am a bachelor, sir. I had never until that gracious moment encountered a soul capable of understanding and responding to the deep sentiments within my own. Every profound expression of her feeling seemed to find an echo in my breast. Truths that I had conceived, but had failed to find utterance for, she could crystallize in a phrase. The insensate world of criticism accused her of platitude: jackasses, whose pachydermatous hides were insensible to the fine point of satire, were dull to the blows of anything less than a bludgeon. But _I_ recognized; _I_ understood. “One day I came across her portrait in an illustrated paper. I will not dwell upon my emotions. It was a face--haunting, ethereal--which exactly embodied my conception of the writer. Looking into its eyes, I could fathom at a glance the unmistakable source of ‘Night-Lights’; the very ‘Evanescence of Evadne’ spoke in that ductile form. From that moment my existence became little more than a devouring hunger, a prolonged swoon of passion.” He finished the sandwiches and started on a cream tart before he spoke again. “One day, after a struggle with myself, I did a desperate thing--I wrote, through her publishers, to Miss Cornelia Cox. I wrote palpitating, in a delicious tremor; I pronounced myself the most faithful, the most adoring of her disciples; my pen travelled on the wings of intoxication. To my rapture she answered me.” He stopped to take a second tumbler of whisky and soda. “She answered me,” he said, gasping; “and I answered her answer. She wrote again. By degrees a regular correspondence was established between us. I tasted her soul in periodic budgets--a delirious experience; but those sacred, those melodious groves must remain undesecrated of the outer throng. You will understand and excuse me, Mr Balm.” “Certainly,” said Gilead.