Stuart showed the brothers over his new dwelling. The front-door opened directly into the art kitchen, behind which there was a tiny wash-house, where real cooking could be accomplished on a gas-stove. Lady Alistair volunteered the information that they usually dined out, and that the household work was attended to by a plebeian neighbour. Overhead there were two small bedrooms, one of which Alistair had had fitted up as a dressing-room and study for himself. The Vanes were charmed with the whole establishment, Egerton merely advising a cuckoo clock for the foot of the stairs as a finishing touch, and Wickham inclining to think old tapestry more suitable than wallpapers for the rooms upstairs. In his enthusiasm the Chevalier even expressed himself as seriously disposed to install himself in the house adjoining. “We might set a fashion,” he declared, with that naïve vanity by which Alistair hardly knew whether he was more amused or annoyed. “In time we might draw other men of letters round us, and have the whole court occupied.” “Then it would have to be called Poet’s Corner,” Alistair observed. “That is just what I was going to say,” Vane snapped back, becoming almost rude in his greediness to appropriate the suggestion. “Such a settlement would be like a lighthouse of civilization.” “I hope not,” Stuart retorted. “We have had too many attempts to civilize the slums. I have come here to barbarize them.” This time the Chevalier was compelled to acknowledge the master’s superiority. “You are right,” he heroically confessed. “But I am certain my idea is a good one. It will make a sensation. We shall have pilgrims coming to visit us from all parts of Europe and America.” And already in his egoistic fancy he pictured himself receiving a stream of reporters in his own cottage, seated in state in some exotic garb, and dictating interviews on the subject of the poetry of the Catholic renascence, which would be wired to the ends of the earth. Stuart read his thoughts, and smiled rather sadly. Vane’s proposal had pleased him at first, corresponding as it did more or less with the project dimly shaping in his own mind. He had always had a soft corner in his heart for the two brothers. He knew his own need of intellectual fellowship, and both the Vanes, under their absurd affectations, possessed some real taste. Egerton could be a pleasant enough companion on those too rare occasions when he was not iterating the tedious personal note, and Wickham shone as a mildly agreeable moon. Stuart was not blind to their faults, but, then, no master has ever found faultless disciples. If the disciple were equal to the master there would be no masterhood.