_Lady Cantire._ It's always instructive to know what these creatures are saying about one, my dear, and it's astonishing how they manage to find out the things they do. Ah, here's Gravener coming back. He's got us a carriage, and we'd better get in. [_She and her daughter enter a first-class compartment_; UNDERSHELL _and_ DRYSDALE _return_. _Drysdale_ (_to_ UNDERSHELL). Well, I don't see now where the insolence comes in. These people have invited you to stay with them---- _Undershell._ But why? Not because they appreciate my work--which they probably only half understand--but out of mere idle curiosity to see what manner of strange beast a Poet may be! And _I_ don't know this Lady Culverin--never met her in my life! What the deuce does she mean by sending me an invitation? Why should these smart women suppose that they are entitled to send for a Man of Genius, as if he was their _lackey_? Answer me that! _Drysdale._ Perhaps the delusion is encouraged by the fact that Genius occasionally condescends to answer the bell. _Undershell_ (_reddening_). Do you imagine I am going down to this place simply to please _them_? _Drysdale._ I should think it a doubtful kindness, in your present frame of mind; and, as you are hardly going to please yourself, wouldn't it be more dignified, on the whole, not to go at all? _Undershell._ You never _did_ understand me! Sometimes I think I was born to be misunderstood! But you might do me the justice to believe that I am not going from merely snobbish motives. May I not feel that such a recognition as this is a tribute less to my poor self than to Literature, and that, as such, I have scarcely the _right_ to decline it? _Drysdale._ Ah, if you put it in that way, I am silenced, of course. _Undershell._ Or what if I am going to show these Patricians that--Poet of the People as I am--they can neither patronise nor cajole me? _Drysdale._ Exactly, old chap--what if you _are_? _Undershell._ I don't say that I may not have another reason--a--a rather romantic one--but you would only sneer if I told you! I know you think me a poor creature whose head has been turned by an undeserved success. _Drysdale._ You're not going to try to pick a quarrel with an old chum, are you? Come, you know well enough I don't think anything of the sort. I've always said you had the right stuff in you, and would show it some day; there are even signs of it in _Andromeda_ here and there; but you'll do better things than that, if you'll only let some of the wind out of your head. I take an interest in you, old fellow, and that's just why it riles me to see you taking yourself so devilish seriously on the strength of a little volume of verse which--between you and me--has been "boomed" for all it's worth, and considerably more. You've only got your immortality on a short repairing lease at present, old boy!