This was in the darkness of his hut, with Livingstone asleep in his lap. In another minute Jack was striding through the pines, on his way to the drawing-room for a few plain words with Lady Caroline Sellwood. He never had them. Lady Caroline was gone to bed. It was almost eleven; within an hour Claude would be back, and a moral certainty become an absolute fact. Hunt's tale was true. Had it been otherwise, Claude would have telegraphed. He had left, indeed, on the distinct understanding that he should do no such thing; his mission was to be kept a secret, and a telegram might excite suspicion; yet even so he would have sent one had all been well. Jack was sure of it; his exhausted spirit had surrendered utterly to an ineluctable despair. In this humour he sought the Poet's Corner, and found its two _habitués_ furtively chuckling over some newspaper. Their gaiety cut him to the quick. Yet he longed to enter into it. "What's the joke?" he asked. "I want something to make me laugh!" "This wouldn't," replied Edmund Stubbs. "It's not benign enough for you." "It's only a piece of smart scribbling," explained Llewellyn, lighting a fresh cigarette with the stump of the last. Jack was behind them; quite innocently he put his head between theirs and looked for himself. The paper was the _Parthenon_. There was but one article on the open page. It was headed-- OUR MINOR POETS. XXVIII. MR. CLAUDE LAFONT. "So that amuses you?" said Jack at last. "Quite," said Llewellyn. "You think it just, eh?" "Oh, hang justice! It's awfully nice copy. That's all it has any right to be. Justice doesn't matter a hang; the _Parthenon's_ not written for the virtuous shopkeeper; it isn't meant to appeal to the Nonconformist Conscience." "Besides, the article _is_ just," protested Stubbs. "We know what Lafont is, between ourselves; he's an excellent chap, but his poetry--save the mark!--would hardly impose on Clapham and Wandsworth. His manner's cheap enough, but his matter goes one cheaper; it's the sort of thing for which there should be no charge." Stubbs drained his glass. Jack was blazing. "I don't know what you mean by 'cheap,'" he cried; "but from reading that article, which I happen to have seen before, I should call it a jolly 'cheap' word. I don't set up to be a clever man. I only know what I like, and I like everything of Claude's that--that I can understand. But even if I didn't I should be sorry to go about saying so in his own house!" "_His_ own house!" exclaimed the Impressionist. "We didn't know it was his," said Stubbs. "What's mine is Claude's," replied Jack, colouring. "It was before I turned up, and it will be again when--whenever I peg out." With that he was gone. "Sounds suicidal," remarked Llewellyn. "Or celibate," said Stubbs, replenishing his glass. "Poor beast!" concluded the artist. Here their host returned.