“One thing more I wanted to say.... I think there must be a little boy called Boris amongst the boarders. You’re to leave him alone”; he paused a moment and then added in a whisper: “for the moment.” Olivier and Bernard are seated at a table in one of the Boulevard restaurants. Olivier’s unhappiness melts like hoar-frost in the warmth of his friend’s smile. Bernard avoids pronouncing Passavant’s name; Olivier feels it; a secret instinct warns him; but the name is on the tip of his tongue; he must speak, come what may. “Yes; I didn’t let my people know we were coming back so soon. This evening the _Argonauts_ are giving a dinner. Passavant particularly wants me to be present. He wishes our new review to be on good terms with its elder and not to set up as a rival.... You ought to come; and I tell you what ... you ought to bring Edouard.... Perhaps not to dinner, because one’s got to be invited, but immediately after. It’s to be in the upstairs room of the Taverne du Panthéon. The principal members of the _Argonaut_ staff will be there and a good many of our own _Vanguard_ contributors. Our first number is nearly ready; but, I say, why didn’t you send me anything?” “Because I hadn’t anything ready,” he answers rather curtly. Olivier’s voice becomes almost imploring: “I put your name down next to mine in the list of contents.... We could wait a little, if necessary ... no matter what; anything.... You had almost promised.” It grieves Bernard to hurt his friend; but he hardens himself: “Look here, old boy, I had better tell you at once--I’m afraid I shouldn’t hit it off with Passavant very well.” “But it’s I who am the editor. He leaves me perfectly free.” “And then I dislike the idea of sending you _no matter what_; I don’t want to write _no matter what_.” “I said _no matter what_, because I knew that no matter what you wrote would be good ... that it would never really be _no matter what_.” He doesn’t know what to say. He is just floundering. If he cannot feel his friend beside him, all his interest in the review vanishes. It had been such a delightful dream, this of making their début together. “And then, old fellow, if I’m beginning to know what I don’t want to do, I don’t know yet what I _do_ want to do. I don’t even know whether I shall write.” This declaration fills Olivier with consternation. But Bernard goes on: “Nothing that I could write easily tempts me. It’s because I can turn my sentences easily that I have a detestation of well-turned sentences. Not that I like difficulty for its own sake; but I really do think that writers of the present time take things a bit too easy. I don’t know enough about other people’s lives to write a novel; and I haven’t yet had a life of my own. Poetry bores me. The alexandrine is worn threadbare; the _vers libre_ is formless. The only poet who satisfies me nowadays is Rimbaud.” “That’s exactly what I say in our manifesto.”