“Very decent. Varieties of women, there. Almost no men. A débutante told me she admired Walt Whitman more than most English poets and was rather positive that he was English. I can’t understand the American tabu on Whitman.” “Immoral.” “But--good heavens!--I fascinated two elderly girls by telling them I knew Swinburne. Swinburne was lewd. Poor Whitman was merely rather frank.” “But Algie was a foreigner,” Gurdy laughed, “so it was all right. Margot have a good time?” Olive asked, “What were you and Margot rowing about in the library last night? I could hear her voice getting acid.” Gurdy commenced a waltz and said, “We weren’t rowing. Mark asked me whether Cosmo Rand was in the British army. He wasn’t and I said so. She seemed to think I was sniffing at Rand and blew me up a little. That was all. We made peace. I rather like Rand, you know, now that he’s stopped making an ass of himself at rehearsals. Russell and I had lunch with him today. He talks well. He knows a lot about painting, for instance. These actors who’ve been all over the landscape and don’t think they’re better than Richard Mansfield--pretty interesting. There’s not much to Rand but he isn’t a--a walking egotism.” Olive laughed, “Come back to Margot. She’s pointedly offensive to you and rather assertive about it. I hope you’ll go on being patient and try to remember how young she is. You’re very mature for twenty-one. You never bray. I brayed very wildly at Margot’s age. I horribly recall telling Henry Arthur Jones how to improve his plays and one of my saddest memories is of telling a nice Monsieur Thibault what a poor novel Thaïs was. He quite agreed with me. I didn’t know he was Anatole France until he left the room. I’ve all the patience going with youth. You’re almost too mature.” “Don’t know about being mature,” said Gurdy, “I’m not, probably. But every other book you read is all about youth--golden youth--youth always finds a way--ferment. Get pretty tired of it. Makes me want to be forty-nine. And some of the poets make me sick. Hammering their chests and saying, Yow! I’m young!... Not their fault. I’m not proud of being six foot one. Runs in the family.” “That’s a very cool bit of conversation, old man. You’ve taken me away from Margot twice, very tactfully, so I’ll drop it. Play some Debussy. His music reminds me of a very handsome man with too much scent on his coat. Can’t approve of it. Rather like it.”