“I can’t seem to get a hold on the rhythm,” said an innocent Canadian broker. Edward and he had made friends because both were familiar with the same supper places in the vicinity of Leicester Square. The broker had brought his wife, a rough-hewn looking lady, whose very hat seemed to be chipped out of marble and ornamented with a wooden feather. “It is swollen with rhythm,” shouted Avery Bird. “It isn’t blatant enough, of course, to allow you to hear it. It is all that rhythm can be without being metronomic.” Mr. Bird seemed so certain that nobody liked to contradict him. He leaned forward tapping the table angrily and glaring first at one fellow-guest and then at another. “Speed up. Speed up.” Rhoda read again: “In a panic forlorn I am haunting your corners. I am dead without mourners, I am dead yet unborn. You will come to me later, You will come very late. Ah—must I wait, Must I wait, You unhurrying satyr? My sisters shall make Of their exquisite acres Carved aisles for the breakers Of sleep when they wake. They are strung to an answer, They are strung to a trance. Ah, must they dance, Must they dance, You importunate dancer?” “Negligible,” said Mr. Bird who had not yet recovered his temper. Mr. Banner Hope added, “Woman’s stuff,” to show that he was a man. Emily looked much disconcerted but she said, “I suppose it is a bit trivial.” “And foggy, too,” added an alarming University student. “It has no message at all.” “It is not worth writing or reading,” said the white critic in a final voice. “It’s a song,” objected Emily. “And songs needn’t be messengers surely. Songs are for fancy to hear, not for brains to digest. Perhaps songs shouldn’t try to have any meaning at all. They shouldn’t try really to have even words. Or perhaps just beautiful words without sequence ... silver and asphodel and Merrimac and darling and mariposa and meagre and rusty....” “Well, this song tries to have a meaning and fails,” said the student. He was a dark, thick young man, and his complacency, very logically, was not impaired at all by the poorness of his clothes or complexion. The fact that his collar was very high and not at all clean seemed typical of him. Edward’s heart turned cold when he thought of his poem at the mercy of that young man. He said, “At least that last poem makes a picture behind my eyes.” “It doesn’t penetrate behind mine, I’m glad to say,” said Melsie Ponting tartly, and many people laughed, supposing that she had said something witty. A smart voice is a great asset. Rhoda began reading again with an abruptness which left many dazed for a few seconds.