"I remember now, it made me cry. How dismal it is."
"Yes," said Madame Valtesi, "as dismal as a wet Derby or a day at the
seaside. I hope your anthem will be more lively, Lord Reggie. But of
course it will. We always keep our sorrows for the drawing-room, and our
chirpiness for church. For sheer godless merriment commend me to the
grand chant. It always reminds me of the conspirators' chorus in the
'Huguenots.' I used to hear it as a child. One hears so many things as a
child, doesn't one? Childhood is one long career of innocent
eavesdropping, of hearing what one ought not to hear."
"Yes," said Esmé, getting up from the piano. "And maturity is one long
career of saying what one ought not to say. That is the art of
conversation. Only one must always say it with intention, otherwise
people think one grossly improper. Intention is everything. Artless
impropriety is quite played out. Yvette Guilbert gave it its death-blow.
It only lingers now in the writings of Ouida and the poems of Arthur
Symonds. Why are minor poets so artless, and why do they fancy they are
so wicked? What curious fancies even unintelligent people have. No minor
poet has ever been wicked, just as no real artist has ever been good. If
one intends to be good, one must take it up as a profession. It is quite
the most engrossing one in the world. Have you ever been with a good
person who is taking a holiday from being good? It is like falling into
the Maelstrom. They carry you off your feet. Their enjoyment terrifies
the imagination. They are like a Sunday school let loose in the Moulin
Rouge, or Mr. Toole when he has made a pun! Sometimes I wish that I
could be good too, in order to have such a holiday. Are you really going
to bed, Lady Locke? Eleven! I had no idea it was so early. I am going to
sit up all night with Reggie, saying mad scarlet things, such as Walter
Pater loves, and waking the night with silver silences. Good-night.
Come, Reggie, let us go to the smoking-room, since we are left alone. I
will be brilliant for you as I have never been brilliant for my
publishers. I will talk to you as no character in my plays has ever
talked. Come! The young Endymion stirs in his dreams, and the pale-soul
Selene watches him from her pearly car. The shadows on the lawns are
violet, and the stars wash the spaces of the sky with primrose and with
crimson. The night is old yet. Let me be brilliant, dear boy, or I feel
that I shall weep for sheer wittiness, and die, as so many have died,
with all my epigrams still in me."