1
“The tone, dear Gene, has all the unction, all the earnest turgidity
of a theologian. You are perfect.” Clarissa beamed at me wickedly over
lunch in the Plaza Hotel. We sat at a table beside a great plate-glass
window through which we could see the frosted bleak expanse of Central
Park, dingy in city snow, ringed by buildings like so many mountain
peaks, monotonous in their sharp symmetry. The sky was sullen, gray
with more snow to fall. The year was nearly over.
“I thought it really quite to the point,” I said loftily but with an
anxious look at the thin black volume between us which was that day to
be published. The hasty work of one hectic month released in record
time by a connection of Paul Himmell’s.
“It’s pure nonsense, your historical part. _I_ know, though I confess
I was never one for the philosophers in those days ... dreary
_egotistical_ men, worse than the actors and not half so lovely.
Waiter, I will have a melon: out of season I hope. I suggest you have
it too. It’s light.”