"His talk made me forget it--I forgot I sent you for it. He made up for his fiasco in the salon: he declaimed me the scene," said my companion. She had dropped on a bench to listen to me and, as we sat there, had briefly cross-examined me. Then she broke out into fresh laughter. "Oh, the eccentricities of genius!"
"They seem greater even than I supposed."
"You ought to know all about them, but they take me by surprise."
"Are you absolutely certain it was Mr. Vawdrey?" my companion asked.
"If it wasn't he, who in the world was it? That a strange gentleman, looking exactly like him, should be sitting in his room at that hour of the night and writing at his table _in the dark_," I insisted, "would be practically as wonderful as my own contention."
"Yes, why in the dark?" mused Mrs. Adney.
She smiled at me dimly. "Did it look like a cat?"
"No, dear lady, but I'll tell you what it did look like--it looked like the author of Vawdrey's admirable works. It looked infinitely more like him than our friend does himself," I declared.
"Do you mean it was somebody he gets to do them?"
"Yes, while he dines out and disappoints you."
"Disappoints me?" murmured Mrs. Adney artlessly.
"Disappoints _me_--disappoints every one who looks in him for the genius that created the pages they adore. Where is it in his talk?"
"Ah, last night he was splendid," said the actress.
"He's always splendid, as your morning bath is splendid, or a sirloin of beef, or the railway service to Brighton. But he's never rare."
"That's what makes you such a comfort to talk to. I've often wondered--now I know. There are two of them."
"One goes out, the other stays at home. One is the genius, the other's the bourgeois, and it's only the bourgeois whom we personally know. He talks, he circulates, he's awfully popular, he flirts with you--"
"Whereas it's the genius _you_ are privileged to see!" Mrs. Adney broke in. "I'm much obliged to you for the distinction."
I laid my hand on her arm. "See him yourself. Try it, test it, go to his room."
"Go to his room? It wouldn't be proper!" she exclaimed, in the tone of her best comedy.
"Anything is proper in such an inquiry. If you see him, it settles it."
"How charming--to settle it!" She thought a moment, then she sprang up. "Do you mean _now_?"