_Lady Culverin._ I suppose I forgot. Clarion Blair isn't his _real_ name, though; it's only a--an alias.
_Sir Rupert._ Don't see what any fellow wants with an alias. What _is_ his real name?
_Lady Culverin._ Well, I know it was _something_ ending in "ell," but I mislaid his letter. Still, Clarion Blair is the name he writes under; he's a poet, Rupert, and quite celebrated, so I'm told.
_Sir Rupert_ (_uneasily_). A poet! What on earth possessed you to ask a literary fellow down _here_? Poetry isn't much in our way; and a poet _will_ be, confoundedly!
[Illustration: "WHAT ON EARTH POSSESSED YOU TO ASK A LITERARY FELLOW DOWN HERE?"]
_Lady Culverin._ I really couldn't help it, Rupert. Rohesia insisted on my having him to meet her. She likes meeting clever and interesting people. And this Mr. Blair, it seems, has just written a volume of verses which are finer than anything that's been done since--well, for _ages_!
_Lady Culverin._ Well, they're charmingly bound. I've got the book in the house, somewhere. Rohesia told me to send for it; but I haven't had time to read it yet.
_Sir Rupert._ Shouldn't be surprised if Rohesia hadn't, either.
_Lady Culverin._ At all events, she's heard it talked about. The young man's verses have made quite a sensation; they're so dreadfully clever and revolutionary, and morbid and pessimistic, and all that, so she made me promise to ask him down here to meet her!
_Sir Rupert._ Devilish thoughtful of her.
_Lady Culverin._ Wasn't it? She thought it might be a valuable experience for him; he's sprung, I believe, from _quite_ the middle-class.
_Sir Rupert._ Don't see myself why he should be sprung on _us_. Why can't Rohesia ask him to one of her own places?
_Lady Culverin._ I dare say she will, if he turns out to be quite presentable. And, of course, he _may_, Rupert, for anything we can tell.
_Sir Rupert._ Then you've never seen him yourself! How did you manage to ask him here, then?
_Lady Culverin._ Oh, I wrote to him through his publishers. Rohesia says that's the usual way with literary persons one doesn't happen to have met. And he wrote to say he would come.
_Sir Rupert._ So we're to have a morbid revolutionary poet staying in the house, are we? He'll come down to dinner in a flannel shirt and no tie--or else a _red_ one--if he don't bring down a beastly bomb and try to blow us all up! You'll find you've made a mistake, Albinia, depend upon it.