Alwyn was silent,--he returned his companion's cordial hand- pressure almost unconsciously. He stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, and looking gravely down into the fire. His first emotion was one of repugnance,--of rejection, . . what did he need of this will-o'-the-wisp called Fame, dancing again across his path,--this transitory torch of world-approval! Fame in London! ... What was it, what COULD it be, compared to the brilliancy of the fame he had once enjoyed as Laureate of Al-Kyris! As this thought passed across his mind, he gave a quick interrogative glance at Villiers, who was observing him with much wondering intentness, and his handsome face lighted with sudden laughter.
"Dear old boy!" he said, with a very tender inflection in his mellow, mirthful voice--"You are the best of good fellows, and I thank you heartily for your news, which, if it seems satisfactory to you, ought certainly to be satisfactory to me! But tell me frankly, if I am as famous as you say, how did I become so? ... how was it worked up?"
"Worked up!" Villiers was completely taken back by the oddity of this question.
"Come!" continued Alwyn persuasively, his fine eyes sparkling with mischievous good-humor.. "You can't make me believe that 'All England' took to me suddenly of its own accord,--it is not so romantic, so poetry-loving, so independent, or so generous as THAT! How was my 'celebrity' first started? If my book,--which has all the disadvantage of being a poem instead of a novel,--has so suddenly leaped into high favor and renown, why, then, some leading critic or other must have thought that I myself was dead!"
The whimsical merriment of his face seemed to reflect itself on that of Villiers.
"You're too quick-witted, Alwyn, positively you are!" he remonstrated with a frankly humorous smile.. "But as it happens, you're perfectly right! Not ONE critic, but THREE,--three of our most influential men, too--thought you WERE dead!--and that 'Nourhalma' was a posthumous work of PERISHED GENIUS!"