the elect of the society or of the art world, his quiet, deferential
attitude of listener. But the events of these conversational orgies were
Honey Smith's adventures and Pete Murphy's romances. Honey's narrative
was crisp, clear, quick, straight from the shoulder, colloquial, slangy.
He dealt often in the first person and the present tense. He told a
plain tale from its simple beginning to its simple end. But Pete - . His
language had all Honey's simplicity lined terseness and, in addition, he
had the literary touch, both the dramatist's instinct and the
fictionist's insight. His stories always ran up to a psychological
climax; but this was always disguised by the best narratory tricks. He
was one of those men of whom people always say, "if he could only write
as he talks." In point of fact, he wrote much better than he talked -
but he talked better than any one else. The unanalytic never allowed in
him for the spell of the spoken word, nor for the fiery quality of his
spirit.

As time went on, their talks grew more and ore confidential. Women's
faces began to gleam here and there in narrative. They began to indulge
in long discussions of the despised sex; at times they ran into fierce
controversy. Occasionally Honey Smith re-told a story which, from the
introduction of a shadowy girl-figure, became mysteriously more
interesting and compelling. Once or twice they nearly went over the
border-line of legitimate confidence, so intimate had their talk become
- muffled as it was by the velvety, star-sown dark and interrupted only
by the unheeded thunders of the surf. They were always pulling
themselves up to debate openly whether they should go farther, always,
on consideration, turning narrative into a channel much less
confidential and much less, interesting, or as openly plugging straight
ahead, carefully disguising names and places.