comparatively modest minority who do not secretly fancy that
Shakespeare has come back to life."

"That Shakespeare has come back to life!" marvelled the
Duchessa. "Do you mean to say that most literary men fancy
that?"

"I think perhaps I am acquainted with three who don't," Peter
replied; "but one of them merely wears his rue with a
difference. He fancies that it's Goethe."

"How extravagantly--how exquisitely droll!" she laughed.

"I confess, it struck me so, until I got accustomed to it,"
said he, "until I learned that it was one of the commonplaces,
one of the normal attributes of the literary temperament. It's
as much to be taken for granted, when you meet an author, as
the tail is to be taken for granted, when you meet a cat."

"I'm vastly your debtor for the information--it will stand me
in stead with the next author who comes my way. But, in that
case, your friend Mr. Felix Wildmay will be, as it were, a sort
of Manx cat?" was her smiling deduction.

"Yes, if you like, in that particular, a sort of Manx cat,"
acquiesced Peter, with a laugh.

The Duchessa laughed too; and then there was a little pause.

Overhead, never so light a breeze lisped never so faintly in