friends till, the astonishment of their meeting over, diversity of
character and ambition pushed them apart, and, with half the
cavern helping, Henley began mixing the poisoned bowl for Wilde.
Yet Henley never wholly lost that first admiration, for after
Wilde's downfall he said to me: 'Why did he do it? I told my lads
to attack him and yet we might have fought under his banner.'




VII


It became the custom, both at Henley's and at Bedford Park, to say
that R. A. M. Stevenson, who frequented both circles, was the
better talker. Wilde had been trussed up like a turkey by
undergraduates, dragged up and down a hill, his champagne emptied
into the ice tub, hooted in the streets of various towns and I
think stoned, and no newspaper named him but in scorn; his manner
had hardened to meet opposition and at times he allowed one to see
an unpardonable insolence. His charm was acquired and systematised,
a mask which he wore only when it pleased him, while the charm
of Stevenson belonged to him like the colour of his hair. If
Stevenson's talk became monologue we did not know it, because
our one object was to show by our attention that he need never
leave off. If thought failed him we would not combat what he
had said, or start some new theme, but would encourage him with a
question; and one felt that it had been always so from childhood
up. His mind was full of phantasy for phantasy's sake and he gave
as good entertainment in monologue as his cousin Robert Louis in