"Glad to meet you," he said abruptly. "I've carried your Persian poems
round the world with me. They lay in my trunk cheek by jowl with
God-forsaken, glorious old Omar."

A dusky red flush appeared in Sir Donald's hollow cheeks.

"Really," he said, with obvious embarrassment, "I--they were a great
failure. 'Obviously the poems of a man likely to be successful in dealing
with finance,' as /The Times/ said in reviewing them."

"Well, in the course of your career you've done some good things for
England financially, haven't you?--not very publicly, perhaps, but as a
minister abroad."

"Yes. To come forward as a poet was certainly a mistake."

"Any fool could see the faults in your book. True Persia all the same
though. I saw all the faults and read 'em twenty times."

He flung himself down in the big armchair. Sir Donald could see now that
there was a shining of misery in his big, rather ugly, eyes.

"Where have you two been?" he continued, with a directness that was
almost rude.

"Dining with the Holmes," answered Pierce.

"That ruffian! Did she sing?"

"Yes, twice."