Mrs. Saumarez rallied the poet, with a pale smile.  “That comes of communing with Nature,” she reminded him; “and it serves you rightly, for natural communications corrupt good epigrams.  I prefer Nature with wide margins and uncut leaves,” she spoke, in her best platform manner.  “Art should be an expurgated edition of Nature, with all the unpleasant parts left out.  And I am sure,” Mrs. Saumarez added, handsomely, and clinching her argument, “that Mr. Kennaston gives us much better sunsets in his poems than I have ever seen in the west.”

He acknowledged this with a bow.

“Not sherry—­claret, if you please,” said Mr. Jukesbury.  “Art should be an expurgated edition of Nature,” he repeated, with a suave chuckle.  “Do you know, I consider that admirably put, Mrs. Saumarez—­admirably, upon my word.  Ah, if our latter-day writers would only take that saying to heart!  We do not need to be told of the vice and corruption prevalent, I am sorry to say, among the very best people; what we really need is continually to be reminded of the fact that pure hearts and homes and happy faces are to be found to-day alike in the palatial residences of the wealthy and in the humbler homes of those less abundantly favoured by Fortune, and yet dwelling together in harmony and Christian resignation and—­er—­comparatively moderate circumstances.”

“Surely,” Mrs. Saumarez protested, “art has nothing to do with morality.  Art is a process.  You see a thing in a certain way; you make your reader see it in the same way—­or try to.  If you succeed, the result is art.  If you fail, it may be the book of the year.”

“Enduring immortality and—­ah—­the patronage of the reading public,” Mr. Jukesbury placidly insisted, “will be awarded, in the end, only to those who dwell upon the true, the beautiful, and the—­er —­respectable.  Art must cheer; it must be optimistic and edifying and—­ah—­suitable for young persons; it must have an uplift, a leaven of righteousness, a—­er—­a sort of moral baking-powder.  It must utterly eschew the—­ah—­unpleasant and repugnant details of life.  It is, if I may so express myself, not at home in the menage a trois or—­er—­the representation of the nude.  Yes, another glass of claret, if you please.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Mrs. Haggage, in her deep voice.  Sarah Ellen Haggage is, of course, the well-known author of “Child-Labour in the South,” and “The Down-Trodden Afro-American,” and other notable contributions to literature.  She is, also, the “Madame President” both of the Society for the Betterment of Civic Government and Sewerage, and of the Ladies’ League for the Edification of the Impecunious.

“And I am glad to see,” Mrs. Haggage presently went on, “that the literature of the day is so largely beginning to chronicle the sayings and doings of the labouring classes.  The virtues of the humble must be admitted in spite of their dissolute and unhygienic tendencies.  Yes,” Mrs. Haggage added, meditatively, “our literature is undoubtedly acquiring a more elevated tone; at last we are shaking off the scintillant and unwholesome influence of the French.”