Denham.

No; have you published it lately?

Vane.

My dear Denham!  I never publish anything.  In a wilderness of mediocrity obscurity is fame.

Denham.

Yes, a well-advertised obscurity.  But surely you have published poems?

Vane.

Where have you lived, my dear fellow?  I breathe a poem into the air, and the world hears.  If some one prints it, can I help it?  One does not print, wake, and become famous; one becomes famous, and the world awakes, cackles, and prints one.

Fitzgerald.

By-the-bye, Vane, there’s a quatrain in your “In the House of
Hathor” I wanted to ask you about.

Vane.

Which?

Fitzgerald.

Let me see—­it begins: 

    “I saw a serpent in my Lady’s heart,”—­

Vane.

Ah! spare me the torment of hearing—­

Fitzgerald.

Your own lines?

Vane.

Mur-dered!

    “I saw the serpent of my Lady’s heart,
    Lovely and leprous; and a violet sigh
    Shook the wan, yellowing leaves of threnody,
    Bruised in the holy chalice of my Art.”

Fitzgerald.

Ah yes!  I didn’t quite catch the meaning.

Vane.

Meaning?  It is a piece of mu-sic, in which I have skilfully e-lu-ded ALL meaning.

Fitzgerald.

Oh, I see! (Resumes his book.)

Denham.

(to Vane) Have a cigarette? (Denham offers him a cigarette; he takes one absently, then lets it drop back into the box.)

Vane.

Thanks, no—­I never smoke.  It has become so vulgar.

Denham.

Really?  What do you do then—­absinthe?

Vane.

For the purposes of art it is antiquated. (He sighs.) I have tried haschish.

Denham.

Well?

Vane.

Without distinct results—­for one’s style, that is.

Denham.

Oh!

Vane.

One sometimes sees oneself inventing the Narghile.  It involves the black slave, of course, and might lead to a true retrogressive progress—­even to the Harim.  One pities the superfluous woman, there are so many about.

Denham.

Yet Mormonism seems to be a failure.

Vane.

It was so dreadfully upholstered!

Denham.

The Harim would be a new field for the collector.  How prices would run up!

Vane.

Ah, Denham, never touch a dream with the vulgarity of real things! (Crosses to picture.)

(Fitzgerald, who has been reading Gyp, suddenly comes forward with the book in his hand, and breaks in.)

Fitzgerald.

This Gyp’s awfully good.  Who is he, eh?

Vane.

(with patient scorn) A woman!