“Ruskin says...”

But before he could add another word, Clutton rapped with the handle of his knife imperiously on the table.

“Gentlemen,” he said in a stern voice, and his huge nose positively wrinkled with passion, “a name has been mentioned which I never thought to hear again in decent society.  Freedom of speech is all very well, but we must observe the limits of common propriety.  You may talk of Bouguereau if you will:  there is a cheerful disgustingness in the sound which excites laughter; but let us not sully our chaste lips with the names of J. Ruskin, G. F. Watts, or E. B. Jones.”

“Who was Ruskin anyway?” asked Flanagan.

“He was one of the Great Victorians.  He was a master of English style.”

“Ruskin’s style—­a thing of shreds and purple patches,” said Lawson.  “Besides, damn the Great Victorians.  Whenever I open a paper and see Death of a Great Victorian, I thank Heaven there’s one more of them gone.  Their only talent was longevity, and no artist should be allowed to live after he’s forty; by then a man has done his best work, all he does after that is repetition.  Don’t you think it was the greatest luck in the world for them that Keats, Shelley, Bonnington, and Byron died early?  What a genius we should think Swinburne if he had perished on the day the first series of Poems and Ballads was published!”

The suggestion pleased, for no one at the table was more than twenty-four, and they threw themselves upon it with gusto.  They were unanimous for once.  They elaborated.  Someone proposed a vast bonfire made out of the works of the Forty Academicians into which the Great Victorians might be hurled on their fortieth birthday.  The idea was received with acclamation.  Carlyle and Ruskin, Tennyson, Browning, G. F. Watts, E. B. Jones, Dickens, Thackeray, they were hurried into the flames; Mr. Gladstone, John Bright, and Cobden; there was a moment’s discussion about George Meredith, but Matthew Arnold and Emerson were given up cheerfully.  At last came Walter Pater.

“Not Walter Pater,” murmured Philip.

Lawson stared at him for a moment with his green eyes and then nodded.

“You’re quite right, Walter Pater is the only justification for Mona Lisa.  D’you know Cronshaw?  He used to know Pater.”

“Who’s Cronshaw?” asked Philip.

“Cronshaw’s a poet.  He lives here.  Let’s go to the Lilas.”

La Closerie des Lilas was a cafe to which they often went in the evening after dinner, and here Cronshaw was invariably to be found between the hours of nine at night and two in the morning.  But Flanagan had had enough of intellectual conversation for one evening, and when Lawson made his suggestion, turned to Philip.

“Oh gee, let’s go where there are girls,” he said.  “Come to the Gaite Montparnasse, and we’ll get ginny.”

“I’d rather go and see Cronshaw and keep sober,” laughed Philip.