“Or professes to be—­” put in Maryllia, with a slight smile.

“Or professes to be,—­I accept the correction!” agreed Adderley.

“Personally, I know nothing of him,”—­said Maryllia—­“I have never seen him at any of the functions in London, and I should imagine him to be a man who rather over-estimated himself.  So many literary men do.  That is why most of them are such terrible social bores.”

“To the crime of being a literary man I plead not guilty!” and Julian folded his hands in a kind of mock-solemn appeal—­“Moreover, I swear never to become one!”

“Good boy!” smiled Cicely—­“Be a modern Pan, and run away from all the literary cliques, kicking up the dust behind you in their faces as you go!  Roam the woods in solitude and sing!

    “’The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
     The bees on the bells of thyme,
     The birds on the myrtle bushes,
     The cicale above in the lime,
     And the lizards below in the grass,
     Were as silent as ever old Tinolus was,
     Listening to my sweet pipings!’”

“Ah, Shelley!” cried Adderley—­“Shelley the divine!  And how divinely you utter his lines!  Do you know the last verse of that poem:—­’I sang of the dancing stars’?”

Cicely raised her hand, commanding attention, and went on: 

    “’I sang of the dancing stars,
     I sang of the daedal Earth,
     And of Heaven,—­and the giant wars,
     And Love and Death and Birth. 
     And then I changed my pipings,—­
     Singing, how down the vale of Menalus,
     I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed,
     Gods and men, we are all deluded thus! 
     It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed;
     All wept, as I think both ye now would,
    If envy or age had not frozen your blood,
     At the sorrow of my sweet pipings!’”

“Beau-tiful!—­beau-tiful!” sighed Adderley—­“But so remote!—­so very remote!  Alas!—­who reads Shelley now!”

“I do”—­said Cicely—­“Maryllia does.  You do.  And many more.  Shelley didn’t write for free-libraries and public-houses.  He wrote for the love of Art,—­and he was drowned.  You do the same, and perhaps you’ll be hung!  It doesn’t much matter how you end, so long as you begin to be something no one else can be.”

“You have certainly begun in that direction!” said Julian.

Cicely shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know!  I am myself.  Most people try to be what they’re not.  Such a waste of time and effort!  That’s why I’ve taken a fancy to the parson I met this morning, Mr. Walden.  He is himself and no other.  He is as much himself as old Josey Letherbarrow is.  Josey is an individuality.  So is Mr. Walden.  So is Maryllia.  So am I. And”—­ here she pointed a witch-like finger at Adderley—­“so would you bes if you didn’t ‘pose’ as much as you do!”

“Cicely!” murmured Maryllia, warningly, though she smiled.