_Lady Maisie_ (_toying with the screen_). How do you _mean_, Rhoda?
_Lady Rhoda._ I meantersay I call Mr. Spurrell---- Well, he's real, anyway--he's a _man_, don't you know. As for the other, so _feeble_ of him missin' his train like he did, and turnin' up too late for everything! Now, _wasn't_ it?
_Lady Maisie._ Poets _are_ dreamy and unpractical and unpunctual--it's their nature.
_Lady Rhoda._ Then they should stay at home. Just see what a hopeless muddle he's got us all into! I declare I feel as if anybody might turn into somebody else on the smallest provocation after this. I _know_ poor Vivien Spelwane will be worryin' her pillows like rats most of the night, and I rather fancy it will be a close time for poets with your dear mother, Maisie, for some time to come. All this silly little man's fault!
_Lady Maisie._ No, Rhoda. Not his--_ours_. Mine and mamma's. We ought to have felt from the first that there _must_ be some mistake, that poor Mr. Spurrell couldn't _possibly_ be a poet! I don't know, though--people generally _are_ unlike what you'd expect from their books. I believe they do it on purpose! Not that that applies to Mr. Blair; he _is_ one's idea of what a poet should be. If he hadn't arrived when he did, I don't think I could ever have borne to read another line of poetry as long as I lived!
_Lady Rhoda._ I _say_! Do you call him as good-lookin' as all _that_?
_Lady Maisie._ I was not thinking about his looks, Rhoda--it's his _conduct_ that's so splendid.
_Lady Rhoda._ His conduct? Don't see anything splendid in missin' a train. I could do it myself if I tried.
_Lady Maisie._ Well, I wish I could think there were many men capable of acting so nobly and generously as he did.
_Lady Maisie._ You really don't see! Well, then, you _shall_. He arrives late, and finds that somebody else is here already in his character. He makes no fuss; manages to get a private interview with the person who is passing as himself; when, of course, he soon discovers that poor Mr. Spurrell is as much deceived as anybody else. What is he to do? Humiliate the unfortunate man by letting him know the truth? Mortify my uncle and aunt by a public explanation before a whole dinner-party? That is what a stupid or a selfish man might have done, almost without thinking. But not Mr. Blair. He has too much tact, too much imagination, too much chivalry for that. He saw at once that his only course was to spare his host and hostess, and--and all of us a scene, by slipping away quietly and unostentatiously, as he had come.