Page:A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc. George du Maurier, 1898.djvu/151

 sung since Milton, as had been ungrudgingly acknowledged by Jack Spratt and the trusty friends, and even admitted by himself; though not without reluctance, for he was the very soul of modesty, was young Pye.

Indeed, so high were his aspirations, that he passionately longed not to be recognised by the world for many generations to come, and lived in constant dread of sudden popularity—thereby standing on a far higher pinnacle than any of the geniuses Mrs. Spratt met in Society.

Well, P. L. Pye wore side-spring boots, an æsthetic neck-tie, and trousers that would have been thought ill-conditioned in the Hampstead Road.

Burning thoughts, fiery though Platonic passions, and a habit of too recklessly consuming the midnight oil had wasted his once comely cheeks, contracted his chest, and made his shoulders round and sloping, and his legs so weak that he stood over like an old cab-horse; and proud as Lucifer though he was, and highly educated, for he had graduated with honours at the London University, he was only the son of a hatter; with whom he had, however, quarrelled and parted (which may, perhaps, have accounted for his always wearing such shocking bad hats); and his thoughts were so lofty and sorrowful that he kept most of them to himself, and those less lofty ones he had occasionally imparted to Mrs. Spratt had still been too lofty for her to understand, and had made her feel very uncomfortable.

And though he thought her quite the most beautiful woman he had ever seen out of an old picture (he never looked at any others), his admiration was expressed in such an abstract way that she could scarcely apprehend it.

So that she felt not only that Pye's company gave her no pleasure, but that to be seen riding, driving, or waltzing with him, even had he been capable of such accomplishments, would not have made her an object of envy in the eyes of other women; and it was the same with the rest of the trusty friends, who in genius, sorrow, and shabbiness of outward form quite equalled Pye, if they did not indeed surpass him.



Whence she somewhat hastily concluded, that geniuses were careless in dress, eccentric in manner, very much taken up with themselves, and connected in some way or other with business; and she divided Society into two portions, those who were in Burke, 69