Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/162

 In a letter dated May 7th, 1888, he refers playfully to "the little blue silk dress" which seems to have taken his fancy on a previous occasion; nor did he forget the young novelist's birthday, for in a previous letter of the same year he declares that, if he were in London, he would "be tempted to cast prudence to the wind, even to the perilous East wind, to offer you my greeting on the first of May."

Besides being a keen judge of manuscript—as, indeed, he had need to be—Mr. Bentley wrote very pleasant prose himself. His reading was extensive and his comments thereon lucid and thoughtful. In 1883 he printed for private circulation among his friends a little green covered volume called "After Business." A copy of this work, presented to Miss Corelli a fortnight after Mr. Bentley first met her, lies before us. There are seven chapters, whose nature can be divined from their titles: I. An Evening with Erasmus. IV. How the World Wags. V. An Afternoon with Odd Volumes—and so forth. A peaceful, soothing little book is this. Here is the final passage of the "Odd Volumes" chapter. It affords a happy example of the book's literary flavor, of its truly "After Business" characteristics:

"Let us say good-bye to these dear old volumes, and step down-stairs, that Lawrence's sister may