'There is style for you!' said my friend. 'Style lasts, you
see. Style is engraved upon stone. All the other books about us wear
out and perish, but here are your stylists still, as fresh as the day
they were bought.' 'Because nobody reads them!' I exclaimed.
'Precisely,' he said. 'There is no comfort in life in them. They are
the mere mechanics of literature, and nobody cares about them except
the mechanicians.' After that I prayed for notable matter to indite,
and tried only for the most appropriate words in which to express it;
and then I arrived. If you have the matter, the manner will come, as
handwriting comes to each of us; and it will be as good, too, as you
are conscientious, and as beautiful as you are good."

CHAPTER XLVIII

Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce called on Beth continually. He was announced
one day when she was sitting at lunch with the Kilroys.

"Really I do not think I ought to let you be bored by that man," Mr.
Kilroy exclaimed. "I once had ten minutes of the academic platitudes
of Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce, and that was enough to last me my life.
You are too good-natured to see him so often. It is a weakness of
yours, I believe, to suffer yourself rather than hurt other people's
feelings, however much they may deserve it. But really you must snub
him. There is nothing else for it. Send out and say you are engaged."

"If I do, he will wait until I am disengaged, or call again, or write
in an offended tone to ask _when_ I can be so good as to make it
convenient to see him!" Beth answered in comical despair.

"I don't believe he bores her a bit at _present_," Angelica observed.
"He is merely an intellectual exercise for Beth. She watches the
workings of his mind quite dispassionately, draws him out with little
airs and graces, and then adjusts him under the microscope. It
interests her to dissect the creature. When she has studied him
thoroughly, she will cast him out, as a worthless specimen."

"Oh, I hope that isn't true," said Beth, with a twinge of conscience.
"I own it has interested me to see what he has developed into; but
surely that isn't unfair?" She looked at Mr. Kilroy deprecatingly.

"It is vivisection," said Angelica.

"But under such agreeable anaesthetics that I should think he enjoys
it," said Mr. Kilroy. "I should have no objection myself."

"Daddy, be careful!" Angelica cried. "A rare specimen like you is
never safe when unscrupulous naturalists are about."

"But no mi