labour is beginning to be understood in English Society. The host gives
excellent food, excellent wine, excellent cigarettes, and
super-excellent coffee, that's his part, and all the men listen, that's
theirs: while I talk and the stars twinkle their delight.
"Wyndham was there, too; you know George Wyndham, with his beautiful
face and fine figure: he is infinitely cleverer than Curzon but he has
not Curzon's push and force, or perhaps, as you say, he is not in such
close touch with the average man as Curzon; he was charming to me.
"In the morning we all trooped out to see the dawn, and some of the
young ones, wild with youth and high spirits, Curzon of course among the
number, stripped off their clothes and rushed down to the lake and began
swimming and diving about like a lot of schoolboys. There is a great
deal of the schoolboy in all Englishmen, that is what makes them so
lovable. When they came out they ran over the grass to dry themselves,
and then began playing lawn tennis, just as they were, stark naked, the
future rulers of England. I shall never forget the scene. Wilfred Blunt
had gone up to his wife's apartments and had changed into some fantastic
pyjamas; suddenly he opened an upper window and came out and perched
himself, cross-legged, on the balcony, looking down at the mad game of
lawn tennis, for all the world like a sort of pink and green Buddha,
while I strolled about with someone, and ordered fresh coffee and talked
till the dawn came with silent silver feet lighting up the beautiful
greenery of the park....
"Now George Curzon plays king in India: Wyndham is on the way to power,
and I'm hiding in shame and poverty here in Paris, an exile and outcast.
Do you wonder that I cannot write, Frank? The awful injustice of life
maddens me. After all, what have they done in comparison with what I
have done?
"Close the eyes of all of us now and fifty years hence, or a hundred
years hence, no one will know anything about Curzon or Wyndham or Blunt:
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