The hostility was more Mrs. Herbert Rankin’s attitude than that of her husband, but he noticed a melancholy change in Rankin.  His geniality had vanished, or lingered only in the curl of his moustache.  He was less amusing than of old.  His conversation was no longer that of the light-hearted junior journalist flinging himself recklessly into the tide of talk; but whatever topic was started he turned it to himself.  He was exceedingly indignant on the subject of the war, which he regarded more as a personal grievance than as a national calamity.  No doubt it was his eminence that constituted him the centre of so vast a range.

“The worst of it is,” said he, “whichever side beats it’s destruction to royalties.  I lost a clean thousand on Spion Kop and I can tell you I didn’t recover much on Mafeking, though I worked Tommy Atkins for all he was worth.  This year my sales have dropped from fifty to thirty thousand.  I can’t stand many more of these reverses.”

He paused, dubious, between two entrees.

“If it’s had that effect on me,” said the great man, “Heaven only knows what it’s done to other people.  How about you, Rickman?”

“Oh, I’m all right, thanks.”  The war had ruined him, but his ruin was not the point of view from which he had yet seriously regarded it.  He was frankly disgusted with his old friend’s tone.

“If it goes on much longer, I shall be obliged,” said Rankin solemnly, “to go out to the seat of war.”

Rickman felt a momentary glow.  He was exhilarated by the idea of Rankin at the seat of war.  He said he could see Rankin sitting on it.

Rankin laughed, for he was not wholly dead to the humour of his own celebrity; but there was a faint silken rustle at the head of the table, subtle and hostile, like the stirring of a snake.  Mrs. Herbert Rankin bent her fine flat brows towards the poet, with a look ominous and intent.  The look was lost upon Rickman and he wondered why Maddox pressed his foot.

“Have you written anything on the war, Mr. Rickman?” she asked.

“No; I haven’t written anything on the war.”

She looked at him almost contemptuously as at a fool who had neglected an opportunity.

“What do you generally write on, then?”

Rickman looked up with a piteous smile.  He was beginning to feel very miserable and weary, and he longed to get up and go.  It seemed to him that there was no end to that dinner; no end to the pitiless ingenuity of Rankin’s chef.  And he always had hated being stared at.

“I don’t—­generally—­write—­on anything,” he said.

“Your last poem is an exception to your rule, then?”

“It is.  I wrote most of that on gin and water,” said Rickman desperately.

Rankin had tugged all the geniality out of his moustache, and his face was full of anxiety and gloom.  Maddox tried hard not to snigger.  He was not fond of Mrs. Herbert Rankin.