5
‘We are printing that poem of yours in next month’s Antichrist,’ said Ravelston from his first-floor window. Gordon, on the pavement below, affected to have forgotten the poem Ravelston was speaking about; he remembered it intimately, of course, as he remembered all his poems.
‘Which poem?’ he said.
‘The one about the dying prostitute. We thought it was rather successful.’ Gordon laughed a laugh of gratified conceit, and managed to pass it off as a laugh of sardonic amusement.
‘Aha! A dying prostitute! That’s rather what you might call one of my subjects. I’ll do you one about an aspidistra next time.’
Ravelston’s over-sensitive, boyish face, framed by nice dark-brown hair, drew back a little from the window.
‘It’s intolerably cold,’ he said. ‘You’d better come up and have some foo
