the marking of his passage. “A fine quote for the jacket of Amos’s next book. Good old Leppy! What would we do without him?”
“I believe Lepton really does like Amos’s work,” said Philippa. She read the note at the bottom of the review. “Mr. Lepton is best known for his monumental work, The Green Corn, a definitive study of American belles-lettres from 1900 to 1950. He is a regular contributor to various critical journals.”
“Of course he does!” rejoined Tony. “Amos’s stuff isn’t bad at all. I rather enjoy reading some of it myself and you used to like it. There’s no question about it—the guy can write.”
“So Lepton remarked in his review of Amos’s first book.”
“Not quite in those words.” Tony’s eyes narrowed, remembering. “‘I put down this volume with a sense of exhilaration all too rare in a reviewer today. Here, I told myself, is a discovery. Make no mistake about it—the man can write. He may be young, he may make technical mistakes in his first few novels, but he has that indefinable quality that sets the born writer apart from the hacks and amateurs who clutter the literary scene today and stifle the flowering of true talent by their very multiplicity, like weeds in a garden.’“
“Lepton always seems to see himself now as a gardener slaying the misfits with weed killer so there’ll be room for Amos,” reflected Philippa. “Isn’t Amos the only writer he’s ever really praised?”
“Every critic has his pet writer,” returned Tony. “Luckily for us, Amos is Leppy’s pet. They’re so identified in the public mind by this time that Leppy can’t let Amos down, no matter what Amos writes.”
Philippa glanced at the clock. “We’d better be going if we want a seat on that 4:39.”
Once they were settled in the train, her mind went back to the projected supper party. “Who on earth can we invite at such short notice?”
“The Veseys, of course. I have a feeling that Vera is really fond of Meg and Gus. If they have another date already, they’ll break it. After all, Gus is Amos’s agent.”
“But who else? All our friends are dated weeks ahead.”
Tony frowned. “Amos is a lion now. Must be somebody who’d like to meet him. How about that widow down the road who says she always wanted to write?”
“A woman alone?”
“She has a son at college. He must be home on Christmas vacation now. Ask him. Then we’ll get a couple of other novelists and…”
“Oh, no, we won’t!” cried Philippa fiercely. “They’re all madly jealous of Amos and he despises them. Haven’t you any non-fiction writers on your list who live in Connecticut?”
“Yes, but Amos is hardly their cup of tea. They’re all scientists and such.”
“We can still ask them. They can hardly refuse their publisher, can they? What about the Willings? Didn’t you publish a book of his years ago?”
“The Psychopathology of Politics,” muttered Tony. “That was way back in the forties when Dan Sutton was still alive. Not what you’d call a best seller, but it still brings in some royalties. Some of the medical schools use it as supplementary reading in their advanced psychology courses.”
“Good. Then I’ll ask the Willings and that will have to be it. Amos and Vera, the Veseys and the Willings and that little woman down the road and her son.” Tony took a typescript out of its box and began to read, but Philippa went on, thinking aloud: “We’ll have a simple buffet supper. Ham and turkey, potatoes au gratin and salad, fresh fruit and Stilton. Let’s have Scotch and soda first. I’m sick of sweet, messy cocktails. And it’ll make Amos less conspicuous drinking his iced tea in a tall glass, too. If only I had time to get that cushion recovered. The one the mystery writer burned a cigarette hole in and…”
“Why, Tony!”
The masculine voice brought Tony’s head up from his script with a jerk and cut off Philippa’s hostess chatter.
The man who stood in the aisle was small and slender with a sickly, pallid face and burning, black eyes. His straight, dark hair lay lank and glossy against his well-shaped skull. The mouth was thrusting, a little simian and mischievous, but there was intelligence in the eyes and the speaking voice was beautiful—a thing of light and shade and color expressed in terms of sound. He faced them, smiling with an easy self-possession that seemed to announce: here is an individual of unique importance.
“Why, Leppy!” Tony shouted. “It’s been a coon’s age. Where did you come from?”
“Got on at 125th. I’ve been lecturing at Columbia. I was prowling the train looking for a smoking car and…”
“Sit down.” Tony was on his feet. Luckily the seat in front of them was empty. Tony pushed the back over so that the two seats now faced each other. “You’ve met my wife, Philippa, haven’t you?”
“I don’t believe I’ve had that pleasure.” It said a great deal for Lepton’s grace that his bow did not seem grotesque in such a small, ugly man. He slid into the opposite seat that Tony had provided and Philippa smiled at him pleasantly. “I remember you at our wedding, but that was a long time ago. Do you live in Connecticut now?”
“No, I’m on my way to the Shadbolts for the week end. You know Shad, don’t you, Tony? He wrote that South Windish thing laid in Taos last year.”
“I’ve just been reading your review of Amos Cottle’s latest,” put in Philippa, determined not to be left out of the shop talk.
“Ah!” Lepton’s eyelids drooped but the slitted eyes were more brilliant than ever. “Now there’s a man who really can write. He doesn’t imitate anybody. He’s just himself. An original. That’s what American letters needs so desperately today.”
“I think he’s good myself,” said Philippa, loyally.
“Good? Dear lady, he’s magnificent. If the word hadn’t been so brutally abused, I’d say he was a genius. There’s nothing else in contemporary literature quite like the Cottle touch. You’re to be congratulated, Tony.”
“Thanks.” Tony composed his features to a suitably reverential gravity, but Philippa had always suspected that Tony was far more interested in Amos’s sales figures than his literary qualities.
“Cottle must be a very lonely man,” went on Lepton, in a musing tone; “A talent like that is like great wealth—it cuts you off from the rest of humanity. I think of Kim as a monkish figure, withdrawn and abstracted, submerged in his own—er—ah…”
“Mystique,” suggested Philippa, like a bright child trying to join a grown-up conversation.
The brilliant gaze shifted to her. “I see you really have been reading my review.”
“It’s a nice word. I like it spelled that French way,” she prattled on, while Tony winced. “I like all the words you use—words like meaningful. If I were writing a review, I’d just say significant, but I suppose there must be an opposite of meaningless in the dictionary and it sounds a lot more Thursday Review…. You know Amos really isn’t monkish at all. He’s quite a lot of fun sometimes.”
Lepton
