It was at the close of that winter that Shelby left us. Some there were
who said he was suffering from a broken heart. At any rate, he began to
free-lance; and the first of those fascinating romantic short stories
that he did so well appeared in one of the magazines. There was always a
poignant note in them. They dealt with lonely men who brooded in secret
on some unattainable woman of dreams. This sounds precious; but the
tales were saved from utter banality by a certain richness of style, a
flow and fervour that carried the reader on through twenty pages without
his knowing it. They struck a fresh note, they were filled with the fire
of youth, and the scenes were always laid in some far country, which
gave them, oddly enough, a greater reality. Shelby could pile on
adjectives as no other writer of his day, I always thought, and he could
weave a tapestry, or create an embroidery of words that was almost
magical.
He made a good deal of money, I believe, during those first few months
after he went away from Herald Square. Apparently he had no friends,
and, as I have said, invariably he seemed to dine alone at Mouqin's, at
a corner table. Afterwards, he would go around to the Cafe Martin, then
in its glory, where Fifth Avenue and Broadway meet, for his coffee and a
golden liqueur and a cigarette.
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