That flaming room, which we who were
fortunate enough to have our youth come to a glorious fruition in 1902,
attracted us all like a magnet. Here absinthe dripped into tall glasses,
and the seats around the sides, the great mirrors and the golden
curtains, which fluttered in summer and remained austerely in place in
winter, made a little heaven for us all, and life one long cry of joy.
Here women, like strange flowers that bloomed only at night, smiled and
laughed the hours away; and the low whirr of Broadway drifted in, while
the faint thunder of Fifth Avenue lent an added mystery to the place, as
though the troubled world were shut out but could be reached again in an
instant, if you wished to reach it.
Shelby liked to be seen in such places. He said he felt that he was on
the Continent, and he liked to get nervously excited over a liqueur and
a mazagan of coffee, and then flee to his cozy lodgings in Gramercy Park
and produce page after page of closely written manuscript.
The pictures of Marguerite Davis remained a part of the furnishings of
those rooms of his--that we heard; and I knew it directly shortly after
this. For I, too, left the newspaper, and went into the magazine-editing
game. I found a berth on that same popular periodical to which Shelby
was then contributing his matchless stories; and part of my job was to
see him frequently, take him to luncheon or dinner, talk over his future
plans with him, discuss the possibility of his doing a novelette which
later he could expand into a full-sized volume and thereby gain an added
vogue.
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