book, so that it has become a part of my thought, I have been more and more absorbed in the personality of the woman.”
“You told me the heroine was like me—once.”
“Did I?” in surprise.
“You’ve changed your mind, evidently?”
“No-o. Her brilliance is like you.”
“But not her other qualities?”
“She seems softer, more appealingly feminine to me, than you do. You have so much more executive ability—”
“You think I’m not feminine?”
“I didn’t say that,” he evaded.
“Why do you insist upon thinking the author and heroine to be one person?”
“Just a fancy, I suppose. But the book is so intimate that I feel consciously, or otherwise, the woman has written herself into ‘Francesca.’”
“You may be approaching an awful shock, my dear Jarvis, when you meet her.”
“I think not.”
“These author folk! She’ll be a middle-aged dowd, mark my words.”
He rose indignantly, and put the last sheets of the manuscript away. She watched him, smiling.
