"It is what I especially desire," she said, brightening. "No one able to judge has heard anything of this story except your friend, Mr. Gouger. I know it is bold, sometimes I think it is brazen. I can conceive that there are excellent people who would say it never should have been written. To my mind, the moral I have drawn more than justifies the plainness of my speech. You can tell better than I where I have overstepped the proper bounds, if there be such places. You are, of course, a man of the world--"
The protesting expression on the face of her companion arrested her at this point.
"That depends on what you mean by "a man of the world?""
"It is a common expression."
"And has many definitions. Before I plead guilty to it, I want to know just how much you intend by it."
Miss Fern put down the page she had taken up and a puzzled look crossed her pretty face.
"You make it hard for me to explain myself," she said. "I suppose I meant--"
"Now, be as honest as you asked me to be," he interrupted.
"Well, then, I suppose you are a man like--like other men."
"But there are many kinds of other men."
The young lady tried several times to make herself clearer, and then asked, with a very pathetic pout, that she might be permitted to proceed with her reading, as the hour was growing later. It was not a very important point, any way, she said.
"I cannot entirely agree with you," replied Archie. "If you are to be a writer of fiction, you should not consider any time wasted which informs you in reference to your fellow creatures. It is from them that you must draw your inspiration; it is their figures you must put, correctly or incorrectly, on your canvas. Don"t understand me as dictating to you, my dear Miss Fern. I only wish, as long as you have referred to me, to know of what I am accused."
To this Miss Fern answered, with many pauses, that she had not intended to accuse her visitor of anything. And once more--with evident distress--she begged to be permitted to drop the matter and return to her reading.
"Very well," he a.s.sented, thinking he had annoyed her as much as was advisable for the present. "As they say in parliamentary bodies, we will lay the question on the table, from which it can be taken at some more fitting time. I am as anxious as you can be to get into Chapter II."
She read this chapter to the end, and paused a few seconds to see if he had any comments to make, but he shook his head without breaking silence, and she went on with the story. He pursued the same plan till the end of the fifth chapter.
"It is interesting, exciting and true," he remarked, referring to the closing scene. "And I cannot help feeling arise in my brain the question that Mr. Gouger put when he read it: How could a young, innocent girl like you depict that situation with such absolute fidelity."
He had come to the point with a vengeance. But to Miss Fern his manner was far more agreeable than if he had approached it by stealth, or in an insinuating way. She had antic.i.p.ated something of the sort and had tried to prepare herself to meet it.
"Does not nature teach us some things?" she asked, speaking straightforwardly, though her color heightened in spite of her efforts.
"Given a certain condition, an intelligent mind can prophesy results."
He shook his head in mild disagreement with her.
"Gouger is an expert, and he denies this, as a regular rule, at least.
You should have heard him argue it with Roseleaf. "Either throw yourself into a love affair," he said, "or never try to depict one." Excuse me, Miss Fern, you bade me be frank--"
She a.s.sented, with a grave nod of her shapely head.
"You may have been in love--I do not ask you whether you have or not--but you cannot have known personally of the sort of love that you have depicted in these pages. I call it little less than miraculous that you should draw the scene so accurately."
She colored again, this time partly with pleasure, for she was very susceptible to compliments.
"Perhaps your statement may explain to you," she said, pointedly, "what I meant a few minutes ago by calling you "a man of the world." You recognize at a glance what I had to construct from my imagination."
Archie Weil"s face changed as he realized how deftly he had been caught.
He had meant to pretend to this girl that he was more than usually ignorant of the nether side of life.
"Don"t think too badly of me because I happen to know what is clear to every man," he said, impressively.
"To every one?" she answered. "To your friend, Mr. Roseleaf?"
"Ah! He is an exception to all rules. And yet, Gouger says he can never write a successful book till he is more conversant with life than he is at present."
She looked troubled.
"With life?" she echoed. "With sin, do you mean?"
"With the ordinary things that men know, and that most of them at some time experience."
Her bright eyes were temporarily clouded.
"What a pity!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," he said, for it was his humor to agree with her. "It is a pity."
There was a pause of a minute, and then she asked if she had read enough for one evening. He answered that as it was now past ten o"clock it would not be easy to get much farther and that he would come again whenever she chose to set the time.
"You do not say much about my work," she said, anxiously, as he prepared to go.
"Silence is approval," he responded. "I can talk it over with you better when you have reached the end. I have things to say, and I shall not hesitate to say them then."
"When is it most convenient to you to come?" she inquired.
"Any time," he answered. "I don"t do much that is really useful. But wait till you see Shirley. He will atone for the shortcomings you find in me."
She repeated the word "Shirley," as if to test its sound.
"You are your father"s only child, are you not?" he asked, thoughtfully.
"No. I have a sister, Daisy, a little younger than I."
"And has she a literary turn, also?"
"Not in the least."
Archie arose, and Miss Millicent accompanied him to the front door. The tall negro came to open the portal, but Miss Fern told him, with the same quality of dislike in her tone which Weil had noticed before, that he need not wait.
"He is really a magnificent piece of humanity," said Archie, when the man had disappeared. "I never saw anything quite like him."
"You admire negroes, then?" said the young lady, almost impolitely.
"I like representatives of every race," he answered, as if not noticing her. "There are interesting specimens in all. I number among my acquaintances several Chinamen, a Moor, a Mexican, Jews, Portuguese and Russians innumerable. If that fellow was not in your employ I would engage him to-morrow, merely as a study."
Miss Fern took the hand he held out to her and set the next meeting for Sat.u.r.day evening. Then she said: