"You are dreadfully mysterious. How _does_ she react?"
"Of course, she marries."
"Then it"s not a story of work at all?"
"Hardly at all. It"s an old-fashioned romance."
"I see--told from a new-fashioned point of view?"
Charles laughed. "The description was suggested to me--very recently. Up to a point, it fits. You see, I"m still learning."
"You know," said Mary, after a step or two, "you like to picture yourself as one who can"t be restrained from talking about himself and his work, on the smallest provocation. In reality ... Tell me honestly, do you object to being cross-examined this way?"
His gaze kept straight ahead.
"By you?--oh, no. Of course, I ... I"ve wanted to tell you my story some day."
"Then I"ll continue my quiz now. I know it"s usually a stupid question to ask--but have you decided on a t.i.tle yet?"
But that happened to be the one thing he did not care to tell her now.
"You can"t fix the t.i.tle till you"re done, you know," he evaded lightly.
"A story changes so. But I have a sub-t.i.tle in mind ..."
She asked if his sub-t.i.tle was a secret, and he said no.
"I"d thought of--"A Comedy of Temporary Spinsters"--something like that," said the author, and, unseen, colored abruptly.
"That"s _good_!" Mary exclaimed after a moment. "It suggests--so much!
Temporary Spinsters.... Only--I hope you don"t mean to be cruel to your heroine?"
"Oh, no."
They turned into Olive Street.
"And by the way," said Charles, "she"s not my heroine--only my central figure."
"Oh! Is there a distinction? Then will there be two women in this book?"
"Of course--a common principle of writing. Your central figure-in a character story--needs the comment of contrast, you know--of a--a foil."
"I hadn"t thought of that. You had only one woman in "Bondwomen," you see.... And the contrast--she"ll be as different as possible--a working-woman, I suppose?--a Permanent Spinster! That"s interesting, I think--a study in contrasting types. Now--by my catechism--I really begin to get an idea--"
"Do you? I don"t know. There are points--there are points--which I"ve never been able to settle yet, myself."
Mary began to search for her latch-key. Splendidly competent though she was, she did not appear to have a regular place for keeping her key, like a man. And Charles wondered if she had quite forgotten that offhand remark of his, the day of his luncheon to Helen Carson, that he was drawing his Line from his life....
"But the men in the story," she was saying--rather mechanically, he thought--"I conclude there must be some, even though you don"t mention them. What type do you make your hero?"
"Oh!--hero! There isn"t any. The hero"s the reader."
"The reader!--I fear that"s too technical for me."
He explained: "My--my study develops by the method of "progressive revelation," so-called--the princ.i.p.al characters being first set out, of course, with the wrong labels carefully pinned on them. Well, the hero"s just the commentator on this development as it takes place, thinking it out to save the reader the trouble."
"But--isn"t it the theory nowadays that there shouldn"t be any commentator?"
"Oh, there may be a _theory_!" he retorted, the artist briefly flashing in the man. "However, I comment."
They went up the Wings" three steps, and Mary put her key into the lock.
"But your hero can"t be altogether an abstraction," she insisted, thus engaged--"else how can there be any old-fashioned romance?"
The young man"s laugh covered an interest in the conversation intense to the point of physical pain.
"Really, this won"t do. We get it more and more backwards. I haven"t even described the story to you right. It"s not an old-fashioned anything--primarily--it"s not a study of types. No, it"s--it"s an intellectual autobiography. Do you work on Sundays?"
The school-teacher wheeled in her open but inhospitable door, with something like reproach in her eyes, and said: "_No!_"
"Then you can"t escape me. I"ll stay in town this Sunday, and you shall hear it all from the beginning. You--you"ve brought it on yourself now."
The two moderns looked at each other. And the young man in the tall hat was breathing rather hard.
"But--wouldn"t that disappoint your mother? I know--I"ve noticed--that you never let anything interfere ..."
His look changed perceptibly at that. And still, it was not the son, not the old critic of Egoettes, who answered, slightly chagrined:--
"What time have you to give me, then? Some day in the summer vacation?"
Mary Wing"s eyes fell to her hand on the door-k.n.o.b. "I hoped," she said, "that you would come in now."
"But your--your work?"
"I--thought I would take a holiday to-day."
So they went into the house. And Charles stood alone in the Wings"
silent hall, slowly pulling off his wedding-gloves.
In the sitting-room Mary was similarly occupied. Though she was going back to the Flowers" so soon, she took off her hat. Having done so, she stood before the mantel-mirror, fluffing up her hair a little, where the hat had pressed it down. It is the immemorial fashion of women: a characteristic position, and so an engaging one. Delicately the upraised arms defined the lines of a graceful figure.
But when Mary saw in the mirror that Charles Garrott had come into the room, and had stopped short just over the threshold, looking at her, she knew only that the moment had come when she must make acknowledgments due for good aid and comfort received. And in her, the strong, nervousness spread now like a fear.
So she plunged hastily, the moment their eyes met: "I know, of course, there isn"t time to tell me about it now. But--I don"t seem to get any picture of your--your man at all.... What sort of man is he, personally?"
The author, starting a little, moved forward in the dusky room.
"Oh, let"s not speak of him," he said, with visible effort. "He"s only a writer. That"s polite for a poor stick."