Part 20 (2/2)
”But--it's beautiful--alive and real. What more does he want?”
”The stamp of his personality.”
”Oh, he'd _stamp_ on it all right.”
”I'm glad you like it.”
”_Like_ it. Don't you?”
Ralph said he thought he'd liked it when he wrote it, but now he didn't know.
”You'll know when you've finished it.”
”I don't suppose I shall finish it,” he said.
”But you must. You can't _not_ finish a thing like that.”
”I own I'd like to. But I can't publish it.”
”Why ever not?”
”Oh, it wouldn't be fair to poor old Waddy. After all, I wrote it for him.”
”What on earth does that matter? If he doesn't want it. Of course you'll finish it, and of course you'll publish it.”
”Well, but it's all Cotswold, you see. And _he's_ Cotswold. If it _is_ any good, you know, I shouldn't like to--to well, get in his way. It's his game. At least he began it.”
”It's a game two can play, writing Cotswold books.”
”No. No. It isn't. And he got in first.”
”Well, then, let him get in first. You can bring your book out after.”
”And dish his?”
”No, let it have a run first. Perhaps it won't have any run.”
”Perhaps mine won't.”
”_Yours_. That heavenly book? And his tosh--Don't you see that you _can't_ get in his way? If anybody reads him they won't be the same people who read you.”
”I hope not. All the same it would be rather beastly to cut him out; I mean to come in and do it better, show how bad he is, how frightful. It would rub it in, you know.”
”Not with him. You couldn't.”
”You don't know. Some brute might get up and hurt him with it.”
”Oh, you _are_ tender to him.”
”Well, you see, I did let him down when I left him. Besides, it isn't altogether him. There's f.a.n.n.y.”
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