Part 3 (1/2)
”You also,” he said, ”seem to have a taste for fiction of a p.r.o.nounced type. I see you are reading one of my books.”
”Your books?” Her query was uttered in a tone of surprise. ”Oh, no! This came down from Mudie's with other volumes yesterday.”
”Oh, I don't doubt that.”
He laughed openly at her concern--a hearty, resounding laugh, a trifle loud, but with a pleasant honest ring in it; continued:
”I don't doubt that the library people acquired it honestly. My claim was not made in a possessory sense. I meant that my name figures on the t.i.tle page.”
She looked at him blankly for a moment, so great was her surprise. Then, the truth dawning on her, she said:
”You! You--are the author?”
CHAPTER IV
THE DANGER SIGNAL
That she should meet a real live author, the writer of the book she was reading, was a coincidence strange enough to take Miss Mivvins' breath away. Masters saw her wonderment, smiled at it.
”Is the fact,” he asked, ”so difficult a thing to reconcile with my appearance?”
”Oh, no, no! How awfully rude you must think me! I meant--I mean--that I expected the author of this book to be----”
Then she paused. Did not quite know what she expected or how to express herself; added lamely:
”To be much older.”
”Really! I am sorry I don't come up to your age standard. Age has its privileges, but wisdom is not always its perquisite. Why should an author be necessarily old? Surely youth is pardonable?”
She--a woman famous in her own particular circle for the coolness of her tongue--could have kicked herself. Was saying, in her unwonted nervousness, all the things she would rather have left unsaid. Angry with herself, she blurted out:
”There is not, of course, any earthly reason why. It was purely my utter stupidity.”
He smiled at the flush on her cheek; a smile conjured up by his admiration of it; said merrily:
”Here have I been peac.o.c.king around, with a sort of metaphorical feather in my cap. Pampering my vanity, applying the flattering unction to my soul--rubbing it in several times per diem--that no author of my age has turned out so many volumes. Lo! with one breath you blow that feather clean away.”
She could not resist laughing at his mock despair. Became at her ease once more; said:
”Indeed not! I don't know what prompted me to say what I did. As to this book----”
”No! Don't! Please don't give me your opinion of it!”
His interruption was a continuance of his burlesque melodramatic style.
She did not quite know how to take him; said:
”You mean you would not value my opinion?”
That was disconcerting. Sobered him in a minute. He knew quite well the kind of value he would be likely to put on any opinion of hers--concerning himself.