says, to manage the
publicity for her. Do you realize what that means? He's licensed to try
to make the public believe anything that he thinks would heighten their
interest in her. That she dresses indecently; that she's a frivolous
extravagant fool; that she has lovers. You know how that game is played."

Mary did know. She ran over a list of the great names and opposite every
one of them there sprang into her mind the particular bit of vulgar
reclame that had been in its day some press agent's masterpiece. She was
able further to see that Paula would regard the moves of this game with a
large-minded tolerance which would be incomprehensible to John. After
all, that was the way to take it. If you were a real luminary, not just a
blank white surface, all the mud that Mr. Maxfield Ware could splash
wouldn't matter. You burnt it off. None of those great names was soiled.

She tried to say something like this to her father, but didn't feel sure
that she quite had his attention. He did quiet down again however and
resumed his seat at the foot of the tree. Presently he said:

"She's doing it for me. Because my incompetence has forced it upon her.
She'd have taken the other thing; had really chosen it." Then without a
pause, but with a new intensity he shot in a question. "That's true,
isn't it? She meant what she said over the telephone?" As Mary hesitated
over her answer he added rather grimly, "You can be quite candid about
it. I don't know which answer I want."

"She meant every word she said over the telephone," Mary assured him.
"You couldn't doubt that if you had seen her as I did afterward."

She didn't pretend though that this was the complete answer. The
reflective tone in which she spoke made it clear that there was more to
it than that.

"Go on," John said, "tell me the rest of it. I think, perhaps, you
understand her better than I do."

Mary took her time about going on and she began a little doubtfully. "I
always begin by being unjust to Paula," she said. "That's my instinct, I
suppose, reproaching her for not doing what she would do if she were
like me. But afterward when I think her out, I believe I understand her
pretty well."

"Paula exaggerates," she went on after another reflective pause. "She
must see things large in order to move among them in a large way. Her
gestures, those of her mind I mean, are--sweeping. If she weren't so
good-natured, our--hair-splitting ways would annoy her. Then it's
ne