ved to them in a long glass jug
of Venetian workmanship, rendered cloudy by the ice, like frosted ware.
Emily herself filled his glass and pledged him a toast.

"To the novel," she cried. "May it be as successful in literature as
your other work has been in journalism! And Douglas, of course you've
dedicated it to me."

"I haven't imposed a dedication upon any one," he answered. "Aren't
they out of date?"

She shrugged her shoulders. Her elbows were both on the table, and she
leaned across towards him.

"Tell me about your story," she begged. "There is fruit coming, and
coffee. Let me fill your glass and you shall tell me of what things you
have written, evil or good, the things which are, or the things which
should be."

She raised the jug and the wine fell in a Little yellow shower into his
foaming glass. He raised it to his lips thoughtfully.

"It is wonderful," he said, "that you should be so interested."

"In the man or his story?"

"In either," he answered. "As a story-writer I am altogether unproven.
My novel may prove an utter failure."

She shook her head.

"You are not of the race of men who fail, my dear Douglas," she said.
"I think that that is why I like you.',

"I have been as near failure as any man can go," he said.

"It is over," she answered. "Now tell me of your story."

He told her its outline. She listened with slowly nodding head,
grasping every point quickly, electrically, sympathetically. His slight
awkwardness in speaking of his own work passed away. He expatiated, was
coherent and convincing. More than once she interrupted him. Her
insight was almost miraculous. She penetrated with perfect ease beneath
his words, analysed his motives with him, showed him a psychological
weakness in the workings of one of his characters. She was liberal with
her praise, called his characters by their christian names as though
they were old friends, suggested other moves across the chessboard of
his plot, until he felt that he and she, and those dear puppets of his
own creations, were denizens together of some fairy and ethereal world,
wandering through the fascinating maze of imaginative life. It was
almost an intoxication, this wonderfully stimulating contact with a mind
so receptive, so brilliant, so sympathetic. He forgot his garret,
Cicely, the drear past, the passionate warnings of Drexley and Rice. As
a weaver of stories he was in his first youth. He had peopled but few
worlds with those w