to me extremely well written, William; although, of course,
I don't know enough to criticize in detail."

"But it's the skill that strikes you--not the emotion?"

"In a fragment like that, of course, the skill strikes one most."

"But perhaps--have you time to listen to one more short piece? the scene
between the lovers? There's some real feeling in that, I think. Denham
agrees that it's the best thing I've done."

"You've read it to Ralph Denham?" Katharine inquired, with surprise.
"He's a better judge than I am. What did he say?"

"My dear Katharine," Rodney exclaimed, "I don't ask you for criticism,
as I should ask a scholar. I dare say there are only five men in England
whose opinion of my work matters a straw to me. But I trust you where
feeling is concerned. I had you in my mind often when I was writing
those scenes. I kept asking myself, 'Now is this the sort of thing
Katharine would like?' I always think of you when I'm writing,
Katharine, even when it's the sort of thing you wouldn't know about.
And I'd rather--yes, I really believe I'd rather--you thought well of my
writing than any one in the world."

This was so genuine a tribute to his trust in her that Katharine was
touched.

"You think too much of me altogether, William," she said, forgetting
that she had not meant to speak in this way.

"No, Katharine, I don't," he replied, replacing his manuscript in the
drawer. "It does me good to think of you."

So quiet an answer, followed as it was by no expression of love, but
merely by the statement that if she must go he would take her to the
Strand, and would, if she could wait a moment, change his dressing-gown
for a coat, moved her to the warmest feeling of affection for him that
she had yet experienced. While he changed in the next room, she stood by
the bookcase, taking down books and opening them, but reading nothing on
their pages.

She felt certain that she would marry Rodney. How could one avoid it?
How could one find fault with it? Here she sighed, and, putting the
thought of marriage away, fell into a dream state, in which she became
another person, and the whole world seemed changed. Being a frequent
visitor to that world, she could find her way there unhesitatingly. If
she had tried to analyze her impressions, she would have said that there
dwelt the realities of the appearances which figure in our world; so
direct, powerful, and unimpeded were her sensations there, compared with
those c