to one's head and one puts them down. But, of course, that won't quite
do. Don't you think we had better say that you have long been impressed
by the sadness of most lives, in the end, and were anxious to show how,
from unpromising beginnings, an existence may turn from dross into
refined gold by the exercise of will, of human sympathy, of tolerance of
foibles and love for one's fellow man? That will do very nicely!"

She was putting down her words with lightning speed.

"Now tell me. Did you ever really know a counterpart of Jennie Frisbie?"
she asked again. "She has become a sort of classic, you know. Women are
weeping with her and love her to distraction. They wonder how a mere man
can have so penetrated the inwardness of their sex and painted such a
beautiful picture of it at its best."

"Don't know that I ever did, my dear young lady," I replied reluctantly.

"Of course you didn't. They're not really made that way. For my part, I
think that a lot of women are cats," said the famed Cordelia. "But
naturally we can't say it in print. Your answer should be that beneath
the surface every woman holds the potentialities of a Jennie Frisbie.
'No, I have never known my heroine in person,' said Mr. Cole, looking
dreamily out of the window, 'but I have known a thousand of her. She is
a composite photograph, the final impression gathered by one who has
done his best to obtain definite colors wherewith to paint a type,
accurately and truthfully.' Yes, I think that'll do."

Her pencil was flying, as I looked at her, aghast.

"Miss Cordelia," I said, "you're a very attractive and bewitching young
fraud."

She showed her pretty teeth, laughing heartily.

"I'm not at all a fraud," she disclaimed. "I deliver the goods, at least
to my paper, and I never hurt people who are decently civil. How about
your views on the Great American Novel?"

"It will probably be written by a Frenchman or a Jap," I answered, "for
no man can do perfect justice to his own people."

"That's not so bad," she approved, "I think I'll put that down."

She asked me a few more questions, which I mostly answered with my usual
confession of ignorance and which she replied to in her own fashion.

"Well, that's a tip-top interview," she declared. "I'm ever so much
obliged to you and delighted to have met you. I don't think you look
much like one's idea of the writer of that book. I think I will say that
your eyes have a youthful look. It will please the