are yours."

"Adrian wanted to get an atmosphere of rye-whisky and bad tobacco--not
tea and strawberries." The eminent novelist's encomium had aroused the
artist's pride in his first-born. An altered word would spoil the book.
"My dear girl," said he, stretching out his great hand, from beneath
which she wriggled an impatient shoulder, "my dear Doria," said he, very
gently, "the possessor of the Order of Merit is both a critic and a man
of common sense. Anyway, he knows more about novels than either of us
do. If it weren't for him I would give you the proofs to blue pencil as
much as you liked. But I'm sure you would make a thundering mess of it."

Doria made a little gesture--a bit of a shrug--a bit of a resigned
flicker of her hands.

"Of course, do as you please, dear Jaffery. I'm quite alone, a woman
with nobody to turn to"--she smiled with her lips, but there was no
coordination of her eyes--"as I said before, I pass the proofs."

She went quickly through the drawing-room door into the house, leaving
Jaffery still scratching a red whisker.

"Oh, Lord!" said he, ruefully, "I've gone and done it now!"

He turned to follow her, but Barbara interposed her small body on the
threshold.

"Don't be a silly fool, Jaff. You've pandered quite enough to her morbid
vanity. It's your book, isn't it? You have given it birth. You know
better than anybody what is vital to it. Just you send those proofs
straight back to the publisher. If you let her persuade you to change
one word, as true as I'm standing here, I'll tell her the whole thing,
and damn the consequences!"

My exquisite Barbara's rare "damns" were oaths in the strictest sense.
They connoted the most irrefragable of obligations. She would no more
think of breaking a "damn" than her marriage vows or a baby's neck.

"Of course, I'm not going to let her touch the thing," said Jaffery.
"But I don't want her to look on me as a bullying brute."

"It would be better, both for you and her, if she did," snapped Barbara.
"The ordinary woman's like the dog and the walnut tree. It's only the
exceptional woman that can take command."

I, who had been sitting calm, on the low parapet beneath the tenderly
sprouting wistaria arbour, broke my philosophic silence.

"Observe the exceptional woman," said I.

* * * * *

For a day or so Doria stood upon her dignity, treating Jaffery with cold
politeness. In the mornings she allowed him to wrap he