"Capital, isn't it!"
"Miss Cardiff asked you who wrote it?" she repeated
hungrily.
"Yes; she commissioned me to find out, and if he was
respectable to bring him there. Her father said I was to
bring him anyway. So I don't propose to find out. The
Cardiffs have burned their fingers once or twice already
handling obscure genius, and I won't take the
responsibility. But it's adorably savage, isn't it?"
"Do you really like it!" she asked. It was her first
taste of success, and the savor was very sweet. But she
was in an agony of desire to tell him, to tell him
immediately, but gracefully, delicately, that she wrote
it. How could she say it, and yet seem uneager, indifferent?
But the occasion must not slip. It was a miserable
moment.
"Immensely," he replied.
"Then," she said, with just a little more significance
in her voice than she intended, "you would rather not
find out?"
He turned and met her shining eyes. She smiled, and he
had an instant of conviction. "You," he exclaimed--"you
did it! Really?"
She nodded, and he swiftly reflected upon what he had
said. "Now criticise!" she begged impatiently.
"I can only advise you to follow your own example," he
said gravely.
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