That, to do Miss Bell
justice, as Mr. Rattray said in mentioning the matter to
the editor-in-chief, was not so much the fault of the
article as the fault of their public. Miss Bell wrote
the graphic naked truth about the Latin Quarter. Even
after Rattray had sent her copy back to be amended for
the third time, she did not seem able to realize that
their public wouldn't stand _unions libres_ when not
served up with a moral purpose--that no artistic apology
for them would do. In the end, therefore, Rattray was
obliged to mutilate the article himself, and to neutralize
it here and there. He was justified in taking the trouble,
for it was matter they wanted, on account of some expensive
drawings of the locality that had been in hand a long
time. Even then the editor-in-chief had grumbled at its
"tone," though the wrath of the editor-in-chief was
nothing to Miss Bell's. Mr. Rattray could not remember
ever having had before a conversation with a contributor
which approached in liveliness or interest the one he
sustained with Miss Bell the day after her copy appeared.
If he imparted some ideas of expediency, he received some
of obligation to artistic truth, which he henceforth
associated with Elfrida's expressive eyes and what he
called her foreign accent.
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