Vance's heart was beating hurriedly. His voice was hoarse with excitement; he could not have read any longer without breaking down. In his agitation he did not dare to lift his eyes to his listener's, but sat fumbling mechanically among the pages on his knee. Since the first paragraph he had been more and more certain that her verdict would be unfavourable.

"Well—?" he questioned at length, with an uneasy laugh. He could hardly endure the interval that elapsed before she answered. His throat was parched, and little prickles ran all over his skin. He felt as if she would never speak.

"I think you ought to take more time over it," she said. "The canvas is much bigger than you're used to—and the subject is so new. There are things in it that I like very much; but there are bits that seem incomplete, undigested… . I'm sure you can do the book; but you must give yourself time … lots of time. Can't you put it away for a few months and turn to something else?"

Her verdict was exactly what he had expected, yet it filled him with unreasonable discouragement. She always lit instantly on the flaws of which he himself was half conscious, even in the heat of composition, the flaws he hoped she would overlook, but knew in advance that she would detect; and for this reason he lost his critical independence in her presence, and swung uneasily between elation and despondency.

"Yes, I know. It's a failure," he muttered.

"How can you tell, when only a few chapters are written? And in them there's so much that's good. That first impression of the heartless overwhelmingness of New York—it's been done so often, but no one has seen it and felt it exactly as you have… . And the opening scene in the little western town—all that's good too, except that perhaps—" she paused, lifting her eyes doubtfully to his, "perhaps when you did that part you'd been reading The Corner Grocery a little too attentively," she concluded with her hesitating smile.

He smiled too: it felt like a dry contraction of the muscles. "Too much of the sedulous ape, you mean?"

"Well, you seem to be struggling against crosscurrents of influence. But you'll work out of them when you really get into your subject."

"Trouble is it's not my subject," he broke in nervously; but she continued: "Not yet, perhaps; but it will be if you'll only give yourself more time." He looked up and met her scrutinizing eyes. "You look terribly tired, Vance. Can't you drop the book for a few months?"