“I dare say,” answered Letty with elaborate carelessness. “But I never noticed her especially.”
“I don’t see,” persisted Jack, “how you could have helped it. She’s the sort of girl everyone notices. There’s something about her—”
“Why, what a zealous champion she has!” exclaimed Letty, playfully, her laughter ringing thin. “I congratulate her.”
“You needn’t,” retorted Jack. “And I’m afraid you’ll never even have a chance to congratulate me. I—”
“By the way, Hawarden,” interposed Caine, lazily pouring oil on the churned waters, according to his wont. “I read your Scribner’s story to-day. I can congratulate you on that, at any rate, can’t I? It was decidedly good. I wondered at your knowledge of human nature.”
Hawarden’s chest swelled. At twenty-two, who does not know human nature as never can it be known in later years? And who does not rejoice at recognition of that vast knowledge?
“I’ve had some experience with life, in my time,” said Jack, darkly. “And I paint my fellow-man as I see him. Not as he ought to be. But as he is. If I seem merciless in my character drawing—”
“You do indeed!” began Caine. But a fit of very well executed coughing cut short his righteous praise. Jack, disappointed, sought to lead the talk back to the former happy theme.
“I’m writing a story now,” he said, “that is bigger in every way than anything I’ve done before. But I can’t decide yet, even in my own mind, whether it is very good or very bad. It is one or the other. I know that.”
“If it’s enough of either,” replied Caine, “it is certain to make a popular hit.”