“Nothing,” confessed Nielsen, and his warm smile appeared.
“But what’s the matter with the story?” the painter demanded.
“How do you mean?” the author retorted.
“I thought that had fulfilled your ambition.”
“Not quite, not quite,” Nielsen hastened to deny, and was thoughtful. “I don’t know just what it was, but there was something missing in it,” he said gently, and changing the subject, concluded abruptly: “I’m sure I have that something in this essay.”
Breen explained himself: “You know what made me ask about the story?”
“No. What?”
“I had lunch in a small bakery on Sixth Avenue this noon.”
“Well?”
“Guess whom I saw there?”