“Don’t spoil it for me by telling it. I shan’t enjoy it when it comes out.”
He laughed, and both eyebrows dropped and hid his eyes. He busied himself with the cake and butter. A second crumb went to join the first. I thought of balls in golf bunkers, and laughed outright. For a time the conversation flagged. I became aware of a certain air of mystery about him. He was full of something besides the novel—something he wanted to talk about but had probably forgotten “for the moment.” I got the impression he was casting about in the upper confusion of his mind for the cue.
“You’re writing something else now?” I ventured.
The question hit the bull’s-eye. Both eyebrows shot up, as though they would vanish next minute on wires and fly up into the wings. The cake in his hand would follow; and last of all he himself would go. The children’s pantomime came vividly before me. Surely he was a made-up figure on his way to rehearsal.
“I am,” he said; “but it’s a great secret. I’ve got a magnificent idea!”
“I promise not to tell. I’m safe as the grave. Tell me.”
He fixed his kindly, beaming eyes on my face and smiled charmingly.
“It’s a play,” he murmured, and then paused for effect, hunting about on his plate for cake, where cake there was none.
“Another piece of that lunch-cake, please,” he said in a sudden loud voice, addressed to the waitresses at large. “It came to me the other day in the London Library—er—very fine idea——”
“Something really original?”