"'After this conversation, yes.'
"'That is, for one day you will think my thoughts, and give them fresh beauties as they pass through your own vivid imagination.'
"'I will read them, and remember all that you have said.'
"'Sweet woman, I thank you. If my poor words can touch a heart like yours, it is enough.'
"He bent and kissed my hand, thus releasing it from his clasp. It seemed as if some of my strength went out as he did this. The intense eloquence of this man had inspired me for the time, now I was weak and silent.
"'Tell me,' he said, 'what particular passages you disliked in my poor volume.'
"I could not answer; the book itself had gone out of my mind. I had only power to think of the man who stood before me, with that earnest protest burning on his lip, and those eyes, dark and luminous, bent upon me. I think that he did not observe my trepidation. He was carried away by a wish to protect the offspring of his brain from misconception or censure. I had read the volume hastily, and found it too brilliantly intense for the idle lassitude of my humor. It had startled me into more thought than I cared to exercise. The quiet of my home seemed like dulness after reading it. Now this man, its author, had come and completed the discontent his book had engendered. I had never seen a man of his class before, and to me the charm of novelty and romance surrounded him with a sort of glory.
"'Tell me,' he repeated, 'in what a thought of mine could have offended a creature so lovely and so rich in talent.'
"Was he mocking me because of my absurd criticism? I looked up suddenly, and met the full glance of those eyes. The blood rushed to my face, and my eyelids drooped.
"'You will not help me to amend a fault,' he said, in a tone of reproach.