Once more the contract was sent to her, but again she refused her signature.
Then Mr. Henry Slater came to her in person, and in a very sorrowful mien implored, almost tearfully, to know just what was still wrong. Cordelia calmly insisted on the deletion of the newly inserted paragraph surrendering the dramatic rights of the book. These, she stated, she intended to retain absolutely. When this paragraph had been reluctantly eliminated the contract was at last duly signed and witnessed. It was not until Henry Slater had carefully folded his copy of the document and placed it in his breast-pocket that Cordelia realized just how much he had wanted her book. But still she felt the hardest part of her battle lay before her—she had come out of her first reconnaissance successfully enough, but she wondered if she had made a mistake in leaving her one avenue of retreat uncovered.
"There is one thing more I have not mentioned"—she hesitated.
Her publisher looked at her more openly; they were now on the common basis of the commercial.
"I prefer that this book be published under a name other than my own."
Henry Slater looked at her again, this time with widening eyes. He was more or less used to the eccentricity of genius.
"This was not mentioned in our contract."
"No; but I must insist upon it!"
"But for what reasons?" he cried, bewildered.
"They are purely personal reasons—I might find it hard to make you understand them." Then she added weakly: "But it often helps a book, doesn't it, to come out under—under a nom de plume?"