He followed his first impulse and went to Cordelia herself, at once. She had just come in from the florist's, and she greeted him over an armful of white roses, which she still held unconsciously before her as she let her eyes linger for a studious minute on his face. He felt vaguely sorry for her—there was an inalienable touch of pathos in the thought of the stricken hand of the master. It seemed to leave her so hopeless and alone—for all along he had more than half felt that she was not altogether at rest in the life into which success had forced her.
She led him timidly up to the little yellow study, and waited for him to speak. She had noticed the manuscript in his hand.
He found it very hard to begin.
"You don't like it, I know," she said, tearing a flower to pieces. She looked up at him almost appealingly, and then went on.
"I don't like it myself. I think I've lost my grip on it. It keeps running away from me, and throwing me out, and dragging me after it."
As he looked at her in her helplessness, he tried to tell himself that he had been unduly harsh in his first judgment. Then he turned to her and attempted to explain how with a possible touch or two it might be remodeled, how splendid it would be, once it was whipped into shape.
She only shook her head dolefully.
"I'm tired of it," she said.
Hartley seemed unable to explain to himself why a mere mood of temporary inadequacy should crush her into hopelessness.
"Then let me do it," he suggested.