"Dear friend," she said gratefully but sorrowfully, "what time have you for such things?"
"I couldn't give my days to it, of course," he confessed. "But I have my nights. With a couple of hours in the morning, why, a few weeks ought to see it finished."
She shook her head with childlike dolefulness.
"Then what will you do with it?" he asked her.
The question seemed to frighten her. She scarcely knew, she said. They had been clamoring for it so long. She thought she would put it aside and take it up again with a fresh hand.
"Then let me take it in the meantime," Hartley pleaded.
She made a proposal to him—it seemed to come to her in the form of a sudden inspiration.
"Let's collaborate on it," she cried.
"I would much rather simply help you a bit if I could."
"But don't you see, we can divvy—as we say over here—on the royalties. I've refused twenty per cent and a thousand dollars down. That means two or three thousand dollars, anyway."