“What?” asked Mauney.
“He’s writing a history of the war,” she laughed. “I read some of his manuscript. He invited me to do so.” She looked a playful reproach at Mauney, as though conscious of her self-invitation to read his writings. “And it’s just the most amusing thing ever! He’s got the whole war so definitely sized up that you don’t feel any surprise at anything that happened. You feel that the war was just as natural as taking your coffee into the drawing room after dinner. You feel that the strategic movements in the battles cost nobody a moment’s thought. The soldiers just emerge from the west salient and the east flank like so many automatic chess-pieces headed for their preordained positions. There’s no smoke or explosions or blood in his battles at all. Just 3,000 casualties, 500 prisoners, and a dent in the Allied line or the German line. He’s done it so hardheadedly that I’ve nicknamed him Napoleon.”
“But isn’t he a pretty good friend of yours, Miss MacDowell?”
“Oh, wonderfully good,” she smiled sarcastically. “He thrives on destructive criticism, and he really receives nothing else from me. The more I criticize him the more he thinks of me. I’ve never given him a single word of encouragement, never, and yet he keeps right on my trail. There used to be a saying that the best man is the one that’s hardest for a woman to get. Hennigar can’t qualify—he’s the hardest to get rid of.”
“Funny,” said Mauney. “I half knew that was the case.”
“Well, I must go and dress,” she said, rising. “He’s taking me to a dance to-night and I don’t want to keep him waiting over an hour. His car has been at the door for twenty minutes already. By the way, I wish you would put your manuscript in on my desk. I’ll be home some time to-night and would like to look over it.”
At breakfast next morning he asked her what she thought of his writings.
“My judgment isn’t worth a Chinese nickel,” she replied. “But I read it all and I think it’s a whizz and when I enjoy anything like that it must be unusual anyhow. I think it’s just like you, and I thought of a dandy scheme just before I lopped off to sleep. Would you like to know what it is?”
“You bet,” said Mauney eagerly.
“Well I’ll tell you. I think you ought to whip it into shape, call it ‘The Teaching of History’ or some such title, and have it published. It’s a direct slam on the conventional methods of teaching history. It would start a mild sensation and sell like life-preservers at a shipwreck.”