Marley was looking at her in amazement.
“Why, Lavinia, you didn’t show them!”
“You simpleton!” she said, with a smile in her eyes, “of course not; but I have read parts of them to mama and to your mother now and then.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right,” sighed Marley in relief, and then he resumed his defense of Weston and his analysis of himself.
“Of course, I suppose I can write a fairly good newspaper story; at least they say so at the office.” He indulged a little look of pride, and then he went on: “But that isn’t literature.”
“I don’t see why it isn’t,” she said. “I should think it would be the most natural thing in the world to go from one into the other.”
“Not at all. Literature requires style, personality, distinction, and the artistic temperament.”
“I’d say you were talking now like George Halliday if I didn’t know you were talking like Mr. Weston.”
“I wish you could hear Weston talk about literature,” he said. “He’d convince you.”
“He couldn’t convince me that he can write any better than you can.” Lavinia compressed her lips in a defiant loyalty.