I shook my head.
“Nothing could be awkward that lay in your possession.”
“I am to have a gift as well then?” she said.
“If you will honour it with the name.”
She laughed softly.
“You have given me simple trust,” she went on. “I will try to repay it by accepting this, for trust is more to me than admiration, or power, or wealth, or anything beside.” After a pause she continued: “There is one point about which I am curious. Your book—do you still wish that it should succeed?”
“You call it my book, but it is not mine. It belongs entirely to the writer.”
“The writer has given it up.”
“Burnt it?” said I, and I learnt from my own voice that annoyance is not an unknown quantity, even in heaven.
She shook her head and laughed.