But the instinct of authorship now shielded Ronnie.
"I never talk of my books, excepting to Helen, until they are finished," he said.
"Quite right," agreed Aubrey, cordially. "But you might tell me why this one took you to Central Africa. Is it a book of travels?"
"No; it is a love-story. But the scene is laid in wild places—ah, such places! One cannot possibly understand, until one gets there and does it, what it is like to leave civilisation behind, and crawl into long grass thirteen feet high!"
"It sounds weirdly fascinating," remarked Aubrey. "So unusual a setting, must mean a remarkable plot."
"It is the strongest thing I have done yet," said Ronnie, with enthusiasm.
Aubrey smiled, surveying Ronnie's eager face with slow enjoyment. He was mentally recalling phrases from reviews he had written for various literary columns, on Ronnie's work. Already he began wording the terse sentences in which he would point out the feebleness and lack of literary merit, in "the strongest thing" Ronnie had done yet. It might be well to know something more about it.
"It will be very unlike your other books," he suggested.
"Yes," explained Ronnie, expanding. "You see they were all absolutely English; just of our own set, and our own surroundings. I wanted something new. I couldn't go on letting my hero make love in an English garden."
"If you wanted a variety," suggested Aubrey Treherne, "you might have let him make love in another man's garden. Stolen fruits are sweet! There is always a fascination about trespassing."