“Well,” Tom said gravely, “Felix has a chapter in his novel here—I found the manuscript in my desk and was just reading it again the other day—that I think goes a little beyond anything I have ever seen in any French novel.”
Gloria turned to Felix and stared. “Well!” she cried. “America is saved! Will you read it to us, Mr. Fay?”
“No,” he said.
“Oh, why not!”
“Don’t want to.”
“I think you show a lack of confidence in us, Mr. Fay. Here we put ourselves in your hand. We open our hearts to you. We conceal nothing. And you sit there with a masterpiece of literary frankness up your sleeve, and refuse to read it. I don’t think it’s fair.”
Felix was silent. He really wanted to read that chapter. He was proud of it. But he must not become interested in novel-writing again. It would distract his mind too much from the Chicago adventure. That unfinished novel ought to remain in that drawer in Tom’s desk until he had made good in Chicago.
“I don’t believe it’s so frank, after all,” said Gloria, returning to the attack. “That’s why you’re afraid to read it. You’re afraid of disappointing our expectations.”
Felix looked at her defiantly.
“All right, I will,” he said.