“What is it?”
“Will you write a story in which every detail, every person, shall be purely a product of your imagination—nothing suggested by events within your own experience? That is, of course, directly suggested; you must work upon your knowledge of the world. Write me such a story in about a dozen of these pages—will you? Perhaps you have one already written?”
Ada reflected, and, with an abashed smile, thought not.
“Well, let me have all the others, and set to work upon the new one. Mind, I don’t regard this impulse of yours at all in a trivial light. I say get to work; and I mean it. Write with as determined endeavour as if your bread and cheese depended upon it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.”
“Unfortunately?”
“Well, let that pass. I have no right to speak in that way of the priceless blessing of independence—the gift of Heaven——”
“If it be the gift of Heaven,” remarked Ada, with meaning.
“Oh, it always is; though not always used to celestial ends.”
“You meant, though, that you doubted my power of perseverance, when there was temptation to idleness.”
“Something of that, perhaps. But it’s clear you haven’t been idle of late. Did you write any of those stories at Knightswell?”