Radwalader appeared to reflect.
"No," he said presently. "I think I mean that he's going to be a novelist. I stand open to correction," he added, with an affected air of humility.
"By no means," answered Mrs. Carnby. "Probably I don't understand. It sounds to me a good deal like saying he's going to be a German Emperor or a Pope—that's all."
"Nevertheless, I'm quite sure that's what I mean. He has read me several chapters of a novel upon which he's at work, and I must say that they display a knowledge of women which, in a man of his years, is nothing less than remarkable."
"That's not impossible," put in Mrs. Carnby. "I had a letter, only yesterday, from a woman who knows him, and it appears that he's as good as engaged to a very charming young American."
"However," said Radwalader mildly, "I think the knowledge of women displayed by Vane in the chapters he was so good as to read to me is hardly such as one would expect to deduce from the fact that he is as good as engaged to a very charming young American."
"His choice of a profession must be a very recent resolution," said Mrs. Carnby. "To be sure, until to-day, I haven't seen him in a week."
"An eternity in Paris," said Kennedy. "Extra-ordinary people, the Americans! Not content with securing monopolies of tramways and industrial trusts over here, they appear to control a monopoly of feminine consideration as well. I confess—though only to the acacias—that I'm in the least degree weary of the subject of Mr. Andrew Vane. Radwalader, I'll give you twenty at cannons."
"Done!" said Radwalader, rising.
"The cigars are on the corner-table in the billiard-room," observed Mrs. Carnby, "and the Scotch is on the dining-room buffet, with ice and soda. Don't call the servants for a half-hour, at least: it irritates them immeasurably to have their eating confused with other people's drinking."