"You mean that you were afraid of me because I am famous?" he asked doubtfully.
"Oh no," she answered, "not because you are famous. I mean--I was not afraid of your fame," she smiled.
"And now," said the novelist decisively, "you must tell me at once--do you read my books?" He waited, as though much depended upon her answer.
The blue eyes were gazing at him with that wide, unafraid look as she answered sadly, "No, sir. I have tried, but I can't. They spoil my music. They hurt me, somehow, all over."
Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled emotions--with pleased delight at her ingenuous frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and humiliation and, at the last, with genuine gladness and relief. "I knew it"--he said triumphantly--"I knew it. It was because of my books that you were so afraid of me?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask to have a deep conviction verified.
"You see," she said,--smiling at the manner of his words,--"I did not know that an author could be so different from the things he writes about." Then, with a puzzled air--"But why do you write the horrid things that spoil my music and make me afraid? Why don't you write as you talk--about--about the mountains? Why don't you make books like--like"--she seemed to be searching for a word, and smiled with pleasure when she found it--"like yourself?"
"Listen"--said the novelist impressively, taking refuge in his fanciful humor--"listen--I'll tell you a secret that must always be for just you and me--you like secrets don't you?"--anxiously.
She laughed with pleasure--responding instantly to his mood. "Of course I like secrets."
He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now listen--I am not really Conrad Lagrange, the man who wrote those books that hurt you so--not when I am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening to your music, or when I am away up there in your mountains, you know. It is only when I am in the unclean world that reads and likes my books that I am the man who wrote them."
Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of course," she agreed, "you couldn't be that kind of a man, and love the music, and like to be here among the roses or up in the mountains, could you?"