“How do you know the sort I mean?” My interlocutress had blushed and smiled, and in a moment she added: “I don’t believe he gets many like them!”
“I’m sure they’re beautiful, but he burns without reading.” I didn’t add that I had convinced him he ought to.
“Isn’t he then in danger of burning things of importance?”
“He would perhaps be so if distinguished men hadn’t an infallible nose for nonsense.”
She looked at me a moment—her face was sweet and gay. “Do you burn without reading too?”—in answer to which I assured her that if she’d trust me with her repository I’d see that Mr. Paraday should write his name in it.
She considered a little. “That’s very well, but it wouldn’t make me see him.”
“Do you want very much to see him?” It seemed ungracious to catechise so charming a creature, but somehow I had never yet taken my duty to the great author so seriously.
“Enough to have come from America for the purpose.”
I stared. “All alone?”
“I don’t see that that’s exactly your business, but if it will make me more seductive I’ll confess that I’m quite by myself. I had to come alone or not come at all.”