"But the men in the story," she was saying—rather mechanically, he thought—"I conclude there must be some, even though you don't mention them. What type do you make your hero?"
"Oh!—hero! There isn't any. The hero's the reader."
"The reader!—I fear that's too technical for me."
He explained: "My—my study develops by the method of 'progressive revelation,' so-called—the principal characters being first set out, of course, with the wrong labels carefully pinned on them. Well, the hero's just the commentator on this development as it takes place, thinking it out to save the reader the trouble."
"But—isn't it the theory nowadays that there shouldn't be any commentator?"
"Oh, there may be a theory!" he retorted, the artist briefly flashing in the man. "However, I comment."
They went up the Wings' three steps, and Mary put her key into the lock.
"But your hero can't be altogether an abstraction," she insisted, thus engaged—"else how can there be any old-fashioned romance?"
The young man's laugh covered an interest in the conversation intense to the point of physical pain.
"Really, this won't do. We get it more and more backwards. I haven't even described the story to you right. It's not an old-fashioned anything—primarily—it's not a study of types. No, it's—it's an intellectual autobiography. Do you work on Sundays?"