But the invitation brought only a mutter from Miss McGee, and the door of the Second Hall Back banged shut behind her.
"Help! help!" mused Charles, and straightway was struck with an interesting thought: How about taking over Two-Book McGee as a minor character in the new novel?
He considered the idea, mounting to his Studio. The lodger was known as a self-supporting female, allied with a tintype and "art photography" establishment. Certainly she seemed an odd sort of person to say "Look pleasant" to anybody. Friends, engagements, pleasures, she had none, on the word of Mrs. Herman. All day she helped to photograph the General Public; all night, till sleep overcame her, she sat alone in her very small room, reading novel after novel which she did not like. A dull life, it might have seemed; but then, you see, she had, to bless her, the priceless knowledge that she was a self-respecting and independent being, a person and not a parasite. The authorities could not doubt that Two-Book McGee was happy in her way.
Charles, however, seemed to be doing just that, at the moment. He conceived Miss McGee as one not joyful in her economic freedom; hence as an "illustrative character" for conservatism, sowing doubts in the minds of readers as to whether Leading My Own Life was, in fact, necessarily the other name for happiness. Climbing the stairs now, he invented words for Two-Book's mouth: imagining her as saying, "Oh, I'd marry anybody to get out of this!"—and again, with sobs, crying out to some modern arguer, "Oh, just to be a parasite again!—just to be a snug, comfortable little parasite!..."
So making fiction, Charles Garrott opened the door of his Studio. And full upon the threshold, he encountered the great surprise of his life.
The large room looked familiar and inviting. The lamp burned on the writing-table; the drop-light shone over the Judge's typewriter; the author's office-coat hung on his chair-back. By the typewriter stood the Judge, pink and shining from his evening bath. Wrapped in a beautiful lavender robe, he turned, smiling.
But on the writing-table, beyond the lamp, there lay a strange package. The author's eye had fallen on it even as he opened the door. Some instinct in him seemed to divine the incredible truth instantly, but something else within spoke loud and sharp:—
"What's that?"
Judge Blenso laughed agreeably, and lowered the bath-towel with which he was rubbing his fine white head. To the secretary, the literary business was still a sealed book indeed; so far as he was advised, a package of manuscript back by express was doubtless a very pleasant little occurrence.
"Why, it's Entry 2, Charles!" he chuckled. "Your novel—just come in! Must be! And gad, my dear fellow! Willcox wrote you a letter, too!"