"Who is this Dewar person, anyhow?" asked Ethridge defensively.
"You mean to say you haven't heard of him? Why, my dear Mr. Ethridge! Dewar is a man of independent means—lives on his estate down in Maryland and writes stories between fox hunts. Enormously gifted."
She failed to add, however, that Dewar had offered to let her keep any money she received for the stories—provided she could get them printed.
Resting her white elbows on Ethridge's desk and eyeing him with calculating coyness, Lucy knew that he had not read the stories. She would make him wonder if she knew he hadn't.
"What do you yourself honestly think of them, Mr. Ethridge? Candidly, now. You're always so delightfully frank with me, Mr. Ethridge. That's why it's such a pleasure to deal with you. How did they strike you?"
"Really, Miss Leech, I don't see how in our magazine we could possibly—"
"Now, Mr. Ethridge!" She held up a reproving finger, laughing roguishly. "But what's the use of our trying to discuss imaginative literature here in your busy office with the telephone ringing every moment—or threatening to ring—and your discouragingly pretty blonde secretary—the minx!—popping in continually to see if we're behaving!"
Ethridge smiled complacently. Why be an ogre?
"I tell you what. Let's have supper at my studio this evening," continued Lucy. "It'll be so much more satisfactory to discuss things sensibly, without interruption."