Presently Allen bowed and went away, and the next moment David opened the door for Helen. He was grateful to the dusk for muffling his agitation; and doubly grateful to it when she said, after giving him a firm pressure from her hand:
"I've been trying to arrange with a friend—Mr. Allen—to have a talk with you some day. I hope you may soon meet."
"Thank you," said David.
She suggested that they walk, and a few minutes later, David reciting the outline of his story, they entered Second Avenue, the East Side's boulevard, always thronged with business folk, shoppers, promenaders, students. They forgot the crowds through which they wove their way, forgot even that they walked, and it was a surprise to both when they found themselves, just as David finished, before her home.
She looked at his erect figure, at his glowing, excited face. "I think it's going to be splendid!" she cried.
"I think so myself," he returned, with an exultant little laugh. "So a man always feels at first. But when the cold and clammy days have come, when your fires have all gone out and there's nothing but ashes left in your imagination——"
"Then," she broke in quickly, "you must just keep going.
'——tasks in hours of insight will'd,
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.'
That's worth remembering. But let's walk on for a few minutes. There's something I want to say."
She was silent for the greater part of a block. "One of our friends that we see much of is a publisher. He tells me that, though a novel may not sell enough to pay for the type-writing, it is pretty certain, if it has any merit, to yield several hundred dollars. If it has an active sale it may yield several thousand, and if it gets to the front of the big sellers it may yield a small fortune. I was thinking that if your book should go even moderately well, what a great deal it would help—toward—I mean what a great deal it would help you."