"That is not enough," replied Archie, gravely. "What he needs is something—some one—to stir his blood, to awaken his fancy. I told you in the first place that you ought to make him fall in love with you—for literary reasons. He must feel a sensation stronger than mere friendship for a woman before he can write such a story as will bring him fame."
Miss Millicent did not grow more comfortable under this suggestion. She remarked, after a long wait, that she did not see how the end sought was to be accomplished. Love, she said, was not a mere expression, it was a deep, actual entity. Two people, playing at love with each other, might afterwards find [that] they were experimenting with fire.
"I have heard," she continued, her fair cheeks growing crimson, "that there are women—"
Then she paused and could go no further. But he understood.
"There are women—thousands of them," he admitted, "who would willingly do what I ask. If it is necessary, he must go to them."
She wanted to say that she hoped it would not come to that—she wanted to convey to her companion the horror she felt for what she supposed his words implied—but she could not. It was so much easier to write of things than to talk of them to a man like him.
"Do you call it quite fair," he asked, "to claim all and give nothing? He does not require much. Could you not let him take your hand, and—"
"And—"
"Possibly, touch your lips with his?"
Miss Fern rose to her feet with a fierce gesture.