"That is what you want them to do, isn't it?" asked Irene, cheerfully.
"Not the kind of laughter I mean. Oh, Irene, it is miserably bad."
Irene shook her head. "I simply don't believe it. You have been through it so often, you can't judge. Will you let me read it? I will tell you quite honestly how it strikes me."
Audrey coloured, but she looked grateful. "If you would care to, but I am ashamed for anyone to see it. And, oh, I am so disappointed, and, oh," throwing herself wearily on her bed, "oh, so tired of it. The mere sight of it almost makes me ill."
"Poor old girl, you are tired and over-anxious. Is this it?" pointing to a little heap of MS. on Audrey's writing-table in the window.
"Yes."
"May I read the old one, too? The first copy you finished, I mean, before you began to alter it."
Audrey opened her desk and took out another heap of paper, tumbled, scribbled over, and evidently much used.
"Now I am going to shut myself up in my room, and," with a laugh and a nod at the despairing author, "I want no-one to come near me until I show myself again."
"Very well," said Audrey, "but I shall not come near you then. I shall be much too nervous."