"It's extraordinary how real you make your characters when you are such a novice," he said to her.
"I tell you I am a photographer. The musician in my story is Jarvis, with a thin disguise. The old fiddler is my father, and the girl is shamelessly 'me.' "
"Delightfully you," he corrected her. "Has the Professor or your husband read any of your stories?"
"No. They never read magazines. Jarvis saw the announcement of the prize story, and commented on the use of my name, but I threw him off the scent easily."
"I don't see why you don't 'fess' up, now that the thing is an established success."
"No, not yet. It's such a lovely secret. I want to wait for just the moment to spring it on them."
"Couldn't you invite me in when that moment comes?"
"We'll see. I may invite the neighbours in, and crown myself with a laurel wreath."
"I'd rely on your doing it in a novel way."
"The surest way of being considered eccentric is just to be yourself. So few of us have the nerve."