"What was your real work, Jane?"
"Writing. I always had a consuming desire to write—to express myself. I've always been rather silent—spoken words are so dangerous—but written words, they're like winged birds that I nurse in my heart. When I free them, they fly so far, so sure."
She stopped suddenly, aware that she had never spoken freely to him. His attention was concentrated on her.
"My mother thought I had a gift when I was a girl; no one else knew of my ambition. But when my father and mother were dead, I came to New York, with almost no money and some funny, childish little stories, to make a great name for myself."
She laughed at that, but it hurt Jerry. He did not smile at all.
"Almost the first editor who saw me told me I had no talent. He said I must take a position that would support me; then I might write until I learned how."
"So you took my job?"
"Yes; it was all I was fitted to do. It didn't matter what I did, anyway. My real life was at night, when I wrote."
"What did you write, Jane?"
"Everything. Stories, essays, poems, tons of things."