“Perhaps,” he remarked boldly, “the fact that I never saw you until today will explain my failures!”
“A little obvious!” she commented serenely. “But we’ll overlook it this time. You may smoke if you like.”
She lighted a match for him and held it to the tip of his cigarette. This brought him closer to the brown eyes for an intoxicating instant. Brief as that moment was, he had detected on each side of her nose little patches of freckles that were wholly invisible across the table. He was ashamed to have seen them, but the knowledge of their presence made his heart go pitapat. His heart had always performed its physical functions with the utmost regularity, but as a center of emotions he did not know it at all. He must have a care. Arabella folded her hands on the edge of the table.
“The question before us now is whether you wish to advise with me as to plots. Before you answer you will have to determine whether you can trust me. It would be foolish for us to proceed if you don’t think I can help you. On the other hand, I can’t undertake a commission unless you intrust your case to me fully. And it wouldn’t be fair for you to allow me to proceed unless you mean to go through to the end. My system is my own; I can’t afford to divulge it unless you’re willing to confide in me.”
She turned her gaze upon the gold and scarlet foliage of the slope below, to leave him free to consider. He was surprised that he hesitated. As an excuse for tea-table frivolity this meeting was well enough; as a business proposition it was ridiculous. But this unaccountable Arabella appealed strongly to his imagination. If he allowed her to escape, if he told her he had answered the advertisement of X Y Z merely in jest, she was quite capable of telling him good-by and slipping away into the nowhere out of which she had come. No—he would not risk losing her; he would multiply opportunities for conferences that he might prolong the delight of seeing her.
“I have every confidence,” he said in a moment, “that you can help me. I can tell you in a word the whole of my trouble.”
“Very well, if you are quite sure of it,” she replied.
“The plain truth about me is,” he said earnestly—and the fear he had known for days showed now in his eyes——“the fact about me is that I’m a dead one! I’ve lost my stroke. To be concrete, I’ve broken down in the third chapter of a book I promised to deliver in January, and I can’t drag it a line further!”
“It’s as clear as daylight that you’re in a blue funk,” she remarked. “You’re scared to death. And that will never do! You’ve got to brace up and cheer up! And the first thing I would suggest is——”
“Yes, yes!” he whispered eagerly.