"On the contrary," said the Critic, "I think we are doing pretty well for a crowd of amateurs."
"You are not an amateur," laughed the Journalist, "and yours was the worst yet."
"I deny it," said the Critic. "Mine had real literary quality, and a very dramatic climax."
"Oh, well, if death is dramatic—perhaps. You are the only one up to date who has killed his heroine."
"No story is finished until the heroine is dead," said the Journalist. "This woman,—I'll bet she had another romance."
"Did she?" asked the Critic of the Divorcée, who was still nervously rolling her manuscript in both hands.
"I don't know. How should I? And if I did I shouldn't tell you. It isn't a true story, of course." And she rose from her chair and walked away into the moonlight.
"Do you mean to say," ejaculated the Violinist, who admired her tremendously, "that she made that up in the imagination she carries around under that pretty fluffy hair? I'd rather that it were true—that she had picked it up somewhere."
As we began to prepare to go in, the Doctor looked down the path to where the Divorcée was still standing. After a moment's hesitation he took her lace scarf from the back of her chair, and strolled after her. The Sculptor shrugged his shoulders with such a droll expression that we all had to smile. Then we went indoors.
"Well," said the Doctor, as he joined her—she told me about it afterwards—"was that the way it happened?"