How startlingly like her voice was to her sister’s, thought Philip. It awoke a tender memory, not deep enough to be actual pain, but still tender.
“It is rather lonely, though, out here,” went on Philip. “I mean for you. I chose it on account of the solitude. I can work better away from people.”
“You are writing a new book, are you not?” asked Eweretta.
“Yes, I am nearing the end,” he answered. “I have grown so fond of one or two of my puppets that I shall grieve to say good-bye.”
“I suppose the characters in stories do become very real to an author,” she said.
“Very real indeed,” he answered. “More real sometimes than people of flesh and blood.”
“I can understand that,” she rejoined. “They are all your own, and you can sift them at your will.”
Philip was amazed that Aimée Le Breton, whom he had always understood to be uneducated, could talk in this way.
He caught himself staring at her and instantly looked away.
“And this book of yours,” she hazarded. “What is it about? Or perhaps you would rather not talk about it?”