"'I'm sure I don't know,'
Said the great bell of Bow."
"My father always said that there was no time like the present," I replied.
He laughed, but said seriously:
"Nora, if you play with fire, you'll be burned. Burns leave scars. Scars are ugly things, and I love only pretty things, like my precious little girl."
"Aha!" I said triumphantly, "then you admit it at last."
He burst out laughing and said:
"Trapped! Help!"
After a while he wanted to hear my novel. So then I read it to him, my beautiful story.
I read it well, as only an author can read his own work—not well in the sense of elocution, but with every important point brought out. It took me two and a half hours to read it, and when I was through, twilight had settled. I had read the last words chiefly by the light of the blazing fire. Roger got up, and walked up and down the room. I watched him from my seat on the stool by the fire. Then he suddenly came back to me, seized my manuscript, and made a motion as if he would consign it to the flames. At that I screamed, like an outraged mother, and caught at it, and he stood towering over me, watching me curiously.