"Why don't you go to the Orient?" Mr. Hayden's eyes, usually faintly humorous, were quite serious. "There's a big field there right now. The undercurrents in Shanghai, Japan's place in the war, the developments in Mesopotamia or Russia. France is done to death already. Every one's writing from there. But the East is still almost untouched. There's a big opportunity there for some one."
"Do you think I could handle it?"
"Of course you could. It's a matter of being on the ground and reporting. All it needs is the ability to see things clearly and tell them graphically. You have that. It would take money, of course. I don't know how you're fixed for that."
She thought quickly, her pulses leaping.
"With these last two checks—and I have a little coming in from deferred land commissions—I'd have not quite a thousand dollars."
"Hm—well, it's not much, of course. It would be something of a gamble. If you want to try it, we'll give you transportation and letters and take a story a month. And I don't think you'd have any difficulty finding other markets in the East."
For a moment she tried to consider the question coolly, while pictures of Chinese pagodas, paper-walled houses of Japan, Siberian prairies, raced dizzily before her eyes. Then, with a shock of self-accusation, she remembered.
"I couldn't go. Other arrangements."
"Don't decide too quickly. Think it over. There's a great opportunity there, and I believe you could handle it. It would make you, as a magazine writer. If you make up your mind to go, let me know right away? There's a boat on the twentieth. If you sailed on that, it would give us time to announce the series for the winter, when our renewals are coming in."
"I'll think about it," she promised. "But I'm quite sure I can't go."