When she stood over against him, Joseph Leveridge rose and removed his hat. "An early promenade, Miss Vincent," he said.
"Oh!" she said, "I am glad to meet you here where we cannot be overheard. I have something about which I must speak to you, to complain of a great injury done to me."
"You do me a high honour," exclaimed Joseph. "If I can do anything to alleviate your distress and to redress the wrong, command me."
"You can do nothing. It is impossible to undo what has already been done. You put me into your book."
"Miss Vincent," protested Leveridge with vehemence, "if I have, what then? I have not in the least overcharged the colours, by a line caricatured you." It was in vain for him further to pretend not to be the author and to have merely read the book.
"That may be, or it may not. But you have taken strange liberties with me in transferring me to your pages."
"And you really recognised yourself?"
"It is myself, my very self, who is there."
"And yet you are here, before my humble self."
"That is only my outer shell. All my individuality, all that goes to make up the Ego—I myself—has been taken from me and put into your book."