"She ain't bad," answered the fictitious character; "she is very pretty certainly, but inanimate."
"You will change all that."
"I'll try—you bet."
Asphodel came up. She bowed, but did not extend her hand.
"Miss Vincent," said Joseph. "How good of you to come."
"Not at all. I could not help. I have no free-will left. When you wrote Come—I came, I could do no other. I have no initiative, no power of resistance."
"I do hope, Miss Vincent, that the thing you so feared has not happened."
"What thing?"
"You have not been snapped up by a fortune-hunter?"
"No. People have not as yet found out that I have lost my individuality. I have kept very much to myself—that is to say, not to myself, as I have no proper myself left—I mean to the semblance of myself. People have thought I was anæmic."