Beth bit the end of her pencil and looked at him dispassionately, and it was at this moment that Sir George Galbraith was announced.
Dan received him with effusion as usual; and also, as usual, Sir George responded with all conventional politeness, but the greeting over, he turned his attention to Beth. He had brought her a packet of books.
"This looks like work in earnest," he said, glancing at the table. "I see you have a good deal of something done. Is it nearly finished?"
"All but," Beth rejoined.
"What are you going to do with it?"
Beth looked at him, and then at her manuscript vaguely. "I don't know," she said. "What can I do with it?"
"Publish it, if it is good," he answered.
"But how am I to know?" Beth asked eagerly. "Do you think it possible I could do anything fit to publish?"
Before he could reply, Dan chimed in. "I've just been telling her," he said, "that little heads like hers can't contain books. It's all very well to scribble a little for pastime, and all that, but she mustn't seriously imagine she can do that sort of work. She'll only do herself harm. Literature is men's work."
"Yet how many women have written, and written well, too," Beth observed.