"My novel? What will my novel be about?" repeated Marion, absently. His mind was full of those red rooms at Rome, with the screens, and the palms, and odious tow-coloured head of Clarence. "Why, my novel will be the story of an old artist, a sculptor—I don't mean a man of the Renaissance, I mean old in years, elderly, going on fifty—who was silly enough to imagine it was all love of art which made him take a great deal of interest in a certain young lady and her paintings——;"
"You said he was a sculptor just now," remarked Lady Tal calmly.
"Of course I meant in her statues—modelling—what d'you call it——;"
"And then?" asked Lady Tal after a pause, looking down into the canal. "What happened?"
"What happened?" repeated Marion, and he heard his own voice with surprise, wondering how it could be his own, or how he could know it for his, so suddenly had it grown quick and husky and unsteady—"What happened? Why—that he made an awful old fool of himself. That's all."
"That's all!" mused Lady Tal. "Doesn't it seem rather lame? You don't seem to have got sufficient dénouement, do you? Why shouldn't we write that novel together? I'm sure I could help you to something more conclusive than that. Let me see. Well, suppose the lady were to answer: 'I am as poor as a rat, and I fear I'm rather expensive. But I can make my dresses myself if only I get one of those wicker dolls, I call them Theresa, you know; and I might learn to do my hair myself; and then I'm going to be a great painter—no, sculptor, I mean—and make pots of money; so suppose we get married.' Don't you think Mr. Marion, that would be more modern than your dénouement? You would have to find out what that painter—no, sculptor, I beg your pardon—would answer. Consider that both he and the lady are rather lonely, bored, and getting into the sere and yellow——; We ought to write that novel together, because I've given you the ending—and also because I really can't manage another all by myself, now that I've got accustomed to having my semicolons put in for me——;"
As Lady Atalanta spoke these words, a sudden downpour of rain drove her and Marion back into the drawing-room.