'And now, my dear,' she went on, still talking about him, 'for my little confidences. I have a great scheme in my head. Oh! a very great scheme indeed.' She turned round and sat up, looking Armorel full in the face. Her eyes under her fluffy hair were large and luminous, when she lifted them. Oftener, they were large but sleepy eyes. Now they were quite bright. She was wide awake and she was in earnest. 'I have spoken to no one but you about it as yet. Perhaps you and I can manage it all by ourselves.'
'What is it?'
'You and I, dear, you and I, we two—we can be so associated and bound up in the life of the poet-painter as to be for ever joined with his name. Petrarch and Laura are not more closely connected than we may be with Alec Feilding, if you only join with me.'
'First tell me what it is—this plan of yours.'
'It is nothing less than just to relieve him, once for all, from his business cares.'
'Has he business cares?'
'They take up his precious time. They weigh upon his mind. Why should such a man have any business at all to look after?'
'Well, but,' said Armorel, refusing to rise to this tempting bait, 'why does such a man allow himself to have business cares, if they worry him?'
'It is the conduct of his journal, my dear.'
'But other authors and painters do not conduct journals. Why should he? I believe that successful writers and artists make very large incomes. If he is so successful, why does he trouble about managing a paper? That is certainly work that can be done by a man of inferior brain.'