But on the last night of the reading, after the self-consciousness was passed and all was going well, Pidge, glancing down to Miss Claes’ head under the light, saw gray for the first time, in the depths of her hair. It hadn’t been combed with any purpose of hiding. The outer strands were coal black, the strands beneath had turned. This discovery had the peculiar effect of changing everything around in Pidge’s mind in the moments that followed.
She couldn’t get into the story as before; and in the very last pages of her reading, a face persistently crowded in between her mind’s eye and the rapid flow of the story at its end—a long, humorless complacent face—the high-browed, self-willed and self-thrilled face of her father. It was as if he were reading and not herself; reading with rising expectation, drinking in the silent praise, as if he had done the writing himself and loved it well. So effectually was Pidge mastered by this apparition of her own mind, that the last pages of the manuscript were spoiled entirely. The light had gone out of her and she said hastily, as the final page was turned down:
“I know how kind you are, but please don’t try to tell me anything to-night. Not a word, please!”
There was something in Nagar’s smile as he turned and went out that she knew she would remember again.
“I quite understand,” said Miss Claes, when they were alone. “But say, Pidge, I do want to say this. To-morrow afternoon, Mr. Richard Cobden, an editor of The Public Square, is coming here to see Nagar. He is the one who put through Nagar’s story. We’re to have tea at four. You’ll come down, won’t you?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“It might be arranged for Mr. Cobden to look at your book. Would you like that?”
“Ye-es.”
“Do you mind if I suggest something?”
“Please,” said Pidge.