The editor cleared his throat with some embarrassment, but before he found the words he wanted, Miss Graham spoke again. "I had not the slightest idea of being sarcastic, for, of course, it goes without saying that your story is better than mine; but since you choose to take it in that way, I am willing to leave the whole matter to Mr. Lane. He is at least the only person who has read both manuscripts." "Really," Mr. Lane said, thus pushed into a corner, "I am extremely sorry to find myself placed in so trying a situation. There are points in which each story excels, and the best result would undoubtedly be attained by welding them together." "If that could be done," said Miss Graham, thoughtfully. "Now, in Mr. Gray's version," he continued, "the heroine is more attractive and real." "That," I interpolated, trying to cover the awkwardness I felt by a jest, "is the first time in all my literary experience that the character I thought best in a story I'd written has seemed so to the editorial mind." The dark eyes of my neighbor gave me a bright, brief glance, but whether of sympathy with my statement or of contempt for the feebleness of my attempts at being jocose, I could not determine. "While Miss Graham," went on the editorial comment, "has decidedly the advantage in her hero." Miss Graham flushed slightly, but offered no remark in reply to this opinion beyond a smile which seemed one of frank pleasure. We sat in silence a moment, a not unnatural hesitancy preventing my making a proposition which had presented itself to my mind. "If it will not seem impertinent to Miss Graham," I ventured at length, "I would propose that we really do try the experiment of collaboration on this story. I have never worked with anybody, but I promise to be tractable; and the thing had so odd a beginning that it is a pity to thwart the evident intention of destiny that we shall both have a hand in it." To this proposition the lady at first returned a decided and even peremptory negative; but my persuasions, seconded by those of Mr. Lane, who was partly curious and partly anxious to escape from the necessity of arbitrating in the matter, in the end induced her to alter her decision. The result of the interview was that when we left the office of the "Dark Red" Miss Graham had my manuscript and I hers, and that an appointment had been made for my calling upon her with a view to an interchange of comments and criticisms. Upon the appointed evening I presented myself at the home of Miss Graham, and almost without the usual conventionalities concerning the weather we proceeded to discuss the stories. We began with great outward suavity and courtesy the exchange of compliments, which were so obviously formal and perfunctory that in a moment more we looked into each other's faces and burst into laughter which if hardly polite was at least genuine.