"Because my publisher insisted on substituting that title for the one I had chosen myself. I'll admit that it doesn't fit the story, my dear Countess, but what is an author to do when his publisher announces that he has a beautiful head of a girl he wants to put on the cover and that the title must fit the cover, so to speak?" "But I don't consider it a beautiful head, Mr. Smart. A very flashy blonde with all the earmarks of having posed in the chorus between the days when she posed for your artist. And your heroine has very dark hair in the book. Why did they make her a blonde on the cover?" "Because they didn't happen to have anything but blonde pictures in stock," said I, cheerfully. "A little thing like that doesn't matter, when it comes to literature, my dear Countess. It isn't the hair that counts. It's the hat." "But I should think it would confuse the reader," she insisted. "The last picture in the book has her with inky black hair, while in all the others she is quite blonde." "A really intelligent reader doesn't have to be told that the artist changed his model before he got to the last picture," said I, and I am quite confident she didn't hear me grate my teeth. "But the critics must have noticed the error and commented upon it." "My dear Countess, the critics never see the last picture in a book. They are much too clever for that." She pondered. "I suppose they must get horribly sick of all the books they have to read." "And they never have a chance to experience the delicious period of convalescence that persons with less chronic afflictions have to look forward to," said I, very gently. "They go from one disease to another, poor chaps." "I once knew an author at Newport who said he hated every critic on earth," she said. "I should think he might," said I, without hesitation. It was not until the next afternoon that she got the full significance of the remark. As I never encourage any one who seeks to discuss my stories with me, being a modest chap with a flaw in my vanity, she abandoned the subject after a few ineffectual attempts to find out how I get my plots, how I write my books, and how I keep from losing my mind. "Would you be entertained by a real mystery?" she asked, leaning toward me with a gleam of excitement in her eyes. Very promptly I said I should be. We were having our coffee. Hawkes and Blatchford had left the room. "Well, tradition says that one of the old barons buried a vast treasure in the cellar of this--" "Stop!" I commanded, shaking my head. "Haven't I just said that I don't want to talk about literature? Buried treasure is the very worst form of literature." "Very well," she said indignantly. "You will be sorry when you hear I've dug it up and made off with it." I pricked up my ears. This made a difference. "Are you going to hunt for it yourself?" "I am," she said resolutely. "In those dark, dank, grewsome cellars?" "Certainly." "Alone?"