"I _do_ feel that it's good! I'd swear it--before a publishers' convention. But--it doesn't happen to be the story I want to write any more. I'm not interested in it." There was another pause. "It doesn't represent you now, I suppose? And the one you do want to write?--you're writing it, aren't you? Judge Blenso says you work till all hours of the night--and this is going to be your masterpiece." "I shall have to caution the Judge about this, I see. We won't have a friend left, between us." "But I'm interested, very much so. I've wondered ... Do you remember your speech at the Redmantle Club last winter--on work for women? Do you think you'd make the same speech to-day?" "Oh," he said, lightly, "I don't know quite so much as I did last winter, you see. I'm not in the class with the lady in Sweden any more.... Why do you suspect my--loyalty?" "Suspect?--no. I was only deducing from what you just said. I know something about the point of view you took in 'Bondwomen'--you told me once--and now if you're so dissatisfied with it that--" "No!--no! It isn't that! My point of view hasn't changed at all. It's only--" He glanced down at her, and away, suddenly struck with hidden significances, abruptly recalling that this woman beside him had played hardly less part in the making of "Bondwomen" than in "Bondwomen's" final consignment to the Morgue.... "I--I want to approach the whole question differently--lay a different emphasis--that's all.... But if I believed in the value of work last year, as--as a liberal education in responsibility--I believe in it ten times as much now. Don't you know that?" "I'm glad you feel so. And that's what you're going to say in this book?" "Hardly anything else." They walked on a little way in silence. The afternoon was fine; the last flickers of a vernal sun danced along the sidewalks. Many people moved on the promenade. The passing moderns attracted the favorable gaze of not a few acquaintances. In appearance, Mary was judged one of the variable women. She, the worker, with her habitually colorless face and faintly fragile look, responded remarkably to dress, as Charles had once before had occasion to note. And to-day, she was dressed as for a holiday and a fête. However, he hardly looked at her once, throughout the brief walk. "Do you know," she said suddenly, again with some touch of consciousness, he thought,--"every conversation you and I have had for months has been about _me_? That came over me, with a sort of shock--the other day. I feel that there's a great arrears to make up. And I doubt if you know how much I've wanted to hear about this book--since you told me you had your 'line' straight at last. See how I remember.... Don't you mean to give me any idea what the story's to be about?" The young man's heart seemed to move a little within him. "Can you imagine a writer's turning away from an opening like that?" "Well--but when will you?"