"Oh, but yes," he answered. "Give it to me," she said, turning now to melodrama for her catch-phrase. He held the prize by sitting on it. "Listen," he began, as staidly argumentative as though he had been drunk: and then he paused. "If you let me read it," he said presently, "I'll tell you what I think of it and I bet it's original. If you don't let me read it, I shall tell--your husband!" "You wouldn't be such a cad," she answered. She never knew when he was serious, because he often looked most funny then. "I'm not so sure," he said. "Anyhow let me? I'll begin to-night." "You won't do that," she retorted laughingly, "because the first bit's in a volume, locked away upstairs." He whistled. "What! An opus? Tut! Now don't be selfish. When you first wanted to know about Art, I told you all I could, and now you're doing things, I think it's only fair that I should be the first to see." He looked so funny, leaning forward eagerly yet taking care to keep his weight still on the manuscript, that she laughed heartily. He surely wasn't serious now? He looked extremely hurt. "Very well," he said, getting up. "If you think it's so funny, that's all right. I suppose, now, you've done with me: you've got all out of me you needed: so now you don't even tell me that you're trying to create." He got up from the bureau with much dignity and moved towards the door. One sheet of the manuscript stuck to his clothes until he reached the centre-table. She was just wondering what to do about this, when it fluttered downward. That broke her inaction. "Oh, no," she said, "don't be stuffy. I never meant it. I thought you were being ironical about my 'art' and I can't ever see it. Please don't be offended, Ally." In spite of her announced resolve she hardly ever called him that, and now she said it with a slight burr, dwelling on it till the name became a thing of beauty, almost a caress. He wavered at the door; but he was shrewd in business by heredity. "Well, will you let me read it?" he said firmly. "Yes, if you really want to," she replied. "I'll fetch the other half." Secretly she longed for an opinion, and she would never dare to ask for Hubert's. "Promise not to look at this bit," she said, coy as a young singer. "I couldn't bear you to see it till you are right away." He promised and she left him to his thoughts, which were of an expectant nature. She was a girl that he had never really understood (in actual practice he had very small experience of girls), and he knew well enough that first books, even when all fiction, are half true. He was amused inwardly at her simplicity in lending him the manuscript. She came back with something like a baby scrap-book in her hand. "I got bored with writing in this," she said. "It was so uncomfortable, the edges cut my hand." Then, as though half repenting; "You must promise not to look at it till you get home and never to tell Hubert."