“I think—” I said, “I don’t think she understands. She asked me—she forgets I’m a stranger. She asked me——” I broke off. I couldn’t say to him—‘She asked me about Miss Grey and she doesn’t realize that she’s dead.’ One’s afraid of the brutality of words. But he understood. There was a simplicity about him that re-assured one. And he never said—‘It’s Anita’s business. It’s not your business,’ as anyone else might have done. He just said, once again— “Poor old lady!” and hesitated a minute. Then he got up and went across to her and picked up her wools. I don’t think the others noticed him go. Anita didn’t. She was talking too fast. “—left a trunk-full of papers and so on. I’d often stored boxes for her. Somehow it never got sent down. I came across it only yesterday. I thought to myself that there was no harm in putting things straight. You know I’m literary executor? Oh yes. She said to me soon after her marriage, half in joke, that she supposed she had got to make a will—and what about her MSS.? ‘I can’t have _him_ worried.’ I offered at once. You see I know so exactly her attitude in literature. There’s a good deal of unpublished stuff—early stuff. But all in hopeless confusion. Tumbled up with bills and programmes and one or two drafts of letters—or so I imagine. She had that annoying habit—that ugly modern habit—of beginning without any invocation, and never a date. But there’s one letter—there’s the draft of a letter that’s important from my point of view.” She broke off with a half laugh. “It sounds a ridiculous statement to make about Madala Grey of all people, but do you know that she couldn’t express herself at all easily on paper?” Miss Howe nodded. “Do I know? I’ve known her re-write a letter half a dozen times before she got it to her liking—no, not business letters, letters to her intimates. A most comical trick. Scribble, scribble, scribble—slash! and then crunch goes the sheet into a ball, into the grate, or near it, till it looked as if she were playing snow-balls, and then Madala begins again—and again—and again. Yet she talked well. She talked easily.” “Isn’t that in keeping?” Mr. Flood struck in. “She didn’t express so much herself in her speech as the mood of the moment.” “As the mood of the companion of the moment more likely,” the blonde lady corrected. He nodded agreement. “But for herself—go to her books.” “Or her letters—her careful, conscientious letters. But she was careless about her drafts,” said Anita significantly. Mr. Flood looked at her curiously. “What’s up that sleeve of yours, Anita?” She was quick. “You shall read it, in its place. But the trouble is——” She hesitated. She gave the little nervous cough that always ushered in her public lectures. “We’ve all written books,” she said, “all except you, Blanche——” The blonde lady blinked her sleepy eyes. “You’re all so strenuous,” she purred. “I love to watch you being strenuous. So soothing.”