“I don’t suppose she talked to you about it, Jasper,” said Miss Howe sharply. “I? I was never of her counsels. But I got my amusement out of the affair. Dear, delightful woman? She behaved like a schoolgirl sent to Coventry. I remember congratulating her on the advertisement, and she would hardly speak to me. But it suited her, the blush.” “_Wasn’t_ it an advertisement!” said the Baxter girl longingly. “If one could have got her to see it,” said Anita. “But no, she insisted on being ashamed of herself. She said to me once that the critics had ‘read in’ things that she had never dreamed of—that it made her doubt her own motives—that she felt dirtied and miserable. And yet she wouldn’t alter one of those scenes. Obstinate! She could be very obstinate.” “Oh, which scenes?” The Baxter girl stuck her elbows on the table and her chin in her fists. Her eyes sparkled. “Oh, then, Miss Serle, did you—? did she come to you in the early days? Did you help her too?” “My daughter—very kind to young people!” It was a mere mutter, but I recognized the swing of the phrase. Anita didn’t. She was busy with the Baxter girl. “I don’t say that there would be no Madala Grey today if I——” “_But_——” said Mr. Flood. “_But_—” said Miss Howe, “she’s Anita’s discovery. We’re never to forget that, are we, darling?” “Oh, I knew that,” said the Baxter girl, trying to be tactful. “But _Eden Walls_ was written before you knew her, wasn’t it? I understood—I didn’t know, I mean,” she explained to them, “that Miss Serle had—blue-pencilled——” “I did and I didn’t.” Anita laughed, as if in spite of herself. “I confess I thought at the time that it needed revision. Mind you, I never questioned the quality, but I knew what the public would stand and what it wouldn’t. Of course, I didn’t want the essentials altered. But there were certain cuts——However, nothing would move her.” “That’s funny. She never gave me the impression that she believed in herself so strongly.” “Oh, her _pose_ was diffidence,” said the blonde lady. “But she didn’t believe in herself. It was obvious. When I went through her MS. and blue-pencilled, she was most grateful. She agreed to everything and took the MS. away to remodel.” “And then?” “I heard nothing more of her—for weeks. Finally I wrote and asked her to come and see me. She came. She was delightful. I had told her, you know, about the _Anthology_ the first time I met her. I remember that I was annoyed with myself afterwards. I’m not often indiscreet. But she had a—a knack—a way with her. I hardly know how to describe it.” “One told her things,” said the Baxter girl.