“Just so. One told her things. And she had brought me a mass of material—some charming American verse (you remember? in the last section but one) that I had never come across. She had been reading for me at the British Museum in her spare time. I confess I was touched. We talked, I remember——” She sighed reminiscently. “It was not until she made a move to go that I recollected myself. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘and how about _Eden Walls_?’ She fidgeted. She looked thoroughly guilty. At last it came out. She hadn’t altered a line. She had tried her utmost. She had drafted and re-drafted. She had finally given it up in despair and just got work in some obscure newspaper office—‘a most absorbing office!’ But there—you know Madala when she’s interested—was interested——” “Don’t,” said Miss Howe softly. But Anita went on— “‘Well but—’ I said to her—‘that’s all very well. But you’re not going to abandon _Eden Walls_, are you?’ Then it all came out. Yes, she was. She knew I was right. She wasn’t conceited. She quite saw that the book was useless. It just meant that she couldn’t write novels and that she mustn’t waste any more time. ‘But, my dear Miss Grey,’ I said, ‘you mean to say that you’d rather leave the book unpublished than alter a couple of chapters, remodel a couple of characters?’ ‘But I can’t,’ she said, ‘I can’t. They happened that way.’ ‘Then make them happen differently,’ I said. But no, she couldn’t. ‘Oh well,’ I said at last—‘if you’re so absolutely sure of yourself, if you’re prepared to set up your judgment——’ That distressed her. I can hear her now. ‘But I don’t set up my judgment. I’ll burn the wretched stuff tomorrow if you say it’s trash. I knew it would be, in my heart. But—I can’t alter it, because—because it happened that way.’ Then I had an idea. ‘To you?’ I said. She looked at me. She laughed. She said—‘Miss Serle, you’ve written ten books to my one. Don’t pretend you don’t know how a story happens.’” Anita nodded at us. “You see? Evasive. I think it was from that moment that I began to have my theory of her.” “Well—and what next?” demanded Miss Howe. “She would have said good-bye if I had let her. I stopped her. ‘Reconsider it,’ I said. She beamed at me, chastened but quite cheerful. ‘Oh, I’ll try another some day,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’m not old enough. I was a fool to think I could.’ At that, of course, I gave in. I wasn’t going to lose sight of _Eden Walls_. I told her to bring it as it was and I’d see what I could do. As you know, Mitchell and Bent jumped at it.” “But it was banned,” said the Baxter girl. “Yes, but everybody read it. You can get it anywhere now. And I can say now—‘Thank the gods she didn’t touch it.’” “Then she was right?” “Of course she was right. I knew it all the time.” “And she didn’t?” “Of course she didn’t. Mine was critical knowledge. Hers the mere instinct of—whatever you choose to call it. I was afraid of the critics. She didn’t know enough to be afraid.”