“Oh, but she had.” Anita recovered her place in the talk. “Curious reserves. You know how she came to me over _Eden Walls_ and _Ploughed Fields_. I saw every chapter. But as I was telling you, she wouldn’t hear a criticism of _The Resting-place_. That evening she pounced on me. She was as quick as light. She said—‘You don’t like it! I knew you wouldn’t! Never mind, Anita. Forget it! Put it in the fire! You like me. What do the books matter?’ She’d been watching me all the time.” “She had eyes in the back of her head,” said Miss Howe. “Kind eyes,” said the Baxter girl. “And I assure you she wouldn’t have said another word on the subject if I hadn’t insisted. I told her not to be ridiculous. How could I help being disappointed? How could I separate her from her work? I was disappointed, bitterly. I made it clear. I said to her—‘Well, Madala, all I can say is that if your future output is to be on a level with this—this pot-boiler——’” “It’s not a pot-boiler,” said the Baxter girl loudly and quite rudely. “I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s not a pot-boiler.” Anita stared her down. “‘—pot-boiler,’ I said, ‘then—I wash my hands of you.’ I wanted to rouse her. I couldn’t understand her.” “Well?” said Miss Howe. They all laughed. “Oh, you can guess.” Anita was petulant, but she, too, laughed a little. “You know her way. She just sat smiling and twisting a ring that she wore and looking like a scolded child.” “But what did she say?” said the Baxter girl. “Nothing to the point. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘but, Anita, if I’d never written anything, wouldn’t you be just as fond of me?’ Such a silly thing to say! She was distressing at times. She embarrassed me. Fond of her! She knew my interests were intellectual. Fond of her! For a woman of her brains her standard of values was childish.” “But you were fond of her, you know,” said Miss Howe. “Oh, as for that—there was something about her—she had a certain way——After all, if it gave her pleasure to be demonstrative, it was easier to acquiesce. But she made a fetish of such things. I was only trying to explain to her, as I tell you, that it was quite impossible to separate creator and creatures, and that to me she was _Eden Walls_ and _Ploughed Fields_, and if you believe me, she was upon me like a whirlwind, shaking me by the shoulders, and crying out—‘No, no, stop! You’re to stop! It’s me you like, not the books. I hate them. I hate all that. I shall get away from all that one day.’ And I said—‘I don’t wonder you’re ashamed of _The Resting-place_. I advise you to get to work at once on your new book. You’ll find that if you pull yourself together——’ And all she said was—‘Nita! Nita! _Don’t!_ And she looked at me in such a curious way——” “How?” somebody said. “I don’t know—laughing—despairing. She’d no right to look at me like that. It was I who was in despair.” “I’d like to have seen you two,” said Miss Howe.