He spoke pleasantly, with his twisted laugh, and when Eve was seated he sat slowly, carefully down again. He was thinking not so much of what he was saying as of his hearer. He saw that Eve was undeniably beautiful--the man saw that. The novelist saw that she was probably interesting. As he had just stated, great women had sat in the same chair, and it was John Craik's impulse to save Eve from that same greatness. He had, since a brilliant youth at Oxford, been steeped, as it were, in literature. He had known all the great men and women, and he held strong views of his own. These were probably erroneous--many women will think so--but he held to them. They were based on experience, which is not always the case with views expressed in print and elsewhere. John Craik held that greatness is not good for women. That it is not for their own happiness, he knew. That it is not for the happiness of those around them, he keenly suspected. Some of Eve's celebrated predecessors in that chair had not quite understood John Craik. All thought that he was not sufficiently impressed--not, that is, so impressed by them as they were themselves when they reflected upon their own renown. He looked at Eve quickly, rubbing his hands together. "May I, as an old man, ask some impertinent questions?" he inquired, with a cheerfulness which sat strangely on the wan face. "Yes." "Why do you write?" he said. "Take time; answer me after reflection." Eve reflected while the great editor stared into the fire. "To make money," she answered at last. He looked up, and saw that she was answering in simple good faith. "That is right." He did not tell her that he was sick and tired of the jargon of art for art's sake, literature for literature's sake. He did not tell that--practical man of the world that he was--he had no faith in literary art; that he believed the power of writing to be a gift and nothing else; that the chief art in literature is that which is unconscious of itself. "Do you feel within yourself the makings of a great author?" Eve laughed, a sudden girlish laugh, which made John Craik reduce his estimate of her age by five years. "No," she answered. He sat up and looked at her with a kind admiration. "You are refreshing," he said, "very, especially to a man who has seen stout and elderly females sit in that same chair and state their conviction that they were destined to be George Eliots or Charlotte Brontes, women who had written one improper or irreligious novel, which had obtained a certain success in the foolish circles." "Do you think I have," asked Eve, "the--the makings of an income?" John Craik reflected. "A small one," he said bluntly. "That is all I want." Craik raised his eyebrows. "And renown," he said, "do you want that?" "Not in the least, except for its intrinsic value." Craik banged his hand down on the arm of his chair and laughed aloud.