There was no reason for him to reproach himself or feel guilty about it. If for a moment he'd abandoned all restraint, carried her to the bed, and seared her lips with kisses which she had welcomed, demanded, insisted upon--had not the tightening of her arms, the almost convulsive straining of her body against him proved that she had been equally aroused?--if for a moment he'd become almost savagely primitive in his love-making, was that something which called for sackcloth and ashes and the covering of his head, as if he were a grieving widow instead of the completely normal, robustly endowed man he knew himself to be? Hardly. Since she had been so completely eager and willing the cynical and unjust could brand his restraint as amusing if they wished and regard him as something of a fool. But he had his own standards and preferred to maintain them. An old maxim came almost unbidden into his mind. "They say what they say--let them say." For a moment the exaltation he'd felt on reading the letter had been scattered to the winds, like dust particles in a rising gale or dust in a city apartment blown in all directions by a draft from an open window, or swept under the bed by an untidy housekeeper. And it had been the most precious kind of dust--a fine sprinkling of gold, each particle brightly shining. There was no one with a broom who could sweep it into view again, but it was coming back now by itself, creeping slowly back, and he could feel the splendor of it beginning to suffuse him. In a moment, if he just remained quietly seated on the edge of the bed, he could gather up all of the shining particles, and go out and put through a phone call from the drugstore on the corner. She'd suggested he phone her as soon as he received the letter. Returning a manuscript for minor revisions when it was practically bought and paid for was unusual. But he had a feeling that he had sent the story to a very unusual editor. A woman who did things in her own, independent way, ignoring what was customary and established and rule-of-thumb, but with no sacrifice of efficiency. Most editors would have kept the manuscript in the office, written him a letter of acceptance, and asked him to call and discuss the changes which would have to be made in it. But she'd sent it right back, assuming, no doubt, that the acceptance would so gratify and stimulate him that he'd sit down immediately and make the most important change while he was keyed up and at his best creatively. It had probably seemed to her a gamble worth taking. All it had cost the firm was a dollar in postage and there could be no substitute for that kind of emotional stimulation, especially when there were a few pages that the author had perhaps grown cold on, or lost interest in.