"'The Swirl,'" she read. "A trifle reminiscent of Gissing's 'The Whirlpool' but none the worse for that, I daresay. By Margaret Pierce. Yes, I've read it," she said soberly, "read it over and over till my eyes ached, and it seemed like words, words, words. You see this happens to be my book, Rod." "Eh?" he looked blankly at her. "I wrote it," she explained. "Mary--diminutive of Margaret. Pierce--what is the purpose of a thorn? Hence Mary Thorn--Margaret Pierce. I didn't particularly like to camouflage my identity. But I wanted to say a lot of things which coming from Margaret Pierce would be considered on their merits, and which coming from Mrs. Roderick Sylvester Norquay might arouse local misconceptions. I wanted to be unhampered by family considerations. I wanted to express my inner convictions about various aspects of life as it has been unfolding to me for a long time. So I hoisted a _nom de plume_. It would be strange if you didn't find a resemblance to persons and things and people you know. Yet there isn't a photograph there--just traits and habits of thought, inhibitions and passions that are common to humanity in general. I'm not a propagandist. I don't know that this book, or any other books I may write, has a message, unless it is the oblique inference that stupidity and ignorance and intolerance are more fatal than guns. I'm not so much concerned with isms as I am with--well, with what Joseph Conrad meant when he wrote: 'Fashions in monsters do change; but the truth of humanity goes on forever, unchangeable and inexhaustible in the variety of its disclosures.' You really think," she ended a bit hurriedly, "it's good?" "Good?" Rod echoed. He sat down on the arm of her chair. "Of course it's good. Didn't I come lugging it home as a find?" He looked down at the imprint. "New York, eh? Did you have any trouble placing it?" "Well, yes--and no," she said. "One publisher wrote me saying that it was work of a high order but he felt sure the time was scarcely opportune for its publication--unless I cared to modify certain passages which seemed to cast a doubt on the great moral forces underlying the war. That's almost verbatim. Another said that he personally enjoyed reading it very much, but was sure it would fail to get a hearing in view of the present demand for tales completely devoid of war atmosphere. "It is amusing sometimes to try and trace motive and action," Mary smiled. "A publisher wants to publish books that will sell. Nearly every one is affected directly and indirectly by the war. Therefore the publisher concludes people want to ignore the war, or that they will uniformly recoil from a given aspect of the war, even if it is an individual attempt to interpret some obscure phase. War isn't the theme of this book. It's incidental, just as the war is incidental,--one of humanity's growing pains. Anyway, I found a publisher. And it's getting a hearing, he tells me. People _are_ reading it."