Alicia has chanced to see it and she fell upon it with a strange—to me inexplicable—delight. She desires me to "round it off", as she puts it, to disguise it a trifle here and there as to names and places, and to publish it for the edification of mankind! If only we could appear to the world in the stature loving eyes see us! But laugh as I will at Alicia, she persists obstinately in her wish. "But it was only meant as a memoir for a friend of mine," I tell her, "who is daily growing nearer to me—to Randolph Byrd, aged seventy." "Oh, no!" cries Alicia, looking with eyes shining with happiness and a face suddenly thrillingly transfigured at the sleeping baby in the hammock. "It is meant for another Randolph—Randolph the Young, over there, the pride and joy of his father—the hope of the world." "It will hardly amuse him," I grunt. "It will—won’t it, Griselda?" says Alicia to our aged friend who at this moment emerges from the kitchen to consult with her mistress. Griselda looks mystified. "Say, yes—it’s for Baby," urges Alicia cunningly. "Oh, ay—if it’s good for the bairn, I’ll say it!" Griselda, still vigorous, goes her way. "One would think," I scoff, "you had found in the manuscript all the jests of Sancho Panza, falling like drops of rain." "Jests!" mocks Alicia. "Who cares about jests, but the mysterious readers of comic supplements? I find in it the record of a beautiful love." "But even love birds," I tease, "are only a species of parrot—though many think they’re birds of paradise. Besides," I urge, "I should have to call the thing a novel—and this is only a fragment of life seen through two particular eyes and a very peculiar temperament. There is no contour to it, any more than there is to life itself. Were I a novelist, my dearest, I should not improbably make two or three novels of the stuff. I should at least assume the jolly privilege of playing destiny to all those people. All things and all persons should be rhythmically accounted for." "Fudge!" says Alicia. "Don’t be so cubist!" I ignore her modernism. "Pendleton would not be left roaming about the world with endless possibility of still blackmailing me and his children. Should he not have ended his existence on the third rail as he ran, the night of his last appearance? And his son, Randolph—would he not have met with a heroic and glorious end in France or at sea, instead of living a highly contented and commonplace life with the pretty Irish peasant girl he has brought from Queenstown—a mere ordinary decent automobile salesman? Would those people go on living in the unremarkable flowing manner of life? No, my heart," I continue soberly, "a story must be tricked and padded with tracery and decoration. And where is the bevy of young adventuresses at play—without which no novel is worthy of the name?"