He was not wrong; for the story was fresh and new, in spite of its simple-hearted, unconscious imitations of the style and plot of other stories, because it was the soul if not the body of his first love. He thought that he had wrapped this fact impenetrably up in so many travesties and disguises that the girl herself would not have known it if she had read it; but very probably she would have known it. Any one who could read between the lines could penetrate through the innocent psychical posing and literary affectation to the truth of conditions strictly and peculiarly American, and it was this which Ray had tried to conceal with all sorts of alien splendors of make and manner. It seemed to him now, at the last moment, that if he could only uproot what was native and indigenous in it, he should make it a strong and perfect thing. He thought of writing it over again, and recoloring the heroine’s hair and the hero’s character, and putting the scene in a new place; but he had already rewritten it so many times that he was sick of it; and with all his changing he had not been able to change it much. He decided to write a New York novel, and derive the hero from Midland, as soon as he could collect the material; the notion for it had already occurred to him; the hero should come on with a play; but first of all it would be necessary for Ray to get this old novel behind him, and the only way to do that was to get it before the public. VI. Ray put his manuscript back into its covering, and took it under his arm. He meant to make a thorough trial of the publishers, and not to be discouraged by his failures as long as a publisher was left untried. He knew from his experience with the magazine editors that it would be a slow affair, and he must have patience. Some of the publishers, even if they did not look at his story, would keep it for days or weeks with the intention or the appearance of reading it, and if they did read it they would of course want time for it. He expected this, and he calculated that it might very well take his manuscript six months to go the rounds of all the houses in New York. Yet he meant, if he could, to get it through sooner, and he was going to use his journalistic connection to make interest for it. He would have given everything but honor to have it known that he had written some things for _Harper’s_ and the _Century_; he did not wish, or he said to himself and stood to it that he did not wish, any favor shown his novel because he had written those things. At the same time he was willing the fact that he was the correspondent of the Midland _Echo_ should help him to a prompt examination of his manuscript if it could; and he meant to let it be known that he was a journalist before he let it be known that he was an author.