do this for me. Besides, one might get all the main things
correct, yet make a slip in some little unimportant detail. Then,
by-and-by, some Johnny would come along, who could no more have written
a page of your book than he could fly, but who happens to be intimately
acquainted with the locality. He ignores the plot, the character-study,
all the careful work on the essentials; but he spots your trivial error
concerning some completely unimportant detail. So off he writes to the
papers, triumphantly airing his little tit-bit of superior information;
other mediocre people take it up--and you never hear the end of it."

Helen laughed, tender amusement in her eyes.

"Ronnie dear, I admit that not many Johnnies could write your books.
But most Johnnies can fly, now-a-days! You must be more up-to-date in
your similes, old boy; or you will have your wife writing to the papers,
remarking that you are behind the times! But, seriously, Ronnie, you
should be grateful to anybody who takes the trouble to point out an
error, however small, in one of your books. You are keen that your work
should be perfect; and if a mistake is mentioned, it can be set right.
Why, surely you remember, when you read me the scene in the manuscript
you wrote just after our marriage, in which a good lady could not sit
down upon a small chair, owing to her _toupet_, I--your admiring and
awestruck wife--ventured to point out that a _toupet_ was not a
crinoline; and you were quite grateful, Ronnie. You did not consider me
an unappreciative Johnny, nor even a mediocre person! Who has, unknown
to me, been trampling on your susceptibilities?"

"Nobody, thank goodness! I have never written a scene yet, of which I
had not carefully verified every detail of the setting. But it has
happened lots of times to people I know. Unimportant slips never seem to
me to matter in another fellow's work, but they would matter
desperately, horribly, appallingly in one's own. Therefore, nothing will
ever induce me to place the plot of a novel of mine, in surroundings
with which I am not completely familiar. Helen--I must go to Central
Africa."

CHAPTER II

THE SOB OF THE WOMAN

Helen took off her riding-hat, and passed her fingers through the
abundant waves of her hair.

"How long would it take you, Ronnie?" "Well--including the journey out,
and the journey back, I ought to have a clear seven months. If we could
get off in a fortnight, we might be back early in N