.
"Isn't she your sister's heroine, too?"

"No. My sister doesn't see her as a heroine for a novel. And that's why
I say the book we started out to write won't materialize. No author can
write a story he or she doesn't take a strong interest in."

"That's where my writing is easier," I said. "I just put down all the
things exactly as they happen, and as I see and think about them. So
there's no heroine--and no hero--and no story."

"Yes, that is simpler," he agreed. "That's the way the Great Author
writes His book. Only all His characters are heroes and heroines in the
stories of their own lives."

As we talked, the moon went down in the west. The sky was a pale lilac,
like a great concave mirror reflecting the heather. Then it darkened to
a deeper purple, and made my thoughts feel like pansies, as they
blossomed in my mind. We fell into silence. But Mrs. James said
afterward that was because we were hungry and didn't realize what was
the matter with us. Perhaps she was right, but it didn't seem so prosaic
at the time.

As the car brought us near the town of Ayr (which, with its lights
coming out, reddened the purple mirror) it was too dark to see details
clearly. But, driving slowly, we were aware of a thing that loomed out
of the quiet landscape and seemed strangely foreign to it, as if we were
motoring in Greece or Italy, not Scotland. It was a great classic
temple, rising on the banks of a stream that laughed and called to us
through the twilight.

"Can it be somebody's tomb?" I asked. But there was no cemetery, only a
garden, and close by a camel-backed bridge that crossed the surging
river.

"It must be the Burns monument," said Basil. "I've never been here, but
I've studied up the place and looked at maps till I can see them with my
eyes shut. This is the right place for the monument, with a museum, and
some garden statues of Tam o'Shanter and Souter Johnnie, which we'll
have to visit by daylight to-morrow. I hope you're going to invite me to
sight-see with you?"

"It's not for me to invite any one."

"Look as if you want to, and it's done."

"Oh, I'll do that!" I promised.

VIII

We stopped at a big railway-hotel when we came into Ayr. Basil and Mrs.
West took rooms there too, because it was the best in town, and Mrs.
West always wants the very best--except when she's depressed by bad
notices of her books!

It was late, and she was so faint with hunger that she begged us not to
dress,