ly
admit it) extremely exhausting. But never have my patience and endurance
been more severely tested than during the year of Delancey's
masterpiece. He finally decided that in the foreground, there was to be
the clash of two human souls and in the background, the collision of two
worlds--the old (pre-War) and the new. In fact, a partie carree of
conflicts.

"You with your love of form," he explained to me, "will appreciate the
care I have given to the structure. It is," he added, "difficult to
mould vast masses of material."

As the months went by I began to be horribly afraid that Delancey's
novel would be very, very long indeed. And even if nobody read it
through, not even a reviewer, I should have to without skipping a word
or a comma.

"The sentences," Delancey told me, "are rather long. I find the
semicolon very useful for cumulative effects." A vast array of words
policed by semi-colons. I felt a little dizzy. Would they be able to
keep order?

"Of course," he continued, "the interest is very largely psychological,
but I regard the book mainly as a document--a social document. The
fiction of to-day is the history of to-morrow."

This seemed conclusive. The book could not have less than 700 pages. A
social document with psychological interest and a double conflict. Why,
it would be short at that. And then, one day, when Delancey's book had
become to me a form of eternity, he arrived, breathless with excitement.

"To all intents and purposes, it's finished," he gasped.

"Thank God," I murmured faintly.

"It will be an awful loss to me," he stated mournfully.

"It isn't dead yet," I said with feeble jocularity.

"It is sad to see your children leave you. To watch them step out into a
cold, inhospitable world," he went on.

"A warm, welcoming world," I amended dishonestly. "You haven't told me
what it is called yet."

"It isn't called anything. I want you to be its god-mother, Charlotte.
What about 'Whither'?"

"Too like a pamphlet," I was glad to be on firm ground again.

"I thought about 'Fate's Laboratory,' but it isn't very rhythmical, is
it?"

"Not very," I agreed.

"The question mark after the 'Whither' would look nice on the cover," he
reflected regretfully.

I brightened. This was the old Delancey. The Delancey of the _Saturday
Evening Post_ and the _Strand_, of the taffetas curtains and the cottage
in Devonshire. By my sudden glow of gladness I realised how much I had
missed him. But