e one--to stir his blood, to awaken his fancy. I told you
in the first place that you ought to make him fall in love with you--for
literary reasons. He must feel a sensation stronger than mere friendship
for a woman before he can write such a story as will bring him fame."

Miss Millicent did not grow more comfortable under this suggestion. She
remarked, after a long wait, that she did not see how the end sought was
to be accomplished. Love, she said, was not a mere expression, it was a
deep, actual entity. Two people, playing at love with each other, might
afterwards find that they were experimenting with fire.

"I have heard," she continued, her fair cheeks growing crimson, "that
there are women--"

Then she paused and could go no further. But he understood.

"There are women--thousands of them," he admitted, "who would willingly
do what I ask. If it is necessary, he must go to them."

She wanted to say that she hoped it would not come to that--she wanted
to convey to her companion the horror she felt for what she supposed his
words implied--but she could not. It was so much easier to write of
things than to talk of them to a man like him.

"Do you call it quite fair," he asked, "to claim all and give nothing?
He does not require much. Could you not let him take your hand, and--"

"And--"

"Possibly, touch your lips with his?"

Miss Fern rose to her feet with a fierce gesture.

"Sir!" she exclaimed.

"Very well," replied Mr. Weil, shortly, turning away.

The girl resumed her seat, with rapidly rising and falling bosom. She
was in a quandary. The suggestion she had heard would have sounded from
any other lips like a premeditated insult. Coming from this man the
venom seemed to have vanished.

Roseleaf felt somewhat discouraged after his latest talk with Weil. He
wanted to make a start, to do something, no matter how little, toward
the object he fully believed was to be attained. That evening while
walking with Miss Fern (for it was their frequent habit to go out of
doors unchaperoned) he found himself unconsciously taking her hand--that
hand for which he had until now felt a genuine fright. And she, after
all her resolutions never to permit anything of the sort, gave it to
him, as they strolled together along an unfrequented byway.

"I want so much to make a Name," he was saying fervently. "I have tried
and tried to begin such a book as Mr. Gouger wants, but I cannot. Won't
you help me, dear Miss Fern?