Oleron mused as he stood surveying
it.... "I give it up. Whatever it is, it's settled my work for today,
I'm afraid--"

He folded the object up carelessly and thrust it into a corner of the
kitchen; then, taking pans and brushes and an old knife, he returned to
the sitting-room and began to scrape and to wash and to line with paper
his newly discovered receptacles. When he had finished, he put his spare
boots and books and papers into them; and he closed the lids again,
amused with his little adventure, but also a little anxious for the hour
to come when he should settle fairly down to his work again. III

It piqued Oleron a little that his friend, Miss Bengough, should dismiss
with a glance the place he himself had found so singularly winning. Indeed she scarcely lifted her eyes to it. But then she had always been
more or less like that--a little indifferent to the graces of life,
careless of appearances, and perhaps a shade more herself when she ate
biscuits from a paper bag than when she dined with greater observance of
the convenances. She was an unattached journalist of thirty-four, large,
showy, fair as butter, pink as a dog-rose, reminding one of a florist's
picked specimen bloom, and given to sudden and ample movements and moist
and explosive utterances. She "pulled a better living out of the pool"
(as she expressed it) than Oleron did; and by cunningly disguised puffs
of drapers and haberdashers she "pulled" also the greater part of her
very varied wardrobe. She left small whirlwinds of air behind her when
she moved, in which her veils and scarves fluttered and spun. Oleron heard the flurry of her skirts on his staircase and her single
loud knock at his door when he had been a month in his new abode. Her
garments brought in the outer air, and she flung a bundle of ladies'
journals down on a chair. "Don't knock off for me," she said across a mouthful of large-headed
hatpins as she removed her hat and veil. "I didn't know whether you were
straight yet, so I've brought some sandwiches for lunch. You've got
coffee, I suppose?--No, don't get up--I'll find the kitchen--"

"Oh, that's all right, I'll clear these things away. To tell the truth,
I'm rather glad to be interrupted," said Oleron. He gathered his work together and put it away. She was already in the
kitchen; he heard the running of water into the kettle. He joined her,
and ten minutes later followed her back to the sitting-room with the
coffee and sandwiches on a tray. They sat down, with the tray on a small
table between them. "Well, what do you think of the new place?" Oleron asked as she poured
out coffee. "Hm!... Anybody'd think you were going to get married, Paul." He laughed. "Oh no. But it's an improvement on some of them, isn't it?" "Is it? I suppose it is; I don't know. I liked the last place, in spite
of the black ceiling and no watertap. How's _Romilly_?" Oleron thumbed his chin. "Hm! I'm rather ashamed to tell you. The fact is, I've not got on very
well with it. But it will be all right on the night, as you used to say." "Stuck?" "Rather stuck." "Got any of it you care to read to me?..." Oleron had long been in the habit of reading portions of his work to Miss
Bengough occasionally. Her comments were always quick and practical,
sometimes directly useful, sometimes indirectly suggestive. She, in
return for his confidence, always kept all mention of her own work
sedulously from him. His, she said, was "real work"; hers merely filled
space, not always even grammatically. "I'm afraid there isn't," Oleron replied, still meditatively dry-shaving
his chin. Then he added, with a little burst of candour, "The fact
is, Elsie, I've not written--not actually written--very much more of
it--_any_ more of it, in fact. But, of course, that doesn't mean I
haven't progressed. I've progressed, in one sense, rather alarmingly. I'm now thinking of reconstructing the whole thing." Miss Bengough gave a gasp. "Reconstructing!" "Making Romilly herself a different type of woman. Somehow, I've begun to
feel that I'm not getting the most out of her. As she stands, I've
certainly lost interest in her to some extent." "But--but--" Miss Bengough protested, "you had her so real, so _living_,
Paul!" Oleron smiled faintly. He had been quite prepared for Miss Bengough's
disapproval. He wasn't surprised that she liked Romilly as she at present
existed; she would. Whether she realised it or not, there was much of
herself in his fictitious creation. Naturally Romilly would seem "real,"
"living," to her....

"But are you really serious, Paul?" Miss Bengough asked presently, with a
round-eyed stare. "Quite serious." "You're really going to scrap those fifteen chapters?" "I didn't exactly say that." "That fine, rich love-scene?" "I should only do it reluctantly, and for the sake of something I thought
better." "And that beautiful, _beau_tiful description of Romilly on the shore?" "It wouldn't necessarily be wasted," he said a little uneasily. But Miss Bengough made a large and windy gesture, and then let him have
it. "Really, you are _too_ trying!" she broke out. "I do wish sometimes you'd
remember you're human, and live in a world! You know I'd be the _last_ to
wish you to lower your standard one inch, but it wouldn't be lowering it
to bring it within human comprehension. Oh, you're sometimes altogether
too godlike!... Why, it would be a wicked, criminal waste of your powers
to destroy those fifteen chapters! Look at it reasonably, now. You've
been working for nearly twenty years; you've now got what you've been
working for almost within your grasp; your affairs are at a most critical
stage (oh, don't tell me; I know you're about at the end of your money);
and here you are, deliberately proposing to withdraw a thing that will
probably make your name, and to substitute for it something that ten to
one nobody on earth will ever want to read--and small blame to them! Really, you try my patience!" Oleron had shaken his head slowly as she had talked. It was an old story
between them. The noisy, able, practical journalist was an admirable
friend--up to a certain point; beyond that ... well, each of us knows
that point beyond which we stand alone. Elsie Bengough sometimes said
that had she had one-tenth part of Oleron's genius there were few things
she could not have done--thus making that genius a quantitatively
divisible thing, a sort of ingredient, to be added to or subtracted
from in the admixture of his work. That it was a qualitative thing,
essential, indivisible, informing, passed her comprehension. Their
spirits parted company at that point. Oleron knew it. She did not appear
to know it. "Yes, yes, yes," he said a little wearily, by-and-by, "practically you're
quite right, entirely right, and I haven't a word to say. If I could only
turn _Romilly_ over to you you'd make an enormous success of her. But
that can't be, and I, for my part, am seriously doubting whether she's
worth my while. You know what that means."