Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/178

 cocoonery. But I don't see. . . she went on. If you would seek out subjects that would please people. ..

Probably then, Campaspe finished the sentence for her, his books would stop selling.

I think, Laura announced with dignity, that I shall look up George in the library.

Have you been to supper yet?

I don't want any supper. I want to go home.

Bestowing a frigid bow on the novelist, she wandered off.

Well, I do, Campaspe, rising, averred.

Do what?

Want supper. Come along and feed me.

Like the lady, Gareth protested, I'm in no mood for supper.

I suppose, Campaspe suggested gravely, the question Laura asked you is the one you hear most frequently.

She was amazed by the suddenness with which he threw off his mask of irony. Pricked in his vanity, he became as garrulous as a school-girl.

Every day! Every hour! Letters! Letters! All inquiring why I don't write about something else. I write about what I know, in the way I feel about it. It doesn't seem to occur to the crowd that it is possible for an author to believe that life is largely without excuse, that if there is a God he conducts the show aimlessly, if not, indeed, maliciously, that men and women run around auto-