Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/275

 There was always in her head the refrain, 'Suppose I married Mr. Ripley...'

Her 'Sketches,' enlarged from her journal and illustrated by her sketch-book, were published. In a minor way their success was brilliant. The men and women of whom she wrote were amazingly alive. The work was clear and a little hard, sometimes coldly epigrammatical. Ripley, in spite of the sphinx-like silence he had maintained towards all personal matters since that day, months ago in Winchester, expressed himself freely and often on the subject of her book. He saw Lanice almost daily, either in her office or more often in the Poggy drawing-room. It was by his advice that she had discarded the nom-de-plume and had written frankly over her own name. But a title-page is an unfeminine and doubtful place for a lady's name. Lanice first realized this in Smith Scollay's agitation.

'If you must write books,' he had said haughtily, 'you might have satisfied yourself with "Tempus Fugit." I cannot see how a ladylike girl like yourself can want the whole world gaping at her name. And then, Lanice, this is a heavy book for you to have written. Why were you not content with those pretty romances you used to write? I must confess that that seems to me much more in keeping with your character—and gender. Why, people are saying you were actually sarcastic about the Tennysons.'

'Oh, no, I loved the Tennysons—but he frightened me so much.'