Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/290

THE IVORY TOWER himself into her confidence, young as he is,—perhaps I can afford him a year or two more—make him 15, say; in which case Rosanna becomes 18, and the subsequent chronology is thereby affected. It isn't, I must remember, as a young man in his very first youth, at all, that I want Gray, or see him, with the opening of the story at Newport. On the contrary all the proprieties, elements of interest, convenience etc., are promoted by his being not less than 30. I don't see why I shouldn't make him 33, with Rosanna thus two years older, not three. If he is 15 in Dresden and she 17, it will be old enough for each, without being too old, I think, for Gray. 18 years will thus have elapsed from the crisis at Florence or wherever to the arrival at Newport. I want that time, I think, I can do with it very well for what I see of elements operative for him; and a period of some length moreover is required for bringing the two old men at Newport to a proper pitch of antiquity. Mr. Betterman dies very much in the fulness of years, and as Rosanna's parent is to pass away soon after I want him to have come to the end. If Gray is 15, however, I mustn't make his mother too mature to inspire the devotion of her friend; at the same time that there must have been years enough for her to have lived awhile with her first husband and lost him. Of course this first episode may have been very brief—there is nothing to prevent that. If she 276