Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/126

116. But, as the general conversation led her to believe that she was the only person in the room who had not read my book, and me to believe that I was the only one who had not read hers, we were naturally loath to confess the truth to each other.

I next met Miss Vancouver in Paris, at the house of a lady whose parlors are the frequent rendezvous of Americans, especially those given to art or literature. This time we met on different ground. I had read her book and she mine; and as soon as we had shaken hands we began to talk of each other's work, not as if it had been the beginning of a new conversation, but rather as the continuation of one broken off. Each liked the book of the other extremely, and we were free to say so.

"But I am not satisfied with my novel," said Miss Vancouver. "There is too much oneness about it; by which I mean that it is not diversified enough. It is all, or nearly all, about two people, who, of course, have but one object in life; and it seems to me now that their story might have been finished a great deal sooner, though, of course, in that case it would not have been long enough to make a book."

To this I politely answered that I did not agree with her, for the story was interesting to the very end; but, of course, if she had put more characters into it, and they had been as good in their way as those she already had, the book would have been that much the better. "As for me," I continued, "my trouble is entirely the other way. I have no oneness whatever. My tendency is much more to fifteen or twenty-ness. I