possible and several months won her not a little distinction in the work.

Reifferscheid was a fat, pondrous, heavy-spectacled devourer of work. He compelled her real admiration—"the American St. Beuve," she called him, because he was so tireless, and because he sniffed genius from afar. There was something unreservedly charming to her, in his sense of personal victory, upon discovering greatness in an unexpected source. Then he was so big, so common to look at; kind as only a bear of a man can be; so wise, so deep, and with such a big smoky factory of a brain, full of fascinating crypts. Subcutaneous laughter that rested her internally for weeks lingered about certain of the large man's sayings. Even in the auditing of her account, she felt his kindness.

"Now here are some essays by Quentin Charter—a big man, a young man and a slow worker," he said. "Charter's first volume was a thunderer. We greeted it with a whoop two years ago. Did you see it?"

"No," Paula replied. "I was too strong for literary trifles then."

"Anyway, look out for Charter. He didn't start to appear until he was an adult. He's been everywhere, read everything and has a punch like a projectile. An effective chap, this Charter. He dropped in to see me a few weeks after my review. He confessed the critics had made him very glad.... 'I am doing a second book,' he confided to me. 'Down on my knees to it. Work-shop stripped of encomiums; no more dinner-parties or any of that fatness. Say, it's a queer thing about making a book. You never can tell whether it's to be a boy or a girl....'"

Paula smiled reservedly.

"I asked him what his second book was to be about," Reifferscheid went on. "'Women,' said he. 'How novel!' said I. He grinned genially. 'Reifferscheid,' he declared, in his snappy way, 'women are interesting. They're doing the thinking nowadays. They're getting there. One of these mornings, man will wake up to the fact that he's got to be born again to get in a class with his wife. Man is mixed up with altogether too much of this down-town madness. Women don't want votes, public office, or first-hand dollars. They want men!' ... I always remembered that little bit of stuff from Charter. He says the time will come when classy girls will get their heads together and evolve this ultimatum, which will be handed intact to adorers: 'No, boys, we can't marry you. We haven't any illusions about celibacy. It isn't nice nor attractive, but it's better than being yoked with hucksters and peddlers who come 

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