"I know," I admitted humbly. "This is what distinguishes a human from an inhuman document." "The craze demands a simple straightforward narrative—" Guilford began, then hesitated. "In literature this is the period of the great 'I Am,'" I broke in. "People want the secrets of a writer's soul, rather than the tricks of his vocabulary, I know." "Well, good lord—you wouldn't be giving the twentieth century any more of these people's souls than they themselves gave to the early nineteenth," he argued scornfully. "She put his portrait into every book she ever wrote—and he annexed her face in the figure of every saint—and sinner—he painted!" "Well, that was because they couldn't see any other faces," I defended. "Bosh!" "But Lady Frances Webb was a good woman," 56 mother insisted weakly. "She had pre-Victorian ideas! She sent her lover across seas, because she felt that she must! Why, the publication of these letters would do good, not harm." 56 "They would shame the present-day idea of 'affinity' right," said Guilford. I nodded my head, for this was the same theory that Uncle Lancelot had been whispering in my ears since the postman blew his whistle that morning. And yet— "Maybe you two—don't exactly understand the import of those letters as I do," I suggested, sorry and ashamed before the gaze of their practical eyes. "But to me they mean so much! I have always loved James Christie and—his Unattainable. I can feel for them, and—" "And you mean to say that you are going to give way to an absurd fancy now—a ridiculous, far-fetched, namby-pamby, quixotic fancy?" mother asked, in a tone of horror. "I—I'm—afraid so!" I stammered. "And miss this chance—for all the things you 57 want most? The very things you're toiling day and night to get?" 57 "And put off the prospect of our marriage?" Guilford demanded. "I had hoped that this business transaction would satisfy the unaccountable desire you seem to have for independence—that after you had circled about a little in the realm of emancipated
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