She drew a little nearer to him.  He was conscious of a mysterious and unfamiliar perfume, perhaps from the violets half hidden in her furs, or was it something in her hair?  It reminded him a little of the world the keys into which he had gripped—­the world of joyousness, of light-hearted pleasures, the sunlit world into which he had only looked through other men’s eyes.

“Perhaps you knew that I was somewhere across the threshold,” she suggested.  “Did you drag your Mona wholly from your brain, or has she her prototype somewhere in your world?”

He shook his head.

“Therein lies the weakness of all that I have ever written,” he declared.  “There have been so few in my world from whom I could garner even the gleanings of a personality.  They are all, my men and women, artificially made, not born.  Twenty-three shillings a week has kept me well outside the locked doors.”

“Yet, you know, in many ways,” she reflected, “Mona is like me.”

“Like you because she was a helper of men,” he assented swiftly, “a woman of large sympathies, appealing to me, I suppose, because in my solitude, thoughts of my own weakness taunted me, weakness because I couldn’t break out, I mean.  Perhaps for that reason the thought of a strong woman fascinated me, a woman large in thoughts and ways, a woman to whom purposes and tendencies counted most.  I dreamed of a woman sweetly omnipotent, strong without a shadow of masculinity.  That is where my Mona was to be different from all other created figures.”

“Chance,” she declared, “is a wonderful thing.  Chance has pitchforked you here, absolutely to my side, I, the one woman who could understand what you mean, who could give your Mona life.  Don’t think I am vain,” she went on.  “I can assure you that my head isn’t the least turned because I have been successful.  I simply know.  Listen.  I have few engagements in New York.  I should not be going back at all but to see my mother, who is too delicate to travel, and who is miserable when I am away for long.  Take this pencil and paper.  Let us leave off dreaming for a little time and give ourselves up to technicalities.  I want to draft a new first act and a new last one, not so very different from your version and yet with changes which I want to explain as we go on.  Bring your chair a little nearer—­so.  Now take down these notes.”

They worked until the first gong for dinner rang.  She sat up in her chair with a happy little laugh.

“Isn’t it wonderful!” she exclaimed.  “I never knew time to pass so quickly.  There isn’t any pleasure in the world like this,” she added, a little impulsively, “the pleasure of letting your thoughts run out to meet some one else’s, some one who understands.  Take care of every line we have written, my friend.”

“We might go on after dinner,” he suggested eagerly.

She shook her head.

“I’d rather not,” she admitted.  “My brain is too full.  I have a hundred fancies dancing about.  I even find myself, as we sit here, rehearsing my gestures, tuning myself to a new outlook.  Oh!  You most disturbing person—­intellectually of course, I mean,” she added, laughing into his face.  “Take off my rugs and help me up.  No, we’ll leave them there.  Perhaps, after dinner, we might walk for a little time.”