“Exactly,” cut in the Austrian Minister, eagerly.  “And then there is the prerogative of the author and of the playwright to drop a curtain whenever he wants to, or to put a stop to everything by ending the chapter.  That isn’t fair.  That is an advantage over nature.  When some one accuses some one else of doing something dreadful at the play, down comes the curtain quick and keeps things at fever point, or the chapter ends with a lot of stars, and the next page begins with a description of a sunset two weeks later.  To be true, we ought to be told what the man who is accused said in the reply, or what happened during those two weeks before the sunset.  The author really has no right to choose only the critical moments, and to shut out the commonplace, every-day life by a sort of literary closure.  That is, if he claims to tell the truth.”

Phillips raised his eyebrows and looked carefully around the table.  “Does any one else feel called upon to testify?” he asked.

“It’s awful, isn’t it, Phillips,” laughed Trevelyan, comfortably, “to find that the photographer is the only artist, after all?  I feel very guilty.”

“You ought to,” pronounced the general, gayly.  He was very well satisfied with himself at having held his own against these clever people.  “And I am sure Mr. Gordon will agree with me, too,” he went on, confidently, with a bow towards the younger man.  “He has seen more of the world than any of us, and he will tell you, I am sure, that what happens only suggests the story; it is not complete in itself.  That it always needs the author’s touch, just as the rough diamond—­”

“Oh, thanks, thanks, general,” laughed Phillips.  “My feelings are not hurt as badly as that.”

Gordon had been turning the stem of a wineglass slowly between his thumb and his finger while the others were talking, and looking down at it smiling.  Now he raised his eyes as though he meant to speak, and then dropped them again.  “I am afraid, Sir Henry,” he said, “that I don’t agree with you at all.”

Those who had said nothing felt a certain satisfaction that they had not committed themselves.  The Austrian Minister tried to remember what it was he had said, and whether it was too late to retreat, and the general looked blankly at Gordon and said, “Indeed?”

“You shouldn’t have called on that last witness, Sir Henry,” said Phillips, smiling.  “Your case was very good as it was.”

“I am quite sure,” said Gordon, seriously, “that the story Phillips will never write is a true story, but he will not write it because people would say it is impossible, just as you have all seen sunsets sometimes that you knew would be laughed at if any one tried to paint them.  We all know such a story, something in our own lives, or in the lives of our friends.  Not ghost stories, or stories of adventure, but of ambitions that come to nothing, of people who were rewarded or punished in this world instead of in the next, and love stories.”