Then the book—­of all Carteret’s clever manipulations the cleverest!  For hadn’t it begun to grip her father, and that quite divertingly much?  He was occupied with it to the point of really being a tiny bit self-conscious and shy.  Keen on it, transparently eager—­though contemptuous, in high mighty sort, of course, of his own eagerness when he remembered.  Only, more than half the time he so deliciously failed to remember.—­And with that Damaris’ thought took another turn, a more private and personal one.

For in truth the book gripped her, too, in most intimate and novel fashion, revealing to her the enchantments of an art in process of being actively realized in living, constructive effort.  Herein she found, not the amazement of a new thing, but of a thing so natural that it appeared just a part of her very self, though, until now, an undiscovered one.  To read other people’s books is a joyous employment, as she well knew; but to make a book all one’s own self, to watch and compel its growth into coherent form and purpose is—­so she began to suspect—­among the rarest delights granted to mortal man.

Her own share of such making, in the present case, was of the humblest it is true, mere spade labour and hod-bearing—­namely, writing from Charles Verity’s dictation, verifying names and dates, checking references and quotations.  Still each arresting phrase, each felicitous expression, the dramatic ring of some virile word, the broad onward sweep of stately prose in narrative or sustained description, not only charmed her ear but challenged her creative faculty.  She put herself to school in respect of it all, learning day by day a lesson.—­This was the way it should be done.  Ambition prodded her on.—­For mightn’t she aspire to do it too, some day?  Mightn’t, granted patience and application, the writing of books prove to be her business, her vocation?  The idea floated before her, vague as yet, though infinitely beguiling.  Whereupon the whole world took on a new significance and splendour, as it needs must when nascent talent claims its own, asserts its dawning right to dominion and to freedom.

And there the pathos of her father’s position touched her nearly.  For wasn’t it a little cruel this remarkable gift of his should so long have lain dormant, unsuspected by his friends, unknown to the reading public, only to disclose itself, and that by the merest hazard, as a last resource?—­It did not seem fair that he had not earlier found and enjoyed his literary birthright.

Damaris propounded this view to Colonel Carteret with some heat.  But he smilingly discounted her fondly indignant lament.

“Better late than never anyhow, my dear witch,” he said.  “And just picture the satisfaction of this brilliant rally when, as we’d reason to believe, he himself reckoned the game was up!  Oh! there are points about a tardy harvest such as this, by no means to be despised.  Thrice blessed the man who, like your father, finding such a harvest, also finds it to be of a sort he can without scruple reap.”