“But I want you to think of work.  I want to see you in the very act.  Won’t you write an editorial for me?”

He shook his head.  “This late?  That would be cruelty to my secretary.”

“I’ll take it down for you.  I’m fairly fast on the typewriter.”

“Will you give me the subject, too?”

“No more than fair,” she admitted.  “What shall it be?  It ought to be something with memories in it.  Books?  Poetry?” she groped.  “I’ve got it!  Your oldest, favorite book.  Have you forgotten?”

“The Sears-Roebuck catalogue?  I get a copy every season, to renew the old thrill.”

“What a romanticist you are!” said she softly.  “Couldn’t you write an editorial about it?”

“Couldn’t I?  Try me.  Come up to the den.”

He led the way to the remote austerities of the work-room.  From a shelf he took down the fat, ornate pamphlet, now much increased in bulk over its prototype of the earlier years.  With random finger he parted the leaves, here, there, again and still again, seeking auguries.

“Ready?” he said.  “Now, I shut my eyes—­and we’re in the shack again—­the clean air of desert spaces—­the click of the transmitter in the office that I won’t answer, being more importantly engaged—­the faint fragrance of you permeating everything—­youth—­the unknown splendor of life—­Now!  Go!”

Of that editorial, composed upon the unpromising theme of mail-order merchandising, the Great Gaines afterward said that it was a kaleidoscopic panorama set moving to the harmonic undertones of a song of winds and waters, of passion and the inner meanings of life, as if Shelley had rhapsodized a catalogue into poetic being and glorious significance.  He said it was foolish to edit a magazine when one couldn’t trust a cheap newspaper not to come flaming forth into literature which turned one’s most conscientious and aspiring efforts into tinsel.  He also said “Damn!”

Io Welland (for it was Io Welland and not Io Eyre whom the soothsayer saw before him as he declaimed), instrument and inspiration of the achievement, said no word of direct praise.  But as she wrote, her fingers felt as if they were dripping electric sparks.  When, at the close, he asked, quite humbly, “Is that what you wanted?” she caught her breath on something like a sob.

“I’ll give you a title,” she said, recovering herself.  “Call it ’If there were Dreams to Sell.’”

“Ah, that’s good!” he cried.  “My readers won’t get it.  Pinheads!  They get nothing that isn’t plain as the nose on their silly faces.  Never mind.  It’s good for ’em to be puzzled once in a while.  Teaches ’em their place....  I’ll tell you who will understand it, though,” he continued, and laughed queerly.

“All the people who really matter will.”

“Some who matter a lot to The Patriot will.  The local merchants who advertise with us.  They’ll be wild.”

“Why?”