“Oh, bother the County!” cried Ronnie.  “I never went in for a French dancing-master to bid me mind my P’s and Q’s!  But, seriously, Helen, don’t you understand how much this means to me?  Both my last novels have had tame English settings.  I can’t go on forever letting my people make love in well-kept gardens!”

“Dear Ronnie, you have a good precedent.  The first couple on record made love in a garden.”

“Nonsense, darling!  Eden was a quite fascinating jungle, in which all the wild animals conversed with intelligence and affability.  You don’t suppose Eve would have stood there alone, calmly listening while the serpent talked theology, unless conversations with animals had been an every-day occurrence.  Think how you’d flee to me, if an old cow in the park suddenly asked you a question.  But do let’s keep to the point.  I’ve got a new plot, and I must have a new setting.”

“Why not be content to do as you have done before, Ronnie; go on writing, simply and sincerely, of the life you live and know?”

“Because, my dear girl, in common with the Athenians, people are always wanting either to tell or to hear some new thing.  I’ve got hold of a jolly new thing, and I’m going to run it for all it’s worth.”

Helen considered this in silence.

Ronald walked over to the window, and beat a tattoo upon the In hoc vince pane.

“Do you see?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, slowly.  “I see your point, but I also see danger ahead.  I am so anxious that, in your work, you should keep the object and motive at the highest; not putting success or popularity in their wrong place.  Let success be the result of good work well done—­conscientiously done.  Let popularity follow unsought, simply from the fact that you have been true to yourself, and to your instinctive inspiration; that you have seen life at its best, and tried to portray it at its highest.  To go rushing off to Central Africa in order to find a startling setting, is an angling after originality, which will by no means ensure doing really better work.  Oh, Ronnie, my advice is:  be content to stay at home, and to write truly and sincerely of the things you know.”

Ronald came back to his chair; sat down, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, and looked earnestly into the troubled eyes of his wife.

“But, Helen,” he said, “that really is not the point.  Can’t you see that I am completely possessed by this new plot?  Also, that Central Africa is its only possible setting?  It is merely a satisfactory side-issue, that it varies my mise-en-scene.”

“Must you go off there, Ronnie, in order to write it?  Why not get all the newest and best books on African travel, and read up facts——­”