“Why don’t you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Write a story about it—­what Miss McDonald calls ’invest the region with romance.’”

The appeal was very direct, and it was enforced by those wonderful eyes that seemed to Philip to discern his powers, as he felt them, and his ambitions, and to express absolute confidence in him.  His vanity was touched in its most susceptible spot.  Here seemed to be a woman, nay, a soul, who understood him, understood him even better than Celia, the lifelong confidante.  It is a fatal moment for men and women, that in which they feel the subtle flattery of being understood by one of the opposite sex.  Philip’s estimation of himself rose ‘pari passu’ with his recognition of the discernment and intellectual quality of the frank and fascinating girl who seemed to believe in him.  But he restrained himself and only asked, after a moment of apparent reflection upon the general proposition: 

“Well, Miss Mavick, you have been here some time.  Have you discovered any material for such use?”

“Why, perhaps not, and I might not know what to do with it if I had.  But perhaps you don’t mean what I mean.  I mean something fitting the setting.  Not the domestic novel.  Miss McDonald says we are vulgarized in all our ideals by so much domesticity.  She says that Jennie Deans would have been just an ordinary, commonplace girl but for Walter Scott.”

“Then you want a romance?”

“No.  I don’t know exactly what I do want.  But I know it when I see it.”  And Evelyn looked down and appeared to be studying her delicate little hands, interlacing her taper, ivory fingers—­but Philip knew she did not see them—­and then looked up in his face again and said: 

“I’ll tell you.  This morning as we came up I was talking all the way with your cousin.  It took some time to break the ice, but gradually she began to say things, half stories, half poetic, not out of books; things that, if said with assurance, in the city would be called wit.  And then I began to see her emotional side, her pure imagination, such a refinement of appreciation and justice—­I think there is an immovable basis of justice in her nature—­and charity, and I think she’d be heroic, with all her gentleness, if occasion offered.”

“I see,” said Philip, rather lightly, “that you improved your time in finding out what a rare creature Alice is.  But,” and this more gravely, “it would surprise her that you have found it out.”

“I believe you.  I fancy she has not the least idea what her qualities are, or her capacities of doing or of suffering, and the world will never know—­that is the point-unless some genius comes along and reveals them.”

“How?”

“Why, through a tragedy, a drama, a story, in which she acts out her whole self.  Some act it out in society.  She never will.  Such sweetness and strength and passion—­yes, I have no doubt, passion under all the reserve!  I feel it but I cannot describe it; I haven’t imagination to make you see what I feel.”