"Go ahead. Fix it anyway you like."
"Well---" Susan dimpled. "Then I'll--let's see--I'll put 'surely' after 'also,'" she announced, "and end it up, 'to what he had not so chosen to reveal!' Don't you think that's better?"
"Clearer, certainly.--On that margin, Baby."
"And will you really let it stay that way?" asked the baby, eying the altered page with great satisfaction.
"Oh, really. You will see it so in the book."
His quiet certainty that these scattered pages would surely be a book some day thrilled Susan, as power always thrilled her. Just as she had admired Thorny's old scribbled prices, years before, so she admired this quiet mastery now. She asked Stephen Bocqueraz questions, and he told her of his boyhood dreams, of the early struggles in the big city, of the first success.
"One hundred dollars for a story, Susan. It looked a little fortune!"
"And were you married then?"
"Married?" He smiled. "My dear child, Mrs. Bocqueraz is worth almost a million dollars in her own right. No--we have never faced poverty together!" There was almost a wistful look in his eyes.
"And to whom is this book going to be dedicated?" asked Susan.
"Well, I don't know. Lillian has two, and Julie has one or two, and various men, here and in London. Perhaps I'll dedicate this one to a bold baggage of an Irish girl. Would you like that?"
"Oh, you couldn't!" Susan said, frightened.
"Why couldn't I?"
"Because,--I'd rather you wouldn't! I--and it would look odd!" stammered Susan.
"Would you care, if it did?" he asked, with that treacherous sudden drop in his voice that always stirred her heart so painfully.
"No-o---" Susan answered, scarcely above a whisper.
"What are you afraid of, little girl?" he asked, putting his hand over hers on the desk.
Susan moved her hand away.
"Because, your wife---" she began awkwardly, turning a fiery red.
Bocqueraz abruptly left his seat, and walked to a window.
"Susan," he said, coming back, after a moment, "have I ever done anything to warrant--to make you distrust me?"
"No,--never!" said Susan heartily, ashamed of herself.
"Friends?" he asked, gravely. And with his sudden smile he put his two hands out, across the desk.
It was like playing with fire; she knew it. But Susan felt herself quite equal to anyone at playing with fire.