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“Was it that you thought I was ambitious?”

“It’s all right about the stories.”

“No. It’s not all right with you. I couldn’t love you as much as I do and not know when you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” he lied. “And I’m not going to be upset,” he resolved. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“It will be wonderful when we’re out there and you can work.”

She is a little obtuse, he thought. Or maybe does it affect her that way? But he said, “It will be. But you won’t be bored?”

“Of course not.”

“I work awfully hard when I work.”

“I’ll work too.”

“That will be fun,” he said. “Like Mr. and Mrs. Browning. I never saw the play.”

“Roger, do you have to make fun of it?”

“I don’t know.” Now pull yourself together, he said to himself. Now is the time to pull yourself together. Be good now. “I make fun of everything,’ he said “I think it will be fine. And it’s much better for you to be working when ’m writing.”

“Will you mind reading mine sometimes?”

“No. I’ll love to.”

‘Really?”

“No. Of course. I’ll be really happy to. Really.”

‘When you drink this it makes you feel as though you could do anything,” the girl said. “I’m awfully glad I never drank it before. Do you mind if we talk about writing, Roger?”

“Hell no.”

“Why did you say ‘Hell no’?”

‘I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s talk about writing. Really I mean it. What about writing?”

“Now you’ve made me feel like a fool. You don’t have to take me in as an equal or a partner. I only meant I’d like to talk about it if you’d like to.”

“Let’s talk about it. What about it?”

The girl began to cry, sitting straight up and looking at him. She did not sob nor turn her head away. She just looked at him and tears came down her cheeks and her mouth grew fuller but it did not twist nor break.

“Please, daughter,” he said. “Please. Let’s talk about it or anything else and I’ll be friendly.”

She bit her lip and then said, “I suppose I wanted to be partners even though I said I didn’t.”

I guess that was part of the dream and why the hell shouldn’t it be? Roger thought. What do you have to hurt her for you bastard? Be good now fast before you hurt her.

“You see I’d like to have you not just like me in bed but like me in the head and like to talk about things that interest us both.”

“We will,” he said. “We will now. Bratchen daughter, what about writing, my dear beauty?”

“What I wanted to tell you was that drinking this made me feel the way I feel when I am going to write. That I could do anything and that I can write wonderfully. Then I write and it’s just dull. The truer I try to make it the duller it is. And when it isn’t true it’s silly.”

“Give me a kiss.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

He leaned over the table and kissed her. “You’re awfully beautiful when you cry.”

“I’m awfully sorry I cried,” she said. “You don’t really mind if we talk about it do you?”

“Of course not.”

“You see that was one of the parts of it I’d looked forward to.”

Yes, I guess it was, he thought. Well why shouldn’t it be? And we’ll do it. Maybe I will get to like it.

“What was it about writing?” he said. “Besides how it seems it’s going to be wonderful and then it turns out dull?”

“Wasn’t it that way with you when you started?”

“No. When I started I’d feel as though I could do anything and while I was doing it I would feel like I was making the whole world and when I would read it I would think this is so good I couldn’t have written it. I must have read it somewhere. Probably in the Saturday Evening Post.”

“Weren’t you ever discouraged?”

‘Not when I started. I thought I was writing the greatest stories ever written and that people just didn’t have sense enough to know it.”

“Were you really that conceited?”

“Worse probably. Only I didn’t think I was conceited. I was just confident.”

“If those were your first stories, the ones I read, you had a right to be confident.”

“They weren’t,” he said. “All those first confident stories were lost. The ones you read were when I wasn’t confident at all.”

“How were they lost, Roger?”

“It’s an awful story. I’ll tell it to you sometime

“Wouldn’t you tell it to me