She held up a hand as though to bar it back, as though it were something that still confounded her better judgment and might lead to lifelong mistakes and sorrows.
Then he added, more gently: "Every page of this, Cordelia, is quite as much yours as mine. You suggested it, you inspired it. If it were not for you, dear, it should never have been written."
His hand was on the throttle of sacrifice, and he seemed bent on racing the engine of self-abnegation to its last wheel-turn. Her face lighted up with a new and fierce fire as he spoke. He wondered if that happy smile was born of his first more intimate use of her Christian name.
"But _you_ have done it all!" she reiterated.
"Two authors always have to drive tandem in a case like this."
"How it will succeed!" she said dreamily. "You would hardly believe me if I should tell you how much we shall make out of this."
He turned and resolutely tied up the loose pages. The flush of a new energy was on him.
"What are you going to do?" she asked quickly.
"I'm going at it again--I've had a dozen ideas while you've been talking to me--I feel that I've _got_ to go at it tooth and nail again."
"And it's agreed that you take one-half the royalties?" she broke in.
"No, no; the name, the start--that's quite all I ask."
"Yes, I can wait until I write my own book for dollars and royalties, and all that sort of thing. _Now_ I'm glad enough to stand humbly beside you."
Still she did not seem to understand. He felt that she was tired and shaken.
"Why, I'm unknown, Cordelia, and you're famous. Think what it will mean for me--The Unwise Virgins, by Cordelia Vaughan and John Hartley!"
She turned toward him quickly. He caught the startled look in her eyes, and wondered at it. She tried to call up a smile; he could see her lips twitch uselessly, like a desperate pilot tugging at a broken signal-wire.
"Oh-h-h," she said softly, at last, "I hadn't thought of that!"
As he passed under her window he looked back at her through the gathering darkness. She stood in the half-lighted window-square vacantly, wide-eyed, wondering. He waved his hand back at her, lightly, but she did not seem to see him. And he wondered what element in the picture which that half-lighted window framed made him think of Perseis as she watched the trireme of Ulysses swing up the sands of Ææa. He knew but one thing, and that he knew assuredly. He loved her with all the strength of his heart.