Miss Byno, at the hotel counter, greeted me with a precise copy of the smile she had worn three years before, while Mr. Pomeroy, the proprietor, said he was glad to see me, exactly as if he meant it. Our apartment consisted of a sitting room and two connecting chambers on the second floor, which were clean, airy and cosy. It was the nearest to "house-keeping," as I remarked to Miss May, of any place we had found.
"We must resume our genealogy to-morrow," she said, as she opened the table and set up the typewriting machine. "We have neglected it dreadfully."
"No," I answered, for I had been developing a new plan. "I am going to lay that ponderous history on the shelf for the present and ask you to aid me in another and more interesting task. The family tree is in such shape that it can afford to rest awhile and I am sick to death of it."
Then, as the anxious look came into her face--the look that came so easily when I said anything that lacked explicitness--I continued:
"Don't laugh at me, but I am going to begin, to-morrow, a--novel!"
"A--novel!" she repeated, wonderingly. "Do you write novels?"
"I am going to write one, with your help," I said, decidedly. "It won't be exactly a novel, either, because it will be based on fact, pretty nearly all fact--in fact. What would you say to a novel based on the very trip we are making?"
She was lost in thought for some minutes.
"But, do you think it would be interesting--to--any one else?"
"I am sure of it. Of course I shall suppress our real names, but the rest I mean to put in print precisely as it has occurred. If I am not mistaken it will make the hit of the summer season."
"Doesn't an author have to know--before he begins his story--how it will end?" she asked, after awhile.
"I suppose he does. I certainly know how this one will."
"The hero will marry the heroine, make her the happiest woman on earth, and they will live contentedly ever after."
"Hardly exciting enough, I fear, to suit the popular taste," she commented. "A story, like a play, should have a 'villain.'"
I laughed and said I would use Wesson for that character. I could, if necessary, invent some disreputable things and attach them to his pseudonym.
"And how shall you describe me?" she asked, demurely.