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"Yes. To illustrate what I mean."

She inclined her head, her eyes fixed on his.

"Very well," he said. "Even in the most skillfully constructed story – supposing that you and I were hero and heroine – no author would have the impudence to make us avow our love within a few minutes of our first meeting."

"No," she said.

"In the first chapter," he continued, "certain known methods of construction are usually followed. Time is essential – the lapse of time. How to handle it cleverly is a novelist's business. But even the most skillful novelist would scarcely dare make me, for example, tell you that I am in love with you. Would he?"

"No," she said.

"And in real life, even if a man does fall in love so suddenly, he does not usually say so, does he?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"But he does fall in love sometimes more suddenly than in fiction. And occasionally he declares himself. In real life this actually happens. And that is stranger than any fiction. Isn't it?"

"Yes," she said.

"One kind of fiction," he continued very unsteadily, "is that in which, when he falls in love – he doesn't say so – I mean in such a case as ours – supposing I had already fallen in love with you. I could not say so to you. No man could say it to any girl. He remains mute. He observes very formally every convention. He smiles, hat in hand, as the girl passes out of his life forever… Doesn't he? And that is one kind of fiction – the tragic kind."

She had been looking down at the book in her lap. After a moment she lifted her troubled eyes to his.

"I do – not know what men do – in real life," she said. "What would they do in the —other kind of fiction?"

"In the other kind of fiction there would be another chapter."

"Yes… You mean that for us there is only this one chapter."

"Only one chapter."

"Or – might it not be called a short story, Mr. Smith?"

"Yes – one kind of short story."

"Which kind?"

"The kind that ends unhappily."

"But this one is not going to end unhappily, is it?"

"You are about to walk out of the story when it ends."

"Yes – but – " She bit her lip, flushed and perplexed, already dreadfully confused between the personal and the impersonal – between fact and fancy.

"You see," he said, "the short story which deals with – love – can end only as ours is going to end – or the contrary."

"How is ours going to end?" she asked with candid curiosity.

"It must be constructed very carefully," he said, "because this is realism."

"You must be very skillful, too," she said. "I do not see how you are to avoid – "

"What?"

"A – an – unhappy – ending."

He looked gravely at his sand castle. "No," he said, "I don't see how it can be avoided."

After a long silence she murmured, half to herself:

"Still, this is America – after all."

He shrugged, still studying his sand castle.

"I wish I had somebody to help me work it out," he said, half to himself.

"A collaborator?"

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry that I could not be useful."

"Would you try?"

"What is the use? I am utterly unskilled and inexperienced."

"I'd be very glad to have you try," he repeated.

XI

After a moment she rose, went over and knelt down in the sand before the miniature city, studying the situation. All she could see of the lead hero in the bowler hat were his legs protruding from the drain.

"Is this battery of artillery still shelling him?" she inquired, looking over her shoulder at Smith.

He went over and dropped on his knees beside her.

"You see," he explained, "our hero is still under water."

"All this time!" she exclaimed in consternation. "He'll drown, won't he?"

"He'll drown unless he can crawl into that drain."

"Then he must crawl into it immediately," she said with decision.

So he of the bowler was marched along a series of pegs indicating the subterranean drain, and set down in the court of the castle.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the Lady Alene. "We can't leave him here! They will know him by his bowler hat!"