remarking that you are behind the times! But, seriously, Ronnie, you
should be grateful to anybody who takes the trouble to point out an
error, however small, in one of your books. You are keen that your work
should be perfect; and if a mistake is mentioned, it can be set right.
Why, surely you remember, when you read me the scene in the manuscript
you wrote just after our marriage, in which a good lady could not sit
down upon a small chair, owing to her _toupet_, I--your admiring and
awestruck wife--ventured to point out that a _toupet_ was not a
crinoline; and you were quite grateful, Ronnie. You did not consider me
an unappreciative Johnny, nor even a mediocre person! Who has, unknown
to me, been trampling on your susceptibilities?"

"Nobody, thank goodness! I have never written a scene yet, of which I
had not carefully verified every detail of the setting. But it has
happened lots of times to people I know. Unimportant slips never seem to
me to matter in another fellow's work, but they would matter
desperately, horribly, appallingly in one's own. Therefore, nothing will
ever induce me to place the plot of a novel of mine, in surroundings
with which I am not completely familiar. Helen--I must go to Central
Africa."




CHAPTER II

THE SOB OF THE WOMAN


Helen took off her riding-hat, and passed her fingers through the