friend of his and then he says: '_There_'s a character for you! Why
don't you write him up? Everybody'd be interested in _him_.' Or else he
tells me about Japan or Paris, or some other very obvious place, and
says: 'Why don't you write a story about that place? That'd be a
wonderful setting for a story!'"

"How about the girl?" inquired Anthony casually, "Gloria--Gloria what?"

"Gilbert. Oh, you've heard of her--Gloria Gilbert. Goes to dances at
colleges--all that sort of thing."

"I've heard her name."

"Good-looking--in fact damned attractive."

They reached Fiftieth Street and turned over toward the Avenue.

"I don't care for young girls as a rule," said Anthony, frowning.

This was not strictly true. While it seemed to him that the average
debutante spent every hour of her day thinking and talking about what
the great world had mapped out for her to do during the next hour, any
girl who made a living directly on her prettiness interested him
enormously.

"Gloria's darn nice--not a brain in her head."

Anthony laughed in a one-syllabled snort.

"By that you mean that she hasn't a line of literary patter."