Orth
frankly dallied with the old dogma. He formulated no personal faith of
any sort, but his creative faculty, that ego within an ego, had made
more than one excursion into the invisible and brought back literary
treasure.
The Lady Mildred received with sweetness and warmth the generous
contributor to the family sieve, and listened with fluttering interest
to all he had not told the world--she had read the book--and to the
strange, Americanized sequel.
"I am all at sea," concluded Orth. "What had my little girl to do with
the tragedy? What relation was she to the lady who drove the young man
to destruction--?"
"The closest," interrupted Lady Mildred. "She was herself!"
Orth stared at her. Again he had a confused sense of disintegration.
Lady Mildred, gratified by the success of her bolt, proceeded less
dramatically:
"Wally was up here just after I read your book, and I discovered he had
given you the wrong history of the picture. Not that he knew it. It is a
story we have left untold as often as possible, and I tell it to you
only because you would probably become a monomaniac if I didn't. Blanche
Mortlake--that Blanche--there had been several of her name, but there
has not been one since--did not die in childhood, but lived to be
twenty-four.
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