And now, after two years more of grinding apprenticeship, he had in mind
something much bigger than the slender volume of verse, - an adventure
into authorship more suited to his metal, - a story for which an intense
personal sympathy would furnish fitting atmosphere, with the final spur
to his ambition a letter from the Atlantic even at the moment stowed
safely away in his pocket.
Some two hours later, after an unexpectedly excellent dinner in the
luxurious dining room, he sauntered over to the hotel desk. There was no
more than the faintest probability that a clerk of the St. Catherine
would be able to tell him how to reach a secret cavern bower above the
Bay of Moons; still, he had to enter an opening wedge somewhere. The one
man on duty was for the moment occupied with another guest, and Blair,
lighting his after-dinner cigar, prepared with leisurely patience to
await his turn.
The guest happened to be a young woman, rather pretty, he casually
decided, although her greatest claim to beauty lay more, perhaps, in the
swift changes in expression of which her face was capable, than in any
actual regularity of line. For lack of anything better to do, Blair
watched idly her encounter with the clerk. There appeared to be some
kind of misunderstanding.
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