"
"Well," said Basil Ransom, "editors are a mean, timorous lot, always
saying they want something original, but deadly afraid of it when it
comes."
"Is it for papers, magazines?" As it sank into Verena's mind more deeply
that the contributions of this remarkable young man had been
rejected--contributions in which, apparently, everything she held dear
was riddled with scorn--she felt a strange pity and sadness, a sense of
injustice. "I am very sorry you can't get published," she said, so
simply that he looked up at her, from the figure he was scratching on
the asphalt with his stick, to see whether such a tone as that, in
relation to such a fact, were not "put on." But it was evidently
genuine, and Verena added that she supposed getting published was very
difficult always; she remembered, though she didn't mention, how little
success her father had when he tried. She hoped Mr. Ransom would keep
on; he would be sure to succeed at last. Then she continued, smiling,
with more irony: "You may denounce me by name if you like. Only please
don't say anything about Olive Chancellor."
"How little you understand what I want to achieve!" Basil Ransom
exclaimed. "There you are--you women--all over; always meaning,
yourselves, something personal, and always thinking it is meant by
others!"
"Yes, that's the charge they make," said Verena gaily.
"I don't want to touch you, or Miss Chancellor, or Mrs. Farrinder, or
Miss Birdseye, or the shade of Eliza P.
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