To Mary his tone sounded needlessly ungracious, but the editor appeared not to notice it.
"I beg your pardon," he replied suavely. "Of course, if you don't illustrate--I'm sorry. The collaboration of husband and wife would have been an attraction, even though the names were unknown here. I'll get Ledward to do them."
Stefan sat up. "You don't mean Metcalf Ledward, the painter, do you?" he exclaimed.
"Yes," replied Farraday quietly; "he often does things for us--our policy is to popularize the best American artists."
Stefan was nonplused. Ledward illustrating Mary's rhymes! He felt uncomfortable.
"Don't you think he would get the right atmosphere better perhaps than anyone?" queried Farraday, who seemed courteously anxious to elicit Stefan's opinion. Mary interposed hastily.
"Mr. Farraday, he can't answer you. I'm afraid I've been stupid, but I was so pessimistic about these verses that I wouldn't show them to him. I thought I would get an outside criticism first, just to save my face," she hurried on, anxious in reality to save her husband's.
"I pleaded, but she was obdurate," contributed Stefan, looking at her with reproach.
Farraday smiled enlightenment. "I see. Well, I shall hope you will change your mind about the illustrations when you have read the poems--that is, if your style would adapt itself. Now may I see the sketches?" and he held out his hand for them.
Stefan rose with relief. Much as he adored Mary, he could not comprehend the seriousness with which this man was taking the rhymes which she herself had described as "just little songs for children." He was the more baffled as he could not dismiss Farraday's critical pretensions with contempt, the editor being too obviously a man of cultivation. Now, however, that attention had been turned to his own work, Stefan was at his ease. Here, he felt, was no room for doubts.
"They are small chalk and charcoal studies of the spirit of the city--mere impressions," he explained, putting the drawings in Farraday's hands with a gesture which belied the carelessness of his words.
Farraday glanced at them, looked again, rose, and carried them to the window, where he examined them carefully, one by one. Mary watched him breathlessly, Stefan with unconcealed triumph. Presently he turned again and placed them in a row on the bare expanse of his desk. He stood looking silently at them for a moment more before he spoke.