She leaned towards him a little.

“Mr. Lester-what do you really think about her work?”

“I’ve been telling you. What do you really think yourself?”

“She doesn’t show it to me. I told you she was proud. She won’t risk criticism, and whatever I said, she would know what I was thinking.”

“If she is going to be a writer she will have to face criticism- and accept it.”

She said very directly,

“If she is going to be a writer-don’t you see, that is what I want to know. She hasn’t got anyone but me. I want to know how much I ought to encourage her. Anything she takes up is bound to be more important to her than it would be if she were able to join in all the things that other children do. Ought I to encourage her to think of it as a career or-”

He said, “Or?” and saw a flush come up into her face.

“No, there isn’t any or. I couldn’t discourage her. She hasn’t got enough for it to be possible to take anything away.”

He found himself sharing her mood, instead of being able to stand back from it and criticize. They were being ridiculously intense. All right. And so what? He supposed he had it in him to be intense as well as the next man. He said, speaking with deliberation,

“I can’t tell you what you want to know, because, as I have already said, these things fizzle out. But I don’t see why that should trouble you. There isn’t anything that could be published now. All that you’ve got to do is to let her have her head-let her go on writing. She will anyhow, until she finds out-we all find out-whether she can make a good job of it, or whether she can’t. Meanwhile see that she has the right things to read- don’t let her fritter away her taste on trash. I suppose there’s a library in a house like this?”