After all," I added,
as we came to the sylvan path that leads to the Lake--"after all, one
might as well read that sort of stuff as most of the novels of the
present day. The vulgar reporter may be ignorant or a boor, and all
that is reprehensible in his methods, but he writes about real flesh
and blood people; and, what is worse, he generally approximates the
truth concerning them in his writing, which is more than can be said
of the so-called realistic novel writers of the day. I haven't read
a novel in three years in which it has seemed to me that the heroine,
for instance, was anything more than a marionette, with no will of
her own, and ready to do at any time any foolish thing the author
wanted her to do."
Again those eyes of Miss Andrews rested on me in a manner which gave
me considerable apprehension. Then she laughed, and I was at ease
again.
"You are very amusing," she said, quietly. "The most amusing of them
all."
The remark nettled me, and I quickly retorted:
"Then I have not lived in vain."
"You do really live, then, eh?" she asked, half chaffingly, gazing at
me out of the corners of her eyes in a fashion which utterly disarmed
me.
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