In the Mist of the Mountains Part 12

"I--I cannot think of any of the questions I should ask," she said chokingly. "I meant to have carefully studied other interviews; I did not expect to have it so suddenly. Oh, what can you think of me for wasting your time like this?" She made a motion as if to rise and go.

But Hugh waved her back to her chair.

"Possibly," he said with smoothest courtesy, "I may be able to help you.

It would be a pity to let such trifles prevent you from earning money. I presume you will be paid for this?"

"Oh yes," said Miss Bibby, "I am offered six guineas for it."

"Ah! And you need the money?"

"Well, I am not actually in want of it," said Miss Bibby, "but----"

"But you could do with it, I see; most people can, can't they? Well, let us get on. You want to know all about my private life, don't you?"

"Oh," said Miss Bibby, shocked. "I should not like to intrude like that.

Just simple questions, I--I think they generally ask where you were born."

"No, no," said Hugh; "you haven't studied the question, it's plain. The public don't care a hang nowadays where or how or when a man's born.

What they want to do is to lift the curtain suddenly from his home and see him going through the common round of his daily life. By George, wouldn't they like to catch him beating his wife! A glimpse like that would make an interviewer's fortune. 'Pon my soul, Miss Bibby, I'd give you the chance--you are so indefatigable--if I had such a thing as a wife."

Miss Bibby laughed nervously,

"I--I think they like to know about an author's methods of work," she said, "if you would be so very kind."

"Certainly, certainly," said Hugh. "I rather pride myself upon my methods, now you come to mention it. I don't believe there's an author extant or underground with similar. See this card?" He rummaged on his table for Kate's neatly-typed little memorandum.

"Yes?" said Miss Bibby breathlessly.

"That's my daily allowance, two hundred words. Couldn't sleep a wink if it were a hundred and ninety-nine. Pull myself up sharp even in the middle of a speech if I find I'm likely to make it two hundred and one."

"How very interesting!" said Miss Bibby, scribbling hard. "A whole day, polis.h.i.+ng two hundred words! No wonder the critics speak of your crystal style, Mr. Kinross. It reminds me of what I have read of Flaubert's methods."

"Then," said Hugh dreamily, "I have a few other little methods of work, though so trivial and so essentially personal I don't know whether you would find them worth mentioning."

"Oh, anything, anything, Mr. Kinross, if you will be so kind," said Miss Bibby enthusiastically.

"Well," said Hugh, looking pensively around his work-room, "I am a man of rather curious habits. I may say my habits have become part of my nature. Certain spells are necessary to get me into proper vein for my two hundred words. For instance, my collar--you may have been surprised to find me collarless, Miss Bibby."

Miss Bibby hastily expressed the sentiment that nothing he could do could surprise her; then saw the difficulties of the sentence, and grappled hard with it to reduce it to a polite form that should express the fact that a great author is above all the petty bonds that bind the rest of the world, and must be expected to act accordingly.

But Hugh was evidently not listening to her.

"Most authors, I believe," he said, "when working, wear their collars in the place intended by nature--or should I say the manufacturers?--namely, around their neck. I cannot write one word until it is in the corner of the room."

Miss Bibby made a note of the curious fact.

"And, mark you," said Hugh impressively, "it has to be the left-hand corner, facing the door, or the charm won't work."

"How _very_ strange!" murmured Miss Bibby.

"Then my shoes," said Hugh. "There are authors, doubtless, who can write with these in their customary place--upon their feet. I cannot. My soul is too large, too chaotic. But perhaps you are not interested in men's shoes, Miss Bibby?"

He was regarding sadly the one of his own that stood in the middle of the floor.

"Oh, an author's shoes," murmured Miss Bibby.

"Well then, curious as it may seem to you, that, too, has become one of my spells," said Hugh, "my feet unfettered beneath my table. One shoe a little pointed to the right in the middle of the room; another, sole upwards, on a chair three and three-quarter feet distant from its fellow."

"Absolutely remarkable!" gasped Miss Bibby. She looked at him, a pencil poised a little hesitatingly. Was this thing possible? Was the great author then not quite, quite----she hardly liked, even in thought, to use the word sane?

"Oh, of course," said Hugh diffidently, "the fact may not seem worth mentioning in your article, but it is my experience that there is nothing which so endears a celebrity to his public as his little eccentricities."

"You are quite right," said Miss Bibby, "perfectly right, and indeed you are very, very good to make them known to me."

"Not at all, not at all," said Hugh graciously. "Anything else? I like to read myself, in these interviews, what time a writer gets up and goes to bed."

"Oh yes," said Miss Bibby, "that will be very interesting."

"Well," said Hugh, carefully fitting the finger tips of one hand on to the tips of the other, "I rise at a quarter to five, winter and summer, and get a cool two thousand off my chest while yet my fellow men are buried in slumber. And----"

"Excuse me," said Miss Bibby, "I don't quite follow--two thousand what, Mr. Kinross?"

"Words, of course," said Hugh.

"B--b--but," hesitated Miss Bibby, "I thought you said two hundred a day."

Hugh blinked a moment.

"My dear Madam," he said, "you have doubtless heard me called a stylist.

Every one of those two hundred words I erase five to ten times, polis.h.i.+ng, subst.i.tuting, seeking to express myself better."

Miss Bibby was writing fluently again.

"This," said the author, "occupies me until half-past six, when I take three baths, one hot, one cold, one--like the church of the Laodiceans--neither. This stimulates me marvellously."

Scratch, scratch went the fountain-pen.

"After this," said the author, "I walk ten miles along a level road, and three through a hilly country, during the last mile of the latter practising the deep-breathing exercises so highly recommended by the medical faculty."

Scratch, scratch, the pink cheek flag deepening with pleasure.

"On my return I go through a short course of exercises for the muscles, answer a few letters while I am cooling down, and then breakfast."

"It must be eleven o'clock by then," ventured Miss Bibby.

"Eleven o'clock it is," said Hugh, after a moment's consideration.

"And for breakfast," said Miss Bibby. "Do you--do you eat ordinary things? It would be so interesting to know."

Hugh was about to instance eggs and bacon in exaggerated quant.i.ties, when he realized that they were much too gross for such a paper. So he shook his head.