More than this Cardiff could not induce himself to say.

And he would await her answer before sending the article back to her.
It came next day, and in response to it Mr.Cardiff found himself walking, with singular lightness of step, toward Fleet Street in the afternoon with Elfrida's manuscript in his pocket.

Buddha smiled more inscrutably than ever as they went over it together, while the water hissed in the samovar in the corner, and little blue flames chased themselves in and out of the anthracite in the grate, and the queer Orientalism of the little room made its picturesque appeal to Cardiff's senses.

He had never been there before.
From beginning to end they went over the manuscript, he criticising and suggesting, she gravely listening, and insatiately spurring him on.
"You may say anything," she declared.

"The sharper it is the better, you know, for me.