lius, Montaigne and Hood. She was exquisite, she was a valuable discovery. Nearly everybody nowadays knows too much—oh, so much too much—of real life.
I could perceive clearly that Azalea Adair was very poor. A house and a dress she had, not much else, I fancied. So, divided between my duty to the magazine and my loyalty to the poets and essayists who fought Thomas in the valley of the Cumberland, I listened to her voice, which was like a harpsichord’s, and found that I could not speak of contracts. In the presence of the nine Muses and the three Graces one hesitated to lower the topic to two cents. There would have to be another colloquy after I had regained my commercialism. But I spoke of my mission, and three o’clock of the next afternoon was set for the discussion of the business proposition.
“Your town,” I said, as I began to make ready to depart (which is the time for smooth generalities), “seems to be a quiet, sedate place. A home town, I should say, where few things out of the ordinary ever happen.”
It carries on an extensive trade in stoves and hollow ware with the West and South, and its flouring mills have a daily capacity of more than 2,000 barrels.
Azalea Adair seemed to reflect.
“I have never thought of it that way,” she said, with a kind of sincere intensity that seemed to belong to her.
