surroundings swept over him.

"I promise," he repeated. "I won't tell."

"Cross your heart and shut your eyes and I will tell you."

Hands on his knees, Carmencita watched the awkward movements of Van
Landing's fingers, then she laughed joyously, but when she spoke her
voice was in a whisper.

"I'm writing a book."

"You are doing what?"

"Writing a book! It's perfectly grand. That is, some days it is, but
most days it is a mess. It was a mess yesterday, and I burned up every
single word I wrote last week. I'll show it to you if you want to see
it."

Without waiting for an answer Carmencita sprang to her feet, and with
noiseless movement skipped across the room, and from the middle drawer
of the chest between the windows took out a large flat box.

"This is it." Again taking her seat on the stool at Van Landing's
feet, she opened the box carefully. One by one she lifted out of it
pieces of paper of varying size and color and held them toward her
visitor, who, hands clasped between knees, was bending forward and
watching with amazed interest the seemingly exhaustless contents of
the box beside him.