There came that question, one that so often proved the loaded kind, at least with strangers. (For some dullards still believed women should not be published at all, some had no imagination, or had never picked up a book in their lives, some were society ladies sure to be offended by whatever she said or, worse, whatever they read of it.)

But she was pleased he had asked, and she suspected her face showed it, just a touch. “Poetry,” she said promptly. “And not,” she hastened to add, “the pretty sort.” It had passion, of course, as well as purpose (all poetry must) but it was not the kind destined to be recited by fresh-faced debutantes after dinner or by romantic young saps or staid old gentlemen. And all the better: if that was her legacy, why, she might as well banish all memory of herself now.

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