Gora was looking remarkably well, and Alexina assumed it was not only the
six months of mountain life and the three months in the tropics. She had an
air of assured power, rarely absent in a woman who has found herself and
achieved a definite place in life. Besides being one of the best nurses in
San Francisco, in constant demand by the leading doctors and surgeons,
her short stories had attracted considerable attention in the magazines,
although no publisher would risk bringing them out in book form. But they
were invariably mentioned in any summary of the year's best stories, one
had been included in a volume of selected short stories by modern authors,
and one in a recent text-book compiled for the benefit of aspirants in
the same difficult art. The remuneration had been insignificant, for her
stories were not of the popular order, and she had not yet the name that
alone commands the high reward; but she had advanced farther than many
another as severely handicapped, and she knew through her admiring
sister-in-law and Aileen Lawton that her stories were mentioned
occasionally at a San Francisco dinner table and even discussed! She was
"arriving." No doubt of that.
II
"When will the novel come out? I can't wait."
"Not until the spring."
They were sitting in Alexina's room and Gora had been placed directly in
front of the cabinet, which she did not appear even to see.
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