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Was he overwhelmed with your success with his book?

No. He was a famous man by this time. He lived very simply. Money didn't mean much to Havelock Ellis.

What was George Bernard Shaw like?

That's a different story! Mr. Ellis had been a slight disappointment to me--just a nice, quiet, dignified gentleman. He was getting old; he didn't live much longer. He didn't want to talk with a young publisher about sex.

So I said, “Well, now comes Mr. Shaw. What's going to happen? How is he going to meet me? How long is he going to keep me waiting for him? Will he remember our date?”

I went up on the elevator, one of those things with a rope in it you had to pull--and rang the bell and the door opened and there stood George Bernard Shaw! He was in knickers; he had rosy cheeks and a long white beard, jolly, sparkling eyes. I was overwhelmed by him immediately. You felt with Shaw you were in the presence of a super personality. Miss Patch arranged some tea for us, and then she disappeared. She became quite a good friend of mine later on. She was a nice old lady, an old fussbudget. But Shaw sat down with me, and he was in one of his talkative moods. Before we got around to the Theater Guild anthology, he began telling me about a trip around the world he'd just made. In California he had met William Randolph Hearst and Hearst's girl, Marion Davies.