"Or what?"
"Or nobody," she murmured.
The eyes that she bent upon the fire glittered. He squeezed her hand, and laughed constrainedly.
"I'm quite content, thank you," he said, in as light a tone as he could manage. "What are you crying for? Nurse will look daggers at me and think I've been bullying you. Tell me—was she kind to you? I've been haunted by the idea that she was treating you badly and you were too frightened of her to let anyone know. You're such a kid, little woman, in some things—such an awful kid."
"Not such a kid as you imagine," she said. "I've been thinking; I've thought of many things since Baby was born. Often when they believed I was asleep, I used to lie and think and think, till I was wretched."
"What did you think of?" asked Kent indulgently.
"You mustn't be vexed with me if I tell you. I've thought that, perhaps, although you don't feel it yet—though you don't suppose you everwillfeel it—it might have been best for you, really and seriously best, if you had married nobody, Humphrey—if you had had nothing to interfere with your work, and had lived on with Mr. Turquand just as you were. There, now youarevexed! Bend down, and let me smooth it away."
"What can have put such a stupid idea into your head?" said Kent, wishing pityingly that he had not felt it quite so often. "Don't be a goose, sweetheart! What nonsense! I should be lost without you."
"I think I suit you better than any other woman would," she said, with pathetic confidence. "But if you had kept single? That's what I've wondered—if you wouldn't be better off without a wife at all. Oh, you should hear some of the stories Nurse has told me of places she has been in! I didn't think there could be such awfulness in the world. And in the first confinement, too! It makes one afraid that no woman can ever expect to understand any man."
"Hang your nurse!" said Humphrey. "Cackling old fool! I suppose in every situation she is in she talks scandal about the last, and where there wasn't any, she makes it up. When does she go?"
"She can't leave Baby until we get another, you know. At least, I hope she won't have to."
"Another?"
"Another nurse. Mamma is going to advertise inThe Morning Postfor us at once. We want a thoroughly experienced woman, don't we, dear? We don't know anything about babies ourselves, and——"
"Oh, rather! Poor little soul! we owe him as much as that. Life is the cost of the parents' pleasure defrayed by the child. We'll make the world as desirable to him as we can."
He paused for her to comment on his impromptu definition of life, by which he was agreeably conscious he had said something brilliant; but it passed by her unheeded. He reflected that Turquand would either have approved it, or picked it to pieces, and that for it to go unnoticed was hard.
She looked at him tenderly.
"I knew you'd say so. It doesn't really make much difference to our expenses whether we pay twenty pounds a year or twenty-five—and to the kind of nurse we shall get it makes all the difference on earth. What shall we call him?"
"Him! You're not going to get a man?"
"Baby, you silly! Have you thought of a name?Ihave!"
He was still wishing that she had a sense of humour and occasionally made a witty remark.
"What?" he asked.
"Yours. I want to call him 'Humphrey.' What do you say to it?"
"What for? It's ugly. You said so the first time you heard it. I think we might choose something better than that."
"But it's yours," she persisted. "I want him called by your name—I do, I do!" She held his hand tightly, and her lips trembled. "If ... if I were ever to lose you, Humphrey, I should like our child to have your name. Don't laugh at me, I can't help feeling that. That night when he was born—oh, that night! shall I ever forget it?—and Dr. Roberts looked across at me and said, 'Well, you have a little son come to see you, Mrs. Kent,' the first thing I thought was, 'We can call him "Humphrey."' I wanted to say it to you when they let you in, but I couldn't, I was so tired; I thought it instead. When nurse brought him over to me, or when he cried, or when I saw him moving under the blanket in the bassinet, I thought, 'There's my other Humphrey!'"
He kissed her, and sat staring at the fire, his conscience clamorous. He had not realised that he had grown so dear to her, and the discovery made his own dissatisfaction crueller. He felt a thankless brute, a beast. It seemed to him momentarily that the situation would be much less painful if the disappointment were mutual—if she, too, were discontented with the bargain she had made. To listen to her speaking in such a way, to accept her devotion, knowing how little devotion she inspired in return, stabbed him. He asked himself what he had done that she should love him so fondly. He had not openly neglected her, but secretly he had done it often, and with relief. Had she missed him when he had shut himself in his room, not to write, but to wish that he had never met her? His mind smote him.
The question obtruded itself during the following days, but now at least his plea of being busy was always genuine enough; he was writing fiercely. The pile of manuscript to which he added sheet after sheet was heavy and thick. Then there came a morning when he went to bed at three, and rose again at eight, to begin his final chapter, having told the servant to bring him a sandwich and a glass of claret for luncheon. When one o'clock struck, and she entered, tobacco had left him with no appetite and a furred tongue. He threw a "thank you" at her, and remained in the same bent attitude, his pen traversing the paper steadily. He was working with an exaltation which rarely seized him, the exaltation with which the novelist is depicted in fiction as working all the time. His aspect was untidy enough for him to have served as an admirable model for that personage. He had not shaved for three days, and a growth of stubbly beard intensified the haggardness that came of insufficient sleep.
The wind was causing the fire to be more a nuisance than a comfort, and every now and then a gust of smoke shot out of the narrow stove, obscuring the page before him, and making him cough and swear. The atmosphere was villainous, but, excepting in these moments, he was unconscious of it. He was near the closing lines. His empty pipe was gripped between his teeth, and he wanted to refill it, but he couldn't bring himself to take his eyes from the paper while he stretched for his pouch and the matches. He meant to refill it the instant he had written the last words, but now an access of uncertainty assailed him and he could not decide upon them. He stared at the paper without daring to set a sentence down, and drew at the empty bowl mechanically, his palate craving for the taste of tobacco, while his sight was magnetised by the pen's point hovering under his hand. He sat so for a quarter of an hour. Then he wrote with supreme satisfaction what he had thought of first and rejected. His pen was dropped. He drew a breath of relief and thanksgiving, and lit his pipe. His novel was done.
Unlike the novelist in fiction again, he did not mourn beautifully that the characters who had peopled his solitude for twelve months, and whom he loved, were about to leave him for the harsher criticism of the world. He was profoundly glad of it. He felt exhilaration leap in his jaded veins as he picked up his pen and added "The End." He felt that he was free of an enormous load, a tremendous responsibility, of which he had acquitted himself well. Almost every morning, with rare exceptions, for a year he had, so to speak, awakened with this unfinished novel staring him in the face; almost every night for a year he had gone up the stairs to the bedroom remembering what a lump of writing had still to be accomplished. And now it was done; and he couldn't do it better. Blessed thought! If he recast it chapter by chapter and phrase by phrase, he could not handle the idea more carefully or strongly than he had handled it in the bulky package that lay in front of him—the story told!
He was eager to forward it to the publishers without delay, but Turquand had so recently referred to his expectation of reading it in the manuscript that he sent it to Soho first. "Let me have it back quickly," he begged; and the journalist's answer in returning the parcel reached him on the next evening but one. He showed it to Cynthia with delight; Turquand wrote very warmly. The manuscript was submitted to Messrs. Cousins with a note, requesting them to give it their early consideration; and now Kent was asked constantly by the Walfords if they had written yet, and what terms he had obtained. Cynthia had not regained strength enough to care to travel at present, and her parents and brother generally spent the evening at No. 64, where, truth to tell, Kent found their interest rather a nuisance. His father-in-law evidently held that it was derogatory for him to be kept waiting a fortnight for his publishers' offer, and Mrs. Walford made so many foolish inquiries and ridiculous suggestions that he was sometimes in danger of being rude. Cæsar alone displayed no curiosity in a matter so frivolous, but listened with his superior air, which tried Kent's patience even more. The fat young man's debut had been postponed again. Now he was to appear for certain in the spring, and he explained, in a tone implying that he could, if he might, impart esoteric facts, that the delay had been discreet.
"No outsider can have any idea," he said languidly, "what wheels within wheels there are in our world." He meant the operatic world, into which he had still to squeeze a foot. "This last season it would have been madness for a new bass to sing in London; he was doomed before he opened his mouth—doomed!" He looked at the ceiling with a meditative smile, as if dwelling upon curiously amusing circumstances. "Veryfunny!" he added.
Excepting his master, he did not know a professional singer in England, and, whenever a benefit concert was to be given, he would chase the organiser all over the town in hansoms, and telegraph to him for an appointment "on urgent business" in the hope of being allowed to sing. But his assurance was so consummate that—although one was aware he had not yet done anything at all—he almost persuaded one while he talked that he was the pivot round which the musical world revolved. Cæsar excepted, Kent had really no grounds for complaint against the Walfords. The others' queries might worry him, but their cordiality was extreme; and they made Cynthia relate Turquand's opinion of the book—for which no title had been found—again and again. Even the stock-jobber's view that a fort-night's silence was surprising was due to an exaggerated estimate of the author's importance, and Mrs. Walford, when she refrained from giving him advice, appeared to think him a good deal cleverer now that the manuscript was in Messrs. Cousins' hands than she had done while it was lying on his desk. Indeed, there were moments at this stage when his mother-in-law gushed at him with an ardour that reminded him of the early days of his acquaintance with her in Dieppe.
"Well, have those publishers of yours made you an offer yet?"
"No, sir; I haven't heard from them."
"You should drop them a line," said Walford irritably. "Damn nonsense! How long have they had the thing now?"
"About three weeks."
"Drop 'em a line! They may keep you waiting a month if you don't wake them up. Don't you think so, Cynthia? He ought to write."
"Oh, I expect we shall have a letter in a day or two, papa. We were afraid you weren't coming round this evening; you're late. How d'ye do, mamma? How d'ye do, Aunt Emily?"
"And how are you?" asked Mrs. Walford. "Have you made up your mind about Bournemouth yet? She is quite fit to go now, Humphrey. You ought to pack her off at once; there's nothing to wait for now you've got your nurse. How does she suit you?"
"She seems all right," said Cynthia, rather doubtfully. "A little consequential, perhaps—that's all."
"Oh, you mustn't stand any airs and graces; put her in her place at the start. What has she done?"
"She hasn't done anything, only——"
"She's our first," explained Kent, "and we're rather in awe of her. She was surprised to find that there weren't two nurseries—she is frequently 'surprised,' and then we apologise to her."
"Don't be so absurd!" murmured his wife; "he does exaggerate so, mamma! No; but, of course, she has always been in better situations, with people richer than us.... 'Us'?" she repeated questioningly, looking at Kent with a smile.
He laughed and shook his head.
"Thanwe, then! And she's the least bit in the world too self-important."
"Than 'we'?" echoed Mrs. Walford. "Than 'we'? Nonsense! 'Thanus'!"
Kent pulled his moustache silently, and there was a moment's pause.
"Thanus!" said the lady again defiantly. "Unquestionably it is 'thanus!"
"Very well," he replied; "I'm not arguing about it, mater."
"Ialways say 'than us,'" said Sam Walford good-humouredly. "Ain't it right?"
"No," said Miss Wix; "of course it isn't, Sam!"
"Ridiculous!" declared Mrs. Walford, with asperity. "'Than we' is quite wrong—quite ungrammatical. I don't care who says it isn't—I say itis."
"A literary man might have been supposed to know," said Miss Wix ironically. "But Humphrey is mistaken too, then?"
"What's the difference—what does it matter?" put in Cynthia. "There's nothing to get excited about, mamma."
"I'm not in the least excited," said her mother, with a white face; "but I don't accept anybody's contradiction on such a point. I'm not to be convinced to the contrary when I'm sure I'm correct."
"Well, let's return to our muttons," said Kent. "Once upon a time there was a nurse, and——"
"Oh, you are very funny!" Mrs. Walford exclaimed. "Let me tell you, you don't know anything about it. And as to Emily, I don't take any notice of her at all. She may say what she likes."
"What I like is decent English," said Miss Wix, "since you don't mind. This lively conversation must be very good for Cynthia. Humphrey, you're quite a member of the family; you see we're rude to one another in front of you. Isn't it nice?"
"I shouldn't come to you to learn politeness, either," retorted Mrs. Walford hotly. "I shouldn't come to you to learn grammar, or politeness either. You're most rude yourself—most ill-bred!"
"That'll do—that'll do," said the stock-jobber; "we don't want a row. Damn it! let everybody say what they choose; it ain't a hanging matter, I suppose, if they're wrong!"
"I'mnotwrong, Sam. Humphrey, just tell me this: Do you say 'than who' or 'than whom'? Now, then!"
"You say 'than whom,' but that's the one instance where the comparative does govern the objective in English. And Angus, or Morell, or somebody august, denies that it ought to govern it there."
Momentarily she looked disconcerted. Then she said:
"All I maintain is that 'than we' is very pedantic in ordinary conversation—very pedantic indeed; and I shall stick to my opinion if you argue for ever. 'Than us' is much more usual, and much more euphonious. I consider it's much more euphonious than the other. I prefer it altogether."
Miss Wix gave a sharp little laugh.
"You may consider it more euphonious to say 'heggs' and 'happles,' too, but that doesn't make it right."
Her sister turned to her wrathfully, and the ensuing passage at arms was terminated by the spinster putting her handkerchief to her eyes and beginning to cry.
"I won't be spoken to so," she faltered—"I won't! Oh, I quite understand—I know what it means; but this is the last time I'll be trampled on and insulted—the last time, Sam!"
"Don't be a fool, Emily; nobody wants to 'trample' on you. You can give as good as you get, too. What an infernal rumpus about nothing! 'Pon my soul! I think you have both gone crazy."
"I'm in the way—yes! And I'm shown every hour that I'm in the way!" she sobbed, in crescendo. "Humphrey is a witness how I am treated. I won't stop where I'm not wanted. This is the end of it. I'll go—I'll take a situation!"
Everybody excepting the offender endeavoured to pacify her. Cynthia put an arm round her waist and spoke consolingly, while Walford patted her on the back. Humphrey brought her whisky-and-water, but she waved it violently aside.
"I'll take a situation; I've made up my mind. Thank Heaven! I'm not quite dependent on a sister and a brother-in-law yet. Thank Heaven! I've the health to work for my living. I'd rather live in one room on a pound a week than remain with you. I shall leave your house the moment I can get something to do. I'll be a paid companion—I'll go into a shop!" And she went into hysterics.
When she recovered, she drank the whisky-and-water tearfully, and begged Kent to take her back to The Hawthorns. He complied amiably, and tried on the way to dissuade her from her determination. It was his first experience of this phase of Miss Wix, and he was a good deal surprised by the valour that she displayed. Her weakness had passed, and the light of resolution shone in the little woman's eyes. Her nostrils were dilated, her carriage was firm and erect. He felt that it was no empty boast when she asserted stoutly that she would go to a registry-office on the morrow—nor was it; as much as that she would probably do. But the prospect of employment was as the martyr's stake or an arena of lions, to her mind; and, after the office had been visited, the decision of her manner would decrease, and the heroism in her eyes subside, until at last she trembled in a cold perspiration lest her relatives should take her at her word.
"It'll be a small household if you go," he said; "I suppose Cæsar won't live at home after he comes out, and they will be left by themselves."
Miss Wix sniffed.
"Whenhe comes out!"
"Yes; he seems to have been rather a long while doing it. But there can't be any doubt about it this time; the agreement for the spring is signed, I hear."
They were passing a lamp-post. Miss Wix's mouth was the size of a sixpence, and her eyebrows had entirely disappeared under her bonnet.
"It always is," she said. "The agreements are always signed—and written in invisible ink. I don't seem to remember the time when that young manwasn'tcoming out 'next spring,' and I knew him in his cradle. He was an affected horror then."
Kent laughed to himself in walking home; he had suspected the accuracy of the proud parents' statements already, just as he had suspected, when he had been invited to meet an operatic celebrity at The Hawthorns, who it was that sent the telegram of regrets and apologies that bore the star's name. He wondered how much the Walfords' foolishness and his pupil's vanity had been worth to the Italian singing-master, who gesticulated about the drawing-room and foretold such triumphs.
When he re-entered No. 64, he was relieved to find the company cheerful again; they seemed even to be in high spirits, and the cause was promptly evident. Cynthia pointed radiantly to a letter lying on the table.
"For you," she cried, "from Cousins! Be quick; we're all dying of impatience. How did you leave Aunt Emily?"
"She's going to bed," he said, tearing the envelope open.
His heart had leapt, and he trusted only that he wasn't destined to be damped by the suggested price. The others sat regarding him eagerly, waiting for him to speak. Cynthia tried to guess the amount by his expression.
"Well?" said Mrs. Walford at last—"Well? What do they say?"
Kent put the note down; all the colour had gone from his face. His lips twitched, and his voice was not under control as he answered.
"They haven't accepted it," he said; "they're returning it to me. They don't think it good."
"What?" she ejaculated.
"Oh, Humphrey!" he heard Cynthia gasp; and then there were seconds in which he was conscious that everyone was staring at him, seconds in which he would have paid heavily to be in the room alone. That the book might be refused, after such reviews as had been written of his last, was a calamity that he had never contemplated, and he was overwhelmed. When he had been despondent he had imagined the publishers proposing to pay a couple of hundred pounds for it; when he had been gloomier still, he had fancied that the sum would be a hundred and fifty; in moments of profound depression he had even groaned, "I shan't get a shilling more for it than I did for the other one!" But to be rejected, "declined with thanks," was a shock for which he was wholly unprepared. It almost dazed him.
"What do you mean?" demanded Sam Walford, breaking the silence angrily. "Not accepting it? But—but—this is a fine sort of thing! It takes you a year to write, and then they don't accept it. A damn good businessyou're in, upon my word!"
"Hush, Sam!" said Mrs. Walford. "What do they say? what reason do they give? Let me look!"
Kent handed the letter to her mutely, his wife watching him with startled, pitying eyes, and she read it aloud:
"'DEAR SIR,"'We are obliged by the kind offer of your MS., to which our most careful consideration has been given.'"
"'DEAR SIR,
"'We are obliged by the kind offer of your MS., to which our most careful consideration has been given.'"
"Been better if they'd considered it a little less!" grunted Walford.
"'We regret to say, however, that, in view of our reader's report, we are reluctantly forced to decide that the construction of the story precludes any hope of its succeeding. The faults seem inherent to the story, and irremediable, and we are therefore returning the MS. to you to-day, with our compliments and thanks.'"
"'We regret to say, however, that, in view of our reader's report, we are reluctantly forced to decide that the construction of the story precludes any hope of its succeeding. The faults seem inherent to the story, and irremediable, and we are therefore returning the MS. to you to-day, with our compliments and thanks.'"
"Ha, ha!" said Kent wildly; "they return it with their compliments!"
"I don't see anything to laugh at!" said his mother-in-law with temper; "I call it dreadful. Anything but funny, I'm sure!"
"Do you think so?" he said. "I call it very funny. There's a touch of humour about their 'compliments' that'd be hard to beat."
"Ah," said Walford, "your mother-in-law's sense of humour isn't so keen and 'literary' as yours. She only sees that your year's work's not worth a tinker's curse!"
"Papa!" murmured Cynthia, wincing.
Kent's mouth closed viciously.
"Againstyourjudgment on such a matter, sir," he said, "of course there can be no appeal."
"It ain't my judgment," answered Walford; "it's your own publishers'. It's no good putting on the sarcastic, my boy. Here"—he caught up the letter and slapped it—"here you've got the opinion of a practical man, and he tells you the thing's valueless. There's no getting away from facts."
"AndIsay the thing's strong, sound work," exclaimed Kent, "and the reader's an ass! Oh, what's the use of arguing with you? You see it rejected, and so to you it's rubbish; and when you see it paid for, to you it will be very good! I want some whisky—has 'Aunt Emily' drunk it all?" He helped himself liberally, and invited his father-in-law to follow his example. Walford shook his head with a grunt. "You won't have a drink? I will! I want to return thanks for Messrs. Cousins' compliments. It's very flattering to receive compliments from one's publishers. I'm afraid you none of you appreciate it so much as you ought. We're having a ripping evening, aren't we, with hysterics and rejections? And whisky's good for both. Well, sir, what have you got to say next?"
"I think we'll say 'good-night,'" said Mrs. Walford coldly; "I'll be round in the morning, Cynthia. Come, Sam, it's past ten!"
She rose, and put on her things, Kent assisting her. The stock-jobber took leave of him with a scowl; and when the last "good-night" had been exchanged, Cynthia and the unfortunate author stood on the hearth vis-à-vis. The girl was relieved that her parents were gone. The atmosphere had been electric and made her nervous of what might happen next. She had been looking forward, besides, to consoling him when the door closed—to his lying in her arms under her kisses, while she smoothed away his mortification. She could enter into his mood to-night better than she had entered into any of his moods yet, and she ached with sorrow for him. To turn to his wife on any matters connected with his work, however, never entered his head any more; so when she murmured deprecatingly, "Papa didn't mean anything by what he said, darling; you mustn't be vexed with him," all he replied was, "Oh, he hasn't made an enemy for life, my dear! If you're going up to your room now, I think I'll take a stroll."
She said, "Do, and—and cheer up!" But her heart sank miserably. He dropped a kiss on her cheek with a response as feeble as her own, and went out. A woman may have little comprehension of her husband's work, and yet feel the tenderest sympathies for the disappointments that it brings him, but of this platitude the novelist had shown himself ignorant.
Cynthia did not go up to her room at once. She sat down by the dying fire and wondered. She wondered—in the hour in which she had come mentally nearest to him—if, after all, Humphrey and she were united so closely as she had supposed.
She loved him. When they married, perhaps neither had literally loved the other, but the girl had roused much stronger feelings in the man than the man had wakened in the girl. To-day the position was reversed; and her perception that he did not find her so companionable as she had dreamed was the beginning of a struggle to render herself a companion to him.
If she had been a woman of keener intuitions, she must have perceived it long ago, but her intuitions were not keen. She was not so dull as he thought her, nor was she so dull as when she married, but a woman of the most rapid intelligence she would never be. Her heart was greater than her mind—much greater; her heart entitled her to a devotion that she was far from receiving. To her mind marriage had made a trifling difference; her sensibilities it had developed enormously. Her husband overlooked her sensibilities, and chafed at her mind. Fortunately for her peace, her tardy perception of their relations did not embrace quite so much as that.
She stayed at Bournemouth for a fortnight, and when she came home her efforts to acquire the quickness that she lacked, to talk in the same strain as Kent, to utter the kind of extravagance which seemed to be his idea of wit, were laboured and pathetic. Especially as he did not notice them. She read the books that he admired, and was bored by them more frequently than she was moved. She attempted, in fact, to mould herself upon him, and she attempted it with such scanty encouragement, and with so little apparent result, that, if her imitation had not become instinctive by degrees, she would have been destined to renounce it in despair.
He was not at this time the most agreeable of models; he was too much humiliated and too anxious. Though Mr. and Mrs. Walford were superficially affable again, he felt a difference that he could not define in their manner, and was always uncomfortable in their presence. He had called the bookThe Eye of the Beholder, and he submitted it to Messrs. Percival and King. But February waned without any communication coming from the firm, and once more the Walfords asked him almost every day if he had "any news." His only prop now was Turquand, whom he often went to town to see. Turquand had been genuinely dismayed, by Messrs. Cousins' refusal, and it was by his advice that the author had chosen Percival and King. Kent awaited their verdict feverishly. Not only was his humiliation bad to bear, but his financial position was beginning to be serious, and the Walfords' knowledge of the fact aggravated the unpleasantness of it.
Messrs. Percival sent the manuscript back at the end of April. They did not offer any criticism upon the work; they regretted merely that in the present state of the book market they could not undertake the publication ofThe Eye of the Beholder.
Then the novelist packed it up again, and posted it to Fendall and Green. Messrs. Fendall and Green were longer in replying, and the fact of the second rejection could not be withheld from the Walfords. After they had heard of it, the change in their manner towards him was more marked. They obviously regarded him as a poor pretender in literature, and her mother admitted as much to Cynthia once.
"Well, mamma," said Cynthia valiantly, "I don't see how you can speak like that! It's terribly unfortunate, and he's very worried, but you know what Humphrey's reviews have been—nothing can take away the success he has had."
"Oh, 'reviews'!" said Mrs. Walford, with impatience. "He mustn't talk to us about 'reviews'!"
"Of course all those were 'worked' for him by Cousins. We are behind the scenes, we know what such things are worth."
This conviction of hers, that his publishers had paid a few pounds to the leading London papers to praise him in their columns, was not to be shaken. Cynthia did not repeat it to him, and Kent did not divine it, but Miss Wix—who had consented to remain at The Hawthorns—appeared quite a lovable person to him now in comparison with his wife's mother. Of intention Louisa did not snub him, the stock-jobber was not rude to him deliberately, but both felt that their girl had done badly indeed for herself, and their very tones in addressing him were new and resentful.
In secret they were passionately mortified on another score. Their prodigy, the coming bass, had once more failed to secure a debut, and at last there was nothing for it but to admit that the thought of a musical career must be abandoned. The circumstances surrounding this final failure were veiled in mystery, even from Cynthia, but the fact was sufficiently damning in itself. The wily Pincocca was paid fees no longer, and Cæsar took a trip to Berlin with a company-promoter whom his father knew, and who did not speak German, while his mother invented an explanation.
It was trying for the Walfords, both their swans turning out to be ganders at the same time, and that one of them had been acquired, not hatched, was more than they could forgive themselves, or him. There were occasions soon when Kent was more than slighted, when no disguise was made at all. One day in July, Walford said to him:
"I tell you what it is, Humphrey, this can't go on! You'll have to give your profession up and look for a berth, my boy. How's your account now?"
"Pretty low," confessed his son-in-law, feeling like a lad rebuked for a misdemeanour.
Walford looked at him indignantly.
"Ha!" he said. "It's a nice position, 'pon my word! And no news, I suppose—nothing fresh?".
"Nothing, sir."
"You'll have to chuck it all. You'll have to chuck this folly of yours, and put your shoulder to the wheel and work."
"I thought I did work," said Kent doggedly. "Do you think literature is a game?"
"I think it's an infernal rotten game—yes!"
"Ah, well, there," said Kent, "many literary men have agreed with you."
"You'll have to put your mind to something serious. If you only earn thirty bob a week, it's more than your novels bring you in. What your wife and child will do, God knows—have to come to us, I suppose. A fine thing for a girl married eighteen months!"
"She hasn't arrived at it yet," answered Kent, very pale, "and I don't fancy she will. Many thanks for the invitation."
Walford stopped short—they had met in the High Road—and cocked his head, his legs apart.
"Will you take a berth in the City for a couple of quid, if I can get you one?" he demanded sharply.
"No," said Kent, "I'll be damned if I will! I'll stick to my pen, whatever happens, and I'll stick to my wife and child, too!"
The other did not pursue the conversation, but the next time that Humphrey saw Mrs. Walford she told him that his father-in-law was very much incensed against him for his ingratitude.
"It is sometimes advisable for a man to change his business," she said. "A man goes into one business, and if it doesn't pay he tries another. Your father-in-law is much older than you, and—er—naturally more experienced. I think you ought to listen to his opinion with more respect. Especially under the circumstances."
"Oh?" he murmured. "Have you said that to Cynthia?"
"No; it is not necessary to say it to anybody but you. And it might make her unhappy. She is troubled enough without!"
She had, as a matter of fact, said it to her with much eloquence the previous afternoon.
"And another thing," she continued: "I am bound to say I don't see any grounds for your believing—er—er—that your profession has any prizes in store for you, even if you could afford to remain in it. You mustn't mind my speaking plainly, Humphrey. You are a young man, and—er—you have no one to advise you, and you may thank me for it one day."
"Let me thank you now," he said, fighting to conceal his rage.
"If you can," she said; "if you feel it, I am very glad. You see what you have done: you wrote a book, which you got very little for—some nice reviews"—she smiled meaningly—"which we needn't talk about. And then you spend a year on another, which nobody wants. To succeed as a novelist, one must have a very strong gift; there is no doubt about it. A novelist must be very brilliant to do any good to-day—very brilliant. He wants—er—to know the world—to know the world, and—er—oh, he must be very polished—very smart!"
"I see," he said shakily, as she paused. "You don't think I've the necessary qualifications?"
"You have aptitude," she said; "you have a certain aptitude, of course, but to make it your profession——So many young men, who have been educated, could write a novel.Youhappen to have done it; others haven't had the time. They open a business, or go on the Stock Exchange, or perhaps they haven't the patience. I'm afraid your publishers did you a mistaken kindness by those unfortunate reviews."
"How do you mean?" he asked. "Yes, the reviewers didn't agree with you, did they?"
She smiled again, and waved her hands expressively.
"Oh, they were very pretty, very nice to have; but—er—newspaper notices do not take us in. Naturally, they were paid for. Cousins arranged with the papers for all that."
"With——"
He looked at her open-mouthed, as the names of some of the papers recurred to him.
"With them all," she said. "Oh yes! You must remember we are quite behind the scenes."
"Pincocca," he said musingly. "Yes, you knew Pincocca. But he was a singing-master, and he doesn't come here now."
"Oh, Pincocca was one of many—one of very many." She giggled nervously. "How very absurd that you should suppose I meant Pincocca! You mustn't forget that Cæsar knows everybody. I'm almost glad he isn't going on the stage, for that reason. He brought such crowds to the house at one time that really we lived in a whirl. I believe—between ourselves—that this man he has gone to Berlin with is at the bottom of his throwing up his career. A financier. A Mr. McCullough. One of the greatest powers in the City. And—er—Cæsar was always wonderfully shrewd in these things. Don't say anything, but I believe McCullough wants to keep him!"
"I won't say anything," he said.
"McCullough controls millions!" she gasped. "And your father-in-law thinks, from rumours that are going about, that he's persuaded Cæsar to join him in some negotiations that he has with the German Government. Of course we mustn't breathe a word about it. Sh! What were we saying? Oh yes, I'm afraid those unfortunate reviews did you more harm than good. Nothing great in the City can be got for you, because you haven't the commercial experience, but a clerkship would be better than doing nothing. You must really think about it, Humphrey, if you can't do anything for yourself. As your father-in-law says, you are sitting down with your hands in your pockets, eating up your last few pounds." It occurred to her that a clerkship might look small beside the ease with which her son was securing a partnership in millions. "Of course," she added, "Cæsar always did have a head for finance. And—er—he's a way with him. He hasaplomb—aplombthat makes him immensely valuable for negotiations with a Government. It's different for Cæsar."
Kent left her, and cursed aloud. He went the same evening to Turquand's, partly as a relief to his feelings, and partly to ask his friend's opinion of the feasibility of his obtaining journalistic work.
"For Heaven's sake, talk!" he exclaimed, as he flung himself into the rickety chair that used to be his own. "Say anything you like, but talk. I've just had an hour and a half of my mother-in-law neat! Take the taste out of my mouth. Turk, I wish I were dead! What the devil is to be the end of it? The Walfords say 'a clerk-ship'! Oh, my God, you should hear the Walfords! I've 'a little aptitude,' but I mustn't be conceited. I mustn't seriously call myself a novelist. I've frivolled away a year onThe Eye of the Beholder, and Cousins squared the reviewers for me onThe SpectatorandThe Saturdayand the rest! Look here, I must get something to do. Don't you know of anything, can't you I introduce me to an editor, isn't there anything stirring at all?I'm buried; I live in a red-brick tomb in Streatham; I hear nothing, and see nobody, except my blasted parents-in-law. But you're in the thick of it; you sniff the mud of Fleet Street every day; you're the salaried sub of a paper that's going to put a cover on itself and 'throw it in' at the penny; you——"
"Yes," said Turquand, "I
'Ave flung my thousands gily ter the benefit of tride,And gin'rally (they tells me) done the grand.'
It looks like it, doesn't it?"
"I know all about that! But surely you can tell me of a chance? I don't say an opening, but a chance of an opening. Man, the outlook's awful. I shall be stony directly. You must!"
"Fendall and Green haven't written, eh?"
"No; their regrets haven't come yet. How about short stories?"
"You didn't find 'em particularly lucrative, did you?"
"A guinea each; one in six months. No; but I want to be invited to contribute: 'Can you let us have anything this month, Mr. Kent?'"
"My dear chap! should I have stuck toThe Outpostall these years if I had such advice to give away? I did"—he coughed, and spat out an invisible shred of tobacco—"I did stick to it."
"You weren't going to say that! You were going to say, 'I did advise you once, but youwould marry!' Well, I don't complain that I married. The only fault I have to find with my wife is that she's the Walford's daughter. She's not literary, but she's a very good girl. Don't blink facts, Turk; my money would have lasted longer if I hadn't married, but I shouldn't have got my novel taken on that account. The point of this situation is that, after being lauded to the skies by every paper of importance in England, I can't place the book I write next at any price at all, nor find a way to earn bread and cheese by my pen! If a musician had got such criticisms on a composition, he'd be a made man. If an artist had had them on a picture, the ball would be at his feet. If an actor had got them on a performance, he'd be offered engagements at a hundred a week. It's only in literature that such an anomalous and damnable condition of affairs as mine is possible. You can't deny it."
"I don't," said Turquand.
Nor did the conference, which was protracted until a late hour, provide an outlet to the dilemma; it was agreeable, but it did not lead anywhere. If he should hear of anything, he would certainly let the other know; that was the most the sub-editor could say. Authors are not offered salaries to write their novels, and Kent was not a journalist by temperament, nor possessed of any journalistic experience. As to tales or articles forThe Outpost, that paper did not publish fiction, and their rate for other matter was seven and sixpence a column. However, some attempt had to be made, and Kent went to town every day, and Cynthia saw less of him than when he had been writingThe Eye of the Beholder. He hunted up his few acquaintances, and haunted the literary club that he had joined in the flush of his success. He applied for various posts that were advertised vacant, and he inserted a skilfully-framed advertisement. No answer arrived; and the tradesmen's bills, and the poor rates, and the gas notices, and the very; competent nurse's wages, continued to fall due in the meanwhile. When the competent nurse's were not due, the incompetent "general's" were. Dr. Roberts' account came in, and the sight of his pass-book now terrified the young man.
They had not been married quite two years yet, and he asked himself if they had been extravagant, in view of this evidence of the rapidity with which money had melted; but, excepting the style in which they had furnished, he could not perceive any cause for such self-reproach. They had lived comfortably, of course, but if the novel had been placed when it was finished, they could have continued to live just as comfortably while he wrote the next. He feared they would have to take a bill of sale on the too expensive furniture, and that way lay destitution. Cynthia's composure in the circumstances surprised him. He told her so.
"It'll all come right," she said. "You are sure to get something soon, and perhaps Fendall and Green will acceptThe Eye of the Beholder—fulsomely!"
This was an improvement, for a few months since she would have been unable to recollect their name and have referred to them vaguely as "the publishers." He felt the sense of intimacy deepen as "Fendall and Green" dropped glibly from her lips, and the "fulsomely" made him feel quite warm towards her.'
"Have you told your people what a tight corner we're in?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Why should I? That's our affair."
"So it is," he assented. "Poor little girl! it's 'orrible rough on you, though; I wonder you aren't playing with straws. You didn't know what economy meant when we married."
Praise from him was nectar and ambrosia to her. She wanted to embrace him, but felt that if she embraced the opportunity to give a happy definition of "economy" it would be appreciated better. She perched herself on the arm of his chair, and struggled to evolve an epigram. As she could not think of one, she said:
"What nonsense!"
"I wish you had read the book, and liked it," said Kent, speaking spontaneously.
"Say you wish I'd read it?" replied his wife. "Oh, you'd like it, because it was mine. But I mean I wish——"
"What?"
"I don't know."
She twisted a piece of his hair round her finger.
"My taste is much maturer than it was," she averred, with satisfaction. "Somehow, I can't stand the sort of things that used to please me; I don't know how I was able to read them. They bore me now."
He smiled. As she had often done to him before, she seemed a child masquerading in a woman's robes.
"You're getting quite a critic!"
"Well," she said happily, "you'll laugh, but I gotA Peacock's Tailfrom the library, and when the review inThe Chroniclecame out, the reviewer said just what I'd felt about it. He did! I'm not such a silly as you think, you see."
"My love!" he cried, "I never thought you were a 'silly.'"
"Not very wise, though! Oh, I know what I lack, Humphrey; but Iambetter than I was—I am really! Remember, I never heard literature talked about until I met you; it was all new to me when we married, and—if you've noticed it—you aren't very,veryinterested in anything else. The longer we live together, the more—the nicer I shall be."
He answered lightly:
"You're nice enough now."
But he was touched.
After a long pause, as if uttering the conclusion of a train of thought aloud, she murmured: "Baby's gotyourshaped head."
"I hope to God it'll be worth more to him than mine to me!" he exclaimed.
She was silent again.
"What are you so serious for, all of a sudden?" he said, looking round.
Cynthia bent over him quickly with a caress, and sprang up.
"It was you who wanted thet'scrossed for once!" she said tremulously. "There, now I must go and knock at the nursery door and ask if I'm allowed to go in!"
The man of acute perceptions wondered what she meant, and in what way he had shown himself dull at comprehending so transparent a girl.
It was in October, when less than twenty pounds remained to them, that something at last turned up. Turquand had learnt that an assistant-editor was required onThe World and his Wife, a weekly journal recently started for the benefit of the English and Americans in Paris. The Editor was familiarly known as "Billy" Beaufort, and the proprietor was a sporting baronet who had reduced his income from fourteen thousand per annum to eight by financing, and providing with the diamonds, which were the brightest feature of her performance, a lady who fancied that she was an actress. Beaufort had been the one dramatic critic who did not imply that she was painful, and it was Beaufort who had latterly assured the Baronet thatThe World and his Wifewould realise a fortune. He had gone about London for thirteen years assuring people that various enterprises would realise a fortune—that was his business—but the Baronet was one of the few persons who had believed him. Then Billy Beaufort took his watch, and his scarf-pin, and his sleeve-links away from Attenborough's—when in funds he could always pawn himself for a considerable amount—and turned up again resplendent at the club, whose secretary had been writing him sharp letters on the subject of his subscription. The only alloy to his complacence, though it did not dimmish it to any appreciable degree, was that he was scarcely more qualified to edit a paper than was a landsman to navigate a ship. He described himself as a journalist, and the description was probably as accurate as any other he could have furnished of a definite order; but he was a journalist whose attainments were limited to puffing a prospectus and serving up a réchauffé fromTruth. Never attached to a paper for longer than two or three months, he was, during that period, usually attached to a woman too. He drove in hansoms every day of the year; always appeared to have bought his hat half an hour ago; affected a big picotee as a buttonhole, and lived—nobody knew how. While he was ridiculed in Fleet Street as a Pressman, he was treated with deference there on account of his reputed smartness in the City, and—while the City laughed at his business pretensions—there he was respected for his supposed abilities in Fleet Street. So he beamed out of the hansoms perkily, and drove from one atmosphere of esteem to another, waving a gloved hand, on the way, to clever men who envied him.
In days gone by he had tasted a spell of actual prosperity. By what coup he had made the money, and how he had lost it, are details, but he had now developed the fatal symptom of dwelling lovingly on that epoch when he had been so lucky, and so courted, and so rich. There is hope for the man who boasts of what he means to do; there is hope for the boaster who lies about what he is doing; but the man whose weakness is to boast of what he once did is doomed—he is a man who will succeed no more. If the sporting Baronet had grasped this fact,The World and his Wifewould never have been started, and Billy Beaufort would not have been looking for an assistant-editor to do all the work.
Kent obtained the post. The man with whom Beaufort had parted was a thoroughly experienced journalist, who had put his chief in the way of things, but had subsequently called him an ass, and what Billy sought now was a zealous young fellow who would have no excuse for giving himself airs. Beaufort believed in Turquand's opinion, and had always thought him a fool for being so shabby, knowing him to have ten times the brain-power that he himself possessed, and Turquand had blown Humphrey's trumpet sturdily. He did more than merely recommend him; he declared—with a recollection of the nurse and baby—that Kent wastheman to get, but that he was afraid it would not be worth his while to accept less than seven pounds a week. When the matter was settled, Humphrey sought his friend again, and, wringing his hand, exclaimed:
"You're a pal; but—but, I say! What are an assistant-editor's duties?"
Exhilaration and misgiving were mixed in equal parts in his breast.
Turquand laughed, as nearly as he could be said ever to approach a laugh.
"The assistant-editor ofThe World and his Wifewill have to cut pars nimbly out of the English society journals and the Paris dailies, and 'put 'em all in different language—the more indifferent, the better!' He must handle the scissors without fatigue, and arrange with someone on this side to supply a column of London theatrical news every week—out ofThe Daily Telegraph. Say withme! It's worth a guinea, and I may as well have it as anybody else."
"You're appointed our London dramatic critic," said Kent. "Won't you have thirty bob?"
"A guinea's the market price; and I can have some cards printed and go to the theatres for nothing, you see, when I feel like it; they don't take any stock inThe Outpost. He must attend therépétitions généraleshimself—if he can get in—and make all the acquaintances he can, against the time when the rag dies."
"'Dies'?" echoed Kent. "Is it going to die?"
"Oh, it won't live, my boy! If it had been a permanent job, I shouldn't have handed it over to you—I'm not a philanthropist. But it will give you a chance to turn round, and an enlightened publisher may discern the merits ofThe Eye of the Beholderin the meanwhile. You'd better go on looking for something while you are on the thing; perhaps you'll be able to get the Paris Correspondence for a paper, if you try."
"What more? What besides the scissors—nothing?"
"There's the paste; I don't imagine you'll need much else."
"You're a trump!" repeated Kent gratefully. "I feel an awful fraud taking such a berth, Turk; but in this world one has to do what one——"
"Can't!"
"Exactly. By George! it seems to be a paying line."
"There is always room at the top, you know," said Turquand. "When you rise in what you can't do, the emolument is dazzling."
Beaufort was returning to Paris the same day, and he was anxious for Kent to join him there with all possible speed. Kent's first intention was to go alone and let Cynthia follow him at her leisure; but when he reached home and cried, "'Mary, you shall drive in your carriage, and Charles shall go to Eton!'" she refused to be left behind.
"I can be ready by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest," she exclaimed delightedly, when explanations were forthcoming. "What did you mean by 'Charles' and 'Mary'? Oh, Humphrey, didn't I tell you it would all come all right? How lovely! and how astonished mamma and papa will be!"
"Yes, I fancy it will surprise 'em a trifle," he said. "We'll go round there this evening, shall we? And we'll put the salary in francs—it sounds more." He hesitated. "I say, do you think Nurse will mind living in Paris?"
Cynthia paled.
"I must ask her; I hadn't thought of that. Oh ... oh, I dare say I shall be able to persuade her! It's rather a hurry for her, though, isn't it? She does so dislike being hurried."
"Tell her at once," he suggested; "she'll have all the more time to prepare in. Run up to her now."
"Let—let us think," murmured Cynthia; "we'll consider.... Ann must be sent away, and we shall have to give her a month's wages instead of notice."
"She's no loss," he observed. "I don't know I what your mother ever saw in her. She can't even cook a steak, the wench!"
"She fries them, dear."
"I know she does," said Kent. "A woman who'd fry a steak would do a murder. Well, we shall have to give her a month's wages instead of notice—it's an iniquitous law! But what about Nurse?"
"Perhaps," said Cynthia nervously, "ifyouwere to mention it to her, darling, if you don't I mind——"
"Of course I don't mind," he answered, but without alacrity. "What an idea! Tell Ann to send her down."
She entered presently, an important young person in a stiff white frock; and he played with the newspaper, trying to feel that he had grown quite accustomed to seeing an important young person in his service.
"You wished to speak to me, madam, but baby will be waking directly——"
"I shan't keep you a moment," said Kent. "Er—your mistress and I are going to Paris; we shall be there some time. I suppose it's all the same to you where you live? We want you to be ready by Thursday, Nurse."
"To Paris?" said Nurse, with cold amazement, and a pause that said even more.
Cynthia became engrossed by a bowl of flowers, and Kent felt that, after all, Paris was a long way off.
"I suppose it's all the same to you where you live?" he said again, though he no longer supposed anything of the sort. "And there are three days for you to pack in, you know—three nice full days."
"Three days, sir?" she echoed reproachfully. "To go abroad! May I ask you if you would be staying in a place like that all the winter, sir?"
"Yes, certainly through the winter—or probably so. It mightn't be so long; it depends."
"I could not undertake to leave 'ome for good, Sir," said the nurse. "I am engaged. My friend lives in 'Olloway, and——"
"Oh, it wouldn't be for good," declared Cynthia ingratiatingly; "we couldn't stay there for good ourselves—oh no! And, of course, if you found we stopped too long to suit you, Nurse, why, you could leave us when you liked, couldn't you? Though Mr. Kent and I would both be very sorry to lose you, I'm sure!" They looked at her pleadingly while she meditated.
"What Baby will do,Hidon't know, madam," she said; "changing his cow, poor little dear!"
"Will it hurt him?" demanded the mother and father, in a breath.
"If you have the doctor's consent, madam, you maychanceit. It isn't a thing thatHiwould ever advise."
"Well, well, look here," said Kent; "we'll see Dr. Roberts about it to-day, and if he says there's no risk, that'll settle it. You will get ready to start Thursday morning, Nurse."
"I willendeavourto do so, sir," she said with dignity.
They felt that on the whole she had been gracious. And Kent, having obtained Dr. Roberts' sanction to change the cow, commissioned a house-agent to try to let No. 64 furnished at four guineas a week.
Lest he should feel unduly elated,The Eye of the Beholdercame back on Wednesday afternoon, but this time he did not post it to another firm instanter. He could not very well ask for it to be returned to Paris, and he left it with Turquand when he bade him good-bye. "Send it where you like," he begged; "perhaps you might try Farqueharsen next. Yes, I've rather a fancy for Farqueharsen! But let it make the round, old chap, and drop me a line when there aren't any more publishers for it to go to."
The nurse's "endeavour" was crowned by success. The Walfords had congratulated him so warmly that he almost began to think they were nice people again. And the departure was made on Thursday morning as arranged.
They travelled, of course, by the Newhaven route, and reached the gare St. Lazare after dark on a rainy evening. The amount of luggage that they possessed among them made Kent stare, as he watched half a dozen porters hoisting trunks, and a perambulator, and a bassinet on to the bus, and it seemed as if they would never get out of the station. At last they rattled away, through the wet streets, the baby whimpering, and the nurse flustered, and he and Cynthia very tired. They drove to a little hotel near the Madeleine, where they intended to stay until they found a suitable pension de famille, and where dinner and the warmth of beaune was very grateful. Nurse also "picked up" after the waiter's appearance with her tray and a half-bottle of vin ordinaire, and, as their fatigue passed, exhilaration was in the ascendant once more. Cynthia's recovery was so marked that, finding the rain had ceased and the moon was shining, she wanted to go out and look at the Grand Boulevard. So Humphrey and she took a stroll for an hour, and said how strange it was to think that they had come to live in Paris, and how funnily things happened. And they had a curaçoa each at a café, and went back to their fusty red room on the third-floor, with the inevitable gilt clock and a festooned bedstead, quite gaily.
The chambermaid brought in their chocolate at eight o'clock next morning, and her brisk "Bonjour, m'sieur et madame!" sounded much more cheerful to them both than Ann's knock at the door, with "The 'ot water, mum!" to which they were accustomed. The sun streamed in brilliantly as she parted the window-curtains. After the chocolate and rolls were finished, Kent proceeded to dress, and leaving Cynthia in bed, betook himself to the office of the paper in the rue du Quatre Septembre.
Beaufort had not come yet, and, pending his chief's arrival, he occupied himself by examining a copy. The tone of the notes struck him as decidedly poor, and a lengthy interview with one of the prominent French actresses abounded in all the well-worn cliches of the amateur. The "dainty and artistic" room into which the interviewer was ushered, the lady's "mock" despair, which gave place to "graceful" resignation and "fragrant" cigarettes, made him sick. Beaufort was very cordial when he entered, though, and it was vastly reassuring to discover how lightly he took things. The work, Mr. Kent would find, was as easy as A, B, C. "Turf Topics" was contributed by a fellow called Jordan, and, really, Mr. Kent would find a few hours daily more than enough to prepare an issue! They went into the private room, where a bottle of vermouth and a pile of French and English journals, marked and mutilated, were the most conspicuous features of the writing-table; and Kent came to the conclusion that his Editor was an extremely pleasant man, as the vermouth was sipped and they chatted over two excellent cigars.
At first the duties did not prove quite so simple as had been promised to one who had never had anything to do with producing a paper before, and the printer worried him a good deal. But Beaufort was highly satisfied. The novice was swift to grasp details, and took such an infinity of pains in seasoning and amplifying the réchauffés, that really his stuff read almost like original matter. As he began to feel his feet, too, he put forth ideas, and, finding that the other was quite ready to listen to them, gained confidence, and was not without a mistaken belief that in so quickly mastering the mysteries of a weekly and painfully exiguous little print, of which four-fifths were eclectic, he had displayed ability of a brilliant order.
Primarily the labour that he devoted to the task was ludicrously disproportionate to the result, but by degrees he got through it with more rapidity. When a month had passed since the morning that he first sat down in the assistant-editorial chair ofThe World and his Wife, he discovered that he was doing in an afternoon what it had formerly taken two days to accomplish, and he marvelled how he could have been so stupid. The work had devolved upon him almost entirely now, for Beaufort, having shown him the way in which he should go, dropped in late, and withdrew early, and did little but drink vermouth and say, "Yes, certainly, capital!" while he was there. It was Kent who proposed the subject for the week's interview, wrote—or re-wrote—the causerie, and who even secured the majority of the few advertisements that they obtained. Also, when the semi-celebrity to be interviewed was not a good-looking woman, it was he who was the interviewer. When the lady was attractive, Billy Beaufort attended to that department himself.
Cynthia had found a pension de famille in the Madeleine quarter, highly recommended for a permanency, and here they had removed. They had two fairly large bedrooms, communicating, on the fourth floor, and paid a hundred and fifty francs a week. It did not leave much over from the salary for their incidental expenses, after reckoning the nurse's wages; but it was supposed to be very cheap, and madame Garin and her vivacious daughter, who skipped a good deal for thirty years of age, and was voluble in bad English, begged them on no account to let any of the other boarders hear that they were received at such terms, for that would certainly be the commencement of madame Garin and her daughter's ruin. Some of the boarders were French people, but the meals, with which twenty-five persons down the long table appeared to be fairly content, were very bad. They would have been thought bad even in a boarding-house in Bloomsbury. The twenty-five persons were waited on by a leisurely and abstracted Italian, and the intervals between the meagre courses were of such duration that Kent swore that he had generally forgotten what the soup had been called by the time that the cold entree reached him.
Yet they were not uncomfortable. Their room was cosy in the lamplight when the winter had set in and Etienne had made a fire, and the curtains of the windows were drawn to hide the view of snowy roofs; and though the dinner often left them hungry, they could go out and have chocolate and cakes. And even as a foreign Pressman, Kent got some tickets for theatres and concerts. It was livelier than Leamington Road, to say the least of it—more lively for him than for Cynthia, perhaps; but an improvement for her as well, since one or two of the women were companionable. She took walks with them while he was at the office, and practised her French on them in the chilly salon.
One afternoon when he was sitting at the office table and Beaufort had gone, the clerk came in to him with a card that bore the name of "Mrs. Deane-Pitt." She was staying in Paris, and the Editor had accepted his suggestion that it might be a good idea to interview a novelist for a change. Kent had sent the proofs to her the day before, but he had never seen her. He told the clerk with some satisfaction to show her in, and he wished he had put on his other jacket, for the author ofTwo and a Passionwas a woman to meet.
He felt shabbier still when she entered; she looked to him like an animated fashion-plate reduced to human height. From the hues of her hat to the swirl of her skirt, it was evident that Mrs. Deane-Pitt made money and knew where to spend it. An osprey in the hat was the only touch of vulgarity. Everybody would not have termed her "pretty"; but her eyes and teeth were good, and both flashed when she talked. Her age might have been anything from thirty to thirty-five.
"I wanted to see Mr. Beaufort," she said, in a clear, crisp voice; "but I hear he's out."
"Yes; he is out," said Kent. "Is it anythingIcan do?"
"Well, I don't like that interview. I dare say it was my own fault, but I object to suffering for my own faults—one has to suffer for so many other people's in this world. It's all aboutTwo and a Passion. I wroteTwo and a Passionseven years ago—and I didn't get a royalty on it, either! Why not talk about the books I've done since, and say more about the one that's just out? You say, 'Mrs. Deane-Pitt confessed to having recently published another novel,' and then you drop it as if it were a failure. And 'confessed'—why 'confessed'? That's the tone I don't like in the thing. You write about me as if I were an amateur."
He felt that Beaufort would not be sorry to have missed her.
"May I see the proofs again?" he asked.
She gave them to him, and settled herself in her chair. He looked at them pen in hand, and she looked at him.
"It can easily be put right, can't it, Mr.——"
"'Kent.' Easily—oh yes! Will you tell me something about your new book? I'm ashamed to say I haven't read it yet."
"Don't apologise. It's calledThy Neighbour's Husband."
"Does she bolt with him, or do you end it virtuously?"
"Virtuously, monsieur," she said, smiling. "You travel fast!"
"And—please go on! Are there cakes and ale, or does she tend the sick and visit the poor?"
"You appal me!" said Mrs. Deane-Pitt. "Whatever my faults, I am modern; I end with a question-point."
"Not questioning the lady's——"
"Oh, her happiness, of course!"
"'This brilliant and absorbing study, which is already giving rise to considerable discussion,' would be the kind of thing?"
"Quite," she said. "I'm awfully sorry to give you so much trouble."
"The 'trouble' 's a pleasure. You don't want your 'favourite dog' mentioned, do you? Favourite dogs are rather at a discount. Er——"
"Three," she said. "Yes; a boy and two girls."
"Does the boy—'in a picturesque suit'—come into the room, and lead up to 'evident maternal pride'?"
"He's a dear little fellow!" she answered. "But do you think 'evident maternal pride' would be quite in the key? No; I'd stick to me and the work! Besides, domesticity is tedious to read about; the dullest topic in the world is other people's children."
Kent laughed.
"I'll explain to Mr. Beaufort," he declared; "you shall have a revise sent on to-morrow. I'm sure you'll find it all right when he understands the style of thing you want."
"Thank you," she said dryly. "I assure you I have no misgivings, Mr. Kent. 'Kent'! I've never had any correspondence with you, have I? The name's familiar to me, somehow."
"An alias is 'The garden of England,'" he said.
"No; you haven't written anything, have you?"
"Two novels. One is published, and the post is wearing out the other."
"I remember," she cried, uttering the title triumphantly; "I read it. What grand reviews you had! Of course, I know now. I liked your book extremely, Mr. Kent. 'Humphrey Kent,' isn't it?"
"Thank you," he said. "Yes, 'Humphrey Kent.'"
"And you go in for journalism, too, eh?"
"Oh, this is a departure. I was never on a paper till lately."
"Really!" she exclaimed. "You aren't giving fiction up?"
"I'm pot-boiling, Mrs. Deane-Pitt. Do you think it very inartistic of me?"
"Don't!" she said. "Inartistic! I hate that cant. There are papers that are always callingmeinartistic. One's got to live. Oh, I admire the people who can put up with West Kensington and take three years to write a novel, but their altitude is beyond me. I write to sell,moi—though you needn't put that in the interview. But I shouldn't have thought you'd have any trouble in placing your books—you oughtn't to to-day! I expect you've been too 'literary'—you'll grow out of it."
"You don't believe in——"
"I'm a practical woman. The public read to be amused, and the publishers want what the public will read, good, bad, or rotten; that's my view. You mustn't make me say these things, though," she broke off, laughing, and getting up; "it's most indiscreet—to a Pressman.... I shall send you a copy ofThy Neighbour's Husband—to a colleague. Good-afternoon, Mr. Kent. I'll leave you to go on with your work now. Pray don't look so relieved."
"I should value the copy ever so much," he said. "It was anything but relief—I was struggling to conceal despair."
She put out her hand, and a faint perfume clung to his own after the door had closed. Though her standpoint was not his own, her personality had impressed him, and, as he watched her from the window re-entering her cab, Kent was sorry that she hadn't remained longer.
He hoped she would not forget her promise to send her novel to him, and when it reached him, a few days later, he opened it with considerable eagerness. The style disappointed him somewhat, and the story seemed to him unworthy of the pen that had writtenTwo and a Passion. But he replied, as he was bound to do, with a letter of grateful appreciation, and endeavoured, moreover, to persuade himself that he liked it better than he did. The lady, on her side, wrote a cordial little note, thanking him for the amended proof-sheets—"I had no idea that I was so clever or so charming." She said she should be pleased to see him if he could ever spare the time to look in—she could give him a cup of "real English tea"; and she was "Very truly his—Eva Deane-Pitt."