It was midnight when Beaufort was found, and he was partially drunk. Kent caught him by the arm, and heard that his business had not been completed to-day, but was—once more—"certain for next week." Completed or not, however, Kent had to have money, and he made the circumstances clear, a task which, in his companion's condition, was somewhat difficult. He said that they were in new quarters, penniless, and that the woman demanded a deposit; their luggage was detained at the Garins', and could not be recovered unless he paid the bill, or, at all events, a substantial portion of it. In the meanwhile, they possessed literally nothing; a good round sum on account of his claim was absolutely essential. Billy was "tremendously grieved." He answered that he could "manage—twenty francs." And he repeated with emotion that "he never deserted a pal." In the end Kent extracted fifty, and, secretly relieved even by this, but dog-tired, dragged himself down the rue Blanche towards the hotel.
Cynthia was waiting up for him, reading a sheet of an old newspaper that had lined one of the drawers, to keep herself awake. She heard the result of his expedition with gratitude. They could now give the proprietress what she wanted, and would be able to buy a hairbrush and one or two other immediate necessaries. She kissed him, and retired to the next bedroom, where she prayed that the child would allow her a good night. Kent, whose fatigue was so great that it was a labour to undress, bade her call him if he could help her in any way.
It seemed but a few minutes afterwards that he was startled back to consciousness by the baby's crying, and, listening in the darkness, he heard Cynthia moving about. Blundering to the door with half-opened eyes, he found her trying to quiet the boy, and to heat some food at the same time, and the weariness of her aspect made his heart bleed. The fire, which had been built up to last until the chambermaid's entrance, had gone out, and rocking the child on her lap with one hand, the girl, semi-nude, held a saucepan with the other over the flame of a candle. She rebuked him for coming in, for, "poor fellow! he must be so tired." He took the saucepan from her and, fetching the candle from his own room, held the food to warm over both flames, while Maternity paced the floor. A clock in the distance told them that the hour was three.
At last a tremor stirred the placid surface of the milk. The baby was fed, and coaxed to repose again. And, oblivious now of everything but the need for sleep, they dropped upon their beds and slept.
"Good-morning, monsieur. Here is the chocolate."
"Good-morning. And madame, has hers been taken in?"
"Ah, three hours ago!... Look, it is a beautiful day, monsieur!"
Then, when the waiter had let in the sunshine and gone, Kent would rise, and find Cynthia either busily stirring more food over the fire, or preparing the boy's bath. Afterwards she would carry him into the little enclosure opposite, and, what with her unfamiliarity with a nurse's duties and the makeshifts that she was put to, it often seemed to her that this was the only time during the day that she was free to sit down.
Their meals were all served in Kent's bedroom; but just as the luncheon appeared, the baby, who was feverish and fretful, would surely cry, and she would be obliged to call out that Kent was not to wait for her. "Begin!" For dinner, she made desperate efforts. By this time the child, bathed once more, was supposed to be already asleep; and more oatmeal had to be stirred and carefully watched for five-and-twenty minutes, an operation that entailed burning cheeks and occasionally despair, since the saucepan had a habit of boiling over without warning and requiring to be filled and stirred for twenty-five minutes again. When the task was achieved, there followed a hurried attempt to make herself look cool and nice before the soup arrived—Kent was apt to be irritable if she was not ready—and providing the baby did not wake at the last moment and prevent her going in after all, the dinner-hour was very agreeable.
Thanks to the chambermaid, they had been able to dispense with the tallow candles at sixpence each, and had obtained a lamp, which was much more cheerful. Thevin comprishad turned out to be rather good, too, and after the appalling meals at the Garins' the cuisine struck them as quite first-rate. Not infrequently, when the coffee was brought in, they sent down for liqueurs, and their evenings, despite the worry of the day, and their ignorance where the money was coming from to pay the bill, were very jolly.
Beaufort's expectations were still unrealised. On Tuesday he was certain "Things would be right on Thursday," and on Thursday, with undiminished confidence, he repeated, "Early in the week." The proprietress of the hotel was a huge red woman, who had been a low-class domestic servant. The "gracious service unexpressed" by which she had attained her present prosperity, the squinting chambermaid did not know, and she added, with a grin and a grimace, that it was really very difficult to conjecture it. The flaming countenance and belligerent eye of the proprietress would, in the circumstances, have scared Kent from the door, had she been visible when he came there to arrange, and on Friday night he slept uneasily. She presented the bill next morning at nine o'clock, and at twelve sent him a message that she wished it to be settled at once. His interview with her was eminently unpleasant, and on Monday, when the fire for the child was not laid and Cynthia inquired the reason, she learnt that the woman had forbidden the servant to take up any fuel.
But for Nanette, their position would now have been untenable. She smuggled wood to the room; pacified her mistress by the recital of imaginary telegrams picked up on monsieur Kent's floor; and finally, squeezing Cynthia's hand one afternoon, offered to bring down some money that she had saved out of her wages. This was the last straw. Cynthia put her arms round her neck and kissed her; and when Humphrey came home and she told him what had happened, they both felt that to have to decline such a loan and wish that it could be accepted, was about the deepest humiliation to which it was possible for people to sink.
They were mistaken, but it was the lowest point that they themselves were called upon to touch. The day following, Beaufort telegraphed, asking Humphrey to meet him at the Cabaret Lyonnais, where, at a moderate price, he ordered a little dinner of supreme excellence. Billy had not had his loan made yet—that, he said buoyantly, was "certain for next week"—but he had had a lucky night at baccarat. And after the benedictine he pulled out a bundle of notes on to the table of the shabby restaurant and, beaming with rectitude, paid his debt in full.
With a cigar in his mouth and delight bubbling in his veins, Kent jumped into a cab, and, having rattled to the rue des Soeurs Filandières, threw their receipt and the remainder of the money into Cynthia's lap. She nearly dropped the baby with astonishment, and though they were unable to go out anywhere, it was perhaps the liveliest night that they had spent in Paris. After adding the Garins' account, and the cost of their return, and a present to Nanette, it was momentarily disconcerting to perceive how few of the notes would be left; but the relief was so enormous that their spirits speedily arose again, and, extravagant as it was, they ordered champagne, and invited Nanette to share it.
Kent recovered their luggage the next morning, and the morning after that they departed for London. They had heard in the meanwhile that the Walfords could easily put them up until No. 64 was ready for them. The journey without a nurse was awkward, and though it had been essential to go to the Walfords', Kent was chagrined to reflect that her absence would have to be explained. Compared with the crossing from Newhaven, this passage was, to Cynthia, who had to remain below all the time, a long voyage; when they reached Victoria at last, she felt that she would have given a good deal to be going to the Grosvenor Hotel. Strawberry Hill was gained about nine o'clock, and Kent found the house a pathetic descent from The Hawthorns. Mr. and Mrs. Walford, however, were not unamiable, and as they did not refer to the absence of the nurse otherwise than by inquiring how soon he expected to replace her; he concluded that his wife had anticipated their surprise and discounted it more or less dexterously in her letters.
"So the paper was a failure?" said Walford, when the excitement of the entrance had subsided. "Oh, well, you will be able to get something to do here, I dare say, before long. What do you think of the house? Not so bad, eh?"
"Not bad at all," said Kent—"very pretty! That was awful news, sir! I was infernally sorry to hear about it. Might have been worse, though —a good deal."
"Ups and downs," said the jobber; "we'll get square at the finish. Grin and bear it, Louisa, old girl! You'll always have enough to eat."
Mrs. Walford laughed constrainedly. She did not relish allusion to their reverses; it appeared to her insult added to injury.
"I don't think we've either of us much cause to grieve," she answered. "We're very comfortable here, don't you think so, Humphrey? There are such nice people in the neighbourhood, Cynthia—people who move in the best society, and—hee, hee, hee!—we are making quite a fashionable circle; we are out almost every night. Well, I don't hear much about Paris? Did you have a jolly time?"
"We went everywhere and saw everything," said Cynthia. "Humphrey got no end of tickets, and—well, yes, Paris is lovely!"
"Why 'well, yes'?"
"Well, of course, the paper's stopping was an anxiety to us, mamma. Naturally. How's Aunt Emily?"
"Emily writes us once a week, acknowledging the receipt of her allowance. How she is I really can't tell you; she says very little more than that she has 'received the money.' She's living in apartments in Brunswick Square, and I believe she is very glad she is alone.Iam, I can tell you! She has become very sour, Emily has."
"Apartments in Brunswick Square aren't so remarkably cheap," said Kent. "Aunt Emily must be expensive, mater?"
"Well, she has—er—one room. It's a nice large room, I understand, and quite enough for one person, I'm sure! There was no occasion for her to take a suite, she isn't going to give any parties."
"No occasion whatever. A bedroom can be very cosy when the lamp's lighted and there's a bottle of wine on the table, can't it, Cynthia?"
"She won't have any bottles of wine. What are you thinking of?" said Mrs. Walford. "Not but what she could afford wine," she added hastily; "but it doesn't agree with her; it never did! I suppose you know that Cæsar is still in Germany? He has settled there. If there are moments when I feel out of it in spite of the company we see at Strawberry Hill, it's when I read of the life that boy leads in Berlin. He is in a brilliant circle—most brilliant!"
"Cynthia told me he had a first-rate thing."
"Capital thing!" affirmed Sam briskly. "I tell you, he's going to the top of the tree. When he's my age Cæsar will be a big figure in Europe."
Kent thought he was a fair size already, but replied briefly that he had been "very fortunate."
"Ability, my lad! He's got the brains! Do you know, Louisa, it was damn foolishness of us ever to persuade that boy to go on the stage? He was meant for what he is—we'd no right to divert his natural bent. He's in the proper groove because his tendency was too strong for us. But we were wrong—I say we did very wrong! By George! he might never have made more than a couple of hundred a week among greasy opera-singers all his life. What a thing!" By dint of many midnight conferences with Louisa, he had almost succeeded in believing that he meant part of what he said.
"Are his prospects so very wonderful, then?" asked Cynthia, surprised. "What is it heisdoing? It is only a sort of clerkship, isn't it?"
"A clerkship?" shrieked her mother. "How can you talk such ridic'lous nonsense? A clerkship? Absurd! He's McCullough's right hand—quite his right hand! McCullough says he would be worth twice as much as he is to-day if he had met Cæsar five years ago. He told your papa so last week—didn't he, Sam?"
"He did," said the jobber. But there was less conviction in his tone. This was new, and he hadn't taught himself to try to credit it yet.
"He told your papa that Cæsar's power of—er—of gripping a subject was immense; he had never met anything like it. He consults him in everything; he doesn't take a step without asking Cæsar's opinion first; I don't suppose a young man ever had such an extraordinary position before. Clerkship? Ho, you don't know what you're talking about!"
Kent gave the conversation a twist by inquiring Miss Wix's number, as he and Cynthia would have to pay her a visit; and, on searching for her address, Mrs. Walford discovered, with much surprise, that she was not in Brunswick Square, after all, but that her one room was in a street leading out of it.
The mistake was unimportant. Moreover, his mind was too much occupied for him really to think of making social calls on any one but Turquand. To the office ofThe Outposthe betook himself next morning, and learnt that his friend was at Brighton until Monday. This did not look as if he had been pressed for his six pounds, but in other respects it was disappointing. Kent proceeded fromThe Outpostto the offices of two other papers, where he left advertisements, and after that he had only to stroll back through the streets, which looked very ugly and depressing after Paris, to Ludgate Hill. Luncheon was over when he re-entered the villa, but it had not been cleared away, and he found Cynthia in the dining-room alone, reading a novel. He noted, with as agreeable surprise as she could have afforded him, that it was the copy of his own book that he had given to Mrs. Walford on their return from Dieppe. He looked at his wife kindly.
"Turk's not in town," he said, helping himself to cold sirloin and salad; "gone to Brighton for a day or two. I've paid for my advertisements. Have you sent off yours yet, to try to induce a general servant to accept a situation?"
Cynthia shook her head meaningly, and came across and took a chair beside him.
"Kemp is awfully nice with Baby," she said; "she is upstairs with him now, and on the whole I've been thinking that we had better not hurry to get home again; we had better be a long time arranging matters, Humphrey! While we are here we haven't any expenses."
Kent stared, and then smiled.
"This is abominable morality," he said. "Paris has certainly corrupted you, young woman. And, besides, your people would worry my life out with questions. Nothing puts me in a worse temper than being asked what my news is when I haven't any."
"That's all very well, my dear boy, but we have no money. There's a quarter's rent overdue now, isn't there? and we should only have a month's peace before the tradespeople began to bother. I really think we ought to take two or three weeks, at all events, finding a girl; I do indeed. Mamma and papa would beg us to stop if they knew what a state we were in; it seems to me we ought to do it without giving them the—ahem—needless pain of listening to our confession."
"You're very specious," laughed Kent. The semi-serious conclusion might have been uttered by himself, and he approved the tone without recognising the model. "Has your mother noticed that you haven't got your ring on?"
"No. I couldn't tell her a story about it, and I'm praying that she won't. I've been envying you your trouser-pockets ever since we arrived. Don't take ale, Humphrey—have some claret, it will do you more good. If we sold our furniture——"
"What would it fetch at a sale? And apartments would cost us more than the house! No ... we'll make ourselves welcome here for a week or so. And—well, let's hope the advertisements will turn up trumps! Then we shall be independent."
One of the advertisements was to appear on Monday.
It was slightly disheartening to perceive how many other assistant-editors were open to offers, and he had the uncomfortable consciousness that his competitors' experience was probably a great deal wider than his own. He knew that a daily was out of the question for him, and his chance of securing a post on a periodical seemed scarcely better on Monday morning, when he saw the "Wanted" columns. Cynthia declared that his own advertisement "read nicer than any in the list" and that if she were an editor it would certainly be the one to attract her attention; but Cynthia was his wife and not an editor, and her view encouraged him no more than Sam Walford's supposition at the breakfast table, that he might "obtain the management of a sound magazine."
He went in the evening to Soho, and Cornelia's successor, in opening the door, told him that Turquand had returned. The journalist was at the table, writing furiously, and Kent declined to interrupt him more than he had already done by entering. Turquand indicated the cupboard where the whisky was kept; and, picking up a special edition, Kent sat silent until the other laid down his pen.
"That'soff my chest!" said Turquand, looking up after twenty minutes. "Well, my Parisian, how do you carry yourself? Do you still speak English?"
"I can still say 'thanks' in English," answered Kent. "I was devilish obliged to you, old chap. Here's your oof."
"Rot!" said Turquand. "Have you been popping anything to get it?"
"The popping took place before I wrote you. Don't be an ass; I couldn't take the things out, even if I kept it. Go on; don't play the fool! Well, I've had some bad quarters of an hour in the pleasant land of France, I can tell you."
"That's what I want you to do," said Turquand. "Let's hear all about it. What do you think of that whisky? Half a crown, my boy; my latest discovery! I think it's damned good myself."
He listened to the recital with an occasional smile, and somehow, now the trouble was past, many of the circumstances displayed a comic side to the narrator. What was quite destitute of humour was the present, and when they fell to discussing this, both men were glum.
"I suppose you haven't been able to do anything with the novel?" Kent asked. "Has it made the round yet, or does a publisher remain who hasn't seen it?"
"It came back last week from Shedlock and Archer. Oh yes, publishers remain. It's at Thurgate and Tatham's now; I packed it off to them on Friday. Farqueharsen was no use; I tried him, as you asked; he rejected it in a few days. I wrote you that, didn't I?"
"You did communicate the gratifying intelligence. Where has it been?"
Turquand produced a pocket-book.
"Farqueharsen, Rowland Ellis, Shedlock and Archer," he announced. "I must enter 'Thurgate and Tatham.' I dare say you'll place it somewhere in the long-run; we haven't exhausted the good firms yet. By-the-bye, the front page has got a bit dilapidated; you'd better copy that out and restore the air of virgin freshness when Thurgate sends it home."
"You expect he will, then?"
"I don't know what to expect, you seem so infernally unlucky with it. For the life of me, I don't know why it wasn't taken by Cousins, in the first instance. I looked it through again the other night, and I consider it's—I don't want to butter you, but I consider it's great work; by Jove, I do!"
Kent glowed; he felt, as he had done all along, that it was the best of which he was capable, and praise of it was very dear to him, even though the praise was a friend's.
"I say, you know about your wife's aunt, I suppose?" said Turquand. "What do you think of her?"
"She has left the Walfords, you mean? Who toldyou?"
"Miss Wix told me. But I didn't mean that departure; I meant her other one."
"Not heard of any other departure of the lady's. What? Where's she gone?"
"She has gone to journalism," said Turquand, with a grin; "the fair Miss Wix is a full-blown journalist! Don't your wife's people know? She's keeping it dark then. She came to see me, and said her income was slightly inadequate, and she 'thought she could do some writing.' Wanted to know if I could put her in the way of anything."
"Get out!" scoffed Kent. "Did she really come to see you, though? Very improper of her!"
"Oh, Miss Wix and I always took to each other. I think she dislikes me less than anybody she knows. I'm not kidding you; it's true, honour bright."
"What, that she's writing?"
Turquand nodded. His face was preternaturally solemn, but his eyes twinkled.
"I got her the work," he said; "it just happened I knew of a vacancy."
"Well, upon my soul!" exclaimed Humphrey. "I wish you'd get some for me. Doesn't it just happen that you know of another?"
"Ah! you aren't so easy to accommodate. Miss Wix is a maiden, and her exes aren't large. She gets a guinea a week, and is affluent with it. It's a beautiful publication, sonny—a journal for young gals—and it sells like hot cakes. I tell you,The Outpostwould give its ears for such a circulation."
Kent stared at him incredulously.
"A journal for young girls?" he echoed. "The acrimonious Wix? Is this a fact, or delirium tremens?"
"Fact, I swear. She does the Correspondence page; she's been on it a fortnight now. She's 'Aunt' something—I forget what, at the moment —they're always 'Aunt' something on that kind of paper. The young gals write and ask her questions on their personal affairs. One of 'em says she is desperately in love with a gentleman of her own age—seventeen—and isn't it time he told her his intentions, as his 'manner is rather like that of a lover'; and another inquires if 'marriage between first cousins once removed is punishable by law.' She calls them her nieces, and says, 'No, my dearPlaintive Girlie; I do not think you need despair because the gentleman of your own age has not avowed his feelings yet. A true lover is shy in the presence of his queen; but, with gentle encouragement on your part, all will be well. I was so glad to have your sweet letter.'"
"Miss Wix?"
"Miss Wix, yes. Her comforting reply toChanged Pansythe first week was a master-piece. Must have buckedChanged Pansyup a lot. And occasionally she has to invent a letter from a mercenary mother and admonish her. The admonishments of mercenary mothers are; estimated to sell fifteen thousand alone. You should buy a copy; it's on all the bookstalls."
"Buy it!" said Humphrey; "I'd buy it if it cost a shilling. What's it called? Well, I'm not easily astonished, but Miss Wix comfortingChanged Pansywould stagger the Colossus of Rhodes. Does she like the work?"
"'Like' it? My boy, she execrates it—sniffs violently, and gets stiff in the back, whenever the stuff is mentioned. That's the cream of the whole affair. The disgust of that envenomed spinster as she sits ladling out gush to romantic schoolgirls makes me shake in the night. I've got her name now! She's 'Auntie Bluebell.' 'Auntie Bluebell's Advice to Our Readers';Winsome Words, One penny weekly."
Kent himself began to shake, and but that the bookstalls were shut when he took his leave, he would have borne a copy home. He told the news to Cynthia, and she laughed so much that Sam Walford, underneath, turned on his pillow, and remarked gruffly to Louisa that he didn't know what Cynthia and Humphrey had got to be so lively about, he was sure, considering their circumstances, and that he was afraid Humphrey was "a damn improvident bohemian."
Their mirth was short-lived, unfortunately. The first advertisement was productive of no result; and the solitary communication received after the appearance of the second was a circular from a typewriting office. The outlook now was as desperate as before the post onThe World and his Wifeturned up, and their pecuniary position was even worse than then. When they had been at Strawberry Hill a week, too, the warmth of the Walfords' manner towards their son-in-law had perceptibly decreased; and though Kent did not comment on the difference in his conferences with Cynthia, he knew that she was conscious of it by her acquiescing when he asserted that they had been here long enough.
At this stage he would have taken a clerkship gladly if it carried a salary sufficing for their needs; and after they had returned to Leamington Road, and had temporised with the landlord, and sold a wedding present for some taxes, and were living on credit from the tradespeople, he began to debate whether the wisest thing he could do wouldn't be to drown himself and relieve Cynthia's necessities with the money from his life policy.
The idea, which primarily presented itself as an extravagance, came, by reason of the frequency with which it recurred to him, to be revolved quite soberly; he wondered if Cynthia would grieve much, and if, when his boy could understand, she would talk to him of his "papa," or provide him with a stepfather. He did not, in these conjectures as to the post-mortem proceedings, lose sight ofThe Eye of the Beholderand devoutly he trusted that it would see the light after he was dead, and make so prodigious a stir that the names of the publishers who had refused it were held up to obloquy and scorn.
He was walking through Victoria Street towards the station one afternoon, and mentally lying in his grave while the world wept for him, when he was brought to an abrupt standstill by a greeting. He roused himself to realities with a start, and found that the white-gloved hand that waited to be taken by him belonged to Mrs. Deane-Pitt.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Kent? Are you trying to cut me?"
"I beg your pardon, I didn't see! It's awfully stupid of me; I'm always passing people like that."
"You've returned, then! For good?"
"Oh yes; we live in town, you know—in the suburbs, at least."
"You told me," she smiled. "'Battersea.'"
"So I did. 'Battersea' is Streatham, but that's a detail."
The mechanicalness of his utterance passed, and animation leapt back in him as he recovered from his surprise. The sun was shining and her sequins were iridescent. She was wearing violets. His impression embraced the trifles with a confused sense that they made a delightful whole—the smart, smiling woman in the sunshine, the purple of the flowers, and the warmth of her familiar tones.
"So you come to Victoria every day, and you haven't been to see me!" she said. "When did you leave Paris?"
"I—I've done nothing. Of course you knowThe World and his Wifeis dead, Mrs. Deane-Pitt? When did I leave? Oh, soon after the funeral."
"I trust you've recovered from the bereavement," she laughed. "Are you on anything here?"
"Not yet. Editors are so blind to their own interests."
"Well——!" She put out her hand again, and repeated her number. "When will you come in? I'm nearly always at home about five. Good-bye; I'm going to the Army and Navy, and I shall be late."
Kent continued his way cheerfully. The brief interchange of conventionalities had diverted his thoughts, and his glimpse of this woman who took her debts with a shrug, and had candidly adapted her ideals to her requirements till the former had all gone, acted as a fillip to him. She typified success, of a kind, and in a minute he had seemed to acquire something of her own vigour. It made him happy, also, to observe that the manner of their parting had had no sequel; and, in recalling the mood in which he had walked through the Champs Elysées, he decided that he had been extremely stupid to attach so much importance to it. She was an agreeable woman towards whom his feeling was a friendship that he had once been in danger of exaggerating; he would certainly call upon her at the first opportunity! It was quite possible that she might be able to tell him something useful too.
Before he fulfilled his intention, however, an unlooked-for development occurred. The office of the agent who had endeavoured to find a tenant for him was on the road to the station, and a day or two later the man ran out after him and asked if he was still willing to let No. 64. Kent replied shortly that the opportunity had presented itself too late; but after he passed on he reflected. The house was wanted at once by some Americans who had considered it previously. They now made an offer of three and a half guineas a week for a period of six or twelve months. It appeared to Kent that he had been very idiotic in dismissing the suggestion off-hand. With three and a half guineas a week, less the rent and taxes, he could send Cynthia to the country for a few months, which was exactly what she stood in need of; and though he could not leave London himself, he could shift alone somewhere till he found a berth and she rejoined him.
Cynthia and he discussed the idea lengthily. She was opposed to the separation, but she agreed that it would be very unwise of them to refuse to let the house. She said that they might all live together in apartments on the money; fresh air and peace would be delicious if Kent were with her, but she thought that she would rather stay with him in London than go away by herself.
This point was debated a good deal. There was much against it. It was absurd to deny that their anxieties, and the restraint imposed by her charge of the baby, had told upon her health; in a little village where living was cheap she would not only recover her roses—as soon as he earned a trifle she could have a nursemaid. If they took lodgings together, on the other hand, they must be reconciled to going to a suburb—and a suburb would be twice as expensive as the country. By himself, Humphrey could get a top bedroom in Bloomsbury for the same sum that he now spent on third-class railway tickets.
The logic was inexorable, and the only further question to decide was where she should go. She recollected that a few years back Miss Wix had been sent to a cottage at Monmouth to re-coup after an attack of influenza. The spinster had spoken very highly of it all—the picturesque surroundings, the attention she had received, and the cosy accommodation. If Miss Wix praised it, there could be little to complain of, surely? As to the terms, Cynthia knew that they had been ridiculously low. She determined to write to her aunt and ask if she remembered the address.
On second thoughts, though, she said she must ask her in person. She had not paid her a visit yet, nor had Kent, and an inquiry by post wouldn't do at all. They went the following morning, having looked in on the agent, and informed him that they were prepared to accept the offer, and to give up possession at the end of the week. The payments, of course, were to be made monthly in advance.
Miss Wix lodged in Hunter Street, and they found that in her improved circumstances she boasted two rooms. The parlour that she had acquired was furnished chiefly with a large round table, a number of Berlin-wool antimacassars, and a waxwork bouquet under a flyblown shade; and at the table, which was strewn with letters, the spinster had been sourly engaged upon her "Advice" forWinsome Words. She welcomed them politely, and offered to have some tea made if they would like it, but, as it was one o'clock, they said that they weren't thirsty. The request for a five-years-old address evidently perturbed her very much; but after a rummage behind the folding doors, she emerged with it, and, to mollify her, Cynthia referred again to her journalism and reiterated congratulations.
"Mr. Turquand told Humphrey, or we should never have known, Aunt Emily. Why have you kept it so quiet? We were delighted by the news; I think it is very clever of you indeed."
"There is nothing to be delighted about. I kept it quiet because I did not wish it known—a very sufficient reason. Mr. Turquand is much too talkative."
"I think you ought to be very proud," said Kent—"a lady journalist! May I—am I allowed to look at some of the copy?"
"As I can't prevent you seeing it whenever you like to spend a penny," said Miss Wix bitterly, "it would be mere mockery to prevent you now."
"You underrate your public," he murmured. "Winsome Wordshas an enormous circulation, I hear?"
"Among chits," exclaimed the spinster, with sudden wrath—"among chits and fools. Smack 'em and put 'em in an asylum! If you want to, then, read it aloud. Cynthia shall hear what I have to do in order to live. If Louisa weren't your mother, my dear, I'd say that it's a greater shame to her than to me. I would! If she weren't your mother, that's what I'd say."
"Well, let's have a look," said Humphrey quickly. "Where is it? Now, then—what's this? Oh,Miserable Maidie! 'Yours is indeed a sad story,Miserable Maidie, because you seem to have no one to turn to for help and counsel. I am so glad you resolved to come to your Auntie Bluebell and tell her all about it. So you and your lover have parted in anger, and now you are heartbroken, and would give worlds to have him back? Ah, my dear, I can feel for you! It's the old, old story——'"
"That'll do," snapped Miss Wix. "'The old, old story'? My word, I'd 'old story' the sickly little imbecile if I had her here!" She sat bolt upright, her eyes darting daggers, and her pink-tipped nose disdainful. "Haven't you had enough of it yet? What do you think of me?"
"I think with respect of anyone who can earn a salary," said Kent. "I see there's one toAnxious Parent. May I glance at your advice toAnxious Parent? 'My dear friend, were you I never young yourself? And didn't you love your little Ermyntrude's papa? If so, you can certainly feel for two young things who rightly believe that love is more valuable than a good settlement. Let them wed as they wish, and be thankful that Ermyntrude is going to have a husband against whom you can urge no other objection than that he is unable to support her.'"
"I'm a sensible woman, Cynthia," said Miss Wix, quivering; "and for me to have to write that incomes don't matter, and sign myself 'Auntie Bluebell,' is heavy at your mother's door."
Her mortification was so evidently genuine that Kent gave her back her copy, with replies to A Lover of "Winsome Words" andConstant Daffodilunread, and as soon as was practicable he and Cynthia rose and made their adieux. The apartments in the cottage proved to be vacant, and as the references of the American family were satisfactory, and the inventory was taken without delay, there was nothing in the way of the migration being effected by the suggested date. Cynthia had proposed that her husband should try to obtain his old bedroom at Turquand's, where he could have the run of a sitting-room for nothing, and this idea was adopted with the approval of all concerned. Humphrey saw her off at Paddington, and, kissing her affectionately, told her to "Make haste and get strong." And the close of a week, which had opened without a hint of such developments, saw Cynthia living with her baby in Monmouth, and Kent reinstalled in his bachelor quarters in Soho.
It was very jolly to be back with Turquand. The first evening, while they smoked with the enjoyable consciousness of there being no last train to catch, was quick with the sentiment of their old association. And after a letter arrived from Cynthia, in which she clapped her hands with pleasure, the respite was complete. Kent had been impatient to hear how the place struck her, and she wrote that she had been agreeably astonished. The cottage was roomier than she had expected, and beautifully located. It was furnished very simply, of course; but there was a charm in its simplicity and freshness. The landlady was a rosy-cheeked young woman who had already "fallen in love with Baby," and overwhelmed her with attentions. "If you do not see what you want, please step inside and ask for it." Kent smiled at that; it was a quotation from one of the Streatham shop-windows. Also there was a quite respectable garden, which her bedroom overlooked. "There are fruit-trees in it—not my bedroom, the garden—and a little, not too spidery, bench, where I know I shall sit and read your answer when it comes." She wrote a very happy, spontaneous sort of letter, and Kent's spirits rose as he read it. There was the rustle of dimity and the odour of lavender in the pages, and momentarily he pictured her sitting on the bench under the fruit-trees, and thought that it would be delightful if he could run down one day and surprise her there.
It was very jolly to be back with Turquand, though the satisfaction was perhaps a shade calmer than, during the first year of his married life, he had fancied that it would be. It was convenient, moreover, to be in town, and a relief to feel that the unsettled accounts with the tradespeople round Leamington Road were, at any rate, not waxing mightier. Nevertheless, he missed Cynthia a good deal; not only in the daytime when he was alone, but even in minutes during the evening when he was in Turquand's company. It was curious how much he did miss her—and the baby: the baby, whose newest accomplishment was to stroke his father's cheek, and murmur "poor" until the attention was reciprocated, when he bounded violently and grew red in the face with ridiculous laughter. Soho, too, though it saved him train-fares, soon began to appear as distant from a salary as Streatham. Turquand remained powerless to put any work in his way, and, despite his economies and the cheapness of Monmouth, Kent found his expenses dismaying. He was encroaching on the money laid aside for the landlord and the rates, and, if nothing turned up, there would speedily be trouble again. The butcher who had supplied No. 64 had been to the agent for Mr. Kent's address, and he presented himself and his bill with no redundance of euphemism. When another advertisement had been inserted ineffectually, the respite was over and anxiety returned.
As yet Kent had not called on Mrs. Deane-Pitt, and on the afternoon following his interview with the butcher he paid his visit to the lady. He was very frank in his replies to her questions. He did not disguise that it was imperative for him to secure an appointment at once, and when she agreed with him that it was immensely difficult, instead of answering that it was likely some opening might be mentioned to her, his face fell. He felt that it behoved him to deprecate his confidences.
"You must forgive my boring you about my affairs," he said. "And what are you doing? Are you at work on another book now?"
"I've a serial running inFashion," she said; "and they print such ghastly long instalments that it takes me all my time to keep pace with them. You haven't bored me at all. A post on a paper is a thing you may have to wait a long time for, I'm afraid. You see, you aren't a journalist really, are you? You're a novelist."
"I'm nothing," said Kent, with a dreary laugh. "For that matter, I wouldn't care if it weren't on a paper. I'd jump at anything—a secretary-ship for preference."
"Secretaryships want personal introductions; they aren't got through advertisements." She hesitated. "Ican tell you how you might make some money, if you'd like to do it," she added tentatively. "It's between ourselves—if it doesn't suit you, you'll be discreet?"
"Oh, of course," said Kent, with surprise. "But I can promise you in advance thatanymeans of making some money will suit me just now. What are you going to say?"
She looked at him steadily with a slow smile.
"How would you like to write a novel for me?" she asked.
Instantaneously he did not grasp her meaning.
"How?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean you are offering to collaborate with me?"
"I can't do that," she said quickly. "I'm sure you know I should be delighted, but I shouldn't get the same terms if I did, and I haven't the time, either. That's just it! I'm obliged to refuse work because I haven't time to undertake it. No, but it might be a partnership as far as the payment goes. If you care to write a novel, I can place it under my own name, and you can have—well, a couple of hundred pounds almost as soon as you give it to me! I can guarantee that. You can have a couple of hundred a week or two after it's finished, whether I sell serial rights or not."
She took a cigarette out of a box on a table near her and lit it, a shade nervously. Kent sat pale and disturbed. That such things were done, at all events in France, he knew, but her proposal startled him more than he could say, or than he wished to say. His primary emotion was astonishment that Mrs. Deane-Pitt had had the courage to place her literary reputation in his hands; and then, as he reflected, an awful horror seized him at the thought of a year of his toil, of effort and accomplishment, going out for review with another person's name on it. The pause lasted some time.
"I don't much fancy the idea," he said at last slowly, "thanks. And it wouldn't assist me. I want money now, not a year hence."
"A year hence!" she murmured. "A year hence would be no use tome. But you could do it in a month! Pray don't mistake me. I'm not anxious to get any kudos at your expense, I don't want you to do the kind of thing that I suppose you have done in this novel of yours that's making the round now; I don't want introspection and construction, and all that. All I want is to buy shoes for my poor little children, and what I suggested was that you should knock off a story at your top speed. I don't care a pin what it's like; only turn me out a hundred thousand words!"
"A hundred thousand words," cried Kent, "in a month? You might as well suggest my carrying off one of the lions out of Trafalgar Square!The Eye of the Beholderisn't a hundred thousand words, and I worked at it day and night, and then it took me a year! Besides, that's another thing; it is going the round—the story mightn't be any use to you if I did it."
"I can place it," said Mrs. Deane-Pitt, with emphasis. "Don't concern yourself about its fate, my friend; your responsibility will be limited to writing it. Your book took a year? I've no doubt you considered, and corrected, and spent an afternoon polishing a paragraph. Supposing you take six or seven weeks, then? Do you mean to say you couldn't write two thousand words a day?"
"No, I don't believe I could—not if you offered me the Mint!" said Kent.
"But you can put down the first words that come into your head!Anythingwill do. Naturally, it would be no use to me if you wrote 'Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard' over all the pages, but any trivial thing in the shape of a story, I assure you, I can arrange for at once. Indeed, itispractically arranged for; all that remains is for you to give it to me."
She puffed her cigarette silently, and the young man mused. The plan was repugnant to him, but if, as she said, anything would do—well, perhaps hecouldmanage it in the time; he did not know. Two hundred pounds would certainly be salvation, and, for seven weeks' work, a magnificent reward.
"I'll tell you," she continued, after a few moments: "if you liked to do me a short story or two now and again, we should have money from those in the meanwhile. I don't want to persuade you against your convictions, if you have any, but our business together would pay you better than an appointment, even if you found one; and—though that's nothing to do with it—it would be a tremendous benefit to me as well. See, with our two pens we can produce double the work, and we share the advantage of the popularity I've gained."
"Oh, I quite appreciate the pecuniary pull," he answered. "I could hardly write short stories while I was fagging at a novel, though."
"I think myself one goes back to the novel all the fresher for the break," she said; "but, of course, everybody has his own system of working. Would you care to write me a couple of three-thousand-word stories first? We can discuss the book later. If you let me have two stories to-morrow night, I could give you five guineas each for them on Saturday."
"To-morrow is out of the question. You don't realise how slowly I write, and I haven't the motives."
"Say the next day—say by Thursday. But it must be by then. The man goes out of town on Saturday, and I want him to read them before he goes. IfIcan have the manuscripts on Thursday,youcan have ten guineas Saturday night."
"It's a very good offer," said Kent. "You must get a royal rate."
"Well, I couldn't always offer you so much, but, then, I don't often want them quite so long. Two, of three thousand words, and to end happily, for choice. Not too strong. If they will illustrate well, all the better, but you needn't give yourself any trouble on that score—it's the artist's affair."
"I'll do them," said Humphrey. "I suppose I must make an attempt to imitate your style?"
"It isn't necessary. I generally begin with a very short sentence, like 'It was noon,' or 'It rained'; you might do that; but I really don't know that it matters.... Mr. Kent——"
"Yes?" he said.
"This is a confidential matter; I rely on your honour not to mention it to a living soul, of course! I don't know how much married you are, but I depend on you not to tell your wife. It would ruin me if it came out."
He assured her that she might trust him, and having pledged himself to the lighter task, he resolved on his way home that he would undertake the heavier, too. She did not want a year of his best work—he doubted if he could contemplate that, even if refusal meant Strawberry Hill for Cynthia and the baby, and the workhouse for himself—she asked only a few weeks of his worst. Money was indispensable; he must make it in whatever way he could. A ghost, eh? He was rising finely in the career of literature. His first novel had received what was almost the highest possible cachet; his second was "declined with thanks"; and now no mode of livelihood was left him but to be a ghost. His throat was tight with shame; there were tears in it.
That passed. He reflected that with two hundred pounds in his pocket he would be able to sit down to another novel on his own account; he might be luckier with that than withThe Eye of the Beholder. What were a few weeks compared with two hundred pounds? Mrs. Deane-Pitt must have thought him a fool to hesitate. Practical herself, indeed! But—well, for all that, it was rather fascinating to feel that so intimate a confidence was going to subsist between them! She had been a trifle nervous, too, as she took that cigarette; he hoped he hadn't been a prig. She was very nice; it distressed him to think that she had been afraid of him even for a second. Two hundred pounds? He wondered what share it was—half, or more than half, or less. With a woman, however, he could not go into that. His admission that five guineas seemed a lot to him for a three-thousand-word story had probably been injudicious—and it must have made him sound very ignorant besides. Well, that couldn't be helped. And he would be glad if the partnership paid her well; whatever terms she obtained, she must be perfectly aware that her offer was a liberal one to a man in his position, and he was grateful to her. He felt it again—she had been "nice." He began to revolve a plot for the first of the stories, and by the time he reached home he had vaguely thought of one. When Turquand came in, it had shaped. Saying that he had work to do, Kent left him, and went upstairs. He drew a chair to the table, and sat down and wrote—slowly, painfully. The man was an artist, and he could not help the care he took. He sneered at himself for it. Mrs. Deane-Pitt had impressed on him that anything would do, and here he was meditating and revising as if it were a story to submit to the most exclusive of the magazines in his own name. He dashed his pen in the ink, and threw a paragraph on the paper. But he could not go on. His consciousness of that slip-shod paragraph higher up clogged his invention, so that he had to go back to it and put it right. Presently a touch of cheerfulness crept into his mood. That was well said. Yes, she would praise that! The pride of authorship possessed him; he wrote with pleasure; and at two o'clock, when a third of the tale was achieved, he went to bed feeling exhilarated.
It was no easy duty to him to complete both stories by Thursday morning, and, confronted by the necessity for making Turquand a further excuse for retirement, he almost wished now that he were living alone. He was vastly relieved that the other accepted his allusions to "something that would keep him busy for a month or so" with no apparent perception of a mystery. After the first inevitable question was shirked, the journalist put no more, and behaved as if the explanation had been explicit. Neither Kent's friendship, nor his admiration for him, had ever been so warm, as while he decided that Turquand's experience must lead him to suspect something like the truth and enabled him to conceal the suspicion under his normal demeanour.
With Cynthia the ghost was less fortunate, though he barely divined it by her answer. He told her as much as he was free to tell: he wrote that he had work on hand at last, and that they would have ten guineas on Saturday, and a large sum in a couple of months. Where the stuff would appear, he could not say without a falsehood, and he trustee! she would not be curious on the point. The reservation that he regretted gave to his tone an aloofness that he did not design; Cynthia refrained from inquiring, but she was hurt. She felt that he might have imparted such intelligence a little more enthusiastically, at a little greater length. Did he suppose that her interest was limited to the payment? Was she only held sympathetic enough, to mind the baby when they were obliged to discharge the nurse? Now that he returned to work, her husband was going to treat her as a child again, just as he had done when he was engaged on his book! She did not perceive that, while he had been writing the book, she had occupied the position most natural to her; she did not detect that the attitude in which she recalled it was a new one. It was, however, the attitude of a woman. The hidden chagrin and urbanity of her reply was a woman's. These things were part of a development of which, while they had remained together, neither she nor the man who missed her had been acutely aware.
Mrs. Deane-Pitt paid Kent the ten guineas a few days after the Saturday on which she had expected to receive the Editor's cheque, and she made no secret of being delighted with the two tales. They were based upon rather original ideas, and after she had had them typewritten, and read them, she talked to him about them with the frankest appreciation possible. Kent almost lost sight of his regret that they weren't to appear under his own name, as the lady expressed her approval, and declared enthusiastically that to call them "excellent" was to say too little. He found it very stimulating to hear his work praised by Mrs. Deane-Pitt, especially as it was work done for her. Although she had professed to be careless of the quality, it was not to be supposed that she would not rather sign good stuff than bad, and the warmth and gaiety of her comments took the sting from the association and lent it a charm.
When he began her novel, it was with the discomfiting consciousness that the breakneck speed imposed on him would prevent the labourer being worthy of his hire. He was too hurried to be able to frame a scenario, and neither he nor the lady who was to figure as the author had more than a hazy idea of what the book was going to be about. He had mentally sworn to keep his critical faculty in check and to produce a chapter of two thousand words every day—if he did not bind himself to the accomplishment of a fixed instalment daily, the book would not be finished in double the time at his disposal! And he rose at seven, and worked till about midnight, on the day on which Chapter I. was done. He had corrected in a fashion as he composed, and he did not read it through when he put down his pen—that would be too disheartening. He remembered the opening chapter ofThe Eye of the Beholder, and, contrasted with the remembrance, these pages that he had perpetrated appeared to him puerile and painful. He folded them up, and posted them to Mrs. Deane-Pitt with a note before he slept.
"Whether you will want the novel after you have seen this, I don't know," he wrote; "I am sending it to you to ascertain. It is a specimen of the rubbish the thing will be if I have to turn it out at such a rate. I will call, on the chance of your being in, to-morrow afternoon."
He found her at home, and she welcomed him with a humorous smile.
"You have read it?" asked Kent, with misgiving.
"Yes; I've read it," she said. "Violet! Pray don't look so frightened of me!"
"Why 'violet'? Well?"
"The type of modesty. Well, what's the matter with it? It'll do all right."
Kent drew a breath.
"I'm glad to hear you say so. I'm bound to confess I thought it very slovenly myself."
"Oh, nonsense!" she said. "Have you gone on with it?"
"No; I waited for your verdict. I thought you might call me names and cry off. I'll go on with it now, though, like steam."
"Do! I suppose you couldn't manage a five-thousand-word story for me this week, could you? It would be good business."
He stared ruefully.
"No, indeed! Not if I'm to write a chapter a day."
"Oh, the chapter a day, please! Get the novel done at the earliest moment possible; that's the chief thing. You will, won't you? I should be so grateful to you if you finished it in six weeks."
"I promise to finish it as quickly as I can," he said. "Even if I didn't care to serve you, I should do that, for my own sake. When I get two hundred pounds, I shall be at the end of my troubles."
"Happy man!" said Mrs. Deane-Pitt. "Would that two hundred pounds would see the end of mine! And as you do want to serve me, you'll do it even more quickly than you can?"
"Or try."
"That's very nice of you. I wonder how true it is. One of the answers one has to make, isn't it? Then when you're behind with the work, and your wife wants to be taken out somewhere, you'll nobly remember there's a miserable woman in Victoria Street depending on you and persuade Mrs. Kent to go with a sister, or a cousin, or an aunt? You'll say to yourself 'Excelsior!' and other improving mottoes, meaning 'Loyalty forbids'?"
"I'll say 'Loyalty forbids' when I want to go out by myself; my wife's in the country."
"Tant mieux! if it isn't shocking," she laughed. "I'm afraid a woman on the spot would prove too strong for me. Am I grossly selfish? Poor boy who has got no wife!"
She looked at him as she had looked across the supper-table in the avenue Wagram. He could not think of anything to say, of a nature that commended itself to him; and he exclaimed abruptly:
"Oh, you may rely on me, Mrs. Deane-Pitt; I'll never go anywhere; I'll be a hermit! By the way, you don't know I'm in Soho now. Perhaps I'd better give you the address?"
"Certainly," she said; "I may want to write to you. The Hermit of Soho! Well, when you've been good and done penance thoroughly, hermit, you may come and see me sometimes; I'll allow you that distraction. Come in whenever you like, and you can tell me how the thing is going. Any afternoon you please at this time. And don't come in trembling at me any more; I don't expect you to write me a masterpiece in six weeks, poor boy."
Kent kept his word to her doggedly, and, although he continued to rise early, he was seldom free to join Turquand until about nine o'clock in the evening. When the chapter was done, he would go downstairs, and light another pipe, and Turquand would put away his book or his paper without any indication of curiosity. With a woman such a state of things would have been impossible; but Turquand's manner was so unforced that by degrees Kent came to own that he was tired, or to make some other allusion to his labour quite freely. And not once did the other say to him, "Well, but what is it you're doing?" On the days that he called on Mrs. Deane-Pitt, it was later still before he could loll in the parlour; the temptation to go to her, however, was more than he could resist. He realised very soon that she had an attraction for him which was not in the least like friendship, and which he could never term "friendship" any more. In moments, as he sat writing in his shabby bedroom under the tiles, the thought of her would suddenly creep into him, and beat in his pulses till he was assailed by a furious longing to be in her presence; and though he often denied the longing, he frequently obeyed it. He would throw down his pen, and change his coat, and leave the house impetuously, seeing her, in fancy, all the way to the flat. During a fortnight or so, he sought some reason for the visit. Would she like the heroine to go on the stage when her husband lost his money? Did she think it would be a good idea to kill the husband, and introduce a new character to reinstate the girl in luxury? But presently such excuses were abandoned. For one thing, Mrs. Deane-Pitt was too much occupied with her serial to accord any serious consideration to his work; and for another, she welcomed him as a matter of course. It was agreeable to her to see this man who was in love with her, and whom she liked, looking at her with eyes that betrayed what he would not allow his tongue to acknowledge. "Oh, I'm glad," she would say, "I was hoping it was you. Sit down and make yourself comfortable—no, bring me that cushion first—and talk to me, and be amusing." Sometimes she received him radiantly, sometimes wearily. On one afternoon she declared she was in the best of spirits, and had just been wishing for someone to bear her company; on the next she sighed that she was worried to death, and that he had only arrived in time to save her from extinction. "Bills," she would yawn, when he questioned her, "bills! A dressmaker, a schoolmistress—I forget which. Some wretch threatens something, I know. Don't look so concerned; I shall survive. Cheer me up." Then the servant would enter with the tea-things, and afterwards, in the cool shadows of the drawing-room, through which the perfume of the heliotrope that grew in a huge bowl under the crimson lamp floated deliciously, there would be cigarettes, and a half-hour that he found exquisite in its air of intimate familiarity. Though no verbal admission was ever made, there were seconds in which Kent's voice, as plainly as his face, told her what he felt for her, and seconds in which the tones of the woman said, "I'm quite conscious of the effect I have on you; we both understand, of course." Occasionally he had a glimpse of her children, and once when he was there, Mrs. Deane-Pitt took the boy on her lap, among the folds of her elaborate tea-gown, and fondled him. "Do you think I make a nice mother, Mr. Kent?" she said, flashing a glance. "This monkey doesn't appreciate his privileges." She kissed the child three times, and in the gaze that she lifted over his curly head there was, for an instant, provocation that shook the man.
But such incidents as this were exceptional, and, as a rule, Kent could not have cited a single instance of coquetry when he took his leave and returned to the attic. Nor did the passion she had aroused in him militate against the success of his enterprise, taking "success" to mean its completion by the given date. Perhaps he was more industrious, even, in the perception that she was always warmest when he had done the most. "I finished the thirtieth chapter last night!" Then she would be delightful, and if she had appeared harassed at all, her languor would speedily give place to gaiety. The tremulous afternoons were never so quick with the sense of alliance, so entirely fascinating to him, as when he was able to surprise her by some such report. The desire to please the woman became fully as strong a stimulus to the ghost as his eagerness to receive the money that would permit him to begin a third novel for himself. The two short stories had been published now, in a periodical in which Kent would have been very proud to see his own name, and though he did not grudge them to her, he could not help feeling, as he read them, that they were better than he had known and that it would be eminently satisfactory to resume legitimate work.
After the fortieth chapter was scrawled, conclusion was in sight, and though he could not quite sustain his earlier pace, he never turned out less than one thousand words a day. Had anybody told him, a couple of months before, that he could do even this, he would have ridiculed the statement, but the consciousness that acceptance was certain had been very fortifying. He scarcely allowed himself leisure to eat after passing the fortieth chapter. The stuff was undeniably poor, though it was not so jejune as it seemed to Kent. The worst part was the construction, for, ignorant what the next development was to be, he was often forced to write sheets of intermediate and motiveless dialogue until an idea presented itself; but for the style, hasty as it was, there was still something to be said. Instinctively Kent gave to a commonplace redundancy a literary twist, and the writing had almost invariably a veneer, though the matter written might be of no account.
During the final week he did not go to Victoria Street at all. He could not suppress the artist in him wholly, and for the climax he meant to do his utmost. It was a sop to his conscience—he could remember the last chapter and forget the rest. He had sent or taken the manuscript to Mrs. Deane-Pitt piece by piece, and he took her the last of it on the evening that he wrote "The End." A telegram had told her to expect him. He had written the book in seven weeks; but he felt as exhausted as if he had built a house in the time, brick by brick, with his own hands. She read the pages that he had brought, while he watched her from an arm-chair; and, with the candour which was so striking a feature in such an association, she cried that the scene was admirable—that she could not have done it half so well. Kent's weariness faded from him as they talked, and momentarily he regretted that he had not been able to write a book for her equal toThe Eye of the Beholder.
With regard to her negotiations, however, she was not so outspoken—it was only by chance that Kent had seen the two short stories; she had not even told him for what paper they were intended. There was some delay in paying the two hundred pounds, and her explanations were vague and various. The partner with whom she always dealt was on the Continent; she would not sign an agreement before American copyright was arranged; she generally ran her stories as serials before they were issued in book-form and it was not decided what she was going to do—half a dozen reasons for postponement were forthcoming. She gave him his share at last, though, and very cordially, and he felt some embarrassment in taking her cheque when the moment arrived, its being his earliest experience of business with a woman. If he had had others, he would have appreciated her action in paying him in full, and only a little late, more keenly than he did, though he was far from ungrateful to her as it was.
He put the cheque in his pocket as carelessly as he could manage, and said:
"Well, you've done me a tremendous service, Mrs. Deane-Pitt, and, by Jove! I thank you for it—heartily."
"Oh, rubbish!" she replied; "the work's been as useful to me as to you; you've nothing to thank me for."
"It makes more difference to me," said Kent; "it means—you hardly know what it means! I needn't look out for a berth now; I can sit down to another novel. I owe you that."
"If you like to think so——" She smiled, but her tone was constrained. "I should be glad if somebody owed me something; I'm more used to its being the other way round."
"I feel a Croesus. We ought to celebrate this accession to wealth; it demands a festivity! If I get seats for a theatre, will you go to dinner with me somewhere to-morrow night? What shall we go to see? Have you been to Daly's yet?"
"I'm engaged to-morrow night, and the next."
"To-night, then?"
"This evening I am dining out; there's the card on my desk."
"What a fashionable person you are!" exclaimed Kent, rather enviously. "Would Friday evening suit you?"
"Yes, I'm free on Friday; but a theatre is awfully stifling this weather, isn't it?"
"Well, we needn't go to a theatre," he said; "we might dine at Richmond. Will you drive down to Richmond, and have dinner at the Star and Garter on Friday?"
Mrs. Deane-Pitt promised that she would, but the animation with which she had given him the cheque had deserted her; and after a minute, she said:
"I suppose your starting another novel for yourself needn't stand in the way of our business together? There are several things I can offer you, if you care to do them."
"Oh, thanks," said Kent; "but I'm afraid I'd better stick to the novel. I want to do all I can with it, you see."
"L'un n'empêche pas l'autre—a short story now and then won't interfere with it, surely? I can place a ten-thousand-word story at once if you like to write it for me."
The refusal was difficult, and he hesitated how to express himself. He had never contemplated the association as a permanent one, and now that an alternative was open to him, its indignity looked doubly repellant. He was surprised that Mrs. Deane-Pitt expected it to continue. Couldn't she understand that he felt it a humiliation—that he had adopted the course merely as a desperate measure in a desperate case? He had taken her comprehension for granted.
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," he said awkwardly. "It would take me off my own work more than you can imagine. My motive for doing this was to make it possible for me to devote myself heart and soul to a novel; and that is what I want to do."
She looked downcast.
"When do you mean to begin it? You could knock off ten thousand words first, couldn't you? And I believe an occasional short story would come as a relief to you, too! I wouldn't persuade you against your will—pray don't think that—but, as a matter of fact, there is no reason why you shouldn't make a few pounds a week all the time you're writing your book, you know? if you like. I don't want another novel yet, but I can take almost any number of short stories; or, if you preferred it, you might write me a short thing that could be published in paper covers at a shilling. Will you think it over? I don't want to hurry your decision." She hummed a snatch of tune, and picked up a new song that was lying on the piano. "Have you seen this?" she said carelessly. "It's pretty."
Kent took it from her, and played with the leaves in a pause. He was conscious that he must decline now, and definitely, and the insistence of her request made the duty harder every second. Mrs. Deane-Pitt sauntered about the room; she felt blank and annoyed with herself. Was this her reward for liking the man enough to give him two hundred pounds in a lump, instead of paying him by instalments, which would have been infinitely more convenient to her?
"If you won't think me boorish," he said at last abruptly, "I'd rather keep to my intention. I'm not a boy—I need all the time at my disposal to succeed in."
She gave a forced laugh.
"How much younger do you want to be? If the money doesn't attract you, it won't be in your way, I suppose; and—you can do it to oblige me! Come, I'm quite frank! I own that you're very useful to me. You don't mean that you're going to strike and leave me in the lurch?"
The face upturned to him was more earnest than her words. Her brown eyes widened, and fastened on him, and for an instant his resolution broke down. But it was his work, and his ambition, his fidelity to his art, that she was asking him to waive—he would not!
"Nobody so sorry as the 'striker,'" he said, in a tone to match her own. "Let me be your banker when I'm going into a dozen editions, Mrs. Deane-Pitt, and I'll serve you all you want. The service you ask me to-day is just the one I can't do."
"Bien," she murmured; "I suppose you know your own business best."
But she was plainly disappointed, and, though she speedily spoke of another subject, her voice lacked spontaneity. Kent's courage knew no approving glow, and if, during the minutes he remained, she had begged him to assist her by returning the cheque, he would most certainly have done it. He thought that she must hate him—though in truth he had never appealed to her so strongly—and it was the only occasion on which he had ever taken leave of her without regret.
To Cynthia he wrote immediately, telling her he had been paid two hundred pounds, and enclosing twenty-five, that she might have a surplus to draw upon without applying to him. He also remitted to Paris the amount necessary to redeem her ring, and his watch and chain, and the rest. He had now an opportunity of going down to see her, and he told her that she might expect him on Monday or Tuesday in the following week. The picture he had once seen of surprising her in the garden had long since ceased to present itself to him, and he was not impatient to find himself in his wife's company in the circumstances. He questioned if Mrs. Deane-Pitt would be disposed to go with him to Richmond after what had passed. To refuse a woman's petition to augment her income, but to invite her to dinner at Richmond, was rather suggestive of the bread and the stone. Yet, now that propinquity was not her ally, he was fervently glad that he had had strength to refuse. It was a partnership that every month would have made more difficult to sever, and she had, apparently, looked for it to extend over years. As to Richmond, he hoped the engagement would be fulfilled; it would pain him intensely otherwise. He owed her too much to be reconciled to their separating with coldness, and he determined to send a note, reminding her of her promise.
Her reply allayed his misgivings. It was confirmed by her demeanour when they met. Indeed, her display of even more good fellowship than usual made him feel rather guilty.
She seemed to divine his reflections, and to assure him that such self-reproach was needless. She had never been brighter or more informal with him than in the hansom as they drove down. Her air implied that their previous interview had been a trivial folly which, as sensible people, they must banish from their minds, and she talked of everything and nothing with the gaiety of a schoolgirl on an unforeseen excursion, and the piquancy of a woman who had observed and lived.
Her vivacity was infectious, and Kent's constraint gradually melted in a rush of the warmest gratitude for her forbearance. He was so entirely at her mercy here, and he thought that few women similarly placed would have refrained from planting at least one little sting among their verbal honey. His admiration began to comprise details. He remarked the hat she wore, and the delicacy of a little ear against her hair's duskiness. He noted with pleasure the quick, petulant twitch of a corner of her mouth as her veil got in the way, and the appreciative gaze of young men in the cabs that rolled towards them—a gaze which invariably terminated in a swift scrutiny of the charming woman's companion.
When the hotel was reached, he had never been livelier; and, often as he had read an opposite opinion, he found it very delightful to see the woman he was in love with eat, and drink her champagne. It was intimate, it lessened thenoli me tangeremien of feminine fashion and brought her closer. The attire of an attractive woman who has never belonged to him has always a mystery for a man, though he may have had three wives and kept a dressmaker's shop. But liveliness was succeeded by a vaguer emotion, as they lounged on the terrace over their coffee and liqueurs. Under the moon the river shone divine, limitless in its glint and shadow. Her features took tenderness from the tremulous light, and sometimes a silence fell which, as he yielded himself to the subtile endearment of the moment, soft as the breath of love on his face, Kent felt to be the supplement of speech. A woman who could have uttered epigrams in the mood that possessed him now would have disgusted him, and insensibly their tones sank. She spoke gently, seriously. Presently some allusion that she made begot a confidence about her earlier life—her marriage. It disturbed him to hear that she had been fond of Deane-Pitt when she married him, yet he was grieved when she owned how quickly her illusions had died. Her belief that she might have been "a better woman" if she had married a different man was pathetic in its revelation of unsuspected heart-aches, and sympathy made him execrate the feebleness of words. Her voice acquired an earnestness that he had never heard in it before, and while he was stirred with the sincerest pity for her, a throb of rapture was in his veins that she could be talking so to him. The minutes were ineffable, in which she seemed to discard the social mask and surrender more and more of her identity to his view. Spiritually she appeared to be lying in his arms; and when she checked herself, and rallied with a laugh which was over-taken by a sigh, he felt that he could have listened to her for ever.