‘I suppose Marian mentioned your acquaintance with this branch of the family?’
‘I think not. At all events, she promised me she wouldn’t.’
Amy looked at him inquiringly, in a puzzled way.
‘She promised you?’
‘Voluntarily. We got rather sympathetic. Your uncle—Alfred, I mean—is a remarkable man; but I think he regarded me as a youth of no particular importance. Well, how do things go?’
Amy shook her head.
‘No progress?’
‘None whatever. He can’t work; I begin to be afraid that he is really ill. He must go away before the fine weather is over. Do persuade him to-night! I wish you could have had a holiday with him.’
‘Out of the question now, I’m sorry to say. I must work savagely. But can’t you all manage a fortnight somewhere—Hastings, Eastbourne?’
‘It would be simply rash. One goes on saying, “What does a pound or two matter?”—but it begins at length to matter a great deal.’
‘I know, confound it all! Think how it would amuse some rich grocer’s son who pitches his half-sovereign to the waiter when he has dined himself into good humour! But I tell you what it is: you must really try to influence him towards practicality. Don’t you think—?’
He paused, and Amy sat looking at her hands.
‘I have made an attempt,’ she said at length, in a distant undertone.
‘You really have?’
Jasper leaned forward, his clasped hands hanging between his knees. He was scrutinising her face, and Amy, conscious of the too fixed regard, at length moved her head uneasily.
‘It seems very clear to me,’ she said, ‘that a long book is out of the question for him at present. He writes so slowly, and is so fastidious. It would be a fatal thing to hurry through something weaker even than the last.’
‘You think “The Optimist” weak?’ Jasper asked, half absently.
‘I don’t think it worthy of Edwin; I don’t see how anyone can.
‘I have wondered what your opinion was. Yes, he ought to try a new tack, I think.’
Just then there came the sound of a latch-key opening the outer door. Jasper lay back in his chair and waited with a smile for his expected friend’s appearance; Amy made no movement.
‘Oh, there you are!’ said Reardon, presenting himself with the dazzled eyes of one who has been in darkness; he spoke in a voice of genial welcome, though it still had the note of depression. ‘When did you get back?’
Milvain began to recount what he had told in the first part of his conversation with Amy. As he did so, the latter withdrew, and was absent for five minutes; on reappearing she said:
‘You’ll have some supper with us, Mr. Milvain?’
‘I think I will, please.’
Shortly after, all repaired to the eating-room, where conversation had to be carried on in a low tone because of the proximity of the bedchamber in which lay the sleeping child. Jasper began to tell of certain things that had happened to him since his arrival in town.
‘It was a curious coincidence—but, by-the-bye, have you heard of what The Study has been doing?’
‘I should rather think so,’ replied Reardon, his face lighting up. ‘With no small satisfaction.’
‘Delicious, isn’t it?’ exclaimed his wife. ‘I thought it too good to be true when Edwin heard of it from Mr. Biffen.’
All three laughed in subdued chorus. For the moment, Reardon became a new man in his exultation over the contradictory reviewers.
‘Oh, Biffen told you, did he? Well,’ continued Jasper, ‘it was an odd thing, but when I reached my lodgings on Saturday evening there lay a note from Horace Barlow, inviting me to go and see him on Sunday afternoon out at Wimbledon, the special reason being that the editor of The Study would be there, and Barlow thought I might like to meet him. Now this letter gave me a fit of laughter; not only because of those precious reviews, but because Alfred Yule had been telling me all about this same editor, who rejoices in the name of Fadge. Your uncle, Mrs. Reardon, declares that Fadge is the most malicious man in the literary profession; though that’s saying such a very great deal—well, never mind! Of course I was delighted to go and meet Fadge. At Barlow’s I found the queerest collection of people, most of them women of the inkiest description. The great Fadge himself surprised me; I expected to see a gaunt, bilious man, and he was the rosiest and dumpiest little dandy you can imagine; a fellow of forty-five, I dare say, with thin yellow hair and blue eyes and a manner of extreme innocence. Fadge flattered me with confidential chat, and I discovered at length why Barlow had asked me to meet him; it’s Fadge that is going to edit Culpepper’s new monthly—you’ve heard about it?—and he had actually thought it worth while to enlist me among contributors! Now, how’s that for a piece of news?’
The speaker looked from Reardon to Amy with a smile of vast significance.
‘I rejoice to hear it!’ said Reardon, fervently.
‘You see! you see!’ cried Jasper, forgetting all about the infant in the next room, ‘all things come to the man who knows how to wait. But I’m hanged if I expected a thing of this kind to come so soon! Why, I’m a man of distinction! My doings have been noted; the admirable qualities of my style have drawn attention; I’m looked upon as one of the coming men! Thanks, I confess, in some measure, to old Barlow; he seems to have amused himself with cracking me up to all and sundry. That last thing of mine in The West End has done me a vast amount of good, it seems. And Alfred Yule himself had noticed that paper in The Wayside. That’s how things work, you know; reputation comes with a burst, just when you’re not looking for anything of the kind.’
‘What’s the new magazine to be called?’ asked Amy.
‘Why, they propose The Current. Not bad, in a way; though you imagine a fellow saying “Have you seen the current Current?” At all events, the tone is to be up to date, and the articles are to be short; no padding, merum sal from cover to cover. What do you think I have undertaken to do, for a start? A paper consisting of sketches of typical readers of each of the principal daily and weekly papers. A deuced good idea, you know—my own, of course—but deucedly hard to carry out. I shall rise to the occasion, see if I don’t. I’ll rival Fadge himself in maliciousness—though I must confess I discovered no particular malice in the fellow’s way of talking. The article shall make a sensation. I’ll spend a whole month on it, and make it a perfect piece of satire.’
‘Now that’s the kind of thing that inspires me with awe and envy,’ said Reardon. ‘I could no more write such a paper than an article on Fluxions.’
‘’Tis my vocation, Hal! You might think I hadn’t experience enough, to begin with. But my intuition is so strong that I can make a little experience go an immense way. Most people would imagine I had been wasting my time these last few years, just sauntering about, reading nothing but periodicals, making acquaintance with loafers of every description. The truth is, I have been collecting ideas, and ideas that are convertible into coin of the realm, my boy; I have the special faculty of an extempore writer. Never in my life shall I do anything of solid literary value; I shall always despise the people I write for. But my path will be that of success. I have always said it, and now I’m sure of it.’
‘Does Fadge retire from The Study, then?’ inquired Reardon, when he had received this tirade with a friendly laugh.
‘Yes, he does. Was going to, it seems, in any case. Of course I heard nothing about the two reviews, and I was almost afraid to