He considered the sources for the brief biography. There was Mary Alcestis, first and most important. There were, he hoped, letters. And there was Thomasina. His delight in his work set the machinery of his mind into swift revolution. He recalled with satisfaction his short contributions to contemporary literature and got down the scrapbooks in which he had preserved them. Here was an admirable paragraph--there was one which should be recast. He read again the carefully preserved letters which he had received in agreement and commendation. When the works of Basil Everman appeared, Vreeland and Lewis and Wilson would in all probability write to him again. He was still not middle-aged; there might be before him deeper literary satisfactions than the editing of another man's work, extraordinary as that work was. He might see some happy day his own productions beautifully printed, beautifully bound, his own name in gold on dark-blue cloth--Henry Harrington Scott. In the glow which pervaded his spirit, old feelings revived, feelings which had no connection with literary matters. He began to remember once more not only why he had married, but why he had married Mrs. Scott. He saw her blue eyes, unsharpened and unfaded; he saw her eager face; he heard--alas for him!--her siren tones of appreciation and admiration. He had not, he knew, justified himself in her eyes, but that should all be changed; he promised himself that she should think well of him, that he would still achieve that success which every woman has a right to expect in the man whom she marries. Even Walter--supercilious, prosperous Walter, jingling coin in his pocket--should think well of him. To Cora's opinion he attributed no value. But he anticipated more and more pleasantly the moment when he should tell Mrs. Scott his happy secret. That his condition might become apparent to the sharp eyes which daily reviewed him, that it might require some cunning to conceal from his wife the aura of renewed hopes in which he walked, did not occur to him. If the evidences of excitement had been hers, if she had shown signs of interest in affairs unknown to him, he would have let her proceed, unquestioned and unmolested, glad in his secret soul that he did not have to know. But Mrs. Scott's position was different. She planned a gayer August than ever before, and such an expression of countenance as that brought by Dr. Scott to breakfast could have been inspired only by some small literary success. Had the work which he had done been paid for? Mrs. Scott had long since lost interest in successes which were not accompanied by money, and since she had heard from Mr. Utterly of the prices paid for promising stories, she had despised in secret her husband's receipts. It seemed to her that now he must have achieved something worth while.