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 of _The 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."