She had no complaint to make when he saw her next. And it was after this that Kent's work for her was uniformly fatuous, while he lavished on his own a wealth of fastidious care for which she would have mocked him had she known. He visited her at much longer intervals now, for a disgust of her caresses was growing in him, a horror of the amorous afternoons, which ended always with a plea for additional tales. But that cowardice prevented him, he would have stayed away altogether. There grew something like horror of the woman herself, insatiable, no matter with how much work he might supply her--coaxing him for "two little stories more; anything will do--I must have a new costume, darling, really!" while a batch of manuscript that he had brought to her lay in her lap. He could remember now, with her arms about him, the many original ideas that she had had from him at the beginning, and he felt with a shudder that her clutch was deadly. First she had had his brains, and now she stole his conscience. He foresaw that, if the strain that she put upon him continued, a day must come when the imagination that she was squeezing like an orange would be sterile, or fruitful of nothing better than the literary abortions with which his mistress was content. His dismay at his position did not wane. It became so evident that, by degrees, a coldness crept into the woman's manner towards him. He was at no pains to dispel it. That their relations drifted on to a purely business footing inspired him with no other fear than that presently she might make him a scene and entail upon him the disagreeable necessity for declaring, as delicately as he could, that his infidelity to his wife had been a madness that he violently regretted, and would never repeat. The obvious retort would be so superficially true that fervently he trusted that the necessity would not arise. Meanwhile the short stories submitted in his own name, with silent prayers, had all been refused; but, undeterred by the failure, he wrote more and more. The present tenants of No. 64 were anxious to renew their agreement for another six months, and he was pleased to hear it. The prospect of meeting Cynthia again frightened him; and, closing readily with the off er that afforded him a respite, he remained at his literary forge in Soho, writing for Mrs. Deane-Pitt and for himself--seeing sometimes three of his tales for her published, by different papers, in the same week, and finding the tales submitted in the lowlier name of "Humphrey Kent" returned without exception.