Presently, where they sat, she turned and put some questions to him about his projected book. Her intentions were praiseworthy; she was a good girl, and having married an author, she understood that it was incumbent on her to take an interest in his work, though she had fancied once or twice that perhaps it would have been nicer if, like a stock-jobber, he had preferred not to discuss his business at home. Papa had never cared to do so, she knew. Discussing an author's business was not so simple as she had assumed. There seemed to be such a mass of tedious detail that really didn't matter. "When do you think it will be finished, Humphrey?" she said. "In nine months, I hope, if I stick to it." "So long as nine months?" she exclaimed with surprise. "Why, I've read--let me see--two, three new ones of Mrs. St. Julian's this year! Will it _really_ take so long as nine months?" "Quite, sweetheart; perhaps longer. I don't write quickly, I'm sorry to say. Still, it won't be bad business if Cousins pay the two hundred and fifty that I expect. I think they ought to, after the way the last has been received." "Some people get much more, don't they?" "Just a trifle!" he said. "Yes; but I'm not a popular writer, you see. Wait a bit, though; we'll astonish your mother with our grandeurs yet. You shall have a victoria, _and_ two men on the box, with powdered hair, and drive out on a wet day and splash mud at your enemies." "I don't think I have any enemies," she laughed. "You _will_ have when you have the victoria and pair. Some poor beggar of an author who's hoping to get two hundred and fifty pounds for nine months' toil will look at you from a bus and cuss you." "Suppose you can't get two hundred and fifty?" she inquired. "You can't be sure." "Oh, well, if it were only a couple of hundred, we shouldn't have to go to the workhouse, you know. If it comes to that, a hundred, the same as I got for the other, would see us through, though of course I wouldn't accept such a price. Don't begin to worry your little head about ways and means on your honeymoon, darling; there's time enough for arithmetic. And it's going to be good work. I've been practical, too. I can end it happily, and retain a conscience. It's almost a different plot from what it was when I began to think, and it's better. It ends well, and it's better--the thing's a Koh-i-noor!" "Tell me all about it," she suggested. He complied enthusiastically. She was being very sympathetic, and he felt with perfect momentary content how jolly it was to have a lovely wife and talk over these things with her. Just what he had pictured! "But wouldn't it be more exciting if you kept that a mystery till the third volume?" she said, at the end of five minutes. It was as if she had thrown a bucket of ice-water on his animation.