"Cousins's will look at the sale. The thing will have to be precious good for you to get as much as that!" "It _will_ be precious good," said Kent seriously. "I'm doing all I know! You shall wade right through it when it's finished, if you will, and tell me your honest opinion. I won't say it's going to 'live' or any rot like that; but it's the best work it is in me to do, and it will be an advance on the other, that I'll swear." "Mrs. St. Julian's last goes into a fourth edition next week," observed Turquand grimly, "if that's any encouragement to you." "Good Lord," said Kent, "it only came out in January! Is that a fact?" "One of 'Life's Little Ironies'! Hers is the kind of stuff to sell, my boy! The largest public don't want nature and style; they want an improbable story and virtue rewarded. The poor 'companion' rambles in the moonlight and a becoming dress, and has love passages in the grounds at midnight--which wouldn't be respectable, only she's so innocent. The heiress sighs for a title and an establishment in Park Lane; I and the poor 'companion' says, 'Give me a cottage, with the man I love,' making eyes at the biggest catch in the room, no doubt, though the writer doesn't tell you that--and hooks him. Blessed is the 'companion' whose situation is in a story by Mrs. St. Julian, for she shall be called the wife of the lord. Sonny, the first mission of a novel is to be a pecuniary success--you are an ass! Excuse me, Mrs. Kent." "You may give him all the good advice you can. I've said before that I like Mrs. St. Julian's stories, but Humphrey has made up his mind not to. That's firmness, I suppose, as he is a man!" She laughed. "Turk didn't imply that he liked them either. Isn't it painful, though, to think of the following a woman like that can command? What a world to write for--it breaks one's heart!" "It's an over-rated place," said Turquand; "it's a fat-headed, misguided, beast of a world!" "It isn't the world," said Cynthia brightly; "it's the people in it!" A ghastly silence followed her comment, a pause in which the journalist stared at the stove ornament, affecting not to have heard her, and Kent felt the sickness of death in his soul. Shame that his wife should say such a stupid thing in Turquand's presence paralysed his tongue; and Turquand, pitying his embarrassment, turned to the girl with an inquiry about her relatives. Humphrey had taken him to The Hawthorns, as requested, and Turquand, with characteristic perversity, had professed to discover a congenial spirit in Miss Wix. It was about Miss Wix that he asked now. Cynthia laughed again. "Yes, your favourite is quite well," she answered--"as cheerful as ever." "Fate hasn't been kind to Miss Wix," said Turquand; "she's been chastened and chidden too much. In other circumstances----" "Skittles!" said Humphrey.