She stayed at Bournemouth for a fortnight, and when she came home her efforts to acquire the quickness that she lacked, to talk in the same strain as Kent, to utter the kind of extravagance which seemed to be his idea of wit, were laboured and pathetic. Especially as he did not notice them. She read the books that he admired, and was bored by them more frequently than she was moved. She attempted, in fact, to mould herself upon him, and she attempted it with such scanty encouragement, and with so little apparent result, that, if her imitation had not become instinctive by degrees, she would have been destined to renounce it in despair. He was not at this time the most agreeable of models; he was too much humiliated and too anxious. Though Mr. and Mrs. Walford were superficially affable again, he felt a difference that he could not define in their manner, and was always uncomfortable in their presence. He had called the book _The Eye of the Beholder_, and he submitted it to Messrs. Percival and King. But February waned without any communication coming from the firm, and once more the Walfords asked him almost every day if he had "any news." His only prop now was Turquand, whom he often went to town to see. Turquand had been genuinely dismayed, by Messrs. Cousins' refusal, and it was by his advice that the author had chosen Percival and King. Kent awaited their verdict feverishly. Not only was his humiliation bad to bear, but his financial position was beginning to be serious, and the Walfords' knowledge of the fact aggravated the unpleasantness of it. Messrs. Percival sent the manuscript back at the end of April. They did not offer any criticism upon the work; they regretted merely that in the present state of the book market they could not undertake the publication of _The Eye of the Beholder_. Then the novelist packed it up again, and posted it to Fendall and Green. Messrs. Fendall and Green were longer in replying, and the fact of the second rejection could not be withheld from the Walfords. After they had heard of it, the change in their manner towards him was more marked. They obviously regarded him as a poor pretender in literature, and her mother admitted as much to Cynthia once. "Well, mamma," said Cynthia valiantly, "I don't see how you can speak like that! It's terribly unfortunate, and he's very worried, but you know what Humphrey's reviews have been--nothing can take away the success he has had." "Oh, 'reviews'!" said Mrs. Walford, with impatience. "He mustn't talk to us about 'reviews'!" "Of course all those were 'worked' for him by Cousins. We are behind the scenes, we know what such things are worth."