remember, for ten pounds, and with the money I bought in Vigo Street a quaint piece of old silver for Maud Stannace, which I carried to her with my own hand as a wedding-gift. In her mother’s small drawing-room, a faded bower of photography fenced in and bedimmed by folding screens out of which sallow persons of fashion with dashing signatures looked at you from retouched eyes and little windows of plush, I was left to wait long enough to feel in the air of the house a hushed vibration of disaster. When our young lady came in she was very pale and her eyes too had been retouched. “Something horrid has happened,” I immediately said; and having really all along but half believed in her mother’s meagre permission I risked with an unguarded groan the introduction of Mrs. Stannace’s name. “Yes, she has made a dreadful scene; she insists on our putting it off again. We’re very unhappy: poor Ray has been turned off.” Her tears began to flow again. I had such a good conscience that I stared. “Turned off what?” “Why, his paper of course. The _Beacon_ has given him what he calls the sack. They don’t like his letters: they’re not the style of thing they want.” My blankness could only deepen. “Then what style of thing _do_ they want?” “Something more chatty.” “More?” I cried, aghast. “More gossipy, more personal. They want ‘journalism.’ They want tremendous trash.” “Why, that’s just what his letters have _been!_” I broke out. This was strong, and I caught myself up, but the girl offered me the pardon of a beautiful wan smile. “So Ray himself declares. He says he has stooped so low.” “Very well--he must stoop lower. He _must_ keep the place.” “He can’t!” poor Maud wailed. “He says he has tried all he knows, has been abject, has gone on all fours, and that if they don’t like that--” “He accepts his dismissal?” I interposed in dismay. She gave a tragic shrug. “What other course is open to him? He wrote to them that such work as he has done is the very worst he can do for the money.” “Therefore,” I inquired with a flash of hope, “they’ll offer him more for worse?” “No indeed,” she answered, “they haven’t even offered him to go on at a reduction. He isn’t funny enough.” I reflected a moment. “But surely such a thing as his notice of my book--!” “It was your wretched book that was the last straw! He should have treated it superficially.” “Well, if he didn’t--!” I began. Then I checked myself. “_Je vous porte malheur._” She didn’t deny this; she only went, on: “What on earth is he to do?” “He’s to do better than the monkeys! He’s to write!” “But what on earth are we to marry on?” I considered once more. “You’re to marry on _The Major Key_.” II