She thought: "What is it he does to them?" And yet it was clear that he didn't do anything. They were simply crushed by the sheer mass and weight of his egoism. He imposed on them somehow his incredible consciousness of himself. He left an atmosphere of uneasiness. You felt it when he wasn't there; even when Fanny had settled down in the drawing-room with "Tono-Bungay" you felt her fear that at any minute the door would open and Horatio would come in. But Barbara wasn't depressed. She enjoyed the perpetual spectacle he made. She enjoyed his very indifference to Ralph, his refusal to see that he could command attention, his conviction of his own superior fascination. She knew now what Ralph meant when he said it would be unkind to spoil him for her. He was to burst on her without preparation or description. She was to discover him first of all herself. First of all. But she could see the time coming when her chief joy would be their making him out, bit by bit, together. She even discerned a merry devil in Fanny that amused itself at Horatio's expense; that was aware of Barbara's amusement and condoned it. There were ultimate decencies that prevented any open communion with Fanny. But beyond that refusal to smile at Horatio after eating his dinner, she could see no decencies restraining Ralph. She could count on him when her private delight became intolerable and must be shared. But there were obstacles to their intercourse. Mr. Waddington couldn't very well start on what he called his "campaign" until he was armed with his prospectus, and Pyecraft took more than a week to print it. And while she sat idle, thinking of her salary, the fiend of conscience prompted Barbara to ask him for work. Wasn't there his book? "My book? My Cotswold book?" He pretended he had forgotten all about it. He waved it away. "The book is only a recreation, an amusement. Plenty of time for that when I've got my League going. Still, I shall be glad when I can settle down to it, again.".... He was considering it now with reminiscent affection.... "If it would amuse you to look at it--" He began a fussy search in his bureau. "Ah, here we are!" He unearthed two piles of manuscript, one typed, the other written, both scored with erasures, with almost illegible corrections and insertions. "It's in a terrible mess," he said. She saw what her work would be: to cut a way through the jungle, to make clearings. "If I were to type it all over again, you'd have a clean copy to work on when you were ready." "If you _would_ be so good. It's that young rascal Ralph. He'd no business to leave it in that state." Her scruple came again to Barbara. "Mr. Waddington, you'd take him on again for your secretary if he'd come back?" "He'd come back all right. Trust him." "And you'd take him?" "My dear young lady, why should I? I don't want _him_; I want _you_." "And _I_ don't want to stand in his way." "You needn't worry about that."