“Charmed, I am sure,” said the stranger airily. “The more that I am positive of enlisting Mr. Ashe’s powerful interest upon my side, and that of the book-loving public. If Mrs. Ashe will pardon the additional trespass upon her time, I should like to explain to you, my dear sir, the nature of my petition to her, and now to yourself.” They returned to the parlor, and he had his say. It was succinct and comprehensive. He wished to engage Mrs. Ashe to write one of a projected series of popular novels. Her coadjutors would be authors of repute; the programme was attractive and must take immensely with the best class of readers. His terms were liberal. In any other mood than that for which Miss Marvel was chiefly responsible, even a prejudiced man must have been gratified by the compliment to his wife implied in the application. It acted upon the chafed surface of husbandly vanity and dignity like moral _aqua fortis_. Barton listened with lowering brow and compressed lips while the fashionable publisher subjoined appeal to statement. When both were concluded the master of the house waited with palpable patience, apparently to make sure that all the pleas were in, then arose with the air of the long-bored householder who dismisses a book agent. “Mrs. Ashe is so well acquainted with my views upon the subject of her undertaking any literary work whatsoever, that I may be allowed the expression of my surprise at her reference of this matter to me. I believe, however, that the feminine _littérateur_ considers a show of deference to her husband a graceful form. Your appeal to me is, you see, the idlest of courtesies. Now, as I have just come home after a wearisome day of business, may I ask you to excuse me from further and fruitless consideration of this subject?” He bowed and went off to his dressing room. The man of the world, left thus awkwardly _en tête-à-tête_ with an insulted wife, always remembered with grateful admiration the perfect breeding that helped him out of the dilemma. “Mr. Ashe is very tired and far from well,” Agnes remarked, eye and smile cool and unembarrassed. “As one conversant with the fatigues and harassments of business life, you need no apology beyond this for his seeming brusqueness. I dare say—” with archness that was well achieved—“that Mrs. Rowland would comprehend, better than you, what serpentlike wisdom we wives must exercise in broaching any subject that requires thought to our hungry lords. I will appeal from Philip famished to Philip full, in due season, but I think you would better not depend upon me. I am a very busy woman just now, and shall be for some time to come.” “It would give me solid satisfaction to punch that fellow’s head,” muttered the publisher in the street. “He is a boor and a tyrant, and his wife is an angel.”