About eight o’clock Reardon heard his wife’s knock at the door. On opening he saw not only Amy and the servant, the latter holding Willie in her arms, but with them Jasper Milvain. ‘I have been at Mrs Yule’s,’ Jasper explained as he came in. ‘Have you anyone here?’ ‘Biffen.’ ‘Ah, then we’ll discuss realism.’ ‘That’s over for the evening. Greek metres also.’ ‘Thank Heaven!’ The three men seated themselves with joking and laughter, and the smoke of their pipes gathered thickly in the little room. It was half an hour before Amy joined them. Tobacco was no disturbance to her, and she enjoyed the kind of talk that was held on these occasions; but it annoyed her that she could no longer play the hostess at a merry supper-table. ‘Why ever are you sitting in your overcoat, Mr Biffen?’ were her first words when she entered. ‘Please excuse me, Mrs Reardon. It happens to be more convenient this evening.’ She was puzzled, but a glance from her husband warned her not to pursue the subject. Biffen always behaved to Amy with a sincerity of respect which had made him a favourite with her. To him, poor fellow, Reardon seemed supremely blessed. That a struggling man of letters should have been able to marry, and such a wife, was miraculous in Biffen’s eyes. A woman’s love was to him the unattainable ideal; already thirty-five years old, he had no prospect of ever being rich enough to assure himself a daily dinner; marriage was wildly out of the question. Sitting here, he found it very difficult not to gaze at Amy with uncivil persistency. Seldom in his life had he conversed with educated women, and the sound of this clear voice was always more delightful to him than any music. Amy took a place near to him, and talked in her most charming way of such things as she knew interested him. Biffen’s deferential attitude as he listened and replied was in strong contrast with the careless ease which marked Jasper Milvain. The realist would never smoke in Amy’s presence, but Jasper puffed jovial clouds even whilst she was conversing with him. ‘Whelpdale came to see me last night,’ remarked Milvain, presently. ‘His novel is refused on all hands. He talks of earning a living as a commission agent for some sewing-machine people.’ ‘I can’t understand how his book should be positively refused,’ said Reardon. ‘The last wasn’t altogether a failure.’ ‘Very nearly. And this one consists of nothing but a series of conversations between two people. It is really a dialogue, not a novel at all. He read me some twenty pages, and I no longer wondered that he couldn’t sell it.’ ‘Oh, but it has considerable merit,’ put in Biffen. ‘The talk is remarkably true.’ ‘But what’s the good of talk that leads to nothing?’ protested Jasper. ‘It’s a bit of real life.’ ‘Yes, but it has no market value. You may write what you like, so long as people are willing to read you. Whelpdale’s a clever fellow, but he can’t hit a practical line.’