"I have no need to do so--thank you. But I can quite conceive that, say, violets and maraschino, worked for all they were worth, might alone make a man famous. A mouse liberated a lion, and things smaller than a mouse have created one before now. The violet in the hedgerow 'bloomed unseen,'--or 'died unknown,' was it? it did something modest and unsuccessful, I know. The violet assiduously paragraphed and paraded might lead to fortune." "I would rather be obscure and do honest, conscientious work," answered Mamie, "than write rubbish, and finesse myself into popularity." "It is much easier," he said tranquilly. "To be obscure is the one thing that _is_ easy still. You don't mind my saying that I hate the adjectives you used, though, do you? The words 'honest' and 'conscientious,' applied to literature, dearest, make me shudder. I am always afraid that 'wholesome' is coming in the next sentence." "Are you going to say so to your interviewer?" "The remark isn't brilliant. It was sincere, and to be sincere and brilliant at the same time is a little difficult.... I've been both, though, in the scene I've just done; you must read it, or rather I'll read it to you. You'll be pleased with it. As soon as the piece is finished I must write to Erskine. It will suit the Pall Mall down to the ground, and I should like it done there, only----" "Only what?" Field hesitated. "I meant it for Erskine from the start. He saw the scenario, and the part fits him like a glove." "But what were you going to say?" "Well, I fancy he has some idea that a piece of mine just now---- You understand, with the case so fresh in people's minds!... Erskine's a fool. What on earth does the public care? Of course he'll do it when he reads the part he's got! Only I know he's doubting whether my name'd be a judicious card to play yet awhile." There was a pause, in which her heart contracted painfully. "I see," she rejoined, in a low voice. He fidgeted before the mirror, and glanced at his watch. "That fellow must be getting impatient." "You had better go in to him," she said. "Well, we'll go to the Vaudeville, or somewhere to-night, Mamie--that's arranged?" "Yes, to the Vaudeville, or somewhere," she assented, with another sigh. She went back to the window, and stared at the rue Tronchet with wet eyes. CHAPTER X Some weeks afterwards Field went to England. He did not take Mamie with him, for he intended to remain only a few days, nor had she been at all desirous of accompanying him. She had begun, indeed, to see that she did not know what she did desire. Her life in Paris oppressed her; the notion of Duluth was horrible; and the thought of living with Lucas in London, where she might meet an acquaintance of Heriot's at any turn, was repugnant in an almost equal degree.