"I'm so sorry, dear; it _does_ hurt, I know--but hadn't you rather expected it?" "Expected it?" cried Mrs. Fetherel, sitting up. Mrs. Clinch felt her way warily. "I only mean, dear, that I fancied from what you said before the book came out--that you rather expected--that you'd rather discounted--" "Their recommending it to everybody as a perfectly harmless story?" "Good gracious! Is _that_ what they've done?" Mrs. Fetherel speechlessly nodded. "Every one of them?" "Every one--" "Whew!" said Mrs. Clinch, with an incipient whistle. "Why, you've just said it yourself!" her cousin suddenly reproached her. "Said what?" "That you weren't so _awfully_ shocked--" "I? Oh, well--you see, you'd keyed me up to such a pitch that it wasn't quite as bad as I expected--" Mrs. Fetherel lifted a smile steeled for the worst. "Why not say at once," she suggested, "that it's a distinctly pretty story?" "They haven't said _that?_" "They've all said it." "My poor Paula!" "Even the Bishop--" "The Bishop called it a pretty story?" "He wrote me--I've his letter somewhere. The title rather scared him--he wanted me to change it; but when he'd read the book he wrote that it was all right and that he'd sent several copies to his friends." "The old hypocrite!" cried Mrs. Clinch. "That was nothing but professional jealousy." "Do you think so?" cried her cousin, brightening. "Sure of it, my dear. His own books don't sell, and he knew the quickest way to kill yours was to distribute it through the diocese with his blessing." "Then you don't really think it's a pretty story?" "Dear me, no! Not nearly as bad as that--" "You're so good, Bella--but the reviewers?" "Oh, the reviewers," Mrs. Clinch jeered. She gazed meditatively at the cold remains of her tea-cake. "Let me see," she said, suddenly; "do you happen to remember if the first review came out in an important paper?" "Yes--the 'Radiator.'" "That's it! I thought so. Then the others simply followed suit: they often do if a big paper sets the pace. Saves a lot of trouble. Now if you could only have got the 'Radiator' to denounce you--" "That's what the Bishop said!" cried Mrs. Fetherel. "He did?" "He said his only chance of selling 'Through a Glass Brightly' was to have it denounced on the ground of immorality." "H'm," said Mrs. Clinch. "I thought he knew a trick or two." She turned an illuminated eye on her cousin. "You ought to get _him_ to denounce 'Fast and Loose'!" she cried. Mrs. Fetherel looked at her suspiciously. "I suppose every book must stand or fall on its own merits," she said in an unconvinced tone.