He left Luke to fight against a great temptation alone and heavily handicapped, for Luke FitzHenry was held as in a vice by his passionate love for Agatha. It is not all men who can love. It is only a few who are capable of a deep passion. This is as rare as genius. A man of genius is usually a failure in all except his own special line. The man who can and does love passionately must be a good man indeed if his love do not make a villain of him. CHAPTER IX. THE EDITOR'S ROOM. The greater man, the greater courtesy. The Count de Lloseta and John Craik were sitting together in the editorial room of the Commentator. It was a quiet room, with double windows and a permanent odour of tobacco smoke. An empty teacup stood on the table by John Craik's elbow. "Name of God!" Cipriani de Lloseta had ejaculated when he saw it. "At eleven o'clock in the morning!" "Must stir the brain up," was the reply. "I would not do it with a teaspoon," De Lloseta had answered, and then he sat down to correct the proof of Eve's fourth article on "Spain and Spanish Life." They had been sitting thus together for half an hour in friendly silence, only broken by an occasional high-class Spanish anathema hurled at the head of the printer. "A dog's trade!" ejaculated De Lloseta at last, leaning back and throwing down his pen, "a dog's trade, my friend!" "It is mine," replied Craik, without looking up. In fiction he was celebrated for a certain smartness of dialogue. His printed conversations were pretty displays of social sword-play. It had become a sort of habit with him to thrust and parry quickly; but the sudden smile on his lined face, the kindly glance from behind the spectacles, always took away the sting and demonstrated that it was mere "copy," to fill up the dull columns of life and throw in a sparkle here and there. "Have you finished?" he inquired. "Yes, thank Heaven! I was not intended for a literary calling. That is number four, and I am not paid--I am not paid; there lies the sting." "Number four, yes; two published and two in hand," replied John Craik. His mind was busy elsewhere; it was with the creatures of his own imagination, living their lives, rejoicing with them, sorrowing with them. The Count rose and walked gravely to the hearthrug, holding the proof-sheets in his hand. "Number four," he reiterated. "Will they go on, my friend?" John Craik looked up sharply. "No." "How many more will you accept?" "Two more at the outside, making six in all. The public is like a greedy child, it must be stopped before it makes itself sick. Nausea leaves a lasting distaste for that which preceded it." The Count nodded. "And this worldly wisdom--is it the editor or the man who speaks?" "The editor. The editor is a man who lives by saying 'No.'" "And you will say 'No' to any more from this--writer's pen?" "To any more about Spain I most certainly shall."