He was very silent at home those days, and week by week went by without improvement. He would sit with his hands listlessly down-hanging, and his eyes fixed in a vacant, dreamy stare. Mornice did her best to brighten things up, but she did not understand very well the workings of his mind. Her belief in her own greatness, too, was slow to abate, and it was not until a notice appeared in the _Manchester Guardian_ (most delightfully outspoken of organs) that illumination came, and she realised her own contribution to the tragedy. They gave the play one of its few good notices, but of her they spoke with a frankness that allowed of no misunderstanding. Being by nature a good-hearted and dear little girl, she put her arms about one of the red fire-pails on a dark landing and wept with such pitiful vibrations that the water spilled over and mingled with her tears. Here Ronald Knight found her, and transposed her head to his shoulder. “Everyone gets bad notices sooner or later,” he told her. “But listen, Morny, here’s something to cheer you up. My father has had an offer to produce for Raphaeli’s Film Company in America, and he wants you to come out and play _ingénues_, with a year’s guarantee.” “D-does he?” “Yes, and I should be going too. It’s in ten days’ time he’s sailing, just after we close here. There! You’re happy now, aren’t you?” “N-no,” she sobbed, kissing him to cheer herself up a bit. “I’m miserable—about him.” “So am I,” said Ronald. “Horribly.” “He wouldn’t have done it except for me.” “Don’t forget that I asked him.” “But I made you, Ronny. What’s going to happen, supposing he’s lost everything. D’you know, I’m beastly frightened.” “Let us go and talk to him, Morny.” They went. He was sitting in his dressing-room, idly twisting a fragment of paper that had shown the night’s returns. He looked very old. “Well?” he said, lifelessly, as they came in. Then Mornice broke out with: “Oh, we’re so frightfully sorry—we want to tell how frightfully sorry we are.” He stretched out a hand, and gathered hers into it. “Why, my dear,” he said, “you mustn’t take a bad notice to heart.” “It isn’t that—I know now I ought never to have played the part—but it was my beastly conceit that made you do the play.” “And I ought to be kicked for pushing it forward,” said Ronald. “I’ve watched you when you thought you were alone, and seen how dreadfully sad and broken you looked, and I know it’s because I’ve made you lose all your money—isn’t it?” A something eloquently full of tragedy and sorrow in her voice stung Eliphalet to a sudden need to lie. “God bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “Whatever put such a fancy into your silly little head?” “Because it’s true.” “My dear, dear, dear little girl, you are talking nonsense. I have been sad, I confess it; but my sorrow was for you—I feared you had suffered a great disappointment.” “D’you mean that?” “Surely.” “And you’ll be all right after this?” He laughed lightly.