Poor Edith cringed as if she had received a blow, and to cover her emotion she gave the signal for rising from the table. But as she did so, her eyes met those of Helen, and the truth leaped from one to the other in one of those glances in which the heart, taken unaware, reveals its joy or its woe with irresistible frankness. Whatever words Edith and Helen might or might not exchange thereafter, the story of Mrs. Fenton's married life and of the anguish of her soul was told in that look; and her friend understood it fully. XVII THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. Measure for Measure; iv.--10. The temper of clubs, like that of individuals, changes from time to time, however constant remains its temperament. Those who reflected upon such matters noticed that at the St. Filipe Club, where a few years back there had been much talk of art and literature, and abstract principles, there had come to be a more worldly, perhaps a Philistine would say a more mature, flavor to the conversation. There were a good many stories told about its wide fireplaces, and there was much running comment on current topics, political and otherwise. There was, perhaps, a more cosmopolitan air to the talk. That the old-time flavor could sometimes reappear, however, was evident from the talk going on about nine o'clock on the evening of the day of Edith's luncheon. The approach of the time set for an exhibition of paintings in the gallery of the club turned the conversation toward art, and as several of the quondam Pagans were present, the old habits of speech reasserted themselves somewhat. "I understand Fenton's going to let us see his new picture," somebody said. "He is if he gets it done," Tom Bently answered. "He's painting so many portraits nowadays that he didn't get it finished for the New York exhibition." "He must be making a lot of money," Fred Rangely observed. "He needs to to keep his poker playing up," commented Ainsworth. "He's lucky if he makes money in these days when it's the swell thing to have some foreign duffer paint all the portraits," Bently said. "It makes me sick to see the way Englishmen rake in the dollars over here." "How would you feel," asked Rangely, "if you tried to get a living by writing novels, and found the market glutted with pirated English reprints?" "Oh, novels," retorted Tom, "they are of no account any way. Modern novels are like modern investments; they are all principle and no interest." "I like that," put in Ainsworth, "when most of them haven't any principle at all." "Neither have investments in the end," Bently returned. "At least I know mine haven't." "If you were a writer you'd be spared that pain," was Rangely's reply, "for want of anything to start an investment with."