“I see,” said Ray, but without the delight that a case so beautifully reasoned should bring to the logical mind. At the bottom of his heart, though he made such an outward show of fairness and impersonality, he was simply and selfishly emotional about his book. He could not enter into the humor of Kane’s dramatization of the case; he tacitly accused him of inconsistency, and possibly of envy and jealousy. It began to be as if it were Kane alone who was keeping his book from its chance with the public. This conception, which certainly appeared perverse to Ray at times, was at others entirely in harmony with one of several theories of the man. He had chilled Ray more than once by the cold cynicism of his opinions concerning mankind at large; and now Ray asked himself why Kane’s cynicism should not characterize his behavior towards him, too. Such a man would find a delight in studying him in his defeat, and turning his misery into phrases and aphorisms. He was confirmed in his notion of Kane’s heartlessness by the strange behavior of Mr. Brandreth, who sent for his manuscript one morning, asking if he might keep it a few days, and then returned it the same day, with what Ray thought an insufficient explanation of the transaction. He proudly suffered a week under its inadequacy, and then he went to Mr. Brandreth, and asked him just what the affair meant; it seemed to him that he had a right to know. Mr. Brandreth laughed in rather a shame-faced way. “I may as well make a clean breast of it. As I told you when we first met, I’ve been wanting to publish a novel for some time; and although I haven’t read yours, the plot attracted me, and I thought I would give it another chance--the best chance I could. I wanted to show it to a friend of yours--I suppose I may say friend, at least it was somebody that I thought would be prejudiced more in favor of it than against it; and I had made up my mind that if the person approved of it I would read it too, and if we agreed about it, I would get Mr. Chapley to risk it. But--I found that the person had read it.” “And didn’t like it.” “I can’t say that, exactly.” “If it comes to that,” said Ray, with a bitter smile, “it doesn’t matter about the precise terms.” He could not speak for a moment; then he swallowed the choking lump in his throat, and offered Brandreth his hand. “Thank _you_, Mr. Brandreth! I’m sure _you’re_ my friend; and I sha’n’t forget your kindness.” XXIII.