Lady Sibyl turned her head towards me;--there was a look of doubt and wonder on her beautiful face. "I am afraid,"--she said half smiling, "that the claims of society will take up too much of your time, Mr Tempest, to allow you to continue the writing of books. I remember you told me the other evening that you were about to publish a novel. I suppose you were--originally I mean--an author by profession?" A curious sense of anger burned dully within me. 'Originally' an author? Was I not one still? Was I to be given credit for nothing but my banking-book? 'Originally'? Why, I had never been an actual 'author' till now,--I had simply been a wandering literary hack,--a stray 'super' of Grub Street, occasionally engaged to write articles 'to order' on any subject that came uppermost, at a starvation rate of pay, without any visible prospect of rising from that lowest and dirtiest rung of the literary ladder. I felt myself growing red, then pale,--and I saw that Lucio was looking at me fixedly. "I _am_ an author, Lady Sibyl"--I said at last--"and I hope I may soon prove my right to be acknowledged as one. 'Author' is in my opinion, a prouder title than king, and I do not think any social claims will deter me from following the profession of literature, which I look upon as the highest in the world." Lord Elton fidgetted uneasily in his chair. "But your people"--he said--"Your family--are they literary?" "No members of my family are now living,"--I answered somewhat stiffly--"My father was John Tempest of Rexmoor." "Indeed!" and the Earl's face brightened considerably--"Dear me, dear me! I used to meet him often in the hunting field years ago. You come of a fine old stock, sir!--the Tempests of Rexmoor are well and honourably known in county chronicles." I said nothing, feeling a trifle heated in temper, though I could not have quite explained why. "One begins to wonder,"--said Lucio then in his soft smooth accents--"when one is the descendant of a good English county family,--a distinct cause for pride!--and moreover has the still more substantial fact of a large fortune to support that high lineage, why one should trouble to fight for merely literary honours! You are far too modest in your ambitions, Tempest!--high-seated as you are upon bank-notes and bullion, with all the glory of effulgent county chronicles behind you, you still stoop to clutch the laurel! Fie, my dear fellow! You degrade yourself by this desire to join the company of the immortals!" His satirical tone was not lost upon the company; and I, who saw that in his own special way he was defending the claims of literature against those of mere place and money, felt soothed and grateful. The Earl looked a trifle annoyed. "That's all very fine," he said--"But you see it isn't as if Mr Tempest were driven by necessity to write for his living"--