CHAPTER XVII

THE TEMPTER

Helena did not possess the vice of introspection.

Conscious as she was that something had changed in her attitude towards

her husband's moods and work, those tyrants of her married life to

which till now she had bowed down so humbly, she told herself in a

general way that things would soon shake down again, that it was

probably her fault, and that she must make sure what Mr. Alison had

really meant. This time she would keep him to it and not let him drift

off to Madonnas. She wished he would make haste and call. Why had she

lent him all that stuff about Virginia? He was probably wondering what

on earth to say to her about it and that was why he did not call. What

a nuisance he was! She longed to ask him definitely what people really

thought of Hubert's work and whether he had meant all that. You never

really knew, with him....

When, however, he finally arrived, it was with such an air of

mysterious excitement that she was forced to wait a moment.

He stood in silence until Lily's heavy steps had died away and then, in

a stage whisper: "Is Hubert safely out of hearing?"

"Yes," she laughed. He always amused her when he was funny like this.

"He always works, you know quite well, from five till seven. I suppose

all this 'sshing is because you want to give me back my silly

manuscript. Where is it?" She was glad, in a way, that he was going

to be stupid over it.

"Ah," he replied, "that's it," and raised a cryptic finger.

"You _are_ funny," she said lazily from her armchair, like some one who

claps in the stalls.

He looked slightly hurt. "You always say that if I'm serious," he

protested. Then less plaintively, as though heartened by what was to

come: "As a matter of fact though, I've done you a very good turn."

"Me?" asked Helena, as he made an effective pause and there seemed

nothing else to say. She couldn't thank, in case it really was a joke.

"Yes, you. Your silly manuscript, as you like to call it, is

good--jolly good. I don't suppose you realise that, do you? It's

something original, these days, and that is everything. It's----"

"I'm glad it amused you," Helena said, thinking that he had quitted

himself well and now she must help him out; "but----"

"But where's the good turn?" he broke in, interpreting her wrongly.

"Well, I'll tell you. I showed it--I knew you wouldn't mind----" (and

here he looked a little timidly at her sideways), "I showed it to a

publisher I've met about, a very decent fellow----"

"How dare you?" Helena flashed out youthfully, just as though they were

playing Interruptions. "I lent it you to read and I think----"

He kept up the game. "Listen," he said with a firmness rare in him,

confident of what he had to tell. "He said it was new and vital and

had money in it: those are his exact words; and he wants to publish it

if you can think of a good ending. There!"

At last it was out and he stood complacent, waiting for her thanks: but

she was not even appeased. "I don't care _what_ he said," she cried,

and for this moment of her childish anger it was true. "I only know I

lent it you and not to him; do you think I want everybody reading all

my diaries?"

"But it was not a diary," he answered, keeping his head clear, "and he

had no idea of course who wrote it."

"He would, though, if he published it." She thought that she had

crushed him; but he merely gained fresh hope, seeing her dally thus

with the idea.

"Never," he replied dramatically. "Nobody will ever know except

yourself and me."

Before that masterly touch, "will," she crumpled up, and fell back on a

new line of defence. "I can't believe," she said, more peaceable,

"he's serious. I know quite well, and so do you, it's nothing: just to

make the time go while I was alone. I took no trouble: wrote it any

odd old time."

"You surely don't imagine," he said, "writers really have to wait for

times and seasons and the proper mood? They could work ten to six like

anybody else, except it wouldn't be artistic. Do you imagine nothing's

good unless it's written with a lobelia in front of you and all that

sort of thing? Some of the world's best stuff has come out of an

attic. The whole thing's nothing but a pose."

She had her answer about Hubert, without asking. Geoffrey Alison, two

years discreet, had suddenly begun to throw bricks in this happy home,

and never even heard the crash.

"Oh," she said, lingering on the syllable till it grew into three.

He did not understand. He saw her hesitate and he threw all his weight

to drive her the way he desired. "After all," he said, using that most

persuasive of openings to a temptation or a fallacy, "what right have

you, artistically, to keep to yourself a thing that may please and help

millions? You especially, who don't even approve of private Art

Galleries because you can't see them! ... I know what it is, exactly;

you're thinking of your husband, naturally; but he need never know.

I'll do the business, all of it, and show you any notices and no one

else will ever guess at all. Think what fun it would be!" (He saw her

eyes light up and knew that he had won.) "Besides there'll be the

money too and any one can do with that."

"Yes," said Helena, clinging to an earlier sentence, as women will,

"but the manuscript gives it away hopelessly that I'm an author's wife,

on almost every page."

"Well, how many authors do you think there are?" he said; then with the

Tempter's fluency, "and they notoriously marry more than any one. Who

in the world could guess? Every one would think that it was by a man.

They always do if anybody writes a very intimate peep at a woman's

soul." He smiled, remembering how intimate the peep in question

sometimes was. "Fancy reading all their silly guesses! Come on! You

can't be so selfish!"

Her eyes glistened and she moved on to an earlier point. "It wouldn't

really bring much money, would it?" she asked. "Books don't seem to,

ever."

"Blatchley--that's the publisher--thinks it would sell like anything:

he says it's new. That's why he wants it. There isn't any sentiment

in Blatchley. He's right, too: people love these human documents. I

dare say it'd bring in several hundred pounds."

Helena gasped. He had offered her the proper fruit at last, this

worried little child of Eve, who, feigning to cut down the household

bills, had long time satisfied a husband intolerant of change by

drawing on her bank account, now perilously near its end.

"What should I call myself?" she answered simply. Several hundred

pounds--and all the fun as well!

He thought a moment. "Not Helena," he said with firmness. "They'd

guess. Besides no authoress could ever be called Helena: it sounds

like Eleanor after a careless housemaid's accident."

"Joan is my second name," she answered humbly.

"Joan," he repeated, and she felt quite ashamed already: he made it

sound so long and flat. "No, no; not Joan. That is like Jones with

the last letter dropped. It must be something literary. I know." He

hesitated, as though weighing the discovered nugget: then, satisfied;

"We'll call you Zoë Baskerville."

"Splendid!" she laughed. Already this was a new interest in life.

Then a doubt struck her. "_Are_ those literary names? Who were they

both?"

"I'm blest if I know," he confessed; "but I've seen both in

catalogues." So that was settled.

"I never liked Helena for you," he said. "Zoë is just the name. I

shall always think of you as Zoë." Then, greatly daring, with a swift

rush; "May I call you Zoë?"

He felt as though he were upon the absolute edge of his chair, but she

seemed to think nothing of his question. "If you like it," she said,

off-hand. "You want some revenge for Ally! But not in front of Hugh

or he'll guess when the book comes out, and that would be too terrible."

"No," he said with feeling, "that shall be our secret," and leant

slightly forward.

"When will it appear?" she asked excitedly: and he was as near cursing

the book, now, as he had been to blessing it, a moment earlier.

He left the house, however, shortly before seven o'clock, stepping upon

air. He had never expected to get her consent. Old Blatchley would

think him no end of a clever devil and Blatchley was a useful man.

Besides, the comedy and excitement of it all! And, best of all, it was

a new bond with--Zoë!

Gad, fancy having a ripping little girl like that as pal; and a secret

between them absolutely, from her husband even; and calling her Zoë,

which he knew in some odd Greek way was a jolly daring sort of name,

though he forgot quite how....

Yes, Geoffrey Alison was satisfied.

And as for Helena, with certain shapeless misgivings and fears there

mingled a most natural exaltation: since whether one writes for fame or

mere "fun," what can be more exciting than the acceptance of one's

first book by the first publisher who sees it?

She still could not understand it. She did not realise of course how

fresh her view of married life had been: she did not guess perhaps in

quite what sense her new-appointed agent had used the word "intimate";

she did not realise that the book's very blemishes were its chief claim

to Truth. She could see nothing in the thing at all.

But it was all exciting, very. She would just end it up: make poor

Virginia, who was Zoë now, work her way round to happiness, as Ally had

said that she must not kill her; then send it up to him and he had

vowed she should not even get a single letter; he literally would "do

the rest." Then if it failed, no harm was done and she had made her

secret yet more thrilling: whilst if in some mad way the book caught on

and she received those hundreds--well what a blessing they would be

just now with bills, and Hubert who was so silly with practical affairs

like that would merely imagine that she was running things more

cheaply. (Every woman, deep down, thinks every man a child.)

Besides--if Geoffrey Alison stepped lightly homewards upon air, Helena

too felt that the grey world stretched a little softer under her. That

shapeless longing for development of a real Self, that almost morbid

shame of her own ignorance, had issued finally in something tangible.

She was an authoress!

No doubt her book was not like Hubert's, built up carefully on

scientific scaffolding; but still--it had pleased Mr. Alison and it had

satisfied a publisher!

Small wonder, then, if totally forgetful though she was of her new

theories on Hubert's mode of work--immersed by now in the palpitating

thrill of her new secret--she yet sat opposite to him this night at

dinner with a less feeling of abasement, a new confidence. She found

it hard at moments to attend to him and throw in, as she usually did,

appreciative comments now and then.

"Of course," he was saying now, criticising a review, "all this about

'painting' with a pen is rubbish. The two arts have no resemblance.

The painter used to be a monk--and is a mountebank! He never yet has

been a writer."

"Oh, I don't know. What about Rossetti? Or even Whistler?" she put in

absently, just as though it had been Geoffrey Alison.

Hubert was brought up with a jerk. He hated people who corrected one.

It was like Mrs. Boyd, exactly. Of course he knew that she was right

and he wrong, handsomely--although he'd no idea _she_ knew--but it

would be so dull if every one was accurate!

"My dear," he said coldly, "I know all about that, but do you think you

need interrupt my argument to tell me? I shall be afraid to speak at

all if I am going to be heckled!"

He waved the thing aside with a short laugh, as though to say she was

forgiven. But something in his manner had annoyed Helena to-night.

"I wasn't 'heckling'," she said, trying to speak lightly; "but you

know, Hugh, it's a bit mediæval if I know things and mayn't say

anything!"

Hubert gaped at her.

Mediæval! That was a real Mrs. Boyd idea. He made no answer, but he

was more than vaguely annoyed. This was his simple little Helena no

longer. It was those damned lectures....

He felt that from this moment they stood on a new footing.

PART III

HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

CHAPTER XVIII

ZOË

Helena unfolded the slip, pasted on its blue half-sheet, and began to

read it, thoroughly engrossed. She seemed forgetful of Geoffrey

Alison, who in turn watched her with hardly less attention, more

anxiety. He knew the thing by heart.

"_Confessions of an Author's Wife_ (Blatchley & Co.) is by its name

confessed as of the Human Document category, and this sort of book is

never without its attraction. The present volume, chastely bound in

green appropriately virginal, recounts the growth of a young girl

married to a more or less successful author. Zoë Baskerville, who on

one page lets somebody call her Virginia (a lapse not making for

conviction), tells in the first person her laudable efforts to develop

an ego in the face of a husband who has enough of it for ten. His

selfish absorption in his own moods and the conditions suitable to his

own labours not unnaturally create in Zoë a feeling of thwarted

ambition, which results in a watered, girlish, form of cynicism about

Man and Woman. This, however, passes off in the last chapter, where

for some reason not easy of access to the mere reader Zoë suddenly

sloughs her despondency and bursts into an exultant Credo: 'I believe

that Life, all in all, is the most splendid gift a kind God could give

to his children. I believe that Man'--and so on for the last four

pages.

"It will be seen that subtlety and cohesion are not the strongest

points in these confessions, which we hope we have taken seriously

enough. About their popularity there can be no doubt. The book

possesses pathos, humour, freshness; a mixture beyond failing; and

moreover, impinges on life, married life, at moments with a frankness

more essentially French than English. This fact may induce those still

in Zoë's earlier mood of cynicism to suspicion a male, Fleet Street,

author: but for our part, remembering the naïveté of female Youth and

that incriminating name Virginia, we are quite ready to accept the

volume's authenticity, if we misdoubt somewhat The End's sincerity.

"Taken thus, as a real document, the book has a persuasive charm.

Pathetic little Zoë is a figure as real as her selfish husband, who

emerges in some way as less great than has been actually stated.

(Perhaps we were wrong in denying the book any subtlety.) We can

foresee a long and lucrative discussion as to the Author's identity.

For our part, we make a gift of the discovered clue 'Virginia,' and

shall wait patiently until the publisher, as a good man and true, duly

announces the authorship before issuing a cheap edition. Till that day

we shall hope to live our lives in much the same round as before."

Helena stared so long at the narrow slip, obviously deep in thought,

that Geoffrey Alison found his anxiety turn to a nervous guilt.

Of course, he told himself, he knew the part that worried her in this,

her first review. He would have kept it back if he had been quite sure

that she would never see it. He rather wished now that he had. It was

that stupid bit of course about more French than English. He only

hoped they wouldn't all be like that--and none of them worse.

He recalled, as moment joined past moment, his own amusement at some of

the passages. They had solved all his problems about Helena. No one

but a really innocent girl could be so frank, because to the impure all

truth is suspicious. It was only after reading these delicious

passages two or three times that Geoffrey Alison, getting a tardy view

of the whole book, realised how it might interest the world at large

and seem worth while to that shrewd devil Blatchley.

Now, when still she sat impassive, looking at that notice with a slight

frown on her forehead, he began to suspect that possibly he had been

just a little of a cad. He ought perhaps to have warned her that some

of it, though absolutely all right if everybody had pure minds,----

Yet after all, how could he have told her that? It would be jolly

awkward, you know, and only putting ideas into her head. Besides, of

course, with those bits cut out, Blatchley would probably have called

it tame and struck.... His silence had been really for her good.

At last these alternate surges of guilt and self-justification grated

on his nerves. He could endure her silence not a moment longer.

"That's only the first one," he said; "and it's not much of a paper."

Now for the reproaches! Better to turn the tap on than to shiver,

waiting.

But not for the first time he had misjudged her. It was not that part

of the review which had struck home to her so different mind.

"Do you really think the husband stands out as such a brute as all

that?" she surprised him by asking.

"No. I thought it exactly like Hubert," was his answer. He could not

read her mind; he said the first thing that came into his.

He could not have said a worse. It strengthened all her doubts, fears,

and regrets. She really had forgotten, almost, what was in the book.

It had been written in such hot excitement and she had scarcely read it

since. Ally would not let her see the proofs; he said it wasn't safe,

with Hubert there.... She had imagined that the wife was far more

silly than herself, the husband altogether different from Hubert. Now,

reading that synopsis, she saw (for the first time), how truly that

summed up their married life: she _had_ wished to "develop an ego," he

_had_ thwarted her. He would read it too, that or another, and

suspect. Then he would get the book--and know. And he would think she

meant it all, meant all the wild complaints of Zoë, Zoë whom at first

she used to think of as "sloppy" Virginia!

It was too horrible. She loathed the stupid book, she wished that she

had never shown it. She loathed Geoffrey Alison. If poor old Hubert

ever saw...!

"I suppose we can't possibly suppress the book?" she jerked out

suddenly.

Her conversation was more startling than ever to the male brain,

to-day. "Suppress it on the strength of the first notice? When it's

been out two days? And when the notice says there can't be any doubt

about its popularity? Suppress it, indeed! What about friend

Blatchley?"

Helena gave a little sigh of absolute despair. It had been so exciting

until now: the little green book, locked away upstairs, and libraries

actually buying it before it was out, just in the weird way they did

Hubert's and real people's!

Now she loathed the book and feared it.

There was terror indeed in her very tones. "But you don't think," she

said, "they really can ever find out who the writer was? They seem to

think it's only a question of time. Mr. Blatchley couldn't be so mean."

"My dear Zoë" (he felt bound to soothe her and it was so thrilling to

say), "how can they possibly? There isn't any 'they' about it. I'm

the only person in the world who knows and I suppose you can trust

_me_?" He got up from the sofa whilst speaking and struck an attitude

quite close to her, at the last words.

"Of course I do, Ally; you're a splendid pal and I know you will never

breathe a word. It means a lot to me you see;" and she just pressed

his hand.

It was not much perhaps, but it meant a great deal to him. _He_ did

not loathe the book.

CHAPTER XIX

BUSINESS

Helena's oppression, as of some impending blow, refused to disappear.

She could not believe, whatever Geoffrey Alison might say, that their

secret could be kept until the end. Every fresh notice of the book

caused fresh alarm. With one accord reviewers harped upon the

authorship, some of the less reputed papers embarking upon guesses.

That, to Mr. Blatchley's genuine delight, began denials. He eagerly

collected all of them, and not a month had passed before Geoffrey

Alison arrived full of importance and excitement. He came, now, almost

daily after five; as often, quite, as in the old days before the

garden-scene with Hubert; his mind full of the need to cheer this poor

sad Zoë who got no joy at all from her success. Surely as it grew and

there was still no prospect of detection, she would begin to think of

all the money she was earning and enjoy the praise? He hoped so.

"Look at this," he said keenly, waving an extract at her.

Her tones were dull. "What is it? Another review?"

"No, an advertisement. Awfully clever and suits our game too!"

He held it out to her. In bold print it ran thus:

"WHO?

"Already the wives of the following famous authors have publicly

declared that they did NOT write

_CONFESSIONS OF AN AUTHOR'S WIFE._"

(Here followed a list of eight names.)

"Ah! But who did?

WHO?"

"I don't see it suits us at all," she said without enthusiasm.

"Why, it's putting people on the wrong track," he tried to argue.

She would not have it. "It's making people want to know when they

don't really care a bit," she said with a ripe worldly wisdom quite

beyond her years.

And soon, to Mr. Blatchley's yet greater delight, people did begin to

care. They cared so much, in fact, that they all read the book in

order to find out. And nobody knew even then. It was, however,

something to discuss at boring dinner-parties; so every one was

pleased. Every one but Helena.

Reading the book afresh, she was astounded, terrified, to see how near

it was to life. She had thought it all altered beyond recognition:

fiction merely based on fact. But now she realised that all the parts

of it which mattered--Zoë's ambitions, her husband's repression--were

true, truer than she ever knew indeed: whilst all the

variations--names, place, ages, children, work--made no real difference

at all. In all life it is the soul alone that matters, for there lies

happiness and all those others are mere accidents. And the soul of Zoë

was the soul of Helena; the life of Helena, the life of Zoë. Reading

her book, she realised for the first time her life.

Daily the thing became more of a nightmare.

Hubert, of course, noticed nothing: but Geoffrey Alison grew weary of

her constant admonitions as to silence.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Zoë," he cried at last (for he was getting

almost husbandly in his remarks, encouraged by their common secret),

"do try and get rid of the idea that 'all is discovered' and I'm a

silly ass or else a beastly cad!"

"It isn't that," she answered with a gloomy petulance; "but something

might easily happen and I simply don't know how I should face Hubert."

"Hubert? Why, I expect he would be jolly proud of you."

"Proud?" she repeated bitterly; "when he has been so splendid to me

always, and here I am making him out a selfish brute who sacrifices his

wife's happiness to his career and me a poor little bullied creature

who goes upstairs and cries. He'd never believe that it was all

exaggerated--and nor, of course, would anybody else. Proud, indeed? I

do like that!"

Indeed, when she thought of what an awful thing she had done, Helena

very often could have gone upstairs like flabby Zoë (_née_ Virginia)

and wept.

Geoffrey Alison at length got thoroughly impatient with her.

_He_ was enjoying it all hugely and he failed to see why she should not

enjoy it too. Every day he opened his paper eagerly to see what new

scheme the resourceful Blatchley had devised to spur a public interest

which as yet showed no signs of flagging.

Helena, in sympathy with her whole scheme, had much exaggerated the

eminence of the Husband's position. It was not a case of any

back-street Kit Kats here: he was away, night after night, delivering

most brilliant lectures to exclusive West End literary clubs or even

travelling four hundred miles to unveil well-earned lapidary tributes

of great authors who had actually managed to be dead now for a hundred

years. This husband, who deserted his wife and was jealous if she went

to anything with any other man, was not an author of the Hubert Brett

class, so that big names were thrown about at parties where in very

truth the problem soon became a topic. Each had it on the best

authority that So-and-So, the celebrated author, or Mrs. So-and-So, had

said this or the opposite; and nobody believed the other's story.

Nothing sells a book like talk. The printed word, paid or unpaid, is

only useful to set tongues a-wagging. And as the authorship was

bandied here and there, editions trickled slowly from the Press.

Mr. Blatchley was delighted. His firm was not among the

old-established, and this could rank as his first great success; but it

was very great. The book was only three-and-six; people actually

bought it; the libraries roared out for more.

Journalists, hot upon dinner-table topics as vultures after flesh,

interviewed him, each hoping to be in the office at that crucial moment

when he decided the book's sale would gain by an announcement of the

much-debated name.

But even when the interest began to wane--for nothing lasts Londoners

more than a fortnight--Mr. Blatchley to every one's surprise was

adamant. He still persisted in the stupid lie that he had not found

out, himself....

"Look here, Alison," he said one day, when Geoffrey Alison had called

in at his little office off the Strand, "you're not playing cricket,

quite." He was a podgy little alien man, fattened beyond his years,

and he said this with all a British sportsman's sternness.

"Oh come, you know; don't say that," exclaimed the other, naturally

shocked. (His life average in the game itself would be a decimal.)

"I do, though," said the publisher and offered him a cigar. The artist

did not care for that especial form of smoke, but felt that this was

not the moment to be firm. He must not lose further prestige. He

would leave soon and throw it away.

There was a pause of some seconds, broken only by a crossing of

"Thanks" as they got things in order; then Blatchley lay back in his

office chair and blew out the first whiff of smoke.

"I certainly do," he said more definitely. "Look at it this way. _The

Confessions_ has been out eight weeks and we have sold just over thirty

thousand copies. That is pretty good, I know, and I'm extremely

grateful to you. But that is the past. Now look at the present. By

careful advertising I've induced the public to be really interested in

the question as to Zoë's real identity. That's not going to last, my

son. Somebody will do a murder or find out a home cure for corpulence.

In half a week the chatty columns of the Daily will be full of

something else. Every one who wants to has read Zoë and decided who

she is. Very well, then. Now," and here he raised a podgy but

dramatic finger, "this is the moment when we must say officially, 'The

Author-Husband is Dash Blank.' In a moment the whole thing revives;

every one is saying, 'I say, it _was_ Dash Blank. I knew you were

wrong. But what a show-up! What, not read it? Well, then, do.' The

sales will leap up to the fifty thousand and nobody can say where they

will stop. Without it, the book's dead." He stopped, dramatically

sudden.

These were the only times when Geoffrey Alison shared Helena's ideas

about the volume. "I'm very sorry if so," he said wearily, "but it's

sold like anything and I expect it will. I still don't see why it's

not cricket?" (He spoke more warmly now.) "I always warned you that I

couldn't tell you who had written it."

"Bah!" The publisher waved that aside with a smooth fat hand which

left a trail of smoke. "That's always so in the beginning, it's part

of the game, but now it's in my interest, the book's, your friend's,

your own as her adviser--I shall see you're mentioned as discoverer of

the diary's great merits--in everybody's interest...."

Geoffrey Alison stood up abruptly. Each of these points had been

emphasised by that fat hand; the office was the tiniest of rooms; and

he disliked the smell more almost than the taste.

"I'm sorry, Blatchley," he said, as though bored with the whole affair,

"but as I've told you half a dozen times...."

The man of business never fights a losing battle. "Of course, of

course, my dear fellow. I understand. The feeling does you credit.

Don't imagine I'm ungrateful. Not at all." He smoothed him with a

diplomatic hand. His Zoë might write other books.

"Oh no, I don't," said the other dully.

"Look here," the publisher exclaimed, putting his cigar between

protruding lips and drawing a note-book from a no less prominent

waistcoat. "Why not dine with me one night to show there's no

ill-will? I'm sure I owe you some commission! A little dinner

somewhere gay, then the Empire or a supper--well, no details!--but what

of something like that? Monday?"

"Thanks very much," said Geoffrey Alison more warmly. This was the

sort of evening he liked, when some one else would pay. Then,

suspiciously, in the old tones; "So long as you'll swear not to worry

me any more about Zoë."

The publisher seemed hurt at this idea. "My dear fellow," he said,

patting him again upon the back in a most soothing way, "what do you

imagine? Business is business, yes," (he waved the hand once more

expressively around his little office), "but pleasure's pleasure.

Monday then: my flat: at eight."

CHAPTER XX

PLEASURE

Thomas Blatchley (which downright English names his mother and father

did not give him in his baptism) was accustomed to boast that he was

not an old-fashioned publisher. He wished of course to uphold the fine

traditions of literature and so forth, but he believed in modern

methods. He did not see that book-production had any essential

connection with fine-panelled ante-rooms where authors waited in

upholstered pomp. The modern plan was not to keep them waiting.

It may therefore be perhaps set down to his modernity of business

spirit that he prepared to entertain his benefactor, Geoffrey Alison,

with so much thoroughness. Here (he may be imagined to have said) was

a man who had done him a good turn in business. Every care, then, must

be taken to provide him with an evening exactly to his taste. Then,

maybe, he might do him another.

However that may be, Geoffrey Alison was thoroughly delighted.

Everything was just how he would have arranged it for himself, had he

been a millionaire and not a struggling artist. When Blatchley, whom

he really hardly knew, had first suggested this evening together, the

programme mapped out had appealed to him; but safely home again, he had

repented and been within an inch of cancelling. Yet was it wise to

risk offending this man, a hard business devil, who already thought he

was not playing cricket? ... So out he had come, mistrustful of the

other's hospitality; with visions of Soho, and half expecting he would

pay the bill.

Yet Blatchley, without any of that awkward "Where shall we dine?"

business common to bad hosts, had instantly said; "Shall we try the

Ritz?" as quite the natural thing. To this he had assented no less

instantly, only regretting that he had decided against a white

waistcoat. Then Blatchley had proposed the actual champagne he liked.

Then there had come the Empire: two half-guinea stalls, in which they

hardly sat, for Blatchley (who turned out to be a very decent sort)

said he always liked the promenade much better than the programme. So

they had sat about and had a drink or two, and laughed, and debated

which of the beautiful ladies around them they should introduce

themselves to without finally deciding upon any (exactly his own pet

routine), and so on to the Café de l'Europe, where they had merely had

a Kümmel and looked round a bit.

And now here they were at the Savoy, the proper end for any festive

evening; with people, music, food, wine, light and everything exactly

as it should be, and peace inside the soul of Geoffrey Alison.

Blatchley was a dam good sort and not a business swine at all.

It would be untrue to say that Geoffrey Alison was drunk. No one is

ever drunk at the Savoy. He was inanely genial. Blatchley was a dam

good fellow....

"Well," said his host, as half the lights suddenly went out, obedient

to a grandmaternal law of his adopted and free fatherland, "I think we

must toast the lady to whom we owe this very pleasant evening!" He

raised his glass, (they had worked back through brandy to champagne),

and cried, mock-heroically: "To the unknown Zoë."

"My word, yes," answered Geoffrey Alison with a fat laugh, "I'll drink

that!" He raised his glass and drank it off: no heeltaps.

The publisher had merely sipped the brim of his, but he filled up his

guest's. "I dare say, my boy!" he laughed cheerily. "I dare say you

will. I've my suspicions about you and Zoë."

"No, no," warmly retorted the other. He was so genial as to be nearly

truculent. "I won't let you say that." He was not quite so sure now

about Blatchley. "That's not right. She's a dam nice girl is Zoë, and

she's as innocent as anybody makes 'em. I'm very fond of her, I tell

you, and she's fond of me too." He pulled himself together in a very

doggy way. "But that's all there is. I won't have you having

suspicions. She doesn't know what all that means. I won't let you say

that, Blatchley. She never thinks of anybody but her husband, damn

him!" He looked very fierce indeed for a very few seconds: then he

chuckled feebly. Dam conceited idiot, that ass Brett....

"I see," answered his host vaguely. He was waiting.

The other's swiftly-changing moods veered, the next moment, to

suspicion. He gave a discordant laugh. "You're a clever swine,

Blatchley," he said, with a sudden longing to strike this man

flickering across the table.

"You thought I was tight! You thought I should give Zoë away. You

want to know who she is, don't you? But not much! I'm less of an ass

than you think, old man! Yes, that was it," he added in a sudden mood

of contemplative depression; "you thought I was tight." All his anger

had evaporated. It was a mere statement.

"Take more than that to make _you_ tight," said his host, relapsing

upon flattery as a safe weapon. He could afford to wait. They would

not be turned out yet for a while and he had learnt already that Zoë

was quite young, a girl. That ruled out many authors' wives....

But Geoffrey Alison was on his guard. An air of watchful cunning

settled on him. He saw the game now, in his own fuddled way, and he

did not mean to be drawn.

"Give it up, Blatchley, old man," he said so happily as not to be

offensive. "Give it up. You won't get anything from me. I'm less of

an ass than you think. You won't get anything from me."

He had flung his cards, bang! upon the table. The other took them up.

"I hope you don't mean to imply, Alison," he said in injured tones,

"I've stood you this evening just to pump your secret out of you."

"My dear fellow, my dear fellow," crooned Geoffrey Alison, stretching

out a shaky hand to reassure the other's sleeve.

The publisher withdrew his arm with dignity, as one who did not intend

to be patted by a man with those ideas. "It looks extremely like it,"

he said coldly. "I look on your remarks as damned offensive. Here

have I stood you a pleasant evening--at least I hope so--from

gratitude, and you attribute it to the most disgusting motives."

"My dear fellow," continued the other, who had listened to this with an

open mouth suspended in the act of speech, "you misunderstand me." It

came out with a rush, like one long syllable. "You misunderstand me

entirely. We're gentlemen, both gentlemen. There isn't any question

about anything like that. You utterly misunderstand me."

But Thomas Blatchley was not so easy to console. "It was rather hard,

Alison, to understand what you said any other way."

"Look here, Blatchley old man: it's like this," said the artist,

embarked now upon self-defence. "You're a good fellow, dam good

fellow; very pleasant evening indeed; and I want to help you. But

there's Zoë, you see; Zoë!" He laughed happily; then, more gloomy,

"And there's Zoë's husband."

He sat gazing fixedly before him, as though content with having thus

explained everything at last.

The great room was almost empty and yet more nearly dark, by now. A

waiter who had stood anxiously close by, stepped forward eagerly,

thinking that this pause would give him his chance. The publisher

waved him impatiently aside with an oath easy to read from the lips.

"I don't see," he said, friendly once more, to his guest, "that Zoë's

husband matters much."

Geoffrey Alison looked very wise. "Oh, but he does, you know," he

answered. "He does matter. Mind you, I dislike him. Dam conceited

ass. But he does matter," and he wagged his head.

"How?" asked the other, who saw the head waiter approaching. It was

all or nothing.

Geoffrey Alison found that the question needed thought. "Well," he

said very slowly, and there was only one more table-full for the head

waiter to dislodge, "well, put yourself in his place, you know. All

the dam papers with their headlines. Oh yes, he does matter."

"How headlines?" He could kill the stubborn ass. He knew that it was

luck, not cleverness.

His guest, unconscious of all this emotion, aimlessly drew headlines

high up in the air. "'Zoë mystery solved. Selfish swine discovered.

Hubert Brett the author.' All that sort of stuff," he said, chuckling

at his own journalistic readiness. "Oh yes, he does matter. Dam

unpleasant for him."

"Well, I suppose so," answered Thomas Blatchley with resignation. "Ah,

here's the chucker-out!" He pointed facetiously towards the splendid

person now close on them. "We must go."

"A very pleasant evening, Blatchley old boy," his guest murmured

without rancour, as he got up with excessive dignity and walked, grimly

intent, towards the door. He was not drunk. Just genial....

As he undressed that night, he laughed suddenly, aloud. That swine

Blatchley had thought he was going to pump him and in the end he had

done nothing except pay the bill! Betray Helena, dear little girl?

Not he!

He fell asleep, chuckling and with one sock on. People said artists

were dam fools, but he had scored off a business man and got the better

of a publisher....

As to Thomas Blatchley, he was far more calm. Success had long ago

become a habit. He merely felt a little scorn for Geoffrey Alison.

This was by no means his first good stroke of business over two

glasses--one full and one empty--of champagne. He was not a believer

in mere whisky: stale, and not making towards confidence. No, a good

dinner and then, at the end, quite conversational; "You know, your

books don't get one half the booming they deserve. You made a mistake

in not coming to _me_! I'd make an offer now; I would have long ago,

if it was only cricket. And even now, old man, if ever...."

Of course it ran one into money. To-night, no doubt, had run him

generously into double figures: but what might that sum not produce in

interest? Business was bound to be expensive. You either went about

or else you sat in a huge office. He merely spent on drinks what other

publishers spent on glass-doors.

He wished, as he got comfortable for a well-earned night's rest, it had

been some one better known than Hubert Brett.

CHAPTER XXI

EXPOSURE

"Both for you, sir!" said Lily with the air of an old friend, entering

the drawing-room at nine o'clock two evenings later. She held out on a

silver tray, the wedding gift of Kenneth Boyd, two letters. One was

from Ruth and had been left, now, by the postman; the other, in the

familiar green of the press-cutter, had lain in her pantry since the

early post.

"Ah, a press cutting!" ejaculated Hubert.

"Splendid. How exciting!" Helena replied, as though delighted and

surprised.

Lily went out. She did not even really want to smile by now. She had

been in three places before this, and in each of them the husband had

needed humouring in one way or another. She probably would never marry.

"It's very late," said Hubert expectantly. Two months had passed since

the last straggling notice of _Was It Worth While?_ and after this gap

he could open his green envelopes without a sense of irritation; yes,

even with excitement.

"The last one is sometimes the best, isn't it?" Helena threw the hope

out soothingly, but from the corner of her eyes she watched him with a

little nervousness. Certainly the most restful times were those like

the last weeks, when there were no reviews. They did seem to upset him

so. She wished now that she had opened this--except that she would

never dare to give it him if it chanced to be good.

She wished this wicked wish a thousand times more strongly, half a

minute later. Never, in these three years, had she seen Hubert so

affected by a notice. Great veins swelled out on his forehead, till

she was really terrified. She could pretend no longer not to notice.

"What is it, Hubert?" she asked as he said nothing. "I hope not a bad

one?"

"This is too scandalous," he cried, half choked and speaking like a

pompous old man in his anger. "Where will the newspapers ever stop?"

"What have they said now, dear?" He missed the tragic resignation in

that one word "now."

"Read it," he said and thrust it almost roughly at her, as though

blaming the whole world.

It did not seem, however, as though he could wait for her opinion.

"Newer," "practically unknown," he fired out at intervals, and other

adjectives.

But she heard none of them.

The paper swam before her eyes and every dim word filled her with a

sick dread, a resentful wonder, an absolute despair, for this is what

she saw:

"AUTHOR'S WIFE FIASCO

"OFFICIAL REVELATIONS

"Suburban tea-tables need buzz no more with questions as to the

identity of that now famous Author's Wife whose recent confessions have

raised such a pother. A representative of this paper found Mr.

Blatchley, this morning, at last in an unbending mood.

"'The secret is out,' said the publisher, 'the author in question is

Mr. Hubert Brett. The book, I may add, is naturally by his wife.

There were reasons till now why her identity should not be divulged.'

"Those reasons will perhaps be guessed by all who remember the fierce

controversy that raged recently and the big names that were thrown

about, also the big sales. Whether these last will be helped by this

official revelation will remain to be seen. The context had certainly

prepared us for the wife-sacrificing author to be some one slightly

better known. Mr. Hubert Brett is of the newer school of novelists,

whose work is practically unknown to the bigger public. From _Who's

Who_ we learn that he has written some fourteen novels since 1899, and

of these _Wandering Stars_ is possibly the most familiar to

library-readers.

"In this rather disappointing manner the Mystery of the Author's Wife

leaves the select company of The Man in the Iron Mask, Jack the Ripper,

Shakespeare, The Lady and the Tiger and other insolubles, to rank for

ever with The Mango Tree, Fiona Macleod, The Englishwoman, and other

mysteries which stupidly got solved."

Her eyes somehow deciphered the main points, and then she sat looking

at the thin slip, seeing nothing.

"Practically unknown," suddenly came to her ears; "considering that

_Wandering Stars_ sold close upon six thousand!"

Then she heard herself speaking. "It's only a rag, not one of the real

evening papers." She dared not say what she had got to say. She dared

not face the storm. Hate, now, that was what ruled in her chaotic

brain, hate and loathing for that treacherous, mean, little Mr. Alison.

She knew she always had despised him, now--but he had been so kind....

Why had she trusted a weak man like him? Why had she ever

written--married--been born--anything? Oh, what would happen now?

Her husband got up suddenly. That broke her tortured reverie, broke

her inaction.

"Well, I shall write at once," he stormed. "Let's have the filthy

thing."

She rose weakly to her feet and held it out to him. "What will you

say?" she asked, still feebly trying to gain time, like men faced by a

rope that they cannot possibly avoid.

"Say?" he repeated scornfully. "Tell them what they are and contradict

the whole thing as a lie."

She almost staggered and caught hold of his arm. "No," she said.

"Listen. You--you mustn't."

"Mustn't?" He looked curiously at her.

She suddenly burst into tears, clinging to him there as if for pity.

"Hubert," she sobbed out, "don't take it as real. You're the best

husband there could ever be. I wrote like you do. It was only----"

"My God!" he cried, clutching her arms roughly. "You _didn't_ write

it? You didn't----" He broke off and let go of her, holding her one

moment at arm's length. She never could forget his eyes.

He stooped and picked up the cutting. He read it slowly through, as if

that might help--or possibly to calm himself. Helena fell limply on

the sofa. Minutes seemed to pass in silence.

Suddenly he crumpled up the little roll of paper and hurled it in the

fireplace. Then he laughed and that alarmed her more than anything.

"Well," he said, trying to speak naturally, "that's that, then. It's

no use having scenes, is it?" He stood very still, looking vacantly

before him as though not realising what it meant.

"Hubert," she began again, as though in some way his name was a shield,

and went to him, "let me explain----" but he waved her aside.

"What's the use?" he said gloomily. "It's all so obvious. The gutter

Press has let itself go over me for weeks as the mysterious,

self-centred Husband; the man who sacrificed his wife! I don't see why

you should explain. It only makes things worse."

"But you don't see," she answered. "The husband wasn't you, any more

than people in your novels. I wrote it--wrote it just for fun" (he

snorted with an irony that even she observed), "never meaning the Press

or any one--and then one day Mr. Alison----"

"Oh, _he_ was in it?" Hubert asked with a swift passion. The old

antipathy revived. That young ass always _had_ been in it, somehow.

"He promised never to tell any one," said Helena. "You know, we wanted

money so."

He laughed scornfully. "Oh yes, we wanted money. Money's everything.

So long as we have money, what does it matter everybody knowing you

think me a selfish brute or that----?" He broke off abruptly.

It was clear that he mastered himself only with an effort. "Have you

_got_ the book?" he asked with an icy calmness, presently. "I suppose

as your husband I've the right to read it?"

She could not answer. Somehow she got to the door, to her own room;

unlocked her jewel-case and took from it the loathsome little book in

its clean, innocent, green cover: then she went down and handed it

without a word to him.

"So this is it?" he said with all Scorn in the words. He opened it at

random. "'I am the background,'" he read in slow, cold tones as to a

child; "'the background for _his_ work no less than the wall-paper of

the one room where he can write; and I must be as quiet.'"

She stood there, thrown back fifteen years, a girl again before her

governess: and he little suspected that with those words he was killing

all her penitence and injuring her love.

"Anything sounds rubbish if you read it out," she suddenly blazed at

him in quite another mood.

He shut the little book with a mild glance of surprise. "Don't let's

have any scenes," he said once more. "This has just happened. It's

pretty ghastly; don't let's make it worse. You'd better go to bed when

you feel tired; I shall just sit and read--I want to know the worst.

Don't wait up for me. It'd be rather a mockery to wish each other

good-night!"

He moved towards the door. It was the time they always spent together,

the best of her day.

She stood by the mantel-piece, leaning for support on it, wondering how

any one could be so cruel--and feeling she deserved his cruelty.... It

was so awful, put as he had put it: yet she had never meant----

His hand was on the door. She moved a few steps forward.

"Hugh," she cried, as though the name must surely explain everything:

but he did not turn, even. He shut the door, quietly.

Helena threw herself face downwards on the sofa, but she could not cry.

CHAPTER XXII

THE IRON IN THE SOUL

To Helena the most terrible part about her husband's attitude was his

astounding calmness. If he had but raged and stormed, she could have

endured it. She might even have explained. What she could not bear

was this chill resignation.

"We had better talk as usual in front of Lily," was all he said,

coldly, before breakfast the next morning. "There's no reason why she

should guess that anything is different."

"Must it be different?" she brought herself to say, though even that

was difficult, with him like this.

As usual, he laughed contemptuously. "Do you expect it to be just the

same, when I know, everybody knows----" He broke off. "Well," he

said, "I suppose _most_ married couples spend their time living up to

their domestics. It's only we were lucky for a bit...."

They talked about the weather, then, and the day's news till Lily had

gone out; he even called her "dear," but she could not live up to that:

and when they were alone again, he gave a sigh which she interpreted to

mean relief and finally retired behind his propped-up morning paper.

When he had finished breakfast--she ate nothing--he moved silently into

his accustomed chair.

She moved across as usual to light a match for his after-breakfast pipe.

"No thanks," he said brutally. "I don't want to smoke. And I shan't

work to-day of course."

She went out, hardened against such a foul attack, and half a minute

later, from the next room, heard him strike a match....

Soon after eleven, when he had gone--work or no--into his own room,

Lily announced Mr. Alison.

"Yes, I suppose so," she said dully.

He came in, very different from his late jaunty self, and threw a rapid

glance at her, limp on the sofa. Her red eyes told their tale.

"You know then?" he asked. It was in some ways a relief.

She waited until she judged Lily to be safely through the swing-door:

then she got up, by a natural instinct, and confronted him.

"I wonder," she said, "you dare come at all."

He looked anxiously about him. "Tell me," he asked almost in a

whisper, "is he very sick?"

It was her turn to laugh contempt. "Oh, of course you think of

yourself first! You're safe, though, here; trust him not to come near

_me_!"

"No," said the other with an absurd dignity, "you wrong me. I meant,

is he jealous?"

"Jealous?" she retorted in bewilderment. "No, why should he be? Of

what?"

Geoffrey Alison suddenly found this difficult to answer and whilst he

hesitated, feeling justly hurt, the storm was on him with its utmost

force.

"I wonder," she said once again, for Man flies to a tag in moments of

emotion, "I wonder you dare come and see me. I trusted you with all my

happiness--with everything; you swore you'd never fail me; and now----"

She spread her arms in a pathetic gesture; then suddenly inadequate, a

girl: "It really is too bad of you."

"Oh, come I say," he started. He had arrived full of shame and dread,

realising from his newspaper that he had been tricked into a betrayal;

but now that her onslaught was so tame--merely "too bad,"--he visibly

regained his courage. "I think," he went on, almost aggrieved, "you

might give me a chance of clearing myself. It's not my fault at all,

it's that swine Blatchley. I dined with him three nights ago and

utterly refused to say a word about it, but he tricked me somehow. I

still don't see how the cad did it, but he must have because nobody

else knew. I'm awfully sorry, Zoë----"

That roused her. "Don't call me that," she broke in fiercely. "Never

call me that again. As though I didn't loathe the name and everything

it stands for! You wouldn't understand. It's wrecked everything,

spoilt my whole life."

"Oh, come I say," he repeated automatically in a half-dazed manner.

"I hate it," she said, working herself up; "hate the book, hate

everything to do with it, hate you. I wish to goodness I had never met

you; then this never would have happened."

"Oh, come I say," he said a third time, still standing close beside the

door, "I don't think that's fair. I only did it as a good turn to you.

I thought it would be a new interest; you'd always so much time to

spare; and then it might be useful too, the money----"

"Oh, I know," she interrupted. "You meant well. People always do."

It was an old cynicism new to her. She saw life wrecked before her

feet--and here was the fool who had tried to help her.

"Well," he mildly summed up the whole case, "I can't do more, can I,

than say I'm very sorry."

She could not even gain the relief of a real scene with this flabby

nerveless creature. She turned upon him with contempt.

"No," she said, "you can't do anything of course! How could you? It's

a great pity that you ever _did_. People like you aren't meant to--and

I trusted you!"

"Well, what _can_ I do then?" he enquired in hurt, plaintive tones.

"Go away," she blazed out, getting something like her chance; "go right

away and never come near here again. Leave me alone to try and put the

thing straight without your silly meddling. That's what you can do."

She sank upon the sofa and took up a magazine with very shaky fingers.

"All right then," he said, recovering his dignity, "I will." He had a

kind of feeling that Brett was sure to come in soon if this went on,

and he should hate a scene....

"I will go," he repeated at the door, "and I'll tell Blatchley, now, to

act direct with you." With this reminder of all that he had done for

her, he went out very stiffly. She did not call him back, although so

soon she felt half sorry for the silly little man. He had meant well

and he was fond of her.... No woman finds it too hard to forgive a man

whose sins are due to those two causes.

Helena, not so comforted by this scene as she should have been, sat

with the magazine held limply in her fingers and wondered with a numb

brain whether there was no way out of her life's labyrinth.

Hugh would not listen. That was the whole difficulty. If only he

would let her speak, she knew she could explain. She loved him; they

had had such jolly times; he wasn't in the least like Zoë's husband;

she hadn't realised, till that first review came, that life in the two

homes had been even similar; and if----

Suddenly she gave a little happy laugh, the first for hours that seemed

already months, then leapt up girlishly and ran to her bureau.

Of course! It was the very thing. Speaking was difficult, and somehow

he always made her feel so young and nervous. But this was easy and he

always loved things just a little different--what he called her "odd

little ways."

Feverish with excitement, she sat down and wrote her Apologia:--

"MY OWN DEAREST HUGH

"(I _can_ call you that on paper and in my own heart, whatever you say

about speaking.)

"Let me explain. If you can bear how things are now, I can't, and I

feel so terrible because although I meant absolutely nothing, I know

it's all my fault. I _am_ sorry, do believe that, go on reading, but

not a word of Zoë is _me_, really honestly. It's just Fiction like

your books, but it's the only sort of life I knew. Surely you can't

believe I think of you like that? The Husband was imaginary, and I

only did it in the winter, to pass all the hours while you were

working. I never called it _The Confessions of an Author's Wife_ at

all, that was the publisher and people, and they never let me see it

again till it was printed or I should have cut out a lot.

"Really, my own darling husband, _it was not my fault_. It's all very

awful and I am so sorry for you, but don't let's make it worse by

quarrelling ourselves. I'm sure we can live it down and nothing will

be worse than if we're seen to have quarrelled. We will write a note

together to the papers saying it was Fiction.

"Hugh, let me be forgiven and help you through this horrid time my

_stupidity_, and that's all, has brought you to. You don't know how

already I long to hear your laugh and just one kind word. We've not

been sloppy, have we? but no one could be fonder or prouder of her

husband, and I see so little of you anyhow. Don't rob me even of that.

Come and tell me I'm forgiven and be your dear old comfy self again. I

can't stand this.

"Your loving and Oh so sorry,

"H."

She read it over again, laughing through tears, for now everything

would be all right. Then, when she had sealed it and was about to

write his name, another idea came to her. He might tear it up, unread!

On the outside she wrote:

To a very dear husband from a very

sorry wife.

_Quite short._

Read it!

By now she felt almost on the old terms--and how dear they had been,

she could see now--with him. This was the sort of thing he always

liked so much. It made him call her "child." She had sent notes

before, when she had to go out or something.

Very quietly she went to his door, slipped the note silently beneath

it, then with her bent finger gave it a good flick. She heard it whizz

across the polished floor. He could not fail to see or hear it, as he

always did.

With a new sense of peace she went back to the drawing-room and waited.

She was ashamed to notice, in the glass, how red her eyelids were.

Did other wives spend awful hours like this or was it just that she was

silly?

Minutes passed; the hour struck; the quarter; the half-hour.

He was not coming, then, till lunch time. What a slave of habit;--or

was he trying to punish her by this suspense?...

She fought that last idea: it would not be like Hugh. Possibly he had

written and left it in the hall? She went out. There was nothing

there.

One o'clock struck, and almost instantly she heard his door open. She

half rose, then she decided to sit where she was.

Would he never come? ... He was pottering about in the hall! Tapping

the glass now! ... How could men be so curious? ... At last the handle

turned. What were resolves? She could not help getting up, after all;

but he must speak first.

There was no need, really. His set face told her everything. He did

not come beyond the door.

"Helena," he said sternly, in a low voice that obviously considered

Lily, "I think it'll be better if we don't discuss this matter any

further. We may possibly forget. Anyhow, it's no time for childish

games. I'd already written, as you suggest to the newspapers. We

won't speak of this at all in front of Lily."

It was clearly a message learnt by heart, and with its last word the

door shut. He had never let go the handle.

Helena stood gazing after him with a face no less set than his own.

CHAPTER XXIII

SECRET NUMBER TWO

Three days passed, seeming like a year, and everything was just the

same. Each felt in the wrong, each had a grievance; and that is fatal

for a settlement.

Helena, rebuffed, was quite determined to make no more appeals: and he

was silent, that mockery of talk in front of Lily over, except that now

and then he would throw out questions--with the hard air of counsel

cross-examining--questions that showed upon what string his mind was

harping, questions to do always with the hated book. These she

answered patiently, as one who knows she has deserved her punishment.

What she had not deserved, what she would not endure, Helena decided,

was his whole treatment of her. Each afternoon he had an agent,

publisher, friend, somebody that took him into London; each night he

had some work to do--and this although he told her brutally that she

had fatally wrecked his new novel. It was a fresh routine.

Helena found herself sentenced--apparently for life--to solitary

confinement in a new-art cottage. Callers arrived, suspicious in their

frequency, but she said, "Not At Home" to all, caring but little to

feed their taste for a tit-bit of scandal. Letters came too from dear

friends who congratulated her ... but these she tore up, unanswered.

Others came from Mr. Blatchley--unctuous, consoling, full of the glad

news that sales were leaping up as a result, and sending a big cheque

as a polite advance. Helena loathed herself for not destroying this as

well; but she had sold her happiness, so why not take the price?

Besides, if Hubert's new book had really had to be abandoned,----!

"I hope to get some reviewing work," he said at the end of the fourth

ghastly lunch. "That will be something. I am off to town about it but

shall be back to dinner."

She forced herself to speak in the same level tones that he adopted.

"Doesn't it occur to you," she asked, "that it's not very pleasant for

me, just now, to be always left alone? I can't go out like that, with

everybody saying that we've quarrelled."

"Are you blaming me, now?" he asked in icy surprise.

She refused to argue this; she felt that it was mean. "What am I to

do," she said, "all these lonely afternoons?"

"I should send for your good friend Alison," he answered with a grim

humour, and went out to his own room.

Helena sighed, a sigh of despair; then she got up with more energy than

during all these days, buoyed by a resolve.

Anything was better than inaction. Even a row would not be so awful as

this freezing calmness! She would do something--must!

She took his advice. She went to the telephone and left a message with

the Studio porter. She asked Mr. Alison to tea.

Then she went back to the drawing-room, and as she tidied the neglected

flowers there was on her tight-pressed lips the whole eternal mystery

of the sphinx-woman.

He arrived punctually to the moment--one second after the

tea-urn--secretly nervous but outwardly full of a relieved delight. "I

am forgiven then?" he cried, and she felt cheered already. It was

something to talk. Besides, he really _did_ look funny.... He laid on

the table some roses he had bought and now had not the courage to

present.

"I'm afraid I was a pig," she answered, nobly. One feud was quite

enough for her. "I know you never meant to do it and you were awfully

good about it all till then. You helped me such a lot."

"And I hope to do the same again," he said with an absurd little bow.

"Not give me away again?" she asked, mainly as a good excuse for

smiling. But really she felt happier already. Tea smelt almost good

again!

He looked at her with the reproachful eyes of a whipped hound. "You

know I shouldn't, you know I never meant to. And I'm afraid you'll

never trust me any more." He sighed cavernally.

"That's just what I'm going to do," she said, and then she could not

refrain from laughing, for he looked so alarmed at new responsibility.

"Oh, nothing like the other," she went on gaily, "this is a most

harmless secret."

"What is it?" he answered keenly. "Tell me?" He hoped that Brett was

teaing out somewhere.

"Well," said Helena, giving him his tea, "you know you said I ought to

follow up the other with a second book and I said no? Well, now I

think I will." She felt heroic and excited, merely saying it. It was

her new resolve.

"Hooray!" cried Geoffrey Alison, catching some of the great moment's

fire. "Blatchley _will_ be bucked. He was immensely keen."

"Bother Blatchley," answered Helena. "I think he has behaved

disgracefully and it is all his fault. But I can't stand this any

longer; Hugh won't even speak to me; besides, if I write other books

about quite different husbands, nobody can say they are all us."

"Excellent," said the other, grasping the involved idea at once, "and

so----"

Helena laughed. "So now I'm going to write one about a woman married

to an artist, and you must give me all the local colour."

"Shall _I_ be Zoë's husband?" he asked eagerly. It still pleased him

to say things like that.

"Oh no," she said, unconsciously ruthless, "no more than Hugh was the

first; but I mean you must tell me what--well, what artists do."

"They paint," he answered gravely; and that made her laugh again. Ally

was not a man to trust; she had been a real fool; but he was splendid

company. He told her everything that artists did. He made her laugh a

lot. Those endless hours of misery seemed nightmares of the

past--until she was alone again.

But when business released Hubert Brett conveniently in time for their

silent meal, he found in the hall a wife somehow less broken and

submissive; less the girl-penitent serving a long sentence, much more a

woman with secret laughter playing round the hard lines of her mouth.

"I'm glad you've got back," she said in the usual tone. "I took your

advice and asked Mr. Alison to tea."

He had the sense to make no answer. But back in his study, he was weak

enough to slam the door. And she was glad to hear it.

CHAPTER XXIV

BATTLE ROYAL

Geoffrey Alison felt very well content as he rang the bell and hastily

fluffed out his hair. He was the bringer of good tidings and

everything in general was going as it ought to go. Zoë was quite her

old self again (would even let him call her that), had recovered from

her silly temper, seen that he was not to blame, and now looked like

making a bit of a stand against the conceited swine Brett, whom she had

seen through finally.

He beamed on Lily, who remained impassive. There were, to her

expressed mind, men and men. Mr. Alison, she had told Cook, was of the

second kind.

"Is Mrs. Brett at home?" he asked.

"Mr. Brett, did you say, sir?" asked Lily. Humour is a wonderful

assistance to those whose work is with the daily round.

"No; _Mrs._," he replied, dwelling upon the sibilants in a way to

delight an elocution-tutor.

He certainly did not want to see Brett, he told himself as Lily finally

held the door open. He had not seen him since the crash, and fellows

who had met him in the tube said that he was pretty surly. Geoffrey

Alison did not like surly people--nor had he quite forgotten that scene

in the garden.

Now whether it was that in his general delight with life he rang the

bell with more than customary vigour and so brought out the owner of

the house, or whether (as seems probable) there is some devilish

telepathy that always tinkles into people's heads the exact thought one

most wishes to avoid--whatever the cause, as in Lily's wake Geoffrey

Alison stepped quietly past the study door this morning, it opened and

Hubert looked out with something between suspicion and alarm upon his

worried features.

Geoffrey Alison instinctively took a step backward.

The owner of the house, however, merely looked at him as though he had

been dirt.

"Oh, it's you, Alison," he said, not holding out his hand; and then

with an obvious sneer, "As busy as ever?" With which he put his head

back and promptly shut the door. He might have acted thus if it had

been the plumber--and he had wanted to change plumbers.

The other, naturally upset, poured this out instantly to Helena.

"Just like him, isn't it?" he said.

Helena would not be drawn to disloyalty, even about trifles.

"Hugh's such a worker," she said. "He thinks of nothing but his

writing."

The artist, who was never busy, snorted. "He certainly does not think

much about his wife," he answered. Extraordinary how a hog like Brett

could keep the respect of a dear little girl like this!

"Well, what news have _you_ got?" she enquired, to change the subject.

That reminded him. That scene with the great beast Brett had quite

thrown the good news out of his head; but now, remembering, he won back

his complacency.

"Capital!" he said, sitting down happily and pulling up his trousers to

show light grey socks. Life was itself again. "Couldn't be better.

What do you think? Guess."

"It might be anything at all, you see," she said with desolating common

sense. "I never guess; it's only wasting time; so tell me."

"Well," began Geoffrey Alison, a little crushed, "I called along

yesterday, after our talk, to tell Blatchley he had acted like a common

cad."

"I don't see that's so very splendid," she objected. "You might have

done it sooner, and anyhow he must have known that all the time. He

only did it to get money, and he's getting it."

The other sighed, such a sigh as man has ever sighed when arguing with

woman.

"You women _will_ interrupt," he said loftily. Yes, they were quite on

their old terms again.... "If you would only let me finish, I was

going to tell you that he said he knew he had acted too hastily but

that he hoped you would believe--and then he told a pack of lies, but

here's the point." He spoke impressively. "If you'll let him have the

new book, he'll pay you two hundred pounds down, only as a first dab of

the royalties of course, and boom it better than ever, and he

guarantees a still greater success, providing it's one half as good.

So there, Miss Zoë, what do you think of your agent now?"

She did not exhibit the delirious gratitude which he clearly had

expected. She sat, obviously thinking; and he for his part reflected

that women were odd devils, however well you knew them. Surely nobody

could know a woman better than he knew little Zoë; he saw more of her

now than Brett did; talked to her with the direct ease of a

husband--said just what he thought. Hadn't he just told her not to

interrupt? Well, that meant knowing a girl pretty well; yet if any one

had told him that she wouldn't be delighted about this book she wanted

to write so much----

"I shall have to ask Hugh," she said very slowly, breaking in upon his

thoughts.

This was the last word.... Ask Hugh! Ask Brett, who had behaved like

a damned swine about the other book, who wouldn't speak to her except

to snub her, who thought of nothing except his own rotten work! The

girl must be mad!

"Ask him?" he said in amazement.

"I ought to have asked him about the other," she merely replied. "Then

everything would have been quite all right."

"Yes," he assented, mocking; "then you'd have never had your book out,

never had all this success. Everything would have been quite all

right."

"Yes," she said, seriously.

After this there was no argument. He could not bring himself to stay.

It was so asinine. People must go mad when once they married! Oh yes,

he could stay no longer. Ask Hugh, indeed, when she had got the chance

of her whole lifetime! He could guess what Hugh, dear Hugh, would say.

"Well," she said, "if you must really go so early?" She had no

suspicion of his mental turmoil. "And I'll let you know to-morrow

about the new book, when I've asked Hugh."

But he had clapped his green hat on impatiently and strode away. He

knew she would not listen to anything against her husband; she had such

young ideas about that sort of thing; but really!----

Helena, meanwhile, still innocent of the rage she had stirred up in

him, spent the time till lunch in wondering how best to attack her not

easy task. Before Hugh came in, she must have the book in its rough

lines all in her head, so as to convince him that it was mere fiction

and would make people believe at last the other had been meant for

nothing more. Then he would surely not object, and be pleased; or if

not--well, why worry about that? A row, she had decided, could not

hurt like his cold silence. It would be human, anyhow. And what an

outlet, what a boon for lonely evenings, the new book would be!

If war it must be, then let it be war; but she would do her best for

peace.

When he duly entered, however, all her good natural openings and

deprecating explanations were mere labour lost. He fired the first

shot--and in quite a different campaign.

"Look here, Helena," he said, coming into the drawing-room and actually

sitting down, though not, of course, near her, "all this Alison

nonsense must cease." He clutched the chair-arm firmly.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked, very calm; but inwardly

her spirit veered decisively to war.

"What do _I_ mean?" he snorted. "Surely it's quite obvious! Most

husbands would be jealous, but I'm not like that. I know it's mere

stupidity; I couldn't be jealous of a knock-kneed ass like Alison; but

all the same----" In spite of himself he relaxed his hold of the

chair-arm and got up, pacing hurriedly about the little room. "Look

here, Helena," he said once again, more calmly, "I see through it all;

don't fancy not, for half a moment. You women are so obvious. I know

you think you've only got to make us jealous for everything to be all

right, but it's not going to work here."

"I don't know even what you mean," she answered, rather as though he

had just made a dirty joke.

"Well, _I_ do," he thundered, "and I mean it, too. This has got to

stop, I tell you. I asked you long ago, when--when things were

different, to see less of this fellow. I don't trust him. I ran

across him just now, and he cringed. Grrrr!" (and here he made a

gesture as of one who washes hands). "It's bad enough that you and he

should be about together, day and night, till everybody talks; but when

it comes to a cad like that calling you Zoë and----"

"So you've been listening," she said. It seemed so easy to keep calm,

now that Hubert was excited.

He laughed scornfully. "That's likely, isn't it? I heard him

bellowing it out in the hall.... No, this has got to stop. It's bad

enough to have the Boyds and all our friends here sniggering, but when

the servants----"

She got up abruptly, and he sat down; the room was too small for two

rovers.

"Perhaps," she began icily, "you'll let me say a word. You haven't let

me for a week." He spread his arms, hopeless, and sat down. "I'm glad

you're not jealous," she went on slowly, as to a child. "That'd be

stupid. You know quite well that Mr. Alison is nothing but a friend.

I couldn't respect him as----" but no, she wouldn't seem to beg for

mercy; she broke off and spoke again in a much fiercer tone. "Perhaps

though, as you've told me what I mustn't do, you'll tell me what I can.

_You_ won't come out with me, you shun me like a criminal, you only

talk to me in front of Lily. Do you think I can live like that? Do

you really think I'm going out alone, alone with the dog, and everybody

saying: 'There's poor Mrs. Brett; she's in disgrace; he's punishing

her'? No, I'd rather let them see me with Mr. Alison and let them

think it's I who am avoiding you!"

He looked at her as at some strange being in his house. "Helena," he

said, "this can't be you who's speaking."

"Isn't it?" she laughed. Then calming herself, "Perhaps then," she

added, borrowing some of his irony, "if I'm not to go out with Mr.

Alison, you'll tell me what I _am_ to do."

"What do most wives do," he asked, "whose husbands are away? They

don't rush about everywhere with artist-wasters; they do some work or

something."

It was a vague ending, but it lent Helena her chance.

"Exactly what I wanted you to say," she cried. "I don't want to do

anything again without your leave; but now I _will_ do some work. I'll

live my own life, if you don't want me to share yours."

"What do you mean, Helena?" he asked. This was a new mood.

"I mean," she said surprised at her own calmness, "that Blatchleys have

offered me two hundred pounds advance for my new novel. I said I must

ask you first, but now I shall accept it."

"I utterly forbid it," he cried wildly and leapt to his feet. They

were both standing now.

"What?" she exclaimed. "Forbid? What do you forbid? How can you

forbid? You could have, in the old days; I wouldn't have done anything

if you had asked me not; but now--how can you forbid?"

"I do," he cried excitedly. "I utterly forbid it." He was gaining

time to think.

There was a pause while they stood facing one another.

"Do you think," he said presently, "apart from all that's happened,

this horrible publicity, my friends all chaffing me, I ever would have

married the sort of woman you propose becoming? I wanted a wife to

look after me, to be a nice companion; I didn't want a woman-writer. I

hate that type of woman. You were a simple, jolly girl when I first

married you, and now--writing this popular clap-trap!--you must see,

Helena, it isn't fair?" His stern air melted almost to appeal.

She would not allow herself to listen but forced the argument on to a

safer plane. "This one," she said, "has nothing to do with an author

at all, there can't be all those terrible misunderstandings. Oh, don't

you see, Hubert," she cried, "that if I wrote another book, all

obviously fiction, these horrid gossips may believe at last the other

was all like that too? Besides, it's stupid to refuse two hundred

pounds just when you say things are so bad and we may have to move."

She had not meant it so, but this was her worst cut of all.

Hubert remembered his own failure; was reminded of her huge success.

A wife selling her books ten times as well as his own--a wife who wrote

"for fun" in idle hours--a wife whom he had treated as a silly

child.... "This one'll fail," he said almost fiercely, "it's bound to.

You're nothing but an amateur, _I_'ve been at the job fifteen years.

Two hundred's all you'll get, and much good may it do you!"

Full of conflicting moods; sullen yet ashamed; aware of his unworthy

jealousy yet hardly able to endure the thought; sorry for her yet sick

with his own wound; he turned away before the better side in him should

win and he implore the pardon of this woman that he would always love,

however much he hated her.

"Hubert," she began, aghast at his excitement.

"We won't argue," he said, back at the safe level of those days just

past, and moved towards the door. She hesitated, not sure who had won.

At the door he turned. "Oh, by the way," he said, as to a servant. "I

shall want a room for Ruth to-morrow. She's coming down before

teatime."

Helena gave a short bitter laugh, which he just heard as the door

closed.

She saw the issue of the tussle now.

He had failed to subdue the disobedient wife, and he was asking down

his sister!

CHAPTER XXV

THE BROKEN TRIANGLE

Geoffrey Alison, bursting with anxiety for Helena's decision, found her

next morning in exultant readiness.

"I accept," she cried excitedly, almost before he had got inside the

door. "I accept Blatchley's offer. The book is growing splendidly.

I've done two chapters and I see it all."

He thought he had never seen her in such good form, and he wondered.

She had been so cold about it yesterday. He did not, of course, know

about the meals between....

She could not, however, help telling him a little of it.

"Oh," she cried, "you don't know how glorious it'll be, having some

work to do again; I've missed Virginia, I mean Zoë, horribly! It seems

so endless, the day, now that Hubert's cross."

"Is he still sick?" the other asked. He only knew till now what people

said. He was dying to hear, but she was so funny.

"Sick," she laughed mirthlessly. "That is a lovely word for it! He

seems to be entirely different. I knew directly it came out, I had

done something awful, but I thought he would understand and see I

hadn't meant him really and forgive. But he gets worse and worse. I

think his friends keep teasing him, and then he can't get on with his

book in the least. It's sickening."

The artist was encouraged to a blow at his old enemy. "I expect really

he's jealous of your success. He's always sensitive. He hates anybody

his own age succeeding better." It was the first time she had ever

said, or listened to, anything against her husband.

Helena was silent for a moment, dazed. Did this explain his harshness?

Was he really jealous?

"Oh, I don't think so," she said, not letting herself think, for all

the puzzling little bits began to fit, now, with a deadly ease. "I

don't think it's that. He's naturally--'sick'!" and she forced out a

laugh.

"I'm so sorry," he said. It was his first attempt at sympathy. Their

talk had been on flippant lines.

She did not dare to look at him, remembering how funny he was when

quite serious. "Thank you, Ally," she said gently. He was a good sort.

"_I_'m sorry," he repeated. "You know that, Zoë, don't you? I'm your

pal, whatever Hubert is."

"Hubert's splendid," she said, childishly inadequate; and with these

words, she who had been a hard woman for long days--melted perhaps by

fatal sympathy or her own noble lie--suddenly found hot tears streaming

down her cheeks. She turned away, ashamed, and hoped he would not see.

But he had seen.

What they had said just now had been enough--and this was far too much.

Dear little Zoë--pretty little girl, too--married to that great swine

Brett--in trouble--crying--wanting to be cheered.

The worst, of course, of keeping harmless vices as tame pets is that

for years they only come out when needed and are very pleasant. Then,

however, as time makes them stronger, comes the fatal moment when they

gain the mastery, turn on their former owner and drag him where they

will.

This was such a moment for Geoffrey Alison.

All those nice exciting stories, laudably abstract, bulked suddenly

into the real. Here was a girl, crying--pretty too; dam pretty--and

everybody knew that when dam pretty girls cried--why, they expected

it....

"Zoë," he cried, surging forward, "why do you stand it? Why do you let

him treat you like that? You're too good for him; I wish that I had

half the trust, the love you give to him. I've done so much for

you--the book and everything--and you're so hard to me."

An automatic thrill came in his voice, he leant a little forward; he

stretched out timid arms towards her, ready to protect. There was no

need to think; it came so easily. He had read the whole scene so

often. The blood throbbed in his veins.

"My God!" he said, unthinking what it meant. They always did.

But Helena quite failed to play her part.

She got up hurriedly as his protective arms swayed over her; she backed

and stared at him. He wasn't serious? She never knew....

Her tears had ceased. She felt a stupid terror. It was all so vulgar.

He dropped his arms slowly, chilled by her stare, and stood with his

mouth ludicrously open.

"Oh!" she said at length, as though realising what the whole past had

meant. "I thought you liked me--and it was only this."

They never had said that at all. He had no answer ready.

"Oh, come," he replied presently, "don't be so serious about it."

She spoke very seriously. "It was _my_ fault," she said. "I ought to

have seen. People told me. I thought you just liked me, and I suppose

I was flattered. If only I had guessed! But I was always such a fool.

You see, I never really had a chance. _You_ taught me all I knew of

art or anything. And that's why it's so terrible." The crisis over,

she sank limply on a chair. She had never thought that anything like

this could happen, ever. She knew it did in those books that she

couldn't finish; but Mr. Alison----! He had been so amusing always;

she had thought him a funny and kind little man. She had not even

thought of any one but Hubert....

"Oh, come, you know," he was saying again. "Don't go on as though

there had been a tragedy! That's the worst of you awfully innocent

women; you always think any one means so much worse than he does. Why

you'd imagine I 'd suggested--well, almost anything; and all I wanted,

just as my reward, was nothing but a kiss!"

Somehow, as he drew to an end of his halting apology, he realised how

great the fall had been. Was this the man who had been almost

throttled by a jealous husband? He felt, with a surge of

self-contempt, that he had reached the level of a river-side tea-garden.

And to Helena, although far less consciously, the same feeling. It

would have been better almost, less sordid, if he had meant something

worse. A kiss--as his reward!... She understood why Hubert said

"Grrrr!" and then washed his hands when he spoke about Mr. Alison. He

was "funny" no longer; merely vulgar--vulgar and horrible.

"Please go," she said, more voicing her thoughts than meaning to speak.

Then having started, she explained. "I don't want to be nasty; you've

always been so kind; but it will be much better if we don't meet again.

Hubert had asked me, anyhow ... and then, you see, I couldn't ever feel

the same, quite, with you. Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, noticing his

look--"but you do understand, don't you?"

"Oh yes, I understand," he answered, very deep down, and serious for

once without seeming comic; "I've been a fool, a swine. He'd kick me

if he knew--and he'd be right. But look here" (he could not keep away

from his excuses), "do try to see it wasn't very much. Lots of

women----" Then he caught her eye and said; "But you're so different

and that's why I feel such a cad. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," she said and as he turned miserably away, she held her hand

out to him, "and thank you all the same for what you've done. You've

been a real good friend to me."

He had not looked for this and it was the worst part to bear. "I wish

to God," he said passionately, "I'd been more worthy of your

friendship. It's been the best thing in my life so far," and he turned

hurriedly away, cursing himself for the damned fool he was. He had

thrown everything away just for a moment that could never have meant

anything. He had seen his real Self in her contemptuous eyes.

Helena stood, now, as the front door slammed, with eyes full of an

emotion very different from contempt. She felt sorry--till her mind

ranged swiftly back over all she had ever said to him, over the

meanings he, a man like that, might read in it; and then she felt

ashamed.

But all the while, unaccountably, she felt more alone than ever. She

seemed so utterly thrown back on Hubert, now....

Presently, unable to bear the room's stillness, she went upstairs,

mechanical as any housemaid, and busied herself needlessly about Ruth's

room.

CHAPTER XXVI

TACT

Hubert at lunch made no reference whatever either to their own drawn

battle or to that other, of which the sounds, she feared, might easily

have reached him.

His one remark, indeed, beyond the usual polite abstractions for Lily's

benefit, was "Ruth will be here at four o'clock. I want to see her

before tea."

"Very well," was her submissive answer.

But this life of a housekeeper--how could she endure it after what had

been? Hubert's only comments were aroused by letters, which his

humorous friends still continued to send, quizzing him about his

author-wife or sometimes facetiously alluding to some of the

peculiarities of down-trodden Zöe's husband. "This I owe to you," he

would say, throwing it across; or, "_You'll_ enjoy this better," if a

press-cutting contained nothing more pleasing to his vanity than a

reference to himself as the notorious Husband.

Helena dreaded anything of this sort in front of his sister. She

dreaded her visit entirely and hoped that it would not be long. Who

could tell whether Ruth were not to be installed as her perpetual

guardian, to watch over the wicked child? If so--but why make plans

until things happened? The present was enough, and her chief wisdom

lay in making the situation seem, to a third party, as easy as she

could. She would _force_ Hugh to speak.

There was a little fun in this idea, formed during lunch: and glancing

across at his sullen face, with the too active mouth now tightly enough

pressed, she only just restrained a laugh. It would have been the

first during these ghastly and interminable meals.

So soon as he had got up, with his horribly polite; "Finished?" and the

usual sigh, she ran almost lightly to the baize-door and called Lily.

"Lily," she asked, trying to compromise between an obvious whisper and

a voice too audible, "were there any press-cuttings this morning?"

"Yes, mum," answered the always respectful conspirator.

"You kept them, I hope?"

"Oh _yes_, mum,"--almost hurt.

"Well, Lily," and she hesitated, the coward of Conscience; "I think

I'll have them now and not to-night. Miss Brett will be here then."

Lily retreated and came back with the small envelope. Her eyes

glistened sympathetically in the half-darkness. Perhaps she

guessed--but she knew her own favourite among the Bretts.

Helena with that delicious thrill which makes crime so popular a hobby

among those unable to afford sport or collecting, went into the

drawing-room and boldly tore open the envelope addressed to "Hubert

Brett, Esq." She did not want unpleasantness in front of Ruth.

She spread the cutting out, to read. He had not published a book now

for months, so it was certain to refer to hers.

It did.

It was from _People And Paragraphs_, (which its admirers call by its

initials,) and it ran, in the crisp, breezy, style which makes that

sheet so popular:

"TURNING THE TABLES.

"Many a woman finds herself socially snuffed out by being wedded to a

luminary: she is Mr. Dash Blank's wife _et voila tout_. There have

been cases exactly opposite; but hist! They say the lady herself is

now touchy on the point. It cannot often have happened, however, that

the tables have been turned so neatly as in the case of the Hubert

Bretts. As a novelist, he has for a decade of years formed one of the

small and essentially select _coterie_ that largely exists, like the

ladies who lived on each other's washing, by patting one another's

backs. His reputation has been large, his notices extremely good; but

neither adjective would fit his sales. Any librarian (librarians, _en

passant_, are interesting men) could throw an odd light upon the

curious relations between

REVIEWS AND ROYALTIES

"Now mark the sequel. Pretty little Mrs. Hubert, bored with her

husband's neglect, indites a diary, which a keen-sighted publisher

gives to the world. Hey presto! as dear old 'Bertie' Zoda used to say

at the never-to-be-forgotten Pen-Pushers' Saturday nights (or were they

Sunday mornings? Tush!), in a moment all is changed. She sells fifty

copies to her husband's one; the book is in everybody's hands and

mouth; the next is eagerly awaited--and poor Hubert finds himself,

after all these years of manly efforts, as nothing more glorious than

Zoë Brett's husband. Rough luck, Bertie, very!"

With a feeling of almost physical sickness Helena realised how narrow

had been the escape. If he had read that, with his sister there----!

She tore it viciously across and across, until no hand could ever piece

it back to its vile self again. She felt the very action a relief.

In future, so long at any rate as Ruth was with them, she would open

and destroy all cuttings. They could refer to nothing but her book.

She went along and told the still impassive Lily to keep them all for

her. She waited, this done, for Ruth Brett's arrival with far more

complacency. At any rate her eyes weren't red....

It is typical of Hubert Brett's peculiar temperament that he had never

thought of Ruth--at any rate as guest--until he needed her. He had

marked her birthday down in his small pocket-diary, so soon as he

bought it each year, and never failed to send a cheery note, however

busy; and the same at Christmas. Also, when she had written letters

filled with endless details about people he had never met and clearly

should dislike, even if he had not read them all, he left no single one

unanswered. But for the rest, she had her little cottage on the

Norfolk coast and he his little home; so why should either trouble with

the other? Many people sacrificed their life to relatives!

When, however, Helena grew so defiant over this affair which had been

her own fault entirely, he thought at once of Ruth. She had been

always full of doctrines of submission--almost maddeningly so; _she_

saw that women who lived with men who were busy should be considerate,

unselfish. She would not, he knew, approve of Helena's idea that she

should be an author too, neglect her wifely duties and become a rival

to himself. Ruth had been tiresome, certainly, in her persistent

martyrdom, but she had never done a thing like that.

As for Ruth Brett herself, she did not question her brother's command.

There is a lot in habit; besides, she happened to be fond of him. She

took the train, directly she received his wire, and came. She hoped

that it was nothing serious. He might have told her--but he wouldn't

think....

She had met Helena so few times; Hubert had kept them apart in the old

days; but now, so soon as the young wife stepped out into the hall, she

flung herself upon her and cried, "What is it? Is he ill? What has

happened? Quick!"

Helena was overwhelmed. She had rehearsed so many meetings--always

with one idea: to seem at ease in an united home--and none of them of

course was right.

"Oh no, he's all right," she said in confusion. How could she explain?

"He wants to see you first. In there!" And the bewildered Ruth,

scarce entered, still with her umbrella, was thrust at once towards

another door; leaving Helena with the reflection that after all things

had not turned out too badly, even though all the rehearsals had been

absolutely useless.

Hubert jumped up from his table with a cry of welcome.

"But Ruth!" he said, holding her by both arms, "what's happened? I

should not have known you." He did not realise the difference which

changed environment can make in the chameleon, Woman.

"Well, it's three years," she explained.

"But you look ten years younger!" he cried, laughing. Just for a

moment he forgot his troubles. It was incredible, this new Ruth with

firm cheeks and bright colour; gayer even of costume. He could not

understand--and he was little used to that. "I know!" he said; and

then accusingly; "Ruth, you're in love."

At once a little of the old-time pathos crept into her face.

"No," she replied, "I think I've left all that too late."

"What is it, then?" persisted he, manlike.

"It's Norfolk," she said. Not for a million pounds would she have told

him it was Freedom.... "Tell me, Hugh," she added quickly, "what has

happened? Why did you wire for me? Everything seems quite all right!"

"Everything is utterly all wrong," answered Hubert, finding some

consolation in a saying so tremendous; "it couldn't possibly be worse,"

and he poured the whole story forth with the accumulated passion of a

week's not easy silence. How many times he had rehearsed his grievance

to himself--when he felt any danger of relenting!

She listened to the end, attentively, in silence, and as she listened,

it occurred to her too that these three years had wrought a miracle of

change in her. All this, that he was hurling forth indignantly, seemed

to her now so tragically small. She realised the pathos of a life in

which--as with her, in the days gone by--one sense of wrong after

another would always wreck his happiness and wreck the life of any one

he loved. It had been her; now it was Helena; there always would be,

must be, a victim to his tragical self-centred brooding. And he would

not be happy, ever. He would stand alone upon the dignity of his

achievement; alone, he would distress himself that nobody considered

his work, him; alone, upon his deathbed, he would understand too late

that he had never lived at all.

She looked at him with pity as he ended, the tempest lulled by its own

blown-out fury.

"Well," he said presently, as she was silent.

"I can't understand," Ruth answered slowly.

"Can't understand?"

"I haven't read the book," she said, "our village library does not

believe in modern fiction, but--well, what I don't understand is this.

You say _she_ swears the husband wasn't meant for you. Well, then,

from what you tell me of his character in the book--weak, selfish,

bloated with conceit, a little man who thinks he's great, full of

absurd cranks about 'atmosphere' and so on, cruel to his wife--I wonder

_you_ can ever pretend, or care to pretend to think that it was meant

for you! You surely don't think three years have made you like

_that_?" and she gave a laugh as at some absolute absurdity, confident

in her own knowledge of how splendid a man he had always been.

He looked up swiftly. He suspected her. But she did not flinch, for

this was a new Ruth indeed. She looked straight at him--puzzled

innocent surprise--and it was his gaze that fell after all. He knew

what she meant--and she knew also that he knew.

The woman's tact had conquered in a sentence.

"Anyhow," he answered sulkily, acknowledging defeat in that one word,

"you must see _she_ is in the wrong? I know you women always hold

together, but you must see that it's not--well, not exactly pleasant

for me to be paragraphed in every rag as the selfish author-husband,

whether I was meant or not. She had no right to publish it without my

knowing."

"Oh yes," assented Ruth, "I see that, quite. She has been very silly,

but I'm sure she meant nothing and perhaps----" Then she stopped

abruptly and repeated; "But she has certainly been silly."

Hubert, oddly full of guilt and humiliation, was glad to leave this

interview at such an end. He had planned it in a way very different.

"Well," he said decisively, as he got up, "I can do nothing with her.

She persists that she will bring another book out now, and so revive

the whole unpleasant business! Tea will be ready and you must want it,

but afterwards" (he touched her lovingly upon the arm), "I know you'll

want to help me, dear old girl. You'll go and talk to her quite

firmly, won't you?"

"I'll go and talk to her, yes," said Ruth, pressing his arm no less

fondly.

He did not notice that she dropped the adverbs.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE TWO WAYS

It was not a comfortable meal, this tea, and though Helena no less than

Ruth knew it to be the prelude to a scene, neither could feel much

regret when Hubert with clumsy ill-ease said; "Well, it is five

o'clock, I'll leave you two to a chat," and so out, colliding with the

door.

They were left staring at each other, the wife and the sister.

Helena, although she knew the object of this chat and the whole visit,

could not work herself up to the pitch of feeling so much resentment as

she had intended. This was such a different woman, who looked across

at her with bright understanding eyes, from the one she remembered:

shrivelled, worthy, with a hint of tracts to come. Helena looked back

across the fireplace at her almost with a smile.

It was Ruth who spoke first. "Well," she said, "of course you know

I've been asked down to make peace."

It was so unexpected that Helena did actually smile. "To make me a

good girl," she emended.

"I'm afraid," laughed Ruth, "as usual with children, you are both to

blame."

It all seemed easy in a moment. Helena suddenly felt the thick clouds

of misery lift from her soul. She believed in Ruth. The whole air of

the little room appeared to change from stiff hostility to friendly

hope. Tea seemed a thousand years ago. She gave a cheery little laugh.

"Look here," said Ruth, encouraged, "I'm so glad you're taking it like

this; I hated coming down. I know how people feel about in-laws and I

thought you'd think I had come down to side with Hubert blindly. I've

not, a bit. I'm very fond of him, but I see all his faults. I only

want him to be happy. I'm forty, you know, and I've seen a good deal

of things, so possibly----" She broke off and said, by an abrupt

change; "You see, I lived with him for years and years so I can

understand. He's difficult, I know, when you're with him, but when you

get away--isn't he a dear?" She smiled.

"He's _more_ than that," said Helena, suddenly wanting to cry.

She had said it unthinking, moved by the other's appeal, but to Ruth it

was everything, for it meant that her task was easy. She embarked with

confidence.

"When I first lived with him," she began, "I met a lot of well-known

writers, artists, actors. He used to go out more then, and it

flattered him to meet men who were famous. Well, I came to the

conclusion that the greatest men are the most tragic, the most

pathetically childish. I suppose you _have_ to be self-centred to

succeed; and then somehow, they can't get used to the little things.

You know how press-notices upset poor Hubert? Well, they're all like

that about something or other. You see, you married a man of that sort

and you must make allowances."

"Oh, I do," said Helena, leaping at self-defence. "I always did. It's

_him_. He won't forgive me, won't believe I'm sorry, won't let me put

things right. You don't know what this week has been. I can't endure

it, really."

"And so," asked Ruth, "you mean to write another book?"

Helena for just one moment scented battle and replied more stiffly.

She would not throw her arms down till she knew there was to be no

fighting. "What do you expect me to do, otherwise? He won't allow me

to see other men, won't talk to me himself. A little house like this

is nothing. What am I to do? It isn't even as though I'd a child."

Ruth answered very slowly. "Hugh is just a child," she said with a

great tenderness.

Helena laughed. "A child indeed? If you could have heard him this

week!" She suddenly grew hostile. "Why," she demanded passionately,

"should everything in the house hinge round _his_ career? Why am I not

to write another book? Is it because I am a woman? Mine has sold

better than all his put together and yet I'm not to do another! I'm

just to sit at home, here in this tiny room, while _he_ works and says

we've no money! No, I utterly refuse. I've got an offer and I mean to

take it."

Ruth looked troubled, feeling that she had been confident too soon.

"Helena," she said very gently, thrusting the name forward to make

peace, "I'm not going to ask you to give up your career; I'm asking you

to spare Hugh his illusions."

"I don't see," answered Helena, suspicious.

"No," said the other, and then paused. Helena thought that she had

finished, when she suddenly began again. "I've been alone a good deal

these three years, and I have thought a lot about marriage. Oh, not

for myself, no" (she spoke so sadly that Helena relented for a moment);

"but because my life now is so different from the one I spent with

Hubert, and that makes one think. You know, if I'd my life to live

again, I'd live it all alone--I'm afraid, yes, I'd sacrifice Hubert:

men are born to marry, not to live with sisters!--but I'd have my

life-work."

"And yet," swiftly interrupted Helena in triumph, "you ask me to give

up mine?"

"I don't." She spoke decisively. "I only ask you not to sacrifice

Hubert's to it."

"I still don't understand." Her voice was almost resentful.

"Hubert married you," began Ruth expansively, "because he is the sort

of man who needs encouragement. He wanted some one who'd think his

work wonderful and ask him how he did it. You surely see the

difference? Imagine his life now, for any one like him: your bigger

sales, your long reviews, your photographs, his own eclipse. It is

impossible."

Helena remembered the press-notice and spoke more obediently. "What

are you asking me to do then?"

"Leave him." The words dropped out like heavy weights.

"Leave him?" cried Helena, and by a natural dramatic instinct she rose

from her chair. "Leave him when I'm fond of him?"

Ruth looked very earnest. "Leave him," she said again, "unless you're

fond enough of him to give up your career. I tell you--I _know_--you

can not have both, with Hubert."

"You cannot serve God and Mammon," murmured Helena. She did not know

that she had said it. She sank down into her chair again and forced

her numb brain to thought.

"Don't break all his illusions," she heard Ruth saying, miles away.

"Be gentle with him if you're fond of him. You know how sensitive he

is. Your books, you say, sell better. How do you think he could ever

endure that, he who--I tell you--is nothing but a child? It would be

agony, a life-time agony; disgrace. He lives upon success, on

admiration, on being the centre even of a little house. How could a

man like that endure to be just Helena Brett's husband? ... Oh no, you

won't do it, you can't be so brutal. No one can forbid you your

career, but go away and work it out alone. _I_ will look after Hubert,

if he needs me."

That struck home, among these words that came dully to Helena through

the chaos of her thought. "So that's it," she said with a bitter

laugh, longing to hurt somehow. "You're thinking of yourself."

"God knows," said Ruth solemnly, "I wouldn't come back willingly for

half the world, fond as I am of Hugh. I've _lived_ since I got right

away alone beside the sea. He always trampled on me; I lay down; I

haven't got your courage. I often cried myself to sleep--and he not

even guessing he had been unkind! It was hideous, I see now; hideous

every day of it. But I'd go through it all again, and worse, sooner

than expose him to this agony."

There was conviction in her tones. Helena tried to arouse herself.

"Leave him?" she said dully. "Surely there's some other way? Even if

he didn't mind, think of---- You talk about agony, but how can you

advise me to do this, when you know how his friends----"

"Nothing would hurt him," said Ruth earnestly, "nothing in all the

world--that is the awful part--so much as this blow to his pride, this

shattering of all his life-work. He thinks--he told me so--he thinks

this book of yours was just a fluke, an amateur attempt; that you can

never do another. Oh, don't you see?" (she cried impatiently): "Must I

put it in words? He thinks that _he_ is a real author, you just

nobody; that _he_ has studied, he has nerves and everything an artist

has, but you are just a woman. He lives upon his self-conceit.... Oh

yes, I've said it now; I had to. It's not disloyalty. I'm fond of

Hubert too--everybody is, because he is so thorough in it, such a

perfect child. And everybody spares him too. Men of his sort are

never told; everybody pities them the shock. They smile on him and

like to see him so contented. They call him 'dear old Hubert.' It's

half pity, yes--but also it's half love. I've seen it all so clearly

since I got away. I've sometimes told myself that if I had those years

again, I should let him have the whole truth; but I know that I

shouldn't. And _you_ won't either, Helena. Nobody ever does. They

dream on happily, and all we others seem the selfish ones to them.

It's all a comedy, when you're not near enough to see the tragedy.

I've thought a lot about it, and I'm so glad now I was gentle. And

_you_'ll be gentle too, I know. You'll either go away or you won't

write: it's not for me to settle which; but you'll be gentle. You said

just now you hadn't got a child. You have. No married woman is

without a child. You won't be hard, I know, will you, because your

child has been a little spoilt and things have suddenly gone wrong,

and--just for a little bit--he loves to hurt his toys?"

"I--I never thought of it like that," said Helena, an odd look in her

eyes. "I thought him so splendid and clever, so terribly above me. It

all seemed so hopeless."

For answer Ruth went across and kissed this girl who made her feel so

old. "I wish we had known each other sooner," she said. "I must go

and unpack."

But outside in the hall she stood for a few moments, dabbing at her

eyes with a quite fashionably small handkerchief.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WOMAN PROPOSES

Ruth had abandoned her pleading at a clever moment, for she had left

Helena with a sense of pity, and pity means more to a woman than

conviction.

Poor old Hubert! She was glad now, oh so glad, that she had spared

him. It had been on her tongue yesterday, when he was so contemptuous

about her book being popular claptrap, herself an amateur, to answer:

"Well, I have found out about your own work too: it tries to be popular

and isn't,"--to tell him she had also learnt that one could write

without upsetting the whole household by one's fads and poses.... But

in the end she hadn't. Perhaps it was as Ruth had said: every one

would always spare him. Something, in any case, had held her back, and

now she was glad; for that once said, it would have been too late. She

felt that Ruth had spoken truly: he never could have cared for her

again.

Poor old Hugh!

Buoyed by this feeling, crushing under it all others, she went to her

bureau and unlocked the drawer where she kept her secret manuscript.

There were three chapters. She would destroy them before her mood

changed. Then she would go to him and say that he was right, she was

not clever in the way that he was--she was an amateur. He would take

days perhaps, yes even weeks, before he could forgive her quite; but it

was as Ruth had just said. The rivalry gone, he would soon learn to

bear the rest. He would have won back his self-sufficiency, ... poor

Hugh!

She took out the written sheets with all the feelings of a mother who

sacrifices her own son, touching them gently as if even in this last

hour they had been something sacred.

Then--weak if you will, but do not be too hard upon

the-Mother-soul--then she began to read.... just a few sentences.

And as she read, the whole thing leapt to instant life; began to grow,

as poor Virginia had grown. She saw the painter, strong in a way--not

Geoffrey Alison at all--but with a fatal vanity. Yes, that would be

his fall, of course. He would be all right with the women he admired;

there were so many, he was safe enough: but when he met the woman who

admired him----!

She had not thought of it like that before. She did not know where the

idea had come from now. Before it went she hurriedly seized up her

pen, to add a note to the confused synopsis.

Then she remembered.

What was the use if she was just going to destroy it?

If----!

And its constant sequel: Why?

_Why_ should she destroy her work?

It was her work no less than Hubert's work was his, however much more

easily she worked. That hers came to her brain, she knew not whence,

whilst he hammered out his from formulæ, was very likely nothing much

against it.

Why had he said this second book would never sell? It interested her:

why should it not interest others? How could he possibly know, when he

had never seen it?

It was mere jealousy of course.

Ruth had said practically that. She had said that he could not endure

rivalry; he must be supreme, if only in a little house. He knew that

her book had sold better, ever so much better than any of his own, and

that was what he really minded. Yes, she saw it all now; all from the

beginning. He had not minded in the least that she should think him

(as he still believed) self-centred, cruel, or neglectful; that had not

pained him in the least, he had not really minded her publishing the

book. No, what had really hurt him always--she saw now--was the book's

success; what Ruth had called his own eclipse. He had worked, as he

said, for fifteen years; he had called it a "job"; and in one moment

she had cut him out!

That, Helena decided in a rapid flash, was the whole mainspring of his

anger.

And was she to sacrifice her work to satisfy the petty vanity of such a

man? Was she to admit her failure, to feign life-long admiration for

his work, when she knew that with practice she could almost certainly

do better?

No!

The answer came decisively.

As if to clinch it, she thrust the manuscript back in its drawer and

turned the key with a decisive twist.

She would not sacrifice her own career to his conceit. He had spoilt

Ruth's life, used her as a housekeeper until she was too old for

anybody else; then turned her out--and now he thought he could spoil

hers. And every one would spare him, because they were sorry! Why

should she spare him? Why should she be sorry?

Helena stood with her fingers still upon the key, transfixed by the

enormity of this new thought.

Why should she either smother her ambition or else creep away, sparing

him the reason; leaving Ruth to be his victim once again?--poor Ruth,

emerging into life again, escaped from this vampire who had left her an

old withered woman at the age of forty.

No, she would not. Others might spare him; _she_ would tell the truth.

She would go now, whilst Ruth was upstairs, and would tell him what

she, what Ruth, what everybody thought. She would tell him that he was

murdering the love of those who loved him by his own selfish blindness;

that all this nonsense about moods and inspiration was mere pose, that

you could write quite well wherever your two candlesticks were put;

that every one saw through him but himself; that he should be proud of

his wife's success, not jealous, if he had a spark of decent feeling in

him; would tell him she too was ambitious, though a woman, she too had

a life to live; that she was bored all day, with him at work, and now

she meant to have her own work too; that Zoë had been right--yes, had

been Helena, Helena not then but Helena as she was now; that she saw

now, as Zoë had declared, she had been nothing but a background to his

work. Now that was over and she would sacrifice herself no longer.

Oh yes, and she would tell him the rest too--that she was fond of him,

would always be; admired him for his strength as much as she despised

the flabby Mr. Alison of whom he had been jealous; that she would try

to make him happy, comfortable and happy, not neglect the house; and

they would be proud of each other's work, and even if she was not a

success, her little earnings would all help to pay those horrid bills.

And if this did not satisfy him, if he could not live like that--well,

then, there was what Ruth had said....

When he had heard the truth, the choice should lie with him! He might

choose then between the sister and the author-wife. But they must have

the truth. She would not sacrifice poor Ruth to him again. He had

been spared enough already. The truth would make him happier. What

could a man so selfish know of happiness?

Poor Ruth, contented with her mission, laying on her bed a dress that

would astonish Hubert by contrast with the prim grey horrors of old

time, little guessed how too thoroughly she had let in the light to

Helena's young eyes!

Helena released the key and moved with firm resolve into the hall. She

dared not stop to think. She strode across the narrow carpet and

boldly turned the handle of his sacred room at this forbidden hour.

She did not even knock.

There is much courage in a symbol.

CHAPTER XXIX

HELENA BRETT'S CAREER

Helena stood at the door, as on the day when she had lost her watch;

and now again each detail stamped itself instantly upon her brain.

But this time Hubert was not working.

He sat at his desk, his hands stretched forward to hold open a paper

laid before him. Helena even observed the wrapper from which it had

come, rolled up quite tight beside the blotting-pad. She saw Hubert's

air of rapt attention and noticed that he had not heard her enter. She

saw two letters unopened on the table, and she thought how like him it

was to open first a paper almost certainly sent him because it had some

mention of himself. Yes, she could see now the blue pencil marks

beside the paragraphs that he was reading. And they were exclamation

marks....

Then, last of all, she recognised the paper.

It was _People And Paragraphs_--and he was reading that comment on the

Hubert Bretts! She had destroyed the cutting; never thought of his

dear friends.

In one moment all the words rehearsed died on her tongue. Afterwards

perhaps, but for the moment she must comfort him. She could not hurt

him more just now.

"Oh, Hubert," she cried, running to him and putting her hand

impulsively upon his shoulder, all forgotten save the instinct to

console, "they haven't sent you that?"

He turned round with quite a dazed look, apparently not in the least

surprised to see her there. "Oh yes," he said in a hard voice,

"there'll be lots of those. It's only just beginning." He stared

dully at the spiteful, vulgar, words.

She knew what they must mean to him and once again her soul veered

round to Ruth's mood of pity--pity and regret. It was her fault, this,

she knew that; he had been right all through. He was so right and

strong, and that was partly where her anger lay. She could have

forgiven a weak idiot like Ally better.

She looked down at him; wavering, torn by two instincts, doubtful.

She looked. She could not see his face, but on the blotting-pad there

dropped two tears.

She had not known that men could cry. Those two damp spots that spread

on the green pad beneath her fascinated eyes told her of what his agony

of tortured pride must be--and brought back to her memory those words

of Ruth's; "He's nothing but a child: be gentle."

He was _not_ strong and right. He did _not_ have a soul of iron, this

man: _not_ despise her as a weakling. He was weak himself. He was a

child and wanted sympathy....

Some other words of his came drifting back to her as she stared blankly

at those spots of darker green and he sat with his head averted--was it

in anger or in shame?

He never would have married a woman who wrote: hated clever women! All

that came back to her. Had she played fair? He wanted somebody to

help, encourage; could she be his rival? For better, for worse----

Suddenly she found herself talking.

"Hugh," she was saying, back on the words of a yet earlier rehearsal,

"I'm so sorry. I've been such a beast, and I _have_ wanted so to do

the proper thing. I've been a beastly wife to you, and now I've come

to say you're right. I can't finish the new book; I can't get on at

all." She paused and said deliberately; "I'm just an amateur."

And in one moment, before she had finished, he was on his feet. He had

his arms round her with all of his old love, and held her at arms'

length, and looked at her with pride, as though she had just spoken of

anything except her failure.

"Darling little girl," he said, "don't, don't, you make me feel so bad.

Don't say you've been a beast. Do you think _I_ don't know what I've

been to you? Do you think I don't know how true the whole book was?"

She smiled back at him, and he never saw the little bitterness or

pathos there was in it, as she heard his old word of tolerant

affection--"little."

He had not used that word for ages....

He drew her to him and kissed her very lovingly. "Oh, Helena," he

murmured, close beside her ear, "if only you knew how I've missed you,

how miserable I've been, how I have loathed myself. You splendid

people think we horrid selfish beasts don't realise our vices. Oh yes,

we do though, those of us who think, but we hope no one else observes

them. I knew that I had bullied Ruth, sacrificed her life to mine, and

I vowed when I married you--but what's the use? You never change your

nature, and I'm just a selfish swine."

"Don't say such awful things, Hugh," she said gently.

He laughed. "I'd say them for ten years as penance if it did any good.

But now you've told me, now I know you know, it's easier. When I get

selfish, when I begin forgetting _your_ side of the thing, you'll have

to tell me; see? And if you don't, well I've still got your copy of

_The Confessions of_----"

But she stopped his mouth with a kiss. "Hugh," she cried, going to the

table and taking up the paper which had changed their lives, "we'll

never mention that vile book again, and as for those who do"--she tore

the paper savagely across. "And you must _not_ say you are selfish.

It's only that your work----"

"My work!" interrupted Hubert, with a discordant laugh. "I've done

none this last week. I've thought--thought about myself, and that's

good when you're forty but it isn't pleasant. Do you know what is

wrong with me?"

"Nothing," she said gaily, for he spoke with a cavernal gloom and she

desired to change his mood.

He utterly ignored her. "I took a long time finding myself out," he

answered. "That's all. Everybody starts, about eighteen, thinking

he's a genius and bound to end up on Olympus; then about twenty-five,

we settle we're just common fools and take a city job. But I did not.

I've gone on in what they call a fool's paradise; feeding upon praise

and threatening those who did the other thing, until I really thought

that I was some one great! Boyd always _said_ that I was undeveloped;

there was something lacking.... But I've got it now. I think I got it

when you cut me out as author!"

"Don't, please," she cried, "you mustn't talk like that."

"I must," he answered gloomily. "I've given half my life to

writing--and only just found out that I can't write!"

She came to him then. "Look here, dear," she said, taking his arm in

quite a mother's way, "you're just beginning your success. Men never

_do_ succeed till forty. You've just found yourself. You're going to

do splendid things and you will let me help."

"What? You and I collaborate?" Was there a tinge of the old-time

suspicion?

"No," she said quickly. "I shan't ever write again; that's done with;

we'll just talk the stories over when we're out upon our dear old

rambles, and then, you see, you'll get the woman's view as well. And

possibly I may get plots sometimes, although I couldn't write them."

"Then we'll sign Helena and Hubert Brett," he said in swift penitence,

forcing himself to nobility. "That really does sound excellent!"

"No," she replied slowly, "you must always sign. You see your name is

known. Helena Brett has never written anything, and Zoë Baskerville is

dead--thank goodness!" She forced herself to smile. She must remain

the amateur! That touch of pity, she knew, must be there if things

were ever to be right again....

Perhaps he guessed a little, for suddenly he clasped her in his arms

again. "My God, Helena," he cried passionately, "how insignificant and

mean you make me feel! You women can forgive, and we're so obstinate.

You've spared me such a lot, I know. If you had told me all I know you

could, I never should have cared for you again! It's pretty damnable,

that, isn't it? But swine like me go on repenting and repenting, and

then we're twice as bad again. We're cursed, I think; we----"

She put her hand over his mouth. "It's over now," she said: "time up,"

and laughed, herself again.

He looked at her as at some miracle beyond his understanding. "And you

won't ever long to--well, to be Zoë again?"

She looked him full in the face, and her eyes smiled happiness. "No,"

she said, "_I_'ve found myself out as well. I'm nothing but a woman

after all!"

"The dearest woman in the whole world," he replied and kissed her.

Ruth knocked at the door.

THE END

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

_BOOKS BY DESMOND COKE_

NOVELS

THE COMEDY OF AGE

THE CALL

THE PEDESTAL

THE GOLDEN KEY

BEAUTY FOR ASHES

STUDIES OF BOY NATURE

THE BENDING OF A TWIG

WILSON'S

HUMOUR (_ex hypothesi_)

SANDFORD OF MERTON

THE DOG FROM CLARKSON'S

THE CURE

STORIES FOR BOYS

THE HOUSE PREFECT

THE SCHOOL ACROSS THE ROAD

THE BENDING OF A TWIG (_Revised Edn._)