“My dear man, that’s just what I want _you_ to say!”
Even before Corvick had banged the door I had begun, book in hand, to
prepare myself to say it. I sat up with Vereker half the night; Corvick
couldn’t have done more than that. He was awfully clever--I stuck to
that, but he wasn’t a bit the biggest of the lot. I didn’t allude to the
lot, however; I flattered myself that I emerged on this occasion from
the infancy of art. “It’s all right,” they declared vividly at the
office; and when the number appeared I felt there was a basis on which
I could meet the great man; It gave me confidence for a day or two, and
then that confidence dropped. I had fancied him reading it with relish,
but if Corvick was not satisfied how could Vereker himself be? I
reflected indeed that the heat of the admirer was sometimes grosser even
than the appetite of the scribe. Corvick at all events wrote me from
Paris a little ill-humouredly. Mrs. Erme was pulling round, and I hadn’t
at all said what Vereker gave him the sense of.