Mrs. Highmore looked bewildered. “Why so, if he finds it too dull?”
“Dull? Ralph Limbert? He’s as fine as a needle!”
“It comes to the same thing--he won’t penetrate leather. Mr. Bousefield
had counted on something that _would_, on something that would have a
wider acceptance. Ray says he wants iron pegs.” I collapsed again; my
flicker of elation dropped to a throb of quieter comfort; and after a
moment’s silence I asked my neighbour if she had herself read the work
our friend had just put forth. “No,” she replied, “I gave him my word at
the beginning, on his urgent request, that I wouldn’t.”
“Not even as a book?”
“He begged me never to look at it at all. He said he was trying a low
experiment. Of course I knew what he meant and I entreated him to let me
just for curiosity take a peep. But he was firm, he declared he couldn’t
bear the thought that a woman like me should see him in the depths.”
“He’s only, thank God, in the depths of distress,” I replied. “His
experiment’s nothing worse than a failure.”
“Then Bousefield _is_ right--his circulation won’t budge?”
“It won’t move one, as they say in Fleet Street. The book has
extraordinary beauty.”
“Poor duck--after trying so hard!” Jane Highmore sighed with real
tenderness. “What _will_ then become of them?”