From five to half-past I read four newspapers and two magazines, and from half-past to a quarter to six I jotted down several ideas that had come to me whilst reading. At six I was again in the dirty eating-house, satisfying a ferocious hunger. Home once more at 6.45, and for two hours wrote steadily at a long affair Ihave in hand for The Current. Then I came here, thinking hard all the way. What say you to this? Have I earned a night's repose?'
'And what's the value of it all?' asked Maud.
'Probably from ten to twelve guineas, if I calculated.'
'I meant, what was the literary value of it?' said his sister, with a smile.
'Equal to that of the contents of a mouldy nut.'
'Pretty much what I thought.'
'Oh, but it answers the purpose,' urged Dora, 'and it does no one any harm.'
'Honest journey-work!' cried Jasper. 'There are few men in London capable of such a feat. Many a fellow could write more in quantity, but they couldn't command my market. It's rubbish, but rubbish of a very special kind, of fine quality.'
Marian had not yet spoken, save a word or two in reply to Jasper's greeting; now and then she just glanced at him, but for the most part her eyes were cast down. Now Jasper addressed her.
'A year ago, Miss Yule, I shouldn't have believed myself capable of such activity. In fact I wasn't capable of it then.'
'You think such work won't be too great a strain upon you?' she asked.
'Oh, this isn't a specimen day, you know. To-morrow I shall very likely do nothing but finish my West End article, in an easy two or three hours. There's no knowing; I might perhaps keep up the high pressure if I tried. But then I couldn't dispose of all the work. Little by little--or perhaps rather quicker than that--Ishall extend my scope. For instance, I should like to do two or three leaders a week for one of the big dailies. I can't attain unto that just yet.'
'Not political leaders?'
'By no means. That's not my line. The kind of thing in which one makes a column out of what would fill six lines of respectable prose. You call a cigar a "convoluted weed," and so on, you know;that passes for facetiousness. I've never really tried my hand at that style yet; I shouldn't wonder if I managed it brilliantly.
Some day I'll write a few exercises; just take two lines of some good prose writer, and expand them into twenty, in half-a-dozen different ways. Excellent mental gymnastics!'
Marian listened to his flow of talk for a few minutes longer, then took the opportunity of a brief silence to rise and put on her hat. Jasper observed her, but without rising; he looked at his sisters in a hesitating way. At length he stood up, and declared that he too must be off. This coincidence had happened once before when he met Marian here in the evening.
'At all events, you won't do any more work to-night,' said Dora.
'No; I shall read a page of something or other over a glass of whisky, and seek the sleep of a man who has done his duty.'
'Why the whisky?' asked Maud.
'Do you grudge me such poor solace?'
'I don't see the need of it.'
'Nonsense, Maud!' exclaimed her sister. 'He needs a little stimulant when he works so hard.'
Each of the girls gave Marian's hand a significant pressure as she took leave of them, and begged her to come again as soon as she had a free evening. There was gratitude in her eyes.
The evening was clear, and not very cold.
'It's rather late for you to go home,' said Jasper, as they left the house. 'May I walk part of the way with you?'
Marian replied with a low 'Thank you.'
'I think you get on pretty well with the girls, don't you?'
'I hope they are as glad of my friendship as I am of theirs.'
'Pity to see them in a place like that, isn't it? They ought to have a good house, with plenty of servants. It's bad enough for a civilised man to have to rough it, but I hate to see women living in a sordid way. Don't you think they could both play their part in a drawing-room, with a little experience?'
'Surely there's no doubt of it.'
'Maud would look really superb if she were handsomely dressed.
She hasn't a common face, by any means. And Dora is pretty, Ithink. Well, they shall go and see some people before long. The difficulty is, one doesn't like it to be known that they live in such a crib; but I daren't advise them to go in for expense. One can't be sure that it would repay them, though-- Now, in my own case, if I could get hold of a few thousand pounds I should know how to use it with the certainty of return; it would save me, probably, a clear ten years of life; I mean, I should go at a jump to what I shall be ten years hence without the help of money. But they have such a miserable little bit of capital, and everything is still so uncertain. One daren't speculate under the circumstances.'
Marian made no reply.
'You think I talk of nothing but money?' Jasper said suddenly, looking down into her face.
'I know too well what it means to be without money.'
'Yes, but--you do just a little despise me?'
'Indeed, I don't, Mr Milvain.'
'If that is sincere, I'm very glad. I take it in a friendly sense. I am rather despicable, you know; it's part of my business to be so. But a friend needn't regard that. There is the man apart from his necessities.'
The silence was then unbroken till they came to the lower end of Park Street, the junction of roads which lead to Hampstead, to Highgate, and to Holloway.
'Shall you take an omnibus?' Jasper asked.
She hesitated.
'Or will you give me the pleasure of walking on with you? You are tired, perhaps?'
'Not the least.'
For the rest of her answer she moved forward, and they crossed into the obscurity of Camden Road.
'Shall I be doing wrong, Mr Milvain,' Marian began in a very low voice, 'if I ask you about the authorship of something in this month's Current?'
'I'm afraid I know what you refer to. There's no reason why Ishouldn't answer a question of the kind.'
'It was Mr Fadge himself who reviewed my father's book?'
'It was--confound him! I don't know another man who could have done the thing so vilely well.'
'I suppose he was only replying to my father's attack upon him and his friends.'
