‘I am doing very well, thank you,’ said Miss Martin. ‘My tale The Curate’s Family has raised the circulation of The Young Girl; and, mind you, it is no easy thing for a novelist to raise the circulation of any periodical. For example, if The Quarterly Review published a new romance, even by Mr. Thomas Hardy, I doubt if the end would justify the proceedings.’
‘It would take about four years to get finished in a quarterly,’ said Merton.
‘And the nonagenarians who read quarterlies,’ said Miss Martin, with the flippancy of youth, ‘would go to their graves without knowing whether the heroine found a lenient jury or not. I have six heroines in The Curate’s Family, and I own their love affairs tend to get a little mixed. I have rigged up a small stage, with puppets in costume to represent the characters,
and keep them straight in my mind; but Ethelinda, who is engaged to the photographer, as nearly as possible eloped with the baronet last week.’
‘Anything else on?’ asked Merton.
‘An up-to-date story, all heredity and evolution,’ said Miss Martin. ‘The father has his legs bitten off by a shark, and it gets on the nerves of his wife, the Marchioness, and two of the girls are born like mermaids. They have immense popularity at bathing-places on the French coast, but it is not easy for them to go into general society.’
‘What nonsense!’ exclaimed Merton.
‘Not worse than other stuff that is highly recommended by eminent reviewers,’ said Miss Martin.
‘Anything else?’
‘Oh, yes; there is “The Pope’s Poisoner, a Tale of the Borgias.” That is a historical romance, I got it up out of Histories of the Renaissance. The hero (Lionardo da Vinci) is the Pope’s bravo, and in love with Lucrezia Borgia.’