“Who is Mr. Elliot?” enquired the stranger.
Eversedge Sibley spent a short holiday in England every summer, and knew that the vilely dressed man had the accent of the British upper classes. His curiosity grew with what it fed on.
“Mr. Elliot is the third partner in the firm,” explained McNutt, to whom such ignorance appeared disgraceful.
“Thank you, I’d rather wait until to-morrow and try to see Mr. Sibley himself,” said Denin.
“I am Mr. Sibley,” the publisher confessed, on one of his irresistible impulses. “I’ve just come back for something forgotten. I can give you a few minutes if you like.”
The man’s face lit. It could never have been anything but plain, almost ugly, even before the scars came; yet it was singularly arresting. “That’s very good of you,” he said.
Sibley ushered the odd visitor into his own private office, but before he could even be invited to sit down, Denin got to his errand.
“You must have thousands of manuscripts sent to you,” he began, with a shyness which appealed to Sibley. “I—suppose you hardly ever read one yourself? You have men under you to do that. But I felt I shouldn’t be satisfied unless I could put the—the stuff I’ve written into your own hands. Probably all amateurs feel like that!”
“Manuscripts which our readers pronounce on favorably I always go through myself before accepting them,” Sibley assured his visitor. “But of course, there are a good many that—er—they don’t think worth bothering me with.”
“There’s no reason for me to hope that mine will deserve a better fate,” Denin said. “All the same it would—be a great thing for me if you should bring it out—publish it on both sides of the water. It isn’t as if I expected money for my work. I don’t. I shouldn’t even want money. On the contrary—”