“Do you think,” John said, “that Mr. Alter would put in a word with a publisher about a novel?”
“Probably. Have you written one? Have you a great work stored away secretly underneath your private till?”
“No,” said John seriously; “but I could write one. A hundred thousand words. Suppose I did a thousand a day—or even five hundred—a couple of quarto pages.... There might be money in that.”
He turned into his hammock that night to lie long awake, dreaming of title pages, bindings, and press-cuttings, and calculating royalties. He was generous to himself in the matter of royalties, for so much money would be needed before—perhaps a play would be better, after all.... Very carefully, mindful of Hartington’s warning, he excluded Margaret from his consideration of these practical matters. But when at last he fell asleep and could no longer deceive himself, he dreamed of Margaret only. He dreamed that she kissed him, not that he kissed her; of a hundred tendernesses of word and deed that were outside his experience. They had a house in Westminster.... She looked down from behind the grille on to the floor of the House of Commons.
V
Margaret sat very still on the edge of her bed. The last word she had heard her father speak that evening came back to her like a tawdry tune.
“The most steel-like mind I know.”
That was Mr. Ordith’s. Steel-like: strong, supple, elastic, highly finished. He had, too, some of the splendour, even the poetry, of machinery: accurate, clean, with no uncertain edges, without misgiving. And he had power.
He was a man to whom one might go confidently in any worldly difficulty. He would know what ought to be done, and would do it at once. He would see quite clearly one side of every question. In a way, she supposed, it was a compliment that one who had so wide a field of choice should have chosen her.