Her father was waiting for her.
‘Well, Miss Bessie,’ he said, laughing, ‘Jane said the gentleman was very urgent in wanting to know when you would be in. An offer, eh?’
‘Perhaps it is an offer, but not of that sort,’ said Bessie, and she explained what the unliterary Admiral had not understood. He answered with a whistle.
‘Shall you do it, Bessie?’
‘I think not,’ she said quietly.
The editor was found waiting for her, with many apologies for bringing her home, and the Admiral was so delighted with his agreeableness as hardly to be able to tear himself away to bring home his wife.
The offer was, as Bessie expected, of excellent terms for a serial story—terms that proved to her what was her own value, and in which she saw education for her sister Anne’s eldest boy.
‘Of course, there would be a certain adaptation to our readers.’
She knew what that meant, and there was that in her face which drew forth the assurance.
‘Of course nothing you would not wish to say would be required, but it would be better not to press certain subjects.’