On four dreary mornings the same tragic farce took place, and also with the evening papers. Then on the fifth day Hubert's fast-travelling eyes stopped abruptly, he said "Ha!" and then read out with a naïve joy "Was It Worth While?"
"Good," exclaimed Helena, still doubtful.
Suddenly he gave a wild laugh. "I like that," he said. "That is rich." He put the paper down very gently on the table. Then he raised the cover from the buttered eggs.
"What is it, dear?" she compelled herself to ask.
"They say," announced Hubert in extremely level tones, "this habit of publishing a well-known author's early works as new is one that has grown far too common."
Then, letting himself go; "Early works? I'll show them! It is libellous. I can prove my case to the hilt."
"I shouldn't worry with them," she said, feeling inadequate. "Perhaps it will just make the book sell? We expected them to be all nasty, didn't we?" She tried to speak brightly. Then an inspiration came to her. "Perhaps there are some better ones?" she said. The great thing would be to divert his mind. A law-case would be terrible. Nobody got anything, ever, except the barristers.
He passed the heap of unopened papers scornfully across to her. "You look at them," he said. "I don't know why I do or why one cares. They're just a pack of failures. I always despise myself for looking at their stuff at all." He opened a letter with unneeded violence.
With slow unpractised fingers Helena began to search for reviews. "No, no," she said at each, until she thought (he was so quiet), that this might be annoying him and went on with her task in silence.
Then her hands suddenly clutched the paper tightly, symbolic of her effort to say nothing, for her eyes had caught the heading, Was It Worth While? The notice ran to half a column and this was an important paper. She blessed her cleverness in having looked.