“Oh yes,” said Miss Bibby, “I am offered six guineas for it.”
“Ah! And you need the money?”
“Well, I am not actually in want of it,” said Miss Bibby, “but——”
“But you could do with it, I see; most people can, can’t they? Well, let us get on. You want to know all about my private life, don’t you?”
“Oh,” said Miss Bibby, shocked. “I should not like to intrude like that. Just simple questions, I—I think they generally ask where you were born.”
“No, no,” said Hugh; “you haven’t studied the question, it’s plain. The public don’t care a hang nowadays where or how or when a man’s born. What they want to do is to lift the curtain suddenly from his home and see him going through the common round of his daily life. By George, wouldn’t they like to catch him beating his wife! A glimpse like that would make an interviewer’s fortune. ’Pon my soul, Miss Bibby, I’d give you the [p105] chance—you are so indefatigable—if I had such a thing as a wife.”
Miss Bibby laughed nervously,
“I—I think they like to know about an author’s methods of work,” she said, “if you would be so very kind.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Hugh. “I rather pride myself upon my methods, now you come to mention it. I don’t believe there’s an author extant or underground with similar. See this card?” He rummaged on his table for Kate’s neatly-typed little memorandum.
“Yes?” said Miss Bibby breathlessly.