This was awful. She was no business woman, and she had little knowledge of the world, but even she knew that it meant danger, in an interview avowedly a business interview, when friendship was invoked. She stammered something, and he went on:
"Your books have sold—sell—very well, on the whole. We have done our best for them, and, as you know, the cost of publishing and advertising—particularly advertising—has nearly doubled since the war."
Again he paused, and this time she bowed, being afraid to say that she knew conditions were such that her percentage on sales had gone down, while the sale price of her books had gone up to seven and six. She noticed Mr. Lubbock's sleeve-links; they were new ones and very neat, of gold and platinum. How she wished she could buy a pair like that for Paul! In the old days her envy would have been for Ferdie. Mr. Lubbock cleared his throat, fitted his fat finger-tips neatly together, and began to be sprightly.
"Amazing how the output of books of fiction has increased of late years, isn't it? Dear me, I can remember when 2250 would have been considered a big output, and now there are so many good writers, so many excellent writers, Mrs. Walbridge, that we are forced by competition and market conditions to bring out nearly three times that number. I wonder if you have kept up with the new writers," he went on after a pause, "Mrs. Levett, Joan Kelly, Austen Goodheart, and so on—and Wanda Potter. Wanda Potter's last book sold over a hundred thousand."
"I haven't read any of them, I'm afraid. I've so little time——" She tried to smile and felt as if her lips were freezing.
"Just so, just so; exactly what I was saying to Payne. 'Mrs. Walbridge is a very busy woman,' I said to Payne. 'She hasn't time—she can't be expected to have time—to read all these things, so it's quite natural that—that——'" He broke off, and taking up a little bronze figure of a poodle, that served as a paper weight, he examined it carefully for a moment. "I'm sure you understand what I mean, Mrs. Walbridge," he said at last.
She was looking at the corner of his polished mahogany writing table; she was looking at two carefully jointed bits of wood, finely grained and smoothly welded together, but what she saw was "Happy House"; Ferdie and his new cedar cigar chest yawning to be filled; of an unpaid tailor's bill; of his annual cough (Ferdie coughed himself regularly to Torquay every autumn); she saw Paul and his new edition de luxe of Swinburne, and the Rowlandson "Horse Fair" he had taken her to see in King Street, St. James's—the "Horse Fair" that was to cost "only eighteen guineas." She saw the little sea-green frock that hung in the great Frenchman's window in Hanover Square, the little frock that would look so beautiful on Grisel. She saw a vision of a hecatomb of roasts of beef and saddles of mutton, and oysters, and burgundy, that she was longing to offer up to her family gods. She saw the natural skunk coat she had been planning to give to poor dear Caroline for Christmas. She saw the new bathroom, on which the men were already working, that was to be Grisel's. Then these things passed away, and the corner of the table again appeared, and Mr. Lubbock was saying, in that kind, dreadful voice of his: "I feel quite sure that you understand our position, Mrs. Walbridge, and, after all, the reduction is not of very great consequence."
Before she could speak the telephone bell rang. He took up the receiver and bent forward, politeness and courtesy expressed in every line of his big figure as clearly as if the telephone had been a person he was speaking to.