Now he stood for a moment in the pouring rain, touched to the quick by the pathos of the shabby little gate of the unsuccessful, overworked old novelist.
He found Mrs. Walbridge sitting by the fire in her expressionless drawing-room, reading. She was so engrossed in her book that, after a hurried greeting, she at once began to talk of it.
"Oh, Mr. Wick," she cried, forgetting to ask him to sit down, which, however, he promptly did, "have you read this?"
He glanced at the book. "Yes, it's the book Mr. Crichell talked about that night at dinner here." After a second he added a little awkwardly, "I—I wouldn't read it if I were you, Mrs. Walbridge."
She closed the book and drew back in her chair with a little flush.
"I—I've nearly finished it. Everyone's been talking about it, and I found it in my son's room."
He was silent for a moment, for he did not know quite what to say to her, to this old lady whose literary stockpot produced such a harmless and uniform brew.
"Reek" was not important enough to be called strong meat; it was just a thoroughly nasty book whose author dwelt lovingly on obscene side-issues of ordinary life, and in whose three hundred odd pages of closely printed matter there was not a word, nor even a suggestion that could help or even cheer for a moment any conceivable reader.
"Disgusting rubbish," he declared after a moment. "My old mother read the first chapter and marched down with it in the tongs and put it in the kitchen fire." He chuckled at the vision of the old lady's slow progress down the narrow passage, with the tongs held straight out before her. "That showed my young sister Jenny what she thought of it!" He paused and then went on very quickly, with a little flicker of colour in his thin, white face, "You won't let Grisel read it?"