"Oh, no—no. They none of them do. It would only worry them, you know."
"It must worry you, doesn't it?"
Neither of them noticed that the young man, who might so well have been one of her younger children, was behaving quite as if he were what he had destined himself to be, a powerful and experienced king of journalism. And she, who had written books while he was crawling on his nursery floor, sat before him with folded hands, answering his questions with the simplicity and lack of reserve of a child. For once he had broken her barriers down, he realised how the poor thing was relieved and glad to talk about her troubles.
Thus it came that she told him all about that dreadful interview with Messrs. Lubbock & Payne, and of her struggles with "Lord Effingham."
"I've modernised it," she said, with hopefulness that made him want to cry, "but it didn't seem very good to me. But then I don't suppose one's ever a very good judge of one's own work——"
"Then one ought to be," he thrust in brutally. "Every man and every woman ought to be the best judge of his or her work. Any other kind of talk's nonsense. You ought to know your best book. Don't you? Because if you don't, I can tell you."
She trembled as she looked up at him. "I know you're going to say 'Queenie's Promise,'" she said feebly.
He shook his head. "Well, it isn't, then. It's the 'Under Secretary.' I read that through from start to finish in the Underground the other day, and it's—it's got the makings of a real good story."
At this moment the door opened, and Jessie brought in the tea, and by doing so changed these two bewitched people back to their real selves, and the millionaire newspaper king found himself once more only a young reporter, and the trembling literary aspirant at his feet became, as at the wave of a wand, again the tired, once mildly successful old novelist, his hostess and potential mother-in-law.
They were both embarrassed for a few minutes, and then, as they drank their tea, Mrs. Walbridge found herself, to her great though gentle surprise, telling him what she instinctively called the story of her life.