"It's really not at all a bad piece of work"; the junior partner was almost enthusiastic.
"Have you come to any decision on it?" Gareth enquired, with feigned nonchalance. It was a week to-morrow that his promise to Pat O'Neill fell due.
"Impossible while Mr. Campbell is still away. I've just heard from him that he intends stopping in Scotland over the New Year. But I fancy he will agree with me that it's worth while to prevent this author from entering into a contract with Locker and Swyn; he's very much their style."
For Alexander did not regard the firm of Leslie Campbell with the eye of its proud founder, as a definite and individual establishment; but as a negative result of what had to be positively prevented from straying to any rival firm of publishers.
"The characterization is fairly strong, and the central idea passably original," continued the unemotional young Oxonian.
And again the reader assented.
"Well, this O'Neill—whoever he may be—" referring to the manuscript again, "must wait another fortnight. He'll have to alter the title; I'm not keen on it, and it's bad for the ads. I daresay we can get it out by April. And there's a passage near the end will certainly have to be cut.... I shall have trouble with Mr. Campbell over that," resignedly; "he'll want it left in for a dead cert. Is Burnett here? You might send him in to me...."
The reader was summarily dismissed.
He was glad that Alexander had praised the book; but it bothered him that Patricia should unnecessarily be kept on the rack pending Campbell's return from his native heath. For if Alexander spoke already of the "ads," there was not the slightest doubt that the book was virtually accepted.
He decided he could, in an unofficial capacity, betray as much to the girl. After all, her patience had already been unfairly stretched over the six weeks that "The Reverse of the Medal" had lain in the bottom drawer of the sitting-room at Pacific Villa.... Alexander could not know this, of course; but Gareth had promised her some certain relief by the morrow.