‘In the old days.’
‘Yes. I doubt if it ever happens now. Coleridge wouldn’t so easily meet with his Gillman nowadays. Well, I am not a Coleridge, and I don’t ask to be lodged under any man’s roof; but if I could earn money enough to leave me good long evenings unspoilt by fear of the workhouse—’
Amy turned away, and presently went to look after her little boy.
A few days after this they had a visit from Milvain. He came about ten o’clock in the evening.
‘I’m not going to stay,’ he announced. ‘But where’s my copy of “Margaret Home”? I am to have one, I suppose?’
‘I have no particular desire that you should read it,’ returned Reardon.
‘But I HAVE read it, my dear fellow. Got it from the library on the day of publication; I had a suspicion that you wouldn’t send me a copy. But I must possess your opera omnia.’
‘Here it is. Hide it away somewhere.—You may as well sit down for a few minutes.’
‘I confess I should like to talk about the book, if you don’t mind. It isn’t so utterly and damnably bad as you make out, you know. The misfortune was that you had to make three volumes of it. If I had leave to cut it down to one, it would do you credit.
The motive is good enough.’