‘They’ll have to pay me more,’ was the remark with which he closed. ‘I only wanted to make myself indispensable to them, and at the end of this year I shall feel pretty sure of that. They’ll have to give me two guineas a column; by Jove! they will.’
‘And you may hope for much more than that, mayn’t you, before long?’
‘Oh, I shall transfer myself to a better paper presently. It seems to me I must be stirring to some purpose.’
He gave her a significant look.
‘What shall we do, Jasper?’
‘Work and wait, I suppose.’
‘There’s something I must tell you. Father said I had better sign that Harrington article myself. If I do that, I shall have a right to the money, I think. It will at least be eight guineas. And why shouldn’t I go on writing for myself—for us? You can help me to think of subjects.’
‘First of all, what about my letter to your father? We are forgetting all about it.’
‘He refused to answer.’
Marian avoided closer description of what had happened. It was partly that she felt ashamed of her father’s unreasoning wrath, and feared lest Jasper’s pride might receive an injury from which she in turn would suffer; partly that she was unwilling to pain her lover by making display of all she had undergone.