‘Dora will cry her eyes out. Upon my word, Maud’ll have to draw in her horns. I must frighten her into economy and hard work.’
He again lost himself in anxious reverie.
‘Marian, couldn’t you try your hand at fiction?’
She started, remembering that her father had put the same question so recently.
‘I’m afraid I could do nothing worth doing.’
‘That isn’t exactly the question. Could you do anything that would sell? With very moderate success in fiction you might make three times as much as you ever will by magazine pot-boilers. A girl like you. Oh, you might manage, I should think.’
‘A girl like me?’
‘Well, I mean that love-scenes, and that kind of thing, would be very much in your line.’
Marian was not given to blushing; very few girls are, even on strong provocation. For the first time Jasper saw her cheeks colour deeply, and it was with anything but pleasure. His words were coarsely inconsiderate, and wounded her.
‘I think that is not my work,’ she said coldly, looking away.