‘Very well, I’ll tell him that his impudence astonishes me.’
‘You will?’
‘Certainly. Of course in civil terms. But don’t let this make any difference between you and him. Just pretend to know nothing about it; no harm is done.’
‘You are speaking in earnest?’
‘Quite. He has written in a very proper way, and there’s no reason whatever to disturb our friendliness with him. I have a right to give directions in a matter like this, and you’ll please to obey them.’
Before going to bed Dora wrote a letter to Mr Whelpdale, not, indeed, accepting his offer forthwith, but conveying to him with much gracefulness an unmistakable encouragement to persevere. This was posted on the morrow, and its writer continued to benefit most remarkably by the sun and breezes and rock-scrambling of Sark.
Soon after their return to London, Dora had the satisfaction of paying the first visit to her sister at the Dolomores’ house in Ovington Square. Maud was established in the midst of luxuries, and talked with laughing scorn of the days when she inhabited Grub Street; her literary tastes were henceforth to serve as merely a note of distinction, an added grace which made evident her superiority to the well-attired and smooth-tongued people among whom she was content to shine. On the one hand, she had contact with the world of fashionable literature, on the other with that of fashionable ignorance. Mrs Lane’s house was a meeting-point of the two spheres.
‘I shan’t be there very often,’ remarked Jasper, as Dora and he discussed their sister’s magnificence. ‘That’s all very well in its way, but I aim at something higher.’
‘So do I,’ Dora replied.
‘I’m very glad to hear that. I confess it seemed to me that you were rather too cordial with Whelpdale yesterday.’