The novelist at one point put an interesting question to Amy.
‘Is it true that Fadge is leaving The Current?’
‘It is rumoured, I believe.’
‘Going to one of the quarterlies, they say,’ remarked a lady. ‘He is getting terribly autocratic. Have you heard the delightful story of his telling Mr Rowland to persevere, as his last work was one of considerable promise?’
Mr Rowland was a man who had made a merited reputation when Fadge was still on the lower rungs of journalism. Amy smiled and told another anecdote of the great editor. Whilst speaking, she caught her husband’s eye, and perhaps this was the reason why her story, at the close, seemed rather amiably pointless—not a common fault when she narrated.
When the ladies had withdrawn, one of the younger men, in a conversation about a certain magazine, remarked:
‘Thomas always maintains that it was killed by that solemn old stager, Alfred Yule. By the way, he is dead himself, I hear.’
Jasper bent forward.
‘Alfred Yule is dead?’
‘So Jedwood told me this morning. He died in the country somewhere, blind and fallen on evil days, poor old fellow.’