"I'm making an article out of Elm Court," said Waymark. "Semi-descriptive, semi-reflective, wholly cynical Maybe it will pay for my summer holiday. And, apropos of the same subject, I've got great ideas. This introduction to such phases of life will prove endlessly advantageous to me, artistically speaking. Let me get a little more experience, and I will write a novel such as no one has yet ventured to write, at all events in England. I begin to see my way to magnificent effects; ye gods, such light and shade! The fact is, the novel of every-day life is getting worn out. We must dig deeper, get to untouched social strata. Dickens felt this, but he had not the courage to face his subjects; his monthly numbers had to lie on the family tea-table. Not virginibus puerisque will be my book, I assure you, but for men and women who like to look beneath the surface, and who understand that only as artistic material has human life any significance. Yes, that is the conclusion I am working round to. The artist is the only sane man. Life for its own sake?—no; I would drink a pint of laudanum to-night. But life as the source of splendid pictures, inexhaustible material for effects—that can reconcile me to existence, and that only. It is a delight followed by no bitter after-taste, and the only such delight I know."
Harriet was very quiet when Julian returned. She went about getting the tea with a sort of indifference; she let a cup fall and break, but made no remark, and left her husband to pick up the pieces.
"Waymark thinks I'm neglecting him," said Julian, with a laugh, as they sat down together.
"It's better to neglect him than to neglect me, I should think," was Harriet's reply, in a quiet ill-natured tone which she was mistress of.
"But couldn't we find out some way of doing neither, dear?" went on Julian, playing with his spoon. "Now suppose I give him a couple of hours one evening every week? You could spare that, couldn't you? Say, from eight to ten on Wednesdays?"
"I suppose you'll go if you want to." said Harriet, rising from the tea-table, and taking a seat sulkily by the window.
"Come, come, we won't say any more about it, if it's so disagreeable to you," said Julian, going up to her, and coaxing her back to her place. "You don't feel well to-day, do you? I oughtn't to have left you this afternoon, but it was difficult to refuse, wasn't it?"
"He had no business to ask you to go. He could see I didn't like it."
Waymark grew so accustomed to receiving Ida's note each Monday morning, that when for the first time it failed to come he was troubled seriously. It happened, too, that he was able to attach a particular significance to the omission. When they had last parted, instead of just pressing her hand as usual, he had raised it to his lips. She frowned and turned quickly away, saying no word. He had offended her by this infringement of the conditions of their friendship; for once before, when he had uttered a word which implied more than she was willing to allow, Ida had engaged him in the distinct agreement that he should never do or say anything that approached love-making. As, moreover, it was distinctly understood that he should never visit her save at times previously appointed, he could not see her till she chose to write. After waiting in the vain expectation of some later post bringing news, he himself wrote, simply asking the cause of her silence. The reply came speedily.
"I have no spare time in the week. I thought you would understand this.