"Oh, really," she said, in genuine surprise. "Rather unusual for you, isn't it? Is the boy a genius then?"
Amberley shook his head. He hated everything the worthy Toftrees wrote—he had never been able to read more than ten lines of any of the half-dozen books he had published for them. But the Hanover Square side of him had a vast respect for the large sums the couple charmed from the pockets of the public no less than the handsome percentage they put into his own. And a confidential word on business matters with a pretty and pleasant little woman was not without allurement even under the Waggon-roof itself.
"Not at all. Not at all," he murmured into a pretty ear. "We are not paying the lad any advance upon royalties!" He laughed a well-fed laugh. "Ince and Amberley's list," he continued, "is accepted for itself!"
Mrs. Toftrees smiled back at him. "Of course," she murmured. "But I wasn't thinking of the financial side of it. Why? . . . why are you departing from your usual traditions and throwing the shadow of your cloak over this fortunate boy?—if I may ask, of course!"
"Well," Amberley answered, and her keen ear detected—or thought that she detected—a slight reluctance in his voice. . . . "Well, Lothian brought him to me, you know."
Mrs. Toftrees' face changed and Amberley saw it.
She was looking down the table to where Lothian was sitting. Her face was a little flushed, and the expression upon it—though not allowed to be explicit—was by no means agreeable. "Lothian's work is very wonderful," she said—and there was a question in her voice "—you think so, Mr. Amberley?"
Bryanstone Square, the Dining Room, asserted itself. Truth to tell, Amberley felt a little uncomfortable and displeased with himself. The fun of the dinner table—the cigarette moment—had rather escaped him. He had got young people round him to-night. He wanted them to be jolly. He had meant to be a good host, to forget his dignities, to unbend and be jolly with them—this fiction-mongering woman was becoming annoying.
"I certainly do, Mrs. Toftrees," he replied, with dignity, and a distinct tone of reproof in his voice.
Mrs. Toftrees, the cool tradeswoman, gave the great man a soothing smile of complete understanding and agreement.