“I’m glad to earn what I can,” said Mrs. Moreen with prodigious virtue.
“You ought to tell me who you do it for.” Pemberton paused a moment, and she said nothing; so he added: “I’ve tried to turn off some little sketches, but the magazines won’t have them—they’re declined with thanks.”
“You see then you’re not such a phœnix,” his visitor pointedly smiled—“to pretend to abilities you’re sacrificing for our sake.”
“I haven’t time to do things properly,” he ruefully went on. Then as it came over him that he was almost abjectly good-natured to give these explanations he added: “If I stay on longer it must be on one condition—that Morgan shall know distinctly on what footing I am.”
Mrs. Moreen demurred. “Surely you don’t want to show off to a child?”
“To show you off, do you mean?”
Again she cast about, but this time it was to produce a still finer flower. “And you talk of blackmail!”
“You can easily prevent it,” said Pemberton.
“And you talk of practising on fears,” she bravely pushed on.
“Yes, there’s no doubt I’m a great scoundrel.”