"Only a straw; but then, I'm a drowning man."
"Tell me! Tell me!" the girl insisted.
"It's from Prentice; the man you saw in Soho the night before we came away. He's taken my MSS. to Althea Rees."
"You mean the woman who writes those queer books where every one talks alike."
"What does it matter? The talk's all good. Anyhow, she's 'struck.' Some one's actually struck at last. She's going to try and make her own publishers do something. But she says she must see me first, and Prentice thinks she's only passing through London."
Fenella's face clouded and was so far from expressing enthusiasm that her lover looked at her rather ruefully.
"You don't seem very glad, Nelly."
Nelly kept her eyes averted. She had already taken her head from his shoulder.
"I shouldn't care to publish anything," she declared slowly. "Not—that way."
As though he had been waiting for her words, Paul Ingram sprang to his feet. All his impatience and dissatisfaction seemed to boil over. He began to pace the dunes like a caged animal, kicking the sand from his feet and tugging fiercely at the grizzling beard that was a daily reproach to his lack of achievement.