His sharp interrogation slightly puzzled her.
"Oh, he says that your hints have been invaluable."
So Archibald had withheld the truth. He heard Betty's voice entreating him to come to Cadogan Place. His heart was throbbing. Perhaps she wanted him.
"I c-c-can't," he stammered. "I have my p-pride."
"So had Lucifer," she retorted.
That she supposed him cold, he knew. When they parted, he smiled to himself because she said angrily: "You think of nothing but your Songs of the Angels!"
"Angels won't sing in London," he said.
Shortly after this he received a letter from Dudley McIntyre, the head of an historic publishing house. McIntyre had read the novel which would not sell, and begged to have the pleasure of meeting the author at an early date. This again was a piece of luck which Mark discovered, later, to be due to Tommy Greatorex. Tommy, who loathed Conquest, had told McIntyre of what had passed. McIntyre had no love for Conquest and despised his business methods. When he met Mark, he took a fancy to him. Mark, for his part, was charmed with McIntyre, who represented the publisher of the old school: being all that Conquest was not: courteous, sympathetic, speaking with precision in well-chosen words untainted by slang. McIntyre, however, published belles lettres, biographies, books of travel, rather than novels. Still, he expressed a wish to see The Songs of the Angels, and said that the theme appealed to him.
"Not that I pretend to be a judge of what will sell or not sell," he concluded. "And I seldom pass an opinion upon a manuscript."
"I should be glad to undertake translations," said Mark.