"Yes; my editor, Mr. Anderson, is so pleased with your second story, 'The Judas Tree,' that he is going to raise his terms. You are to receive three guineas a thousand words for your manuscript. It is, I think, exactly six thousand words in length. He has asked me to hand you a cheque to-night. Will you accept it?"
As Franks spoke, he took out his pocket-book and handed Florence a cheque for eighteen guineas.
"You will be a rich girl before long," he said.
"It seems like it," she answered. She glanced at the cheque without any additional colour coming to her face, and laid it quietly on a little table by her side.
"And now, Miss Aylmer, there is something I specially want you to do for me. I hope you will not refuse it."
"I will certainly do what I can," she answered.
"It is this. The Argonaut is, of course, our monthly magazine. It holds the very first position amongst the six-pennies, and has, as you doubtless know, an enormous circulation. You will very soon be the fashion. We are about to issue a weekly paper, a sort of review. We trust it will eclipse even the Spectator and the Saturday, and we want a paper from your pen. We want it to be on a special subject—a subject which is likely to cause attention. Can you and will you do it? Anderson begged of me to put the question to you, and I do so also on my own account."
"But what subject do you want me to write upon?" said Florence, feeling sick and faint, and yet not knowing at first how to reply.
"The subject is to be about women as they are. They are coming to the front, and I want you to talk about them just as you please. You may be satirical or not, as it strikes your fancy. I want you in especial to attack them with regard to the æsthetic craze which is so much in fashion now. If you like to show them that they look absolutely foolish in their greenery-yallery gowns, and their hair done up in a wisp, and all the rest of the thing, why, do so; then you can throw in a note about a girl like my sister."
"Oh, come!" exclaimed Edith, from her distant table, "that would be horribly unfair."