"I heard that Sir Charles Eames is getting tired of it. Says he is running a journal that nobody reads but himself, and he 'don't read it much.' He informed a man in his club, who told it privately to another man, who told it in confidence to a woman who told me—I wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone myself—that 'if the price didn't improve soon he should scratch it.' What will the robin do then, Mr. Kent?"
Humphrey looked grave. This was the first plain intimation he had had that The World and his Wife was likely to collapse, and badly as the post was paying him now, it was more lucrative than any that awaited him. He thought that Mrs. Deane-Pitt might have communicated her news more considerately.
"The robin will manage to find crumbs, I suppose," he said; "I wasn't born on The World and his Wife."
"May I offer you some tea and cake in the meantime?"
"No, thanks."
Her tone annoyed him this afternoon; it was hard and careless. He fancied at the moment that his only feeling for her was dislike, and sneered at the mental absurdities into which he had strayed. There was a lengthy pause—a thing that had seldom occurred between them—followed by platitudes.
"Well," he murmured, getting up, "I'm afraid I must go."
She did not press him to remain.
"Must you?" she said. "I dare say we shall meet again. It's a small world in every sense."
"I hope we shall. Au revoir, and bon voyage, Mrs. Deane-Pitt."