The refusal was difficult, and he hesitated how to express himself. He had never contemplated the association as a permanent one, and now that an alternative was open to him, its indignity looked doubly repellant. He was surprised that Mrs. Deane-Pitt expected it to continue. Couldn't she understand that he felt it a humiliation—that he had adopted the course merely as a desperate measure in a desperate case? He had taken her comprehension for granted.
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," he said awkwardly. "It would take me off my own work more than you can imagine. My motive for doing this was to make it possible for me to devote myself heart and soul to a novel; and that is what I want to do."
She looked downcast.
"When do you mean to begin it? You could knock off ten thousand words first, couldn't you? And I believe an occasional short story would come as a relief to you, too! I wouldn't persuade you against your will—pray don't think that—but, as a matter of fact, there is no reason why you shouldn't make a few pounds a week all the time you're writing your book, you know? if you like. I don't want another novel yet, but I can take almost any number of short stories; or, if you preferred it, you might write me a short thing that could be published in paper covers at a shilling. Will you think it over? I don't want to hurry your decision." She hummed a snatch of tune, and picked up a new song that was lying on the piano. "Have you seen this?" she said carelessly. "It's pretty."
Kent took it from her, and played with the leaves in a pause. He was conscious that he must decline now, and definitely, and the insistence of her request made the duty harder every second. Mrs. Deane-Pitt sauntered about the room; she felt blank and annoyed with herself. Was this her reward for liking the man enough to give him two hundred pounds in a lump, instead of paying him by instalments, which would have been infinitely more convenient to her?
"If you won't think me boorish," he said at last abruptly, "I'd rather keep to my intention. I'm not a boy—I need all the time at my disposal to succeed in."
She gave a forced laugh.
"How much younger do you want to be? If the money doesn't attract you, it won't be in your way, I suppose; and—you can do it to oblige me! Come, I'm quite frank! I own that you're very useful to me. You don't mean that you're going to strike and leave me in the lurch?"
The face upturned to him was more earnest than her words. Her brown eyes widened, and fastened on him, and for an instant his resolution broke down. But it was his work, and his ambition, his fidelity to his art, that she was asking him to waive—he would not!
"Nobody so sorry as the 'striker,'" he said, in a tone to match her own. "Let me be your banker when I'm going into a dozen editions, Mrs. Deane-Pitt, and I'll serve you all you want. The service you ask me to-day is just the one I can't do."