Turquand had just come in.
"It's a wicked price," grunted Turquand; "but I suppose you'll take it if you can't get them to spring?"
"Take it! I could take them to my heart for it! Oh, thank God! I mean it. Yes, it's beggarly, it's awful; but, at any rate, the book 'll see the light. Price? It isn't a price at all, but the thing 'll be published. There's quite enough money for us to live while I'm writing my next, and this will send me to it with double energy. I shall go to Kynaston's to-morrow morning."
He did go, and, though he was less enthusiastic there, his attempt to induce the publisher to increase the terms was but weak. Seven rejections had made a high hand unattainable.
"I got a hundred for my first," he said, "and you offer me forty for my second. It isn't scaling the ladder with rapidity."
"The other was longer, perhaps," suggested Mr. Kynaston, tapping his fingers together pensively—"three volumes?"
"Don't you reckon that this will make three volumes, then?" said Kent.
"Two. It's unfortunately short; that's the only fault I have to find with it. I like it—it's out of the common; but there isn't enough of it." He sighed. "I am sorry that 'forty' is the most I can say. I considered the subject very deeply before I wrote you—very deeply indeed."
His expression implied that he had lain awake all night considering, and that regret at being unable to offer more might even keep him awake again to-night.
He did not disguise his opinion of the novel, however, especially after the matter was settled.