"Oh, well, if it were only a couple of hundred, we shouldn't have to go to the workhouse, you know. If it comes to that, a hundred, the same as I got for the other, would see us through, though of course I wouldn't accept such a price. Don't begin to worry your little head about ways and means on your honeymoon, darling; there's time enough for arithmetic. And it's going to be good work. I've been practical, too. I can end it happily, and retain a conscience. It's almost a different plot from what it was when I began to think, and it's better. It ends well, and it's better—the thing's a Koh-i-noor!"
"Tell me all about it," she suggested.
He complied enthusiastically. She was being very sympathetic, and he felt with perfect momentary content how jolly it was to have a lovely wife and talk over these things with her. Just what he had pictured!
"But wouldn't it be more exciting if you kept that a mystery till the third volume?" she said, at the end of five minutes.
It was as if she had thrown a bucket of ice-water on his animation.
"I don't want it to be a mystery," he said. "That isn't the aim at all. What I mean to do is to analyse the woman's sensations when she learns it. I want to show how she feels and suffers; yes, and the temptation that she wrestles with, and loathes herself for being too weak to put aside. Don't you see—don't you see?"
She was chiefly sensible that his pleasure had vanished and that the note of interest in his voice had died. She, however, repeated her suggestion; to be a literary critic, she must be prepared to maintain her views!
"I think all that would be much duller than if you had the surprise," she declared.
He did not argue—he did not attempt to demonstrate that her suggestion amounted to proposing that he should write quite another story than the one he was talking about; he felt hopelessly that argument would be waste of time.
"Perhaps you are right," he said; "but one does what one can."