"No outsider can have any idea," he said languidly, "what wheels within wheels there are in our world." He meant the operatic world, into which he had still to squeeze a foot. "This last season it would have been madness for a new bass to sing in London; he was doomed before he opened his mouth—doomed!" He looked at the ceiling with a meditative smile, as if dwelling upon curiously amusing circumstances. "Very funny!" he added.
Excepting his master, he did not know a professional singer in England, and, whenever a benefit concert was to be given, he would chase the organiser all over the town in hansoms, and telegraph to him for an appointment "on urgent business" in the hope of being allowed to sing. But his assurance was so consummate that—although one was aware he had not yet done anything at all—he almost persuaded one while he talked that he was the pivot round which the musical world revolved. Cæsar excepted, Kent had really no grounds for complaint against the Walfords. The others' queries might worry him, but their cordiality was extreme; and they made Cynthia relate Turquand's opinion of the book—for which no title had been found—again and again. Even the stock-jobber's view that a fort-night's silence was surprising was due to an exaggerated estimate of the author's importance, and Mrs. Walford, when she refrained from giving him advice, appeared to think him a good deal cleverer now that the manuscript was in Messrs. Cousins' hands than she had done while it was lying on his desk. Indeed, there were moments at this stage when his mother-in-law gushed at him with an ardour that reminded him of the early days of his acquaintance with her in Dieppe.
[CHAPTER XI]
"Well, have those publishers of yours made you an offer yet?"
"No, sir; I haven't heard from them."
"You should drop them a line," said Walford irritably. "Damn nonsense! How long have they had the thing now?"
"About three weeks."
"Drop 'em a line! They may keep you waiting a month if you don't wake them up. Don't you think so, Cynthia? He ought to write."
"Oh, I expect we shall have a letter in a day or two, papa. We were afraid you weren't coming round this evening; you're late. How d'ye do, mamma? How d'ye do, Aunt Emily?"