"What?" she ejaculated.
"Oh, Humphrey!" he heard Cynthia gasp; and then there were seconds in which he was conscious that everyone was staring at him, seconds in which he would have paid heavily to be in the room alone. That the book might be refused, after such reviews as had been written of his last, was a calamity that he had never contemplated, and he was overwhelmed. When he had been despondent he had imagined the publishers proposing to pay a couple of hundred pounds for it; when he had been gloomier still, he had fancied that the sum would be a hundred and fifty; in moments of profound depression he had even groaned, "I shan't get a shilling more for it than I did for the other one!" But to be rejected, "declined with thanks," was a shock for which he was wholly unprepared. It almost dazed him.
"What do you mean?" demanded Sam Walford, breaking the silence angrily. "Not accepting it? But—but—this is a fine sort of thing! It takes you a year to write, and then they don't accept it. A damn good business you're in, upon my word!"
"Hush, Sam!" said Mrs. Walford. "What do they say? what reason do they give? Let me look!"
Kent handed the letter to her mutely, his wife watching him with startled, pitying eyes, and she read it aloud:
"'DEAR SIR,
"'We are obliged by the kind offer of your MS., to which our most careful consideration has been given.'"
"Been better if they'd considered it a little less!" grunted Walford.
"'We regret to say, however, that, in view of our reader's report, we are reluctantly forced to decide that the construction of the story precludes any hope of its succeeding. The faults seem inherent to the story, and irremediable, and we are therefore returning the MS. to you to-day, with our compliments and thanks.'"
"Ha, ha!" said Kent wildly; "they return it with their compliments!"
"I don't see anything to laugh at!" said his mother-in-law with temper; "I call it dreadful. Anything but funny, I'm sure!"