"I remember," she cried, uttering the title triumphantly; "I read it. What grand reviews you had! Of course, I know now. I liked your book extremely, Mr. Kent. 'Humphrey Kent,' isn't it?"
"Thank you," he said. "Yes, 'Humphrey Kent.'"
"And you go in for journalism, too, eh?"
"Oh, this is a departure. I was never on a paper till lately."
"Really!" she exclaimed. "You aren't giving fiction up?"
"I'm pot-boiling, Mrs. Deane-Pitt. Do you think it very inartistic of me?"
"Don't!" she said. "Inartistic! I hate that cant. There are papers that are always calling me inartistic. One's got to live. Oh, I admire the people who can put up with West Kensington and take three years to write a novel, but their altitude is beyond me. I write to sell, moi —though you needn't put that in the interview. But I shouldn't have thought you'd have any trouble in placing your books—you oughtn't to to-day! I expect you've been too 'literary'—you'll grow out of it."
"You don't believe in——"
"I'm a practical woman. The public read to be amused, and the publishers want what the public will read, good, bad, or rotten; that's my view. You mustn't make me say these things, though," she broke off, laughing, and getting up; "it's most indiscreet—to a Pressman.... I shall send you a copy of Thy Neighbour's Husband—to a colleague. Good-afternoon, Mr. Kent. I'll leave you to go on with your work now. Pray don't look so relieved."
"I should value the copy ever so much," he said. "It was anything but relief—I was struggling to conceal despair."