Mayne continued to occupy himself with his fishing-tackle, as, during his restless pacing to and fro in his study, Kingslake could see. Presently he opened the French window and stepped out onto the grass. Mayne looked up from his work. The bench on which he was sitting was flanked by a wall of yew, which made part of a formal enclosure framed on three sides by yew hedges, and open, on the fourth, to the rest of the garden only by a narrow archway cut out of the living green. It was a charming, sheltered little spot, where Cecily’s white lilies flourished; a sort of dedication, she said, to the larger garden outside.
“Holloa!” observed Mayne, as Kingslake came nearer. “Knocked off for the day? Is the muse coy?”
“Yes,” returned Robert, rather irritably. “I’m not getting on. Change of place, I suppose. Anything like that affects me.” He took out his cigarette-case.
“Delicate machinery you writing people must have. Something’s always going wrong with the works, isn’t it?”
“Oh, more or less,” Robert returned, passing his hand through his hair with a gesture habitual to him.
“You’ve been working in town lately, haven’t you?”
“Yes, getting up stuff for this book. But that’s finished. Now there’s only the writing.”
“Good Lord!” ejaculated Mayne, with a groan. “Only the writing! The mere thought of it makes me gasp.”
Robert smiled. “I can’t tie flies,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of Mayne’s litter of silk and tinsel.
“No, but you land your fish with the best of us.... That last book of yours caught on, didn’t it?”