Stephen looked up and saw her face: ‘Never mind,’ she said sharply, ‘it’s all right, Puddle—forget it!’
But Puddle’s eyes filled with tears, and seeing this, Stephen went to her desk. Sitting down she groped for her manuscript: ‘I’m going to turn you out now, I must work. Don’t wait for me if I’m late for dinner.’
Very humbly Puddle crept out of the study.
CHAPTER 29
1
Soon after the New Year, nine months later, Stephen’s second novel was published. It failed to create the sensation that the first had created, there was something disappointing about it. One critic described this as: ‘A lack of grip,’ and his criticism, on the whole, was a fair one. However, the Press was disposed to be kind, remembering the merits of The Furrow.
But the heart of the Author knoweth its own sorrows and is seldom responsive to false consolation, so that when Puddle said: ‘Never mind, Stephen, you can’t expect every book to be The Furrow—and this one is full of literary merit,’ Stephen replied as she turned away: ‘I was writing a novel, my dear, not an essay.’
After this they did not discuss it any more, for what was the use of fruitless discussion? Stephen knew well and Puddle knew also that this book fell far short of its author’s powers. Then suddenly, that spring, Raftery went very lame, and everything else was forgotten.
Raftery was aged, he was now eighteen, so that lameness in him was not easy of healing. His life in a city had tried him sorely, he had missed the light, airy stables of Morton, and the cruel-hard bed that lay under the tan of the Row had jarred his legs badly.
The vet shook his head and looked very grave: ‘He’s an aged horse, you know, and of course in his youth you hunted him pretty freely—it all counts. Every one comes to the end of their tether, Miss Gordon. Yes, at times I’m afraid it is painful.’ Then seeing Stephen’s face: ‘I’m awfully sorry not to give a more cheerful diagnosis.’