"Well, I'll make money for you some other way. Leave it to me, Eleanor, I'm pretty confident about myself. I feel convinced that the play and the novel will be successful financially as well as artistically. I've always been confident about myself!"
"Yes."
"And I feel quite confident about this. So don't worry your head any more like a good girl!"
The receipt of the proofs and the excitement of correcting them caused Eleanor to forget her anxiety about their finances. John and she sat in front of the fire, she with one batch of galley sheets in her lap, he with another; and he read the story to her, correcting misprints and making alterations as he went along, while she copied the corrections on to her proofs.
"Do you like it?" he asked, eager for her praise.
"Yes," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder, "I do like it. It's ... it's quite good, isn't it?"
He imagined that there was a note of dubiety in her voice, but he did not press her for greater praise, and they finished the correction of the proofs and sent them to Mr. Claude Jannissary as quickly as they could.
"What does it feel like to have written a book?" Eleanor said to him when the proofs had been dispatched.
"Fine," he replied. "I wish my Uncle Matthew were alive. He'd feel very proud of me!"
"I'm proud of you," she said, drawing nearer to him.