"I don't take anything for granted. I never do. I wish you wouldn't either."
"There's one thing, I don't believe that these competitions are ever conducted fairly. I don't see how they can be. I don't see how any man, or any set of men, can wade through a cartload of MSS. in such a manner as to be able to judge, with critical nicety, which is the best one in the truckful. But I'm sure of this, I don't believe that any man sent in a better story than 'The Beggar'—a more original one, I mean. I know the sort of people who enter for these competitions-a lot of wretched amateurs."
She said nothing in reply. What could she say? She knew that it was not only conceit which prompted him to talk like that. She understood quite well the almost anguished longing which filled his heart. Her own heart throbbed pulse for pulse with his.
Returned MSS. seemed to annoy him more than usual. He was case-hardened, as a rule. When they reappeared, he simply packed them up again, and sent them off upon another journey. Especially was he irritated by the return of a MS. which he had sent to The Monthly Magazine.
"I knew that would come back. I see that Philip Ayre has something in this month's number. I don't know who he is. So far as I know, he is the very last discovery. But I believe that that man is destined to be my evil star."
His wife went white to the lips.
"Geoffrey! I wish you wouldn't talk like that. It doesn't sound like you at all."
"I suppose they're quite right in preferring his work to mine, only—" He shrugged his shoulders. "Philippa, I sometimes wish that you were a writer. Then you would understand me better. You would understand what I feel when I see the dream of my life growing dimmer and dimmer, and more dream-like, every day."
Philippa was still.
The day approached on which the conductors of the North British Herald had stated that they would announce the winners in their competition for stories. Geoffrey Ford's anxiety increased to fever heat. His heart stood still every time he heard the postman's knock. His wife knew that it was so, although he did his best to hide how it was with him.