'On the condition that he was to bring it out himself if he pleased, under his own name.'
'Oh! but this is monstrous! Can there be,' asked Armorel, thinking of the pictures, 'two such men in London?'
'If I would let him call it his own! He wants to take my play—mine—to do what he likes with it—to bring it out as if it was his own! Never! Never! I would rather starve first.'
'What did you tell him?'
'He said that he would wait for an answer. I have sent him none as yet.'
'When you do,' said Armorel, 'let there be no hesitation or possibility of mistaking. Oh! If I could tell you a thing that I know!'
'I will put it quite plainly. Effie, am I the same man? I feel transformed. What a difference it makes only to think that, perhaps, after all one is not such a dreadful failure!' In fact, he looked transformed. The trouble had gone out of him—out of his face—out of his hair—out of his clothes—out of his attitude. Armorel even fancied that his limp, day-before-yesterday's collar had become white and starched again. That may have been mere fancy, but joy certainly produces very strange effects.
'I would have sent an answer before,' he said, 'but it is so unlucky for Effie. This great man—this critic—is the only editor who would ever take her verses. And now, of course, he will be offended, and will never take any more.'
'He shall not have any more,' said Effie, with red cheeks.
'Oh! But that would be horribly mean. Well, Archie, I will begin by taking advice. I know a dramatic critic—his name is Stephenson. I will ask him what you should do next, and I will ask him about your verses, Effie, too—those verses which you are always going to show me.'