“I’m much obliged to you, Miss Champion. I believe in Eve Carfax.”
CHAPTER XXV
HUGH MASSINGER, ESQ.
Hugh Massinger, Esq., was a person of some distinction as a novelist, and an æsthetic dabbler in Gothic mysteries. His novel “The Torch Lily” had had a great sale, especially in the United States, where an enthusiastic reviewer had compared it to Flaubert’s “Salambo.” Hugh Massinger had edited “Marie de France” and the “Romance of the Rose,” issued an abridged “Froissart,” and published books on “The Mediæval Colour-sense,” and “The Higher Love of Provence.” His poems, sensuous, Swinburnian fragments, full of purple sunsets and precious stones, roses, red mouths and white bosoms had fascinated some of those erotic and over-civilised youngsters who turn from Kipling as from raw meat.
When Miss Champion offered Eve the post of secretary to Hugh Massinger, she accepted it as a piece of unexpected good fortune, for it seemed to be the very berth that she had hoped for, but feared to get.
Miss Champion said some characteristic things.
“Of course, you know who Mr. Massinger is? Yes. You have read ‘The Torch Lily’? A little bold, but so full of colour. I must warn you that he is just a trifle eccentric. You are to call and see him at ten o’clock to-morrow at his flat in Purbeck Street. The terms are two pounds a week, which, of course, includes my commission.”
“I am very grateful to you, Miss Champion. I hope I shall satisfy Mr. Massinger.”
Miss Champion looked at her meaningly.