“Oh!” said Kane, “must you go?”
He kept Ray’s hand affectionately, and seemed loath to part with him. “I’m glad you don’t forget the Hugheses in the good time you’re having. It shows character in you not to mind their queerness; I’m sure you won’t regret it. Your visits are a great comfort to them, I know. I was afraid that you would not get over the disagreeable impression of that first Sunday, and I’ve never been sure that you’d quite forgiven me for taking you.”
“Oh yes, I had,” said Ray, and he smiled with the pleasure we all feel when we have a benefaction attributed to us. “I’ve forgiven you much worse things than that!”
“Indeed! You console me! But for example?”
“Refusing to look at my novel a second time,” answered Ray, by a sudden impulse.
“I don’t understand you,” said Kane, letting his hand go.
“When Mr. Brandreth offered to submit it to you in the forlorn hope that you might like it and commend it.”
“Brandreth never asked me to look at it at all; the only time I saw it was when you let me take it home with me. What do you mean?”
“Mr. Brandreth wrote me saying he wanted to try it on a friend of mine, and it came back the same day with word that my friend had already seen it,” said Ray, in an astonishment which Kane openly shared.
“And was that the reason you were so cold with me for a time? Well, I don’t wonder! You had a right to expect that I would say anything in your behalf under the circumstances. And I’m afraid I should. But I never was tempted. Perhaps Brandreth got frightened and returned the manuscript with that message because he knew he couldn’t trust me.”