"A crushing blow, indeed," said Spencer sympathetically.
"I then turned to writing. Here, at any rate, was a profession that required no previous painful training, only powers of observation, some imagination, and a certain fluency of expression. I wrote some short stories which I thought good, which I still think good. History repeated itself. I sent them to a dozen editors, one after another. In every case, they were declined with thanks."
"I daresay they were quite good, and they were not taken because you didn't happen to be in the ring," was Spencer's consoling comment.
"Well," she exclaimed brightly, "there is an end of my reminiscences for to-day. Let us talk of anything and everything else. Have you seen Mr. Esmond lately? He has not been near us since the night he came with you."
Shortly afterwards he took his leave, he had stayed unconsciously long as it was.
"I shall come again soon, if I may, to listen to some more reminiscences," he said, as he shook hands. And she had given him permission, with the brightest of smiles.
He had not learned half as much as he wanted, but he had gathered something. The bounder cousin was the son of a self-made man, a parvenu. And Stella Keane was not absolutely penniless, she had enough money to buy herself clothes. Did Tommy Esmond know as much as this? And if he did, why had he not said so?