t. I have written it only in the hope of making
money, and so helping you. I'll put any name to it you like.'

Tarrant smoked for a minute or two, until his companion gave a sign of
impatience. He wore a very good-humoured look.

'It's more than likely you might get the thing accepted--'

'Oh, then why not?' she interrupted eagerly, with bright eyes.

'Because it isn't literature, but a little bit of Nancy's mind and
heart, not to be profaned by vulgar handling. To sell it for hard cash
would be horrible. Leave that to the poor creatures who have no choice.
You are not obliged to go into the market.'

'But, Lionel, if it is a bit of my mind and heart, it must be a good
book. You have often praised books to me just on that account because
they were genuine.'

'The books I praised were literature. Their authors came into the world
to write. It isn't enough to be genuine; there must be workmanship. Here
and there you have a page of very decent English, and you are nowhere on
the level of the ordinary female novelist. Indeed--don't take it ill--I
was surprised at what you had turned out. But--'

He finished the sentence in smoke wreaths.

'Then I'll try again. I'll do better.'

'Never _much_ better. It will never be literature.'

'What does that matter? I never thought myself a Charlotte Bronte or a
George Eliot. But so many women make money out of novels, and as I
had spare time I didn't see why I shouldn't use it profitably. We want
money, and if it isn't actually disgraceful--and if I don't use my own
name--'

'We don't want money so badly as all that. I am writing, because I must
do something to live by, and I know of nothing else open to me except
pen-work. Whatever trash I turned out, I should be justified; as a man,
it's my duty to join in the rough-and-tumble for more or less dirty
ha'pence. You, as a woman, have no such duty; nay, it's your positive
duty to keep out of the beastly scrimmage.'

'It seemed to me that I was _doing_ something. Why should a woman be
shut out from the life of the world?'

'It seems to me that your part in the life of the world is very
considerable. You have given the world a new inhabitant, and you are
shaping him into a man.'

Nancy laughed, and reflected, and returned to her discontent.

'Oh, every woman can do that.'

'Not one woman in a thousand can bear a sound-bodied child; and not one
in fifty thousand can bring up rightly the child she has borne. Leisure
you m