empt like that would only make detection
certain--and far worse.

To her relief it was not Hubert, only Mr. Alison, with Lily holding the
door open. She would not so much mind his knowing--he was so
encouraging--supposing that he noticed.

And this of course he promptly did.

"Hullo!" was in fact his very first remark. "Are you too among the
authors?" He waved his hand towards the little pile of manuscript that
should have been inside a drawer.

"Yes," she said, hoping that she was not blushing. "But not too loud
as it's an awful secret. Hubert doesn't know."

He tip-toed at it with exaggerated caution. "Oh-ho!" he whispered.
"Then I guess: it's all about him! It is a safety-valve."

This was a little joke: they were devoted, he knew, though he could
never understand what she saw in the great, conceited, selfish brute:
but Helena felt sure now that the blush was there.

"No," she was bound to answer, and when he asked, "Fiction?" in
surprise, it must be "Yes." And so it was, by now, she argued. A
safety-valve at first perhaps, because Hugh seemed to loathe her having
even the most usual ideas, but fiction certainly by now, for the ideas
of Virginia were not her own ideas; the silly, sloppy thing!

"I'm going to read it please," he said and began collecting the loose
pages (the book had long ago been cast aside).

"Certainly not," she answered, very dignified, and trying to forget
that they were the words of a comic song she had heard on the
gramophone.

"Oh, but yes," he answered.

"Give it to me," she said, turning now to melodrama for her
catch-phrase.

He held the prize by sitting on it. "Listen," he began, as staidly
argumentative as though he had been drunk: and then he paused. "If you
let me read it," he said presently, "I'll tell you what I think of it
and I bet it's original. If you don't let me read it, I shall
tell--your husband!"

"You wouldn't be such a cad," she answered. She never knew when he was
serious, because he often looked most funny then.

"I'm not so sure," he said. "Anyhow let me? I'll begin to-night."

"You won't do that," she retorted laughingly, "because the first bit's
in a volume, locked away upstairs."

He whistled. "What! An opus? Tut! Now don't be selfish. When you
first wanted to know about Art, I told you all I could, and now you're
doing things, I think it's only fair that I should be the first to see."

He looked so funny, leaning forward eage