an, except those sold before
publication and I never understand quite how that happens."

"Then I expect it's good," said Geoffrey Alison a trifle cheaply.

Helena replied with emphasis, as though rebutting a grave charge.
"_No_, not at all. That's just it: it's much worse than his other
ones. He's in an awful way. I don't believe he's sold a thousand
copies!"

"My dear Mrs. Brett," he said (he always hated calling her that, but he
dared not embark on "Helena"), "comfort yourself with the idea that a
thousand copies is a very good sale for any decent novel. Each copy,
after all, is read by twenty people in these days of libraries, so that
means twenty thousand readers. Of course if Hubert wrote for
shop-girls, he might find a million: but do you think that any really
serious study of real life--the sort of book that simply gets at
character and doesn't fuss with plot: the real, artistic novel--is
going to find more than twenty thousand people in dull old England who
can understand it? And that's your thousand-copy sale! I don't mind
betting no really 'artistic' novel--it's a beastly word--ever sells
more than that."

His one idea in all this had been to console her, for he guessed a
little what it meant when Hubert Brett was "in an awful way"; but now
she seemed if anything more troubled. She sat in dazed silence,
looking like a small child who has seen something which it absolutely
cannot understand at all.

"But _Wandering Stars_," she said presently, "I've often heard, sold
quite five thousand."

"Oh yes, I dare say," came the unthinking answer. Had she forgotten
about her MS.?

"Well, wasn't that artistic?" There was a note of battle in her voice.

He saw now where he had drifted. "Oh yes," he began. "But not quite
in the way I meant. That was a good story, very, and was popular. I
meant, really, quite a different sort of book." He floundered in
excuses.

"What sort?" she asked pitilessly. "Better ones?"

"Oh no," he said, more and more embarrassed. "Not that exactly. You
can't say that. You can't compare different kinds in Art. You've got
to judge a man by his success in what he has attempted. A good
caricature is much better than a bad Madonna," and firmly upon Art with
the feeling of a mariner safe in port after a storm, he drew her mind
away--or so he thought, this man who knew so little about women--and
after a while, sooner than usual, made his excuses and departed.

Outside