d out with something between suspicion and alarm upon his
worried features.

Geoffrey Alison instinctively took a step backward.

The owner of the house, however, merely looked at him as though he had
been dirt.

"Oh, it's you, Alison," he said, not holding out his hand; and then
with an obvious sneer, "As busy as ever?" With which he put his head
back and promptly shut the door. He might have acted thus if it had
been the plumber--and he had wanted to change plumbers.

The other, naturally upset, poured this out instantly to Helena.

"Just like him, isn't it?" he said.

Helena would not be drawn to disloyalty, even about trifles.

"Hugh's such a worker," she said. "He thinks of nothing but his
writing."

The artist, who was never busy, snorted. "He certainly does not think
much about his wife," he answered. Extraordinary how a hog like Brett
could keep the respect of a dear little girl like this!

"Well, what news have _you_ got?" she enquired, to change the subject.

That reminded him. That scene with the great beast Brett had quite
thrown the good news out of his head; but now, remembering, he won back
his complacency.

"Capital!" he said, sitting down happily and pulling up his trousers to
show light grey socks. Life was itself again. "Couldn't be better.
What do you think? Guess."

"It might be anything at all, you see," she said with desolating common
sense. "I never guess; it's only wasting time; so tell me."

"Well," began Geoffrey Alison, a little crushed, "I called along
yesterday, after our talk, to tell Blatchley he had acted like a common
cad."

"I don't see that's so very splendid," she objected. "You might have
done it sooner, and anyhow he must have known that all the time. He
only did it to get money, and he's getting it."

The other sighed, such a sigh as man has ever sighed when arguing with
woman.

"You women _will_ interrupt," he said loftily. Yes, they were quite on
their old terms again.... "If you would only let me finish, I was
going to tell you that he said he knew he had acted too hastily but
that he hoped you would believe--and then he told a pack of lies, but
here's the point." He spoke impressively. "If you'll let him have the
new book, he'll pay you two hundred pounds down, only as a first dab of
the royalties of course, and boom it better than ever, and he
guarantees a still greater success, providing it's one half as good.
So there, Miss Zoe, what do