se, had held her back, and
now she was glad; for that once said, it would have been too late. She
felt that Ruth had spoken truly: he never could have cared for her
again.

Poor old Hugh!

Buoyed by this feeling, crushing under it all others, she went to her
bureau and unlocked the drawer where she kept her secret manuscript.
There were three chapters. She would destroy them before her mood
changed. Then she would go to him and say that he was right, she was
not clever in the way that he was--she was an amateur. He would take
days perhaps, yes even weeks, before he could forgive her quite; but it
was as Ruth had just said. The rivalry gone, he would soon learn to
bear the rest. He would have won back his self-sufficiency, ... poor
Hugh!

She took out the written sheets with all the feelings of a mother who
sacrifices her own son, touching them gently as if even in this last
hour they had been something sacred.

Then--weak if you will, but do not be too hard upon
the-Mother-soul--then she began to read.... just a few sentences.

And as she read, the whole thing leapt to instant life; began to grow,
as poor Virginia had grown. She saw the painter, strong in a way--not
Geoffrey Alison at all--but with a fatal vanity. Yes, that would be
his fall, of course. He would be all right with the women he admired;
there were so many, he was safe enough: but when he met the woman who
admired him----!

She had not thought of it like that before. She did not know where the
idea had come from now. Before it went she hurriedly seized up her
pen, to add a note to the confused synopsis.

Then she remembered.

What was the use if she was just going to destroy it?

If----!

And its constant sequel: Why?

_Why_ should she destroy her work?

It was her work no less than Hubert's work was his, however much more
easily she worked. That hers came to her brain, she knew not whence,
whilst he hammered out his from formulae, was very likely nothing much
against it.

Why had he said this second book would never sell? It interested her:
why should it not interest others? How could he possibly know, when he
had never seen it?

It was mere jealousy of course.

Ruth had said practically that. She had said that he could not endure
rivalry; he must be supreme, if only in a little house. He knew that
her book had sold better, ever so much better than any of his own, and
that was what he really minded. Yes, she saw it a