h regard to your literary work. [_Turning to him._] _Ne voyez-vous
pas!_ I have begun to degrade you already!

PHILIP.

[_Consciously._] Degrade me?

OTTOLINE.

Degrade you. If I hadn't come into your life again, you would have
accepted your reverse--your failure to gain popularity by your latest
book--as you've accepted similar disappointments--with a shrug and a
confident snap of your fingers. [_Advancing._] But I've humbled
you--bruised your spirit--shaken your courage; and now you express your
willingness--_you!_--to throw your pen aside, and tack yourself to my
skirts, and to figure meekly for the rest of your existence as "Mrs.
Mackworth's husband"! [_At the nearer end of the writing-table._] _Mon
Dieu!_ This is what I have brought you to!

PHILIP.

[_Biting his lip._] You--you wouldn't have me profit by the
advertisement I've got out of "The Big Drum," Ottoline--[_ironically_]
the finest advertisement I could wish for, according to Robbie! You
wouldn't have me sink as low as that?

OTTOLINE.

You can write under an alias--a _nom de plume_--until you've won your
proper place----

PHILIP.

[_Uneasily._] Oh, well--perhaps--by-and-by--when we had settled down,
you and I--and things had adjusted themselves----

OTTOLINE.

Yes, when you'd grown sick and weary of your new environment, and had
had time to reflect on the horrid trick I'd employed to get hold of
you, and had learned to despise me for it, you'd creep back to your
desk and make an effort to pick up the broken threads! [_Coming to the
settee on the right._] _Eh bien!_ Do you know what would happen _then_,
Phil?

PHILIP.

W-w-what?

OTTOLINE.

[_Intensely._] I should _puff_ you, under the rose--quietly pull the
strings--use all the influence I could rake up----

PHILIP.

No, no----

OTTOLINE.

I should. It's in my blood. I couldn't resist it. Whether you wrote as
Jones, or Smith, or Robinson, you'd find Jones, Smith, or Robinson
artfully puffed and paragraphed and thrust under people's noses in the
papers. I'm an incurably vulgar woman, I tell you! [_Snatching at her
coat--harshly._] _Ah, que je me connais; que je me connais!_