manuscript; but the 'galleys' that had never been sent me. The thing was all set up there, and my companion, with eyeglass and thumb, dashed back the sheets and looked up and down for places. The proof-reader, he mentioned, had so waked him up with the blue pencil that he had no difficulty in finding them. They were all in his face when he again looked at me. 'Did you candidly think that we were going to print this?'
All my silly young pride in my performance quivered as if under the lash. 'Why the devil else should I have taken the trouble to write it? If you're not going to print it, why the devil did you ask me for it?'
'I didn't ask you. You proposed it yourself.'
'You jumped at it; you quite agreed you ought to have it: it comes to the same thing. So indeed you ought to have it. It's too ignoble, your not taking up such a man.'
He looked at me hard. I have taken him up. I do want something about him, and I've got his portrait there—coming out beautifully.'
'Do you mean you've taken him up,' I inquired, 'by asking for something of his sister? Why, in that case, do you speak as if I had forced on you the question of a paper? If you want one you want one.'
Mr. Beston continued to sound me. 'How do you know what I've asked of his sister?'
'I know what Miss Delavoy tells me. She let me know it as soon as she had heard from you.'
'Do you mean that you've just seen her?'
'I've not seen her since the time I met you at her house; but I had a note from her yesterday. She couldn't understand your appeal—in the face of knowing what I've done myself.'
Something seemed to tell me at this instant that she had not yet communicated with Mr. Beston, but that he wished me not to know she hadn't. It came out still more in the temper with
