“If you want to know, it was Lucia Harden who sent me your poems,” said she.  And he knew that for once Miss Gurney had betrayed a secret.

He wondered what had made her change her mind.  He wondered whether Lucia had really made a secret of it.  He wondered what the secret had to do with Fielding.  And wondering he went away, envying him the love that kept its own divine fire burning for him on his hearth.

CHAPTER LI

There were times when Rickman, harassed by his engagement, reviewed his literary position with dismay.  Of success as men count success, he had none.  He was recognized as a poet by perhaps a score of people; to a few hundreds he was a mere name in the literary papers; to the great mass of his fellow-countrymen he was not even a name.  He had gone his own way and remained obscure; while his friends, Jewdwine and Maddox, had gone theirs and won for themselves solid reputations.  As for Rankin (turned novelist) he had achieved celebrity.  They had not been able to impart to him the secret of success.  But the recognition and something more than recognition of the veteran poet consoled him for the years of failure, and he felt that he could go through many such on the strength of it.

The incident was so momentous that he was moved to speak of it to Jewdwine and to Maddox.  As everything that interested him interested Maddox, he related it to Maddox in full; but with Jewdwine (such was his exceeding delicacy) he observed a certain modest reticence.  Still there was no diminution in his engaging candour, his innocent assumption that Jewdwine would be as pleased and excited as Maddox and himself.

“He really seemed,” said he, selecting from among Fielding’s utterances, “to think the things were great.”

Jewdwine raised his eyebrows.  “My dear Rickman, I congratulate you.”  He paused for so long that his next remark, thoughtfully produced, seemed to have no reference to Rickman’s communication.  “Fielding is getting very old.”  If Rickman had been in a state of mind to attend carefully to Jewdwine’s manner, he might have gathered that the incident had caused him some uneasiness.

It had indeed provided the editor of The Museion with much matter for disagreeable thought.  As it happened (after months of grave deliberation), he had lately had occasion to form a very definite opinion as to the value of Rickman the journalist.  He knew that Rickman the journalist had no more deadly enemy than Rickman the poet; and at that particular moment he did not greatly care to be reminded of his existence.  Jewdwine’s attitude to Rickman and his confidences was the result of a change in the attitude of The Museion and its proprietors. The Museion was on the eve of a revolution, and to Jewdwine as its editor Rickman the journalist had suddenly become invaluable.