“I have heard somewhere,” she mused, “or perhaps I read it on the newspaper, that men of genius make the very worst husbands, and a woman must be out of her senses to marry one.”

Again Palmerston’s face fell.  “I mayn’t be one after all,” he protested, but not very hopefully.

“Oh yes, I am sure you are!  And, what’s more, if you make a hit, as they say, I don’t know but I might overlook it and take the risk.  You see, I’m accustomed to living with Mr Rogers, who is bound to go to hell and that might turn out to be a sort of practice.”

The boy stood silent, rubbing his head.  He wanted time to think this out.  Such an altered face do our ambitions present to most of us as they draw closer, nearer to our grasp!

Suddenly Fancy clapped her hands.  “Why, of course!” she cried.  “I always had an idea, somewhere inside o’ me, that I’d be a lady one of these days—­very important and covered all over with di’monds, so that all the other women would envy me.  You know that feelin’?”

“No-o,” confessed Palmerston.

“You would if you were a woman.  But, contrariwise, what I like almost better is keepin’ shop—­postin’ up ledgers, makin’ out bills, to account rendered, second application, which doubtless has escaped your notice, and all that sort of thing.  I saw a shop in Plymouth once with young women by the dozen sittin’ at desks, and when they pulled a string little balls came rollin’ towards them over on their heads like the stars in heaven, all full of cash; and they’d open one o’ these balls and hand you out your change just as calm and scornful as if they were angels and you the dirt beneath their feet.  You can’t think how I longed to be one o’ them and behave like that.  But the two things didn’t seem to go together.”

“What two things?”

“Why, sittin’ at a desk like that and sittin’ on a sofa and sayin’ ’How d’e do, my dear?  It’s so good of you to call in this dreadful weather, especially as you have to hire. . . .’  But now,” said Fancy, clasping her hands, “I see my way:  that is, if you’re really a genius.  You shall write your books and I’ll sell them. ’Mr and Mrs Palmerston Burt, Author and—­what’s the word?—­pub—­publicans—­no, publisher; Author and Publisher.’  It’s quite the highest class of business:  and if any one tried to patronise me I could always explain that I just did it to help, you bein’ a child in matters of business.  Geniuses are mostly like that.”

“Are they?”

“Yes, that’s another of their drawbacks.  And,” continued Fancy, “you’d be a celebrity of course, which means that we should be in the magazines, with pictures—­A Corner of the Library, and The Rose-garden, looking West, and Mrs Palmerston Burt is not above playing with the Baby, and you with your favourite dog—­for we’d have both, by that time.  Oh, Pammy, where is the book?”

“Upstairs, mostly, but I got a couple o’ chapters upon me—­” Palmerston tapped his breast-pocket—­“If you really mean as you’d like—­” He hesitated, his colour changing from red to white.  Here, on the point of proving it, the poor boy feared his fate too much.