“But still, Mr. Wittekind,” Doria urged, “an edition de luxe would be such a beautiful monument to him.  I don’t care a bit about the money,” she went on with a splendid disregard of her rights that would have sent a shiver down the incorporated back of the Incorporated Society of Authors, “I’m only too willing to contribute towards the expense.  Please understand me.  It’s a tribute and a monument.”

“You only put up monuments to those who are dead,” said Wittekind.

“But my husband—­”

“—­isn’t dead,” said he.

“Oh!” said Doria.  “Then—­”

“The time for your edition de luxe is not yet.”

“Yet?  But—­you don’t think Adrian’s work is going to die?”

She looked at him tragically.  He reassured her.

“Certainly not.  Our future sumptuous edition will be a sign that he is among the immortals.  But an edition de luxe now would be a wanton Hic jacet.”

All of this may have been a bit sophistical, but it was sound business from the publisher’s point of view, and conveyed through the medium of Wittekind’s unaffected urbanity it convinced Doria.  I listened to her account of it with a new moon of a smile across my soul—­or across whatever part of oneself one smiles with when one’s face is constrained to immobility.

“I’m so glad I plucked up courage to come and see you, Mr. Wittekind,” she said.  “I feel much happier.  I’m quite content to leave Adrian’s reputation in your hands.  I wish, indeed, I had come to see you before.”  “I wish you had,” said he.

“Mr. Chayne has been most kind; but—­”

“Jaffery Chayne isn’t you,” he laughed.  “But all the same, he’s a splendid fellow and an admirable man of business.”

“In what way?” she asked, rather coldly.

“Well—­so prompt.”

“That’s the very last word I should apply to him.  He took an unconscionable time,” said Doria.

“He had a very difficult and delicate work of revision to do.  Your husband’s work was a first draft.  The novel had to be pulled together.  He did it admirably.  That sort of thing takes time, although it was a labour of love.”

“It merely meant writing in bits of scenes.  Oh, Mr. Wittekind,” she cried, reverting to an old grievance, “I do wish I could see exactly what he wrote and what Adrian wrote.  I’ve been so worried!  Why do your printers destroy authors’ manuscripts?”

“They don’t,” said Wittekind.  “They don’t get them nowadays.  They print from a typed copy.”

“‘The Greater Glory’ was printed from my husband’s original manuscript.”

Wittekind smiled and shook his head.  “No, my dear Mrs. Boldero.  From two typed copies—­one in England and one in America.”

“Mr. Chayne told me that in order to save time he sent you Adrian’s original manuscript with his revisions.”

“I’m sure you must have misunderstood him,” said Wittekind.  “I read the typescript myself.  I’ve never seen a line of your husband’s manuscript.”