For a few seconds Mrs. Damerel bore the astonished gaze of her admirer, then, her expression scarcely changing, she walked steadily to the door and vanished.  The silence was prolonged till broken by Beatrice’s laugh.

’Has she been bamboozling you, old man?  I didn’t know what was going on.  You had bad luck with the daughter; shouldn’t wonder if the mother would suit you better, all said and done.’

Crewe seated himself and gave vent to his feelings in a phrase of pure soliloquy:  ‘Well, I’m damned!’

’I cut in just at the right time, did I?—­No malice.  I’ve had my hit back at her, and that’s enough.’

As the man of business remained absorbed in his thoughts, Beatrice took a chair.  Presently he looked up at her, and said savagely: 

‘What the devil do you want?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then take it and go.’

But Beatrice smiled, and kept her seat.

CHAPTER 5

Nancy stood before her husband with a substantial packet in brown paper.  It was after breakfast, at the moment of their parting.

’Here is something I want you to take, and look at, and speak about the next time you come.’

‘Ho, ho!  I don’t like the look of it.’  He felt the packet.  ’Several quires of paper here.’

‘Be off, or you’ll miss the train.’

‘Poor little girl! Et tu!’

He kissed her affectionately, and went his way.  In the ordinary course of things Nancy would not have seen him again for ten days or a fortnight.  She expected a letter very soon, but on the fourth evening Tarrant’s fingers tapped at the window-pane.  In his hand was the brown paper parcel, done up as when he received it.

Nancy searched his face, her own perturbed and pallid.

‘How long have you been working at this?’

’Nearly a year.  But not every day, of course.  Sometimes for a week or more I could get no time.  You think it bad?’

’No,’—­puff—­’not in any sense’—­puff—­’bad.  In one sense, it’s good.  But’—­puff—­’that’s a private sense; a domestic sense.’

‘The question is, dear, can it be sold to a publisher.’

’The question is nothing of the kind.  You mustn’t even try to sell it to a publisher.’

’Why not?  You mean you would be ashamed if it came out.  But I shouldn’t put my own name to it.  I have written it only in the hope of making money, and so helping you.  I’ll put any name to it you like.’

Tarrant smoked for a minute or two, until his companion gave a sign of impatience.  He wore a very good-humoured look.

‘It’s more than likely you might get the thing accepted—­’

‘Oh, then why not?’ she interrupted eagerly, with bright eyes.

’Because it isn’t literature, but a little bit of Nancy’s mind and heart, not to be profaned by vulgar handling.  To sell it for hard cash would be horrible.  Leave that to the poor creatures who have no choice.  You are not obliged to go into the market.’