ged outrageous prices.
She improved visibly from day to day, until Martin wondered if he was
doing right, for he knew that all her compliance and endeavor was for his
sake. She was trying to make herself of worth in his eyes--of the sort
of worth he seemed to value. Yet he gave her no hope, treating her in
brotherly fashion and rarely seeing her.

"Overdue" was rushed upon the market by the Meredith-Lowell Company in
the height of his popularity, and being fiction, in point of sales it
made even a bigger strike than "The Shame of the Sun." Week after week
his was the credit of the unprecedented performance of having two books
at the head of the list of best-sellers. Not only did the story take
with the fiction-readers, but those who read "The Shame of the Sun" with
avidity were likewise attracted to the sea-story by the cosmic grasp of
mastery with which he had handled it. First he had attacked the
literature of mysticism, and had done it exceeding well; and, next, he
had successfully supplied the very literature he had exposited, thus
proving himself to be that rare genius, a critic and a creator in one.

Money poured in on him, fame poured in on him; he flashed, comet-like,
through the world of literature, and he was more amused than interested
by the stir he was making. One thing was puzzling him, a little thing
that would have puzzled the world had it known. But the world would have
puzzled over his bepuzzlement rather than over the little thing that to
him loomed gigantic. Judge Blount invited him to dinner. That was the
little thing, or the beginning of the little thing, that was soon to
become the big thing. He had insulted Judge Blount, treated him
abominably, and Judge Blount, meeting him on the street, invited him to
dinner. Martin bethought himself of the numerous occasions on which he
had met Judge Blount at the Morses' and when Judge Blount had not invited
him to dinner. Why had he not invited him to dinner then? he asked
himself. He had not changed. He was the same Martin Eden. What made
the difference? The fact that the stuff he had written had appeared
inside the covers of books? But it was work performed. It was not
something he had done since. It was achievement accomplished at the very
time Judge Blount was sharing this general view and sneering at his
Spencer and his intellect. Therefore it was not for any real value, but
for a purely fictitious value that Judge Blount invited him