expect it will. I still don't see why it's
not cricket?" (He spoke more warmly now.) "I always warned you that I
couldn't tell you who had written it."

"Bah!" The publisher waved that aside with a smooth fat hand which
left a trail of smoke. "That's always so in the beginning, it's part
of the game, but now it's in my interest, the book's, your friend's,
your own as her adviser--I shall see you're mentioned as discoverer of
the diary's great merits--in everybody's interest...."

Geoffrey Alison stood up abruptly. Each of these points had been
emphasised by that fat hand; the office was the tiniest of rooms; and
he disliked the smell more almost than the taste.

"I'm sorry, Blatchley," he said, as though bored with the whole affair,
"but as I've told you half a dozen times...."

The man of business never fights a losing battle. "Of course, of
course, my dear fellow. I understand. The feeling does you credit.
Don't imagine I'm ungrateful. Not at all." He smoothed him with a
diplomatic hand. His Zoe might write other books.

"Oh no, I don't," said the other dully.

"Look here," the publisher exclaimed, putting his cigar between
protruding lips and drawing a note-book from a no less prominent
waistcoat. "Why not dine with me one night to show there's no
ill-will? I'm sure I owe you some commission! A little dinner
somewhere gay, then the Empire or a supper--well, no details!--but what
of something like that? Monday?"

"Thanks very much," said Geoffrey Alison more warmly. This was the
sort of evening he liked, when some one else would pay. Then,
suspiciously, in the old tones; "So long as you'll swear not to worry
me any more about Zoe."

The publisher seemed hurt at this idea. "My dear fellow," he said,
patting him again upon the back in a most soothing way, "what do you
imagine? Business is business, yes," (he waved the hand once more
expressively around his little office), "but pleasure's pleasure.
Monday then: my flat: at eight."

CHAPTER XX

PLEASURE

Thomas Blatchley (which downright English names his mother and father
did not give him in his baptism) was accustomed to boast that he was
not an old-fashioned publisher. He wished of course to uphold the fine
traditions of literature and so forth, but he believed in modern
methods. He did not see that book-production had any essential
connection with fine-panelled ante-rooms where authors waited in
upholstered pomp. The modern