t upon you. Your kindness is
the breath of life to me. Don't refuse it!'

'But I have done nothing of the kind.'

'You begin to speak very coldly. And I understand your feeling of
disappointment. The mere fact of your urging me to do anything that will
sell is a proof of bitter disappointment. You would have looked with
scorn at anyone who talked to me like that two years ago. You were proud
of me because my work wasn't altogether common, and because I had never
written a line that was meant to attract the vulgar. All that's over
now. If you knew how dreadful it is to see that you have lost your hopes
of me!'

'Well, but I haven't--altogether,' Amy replied, meditatively. 'I know
very well that, if you had a lot of money, you would do better things
than ever.'

'Thank you a thousand times for saying that, my dearest.'

'But, you see, we haven't money, and there's little chance of our
getting any. That scrubby old uncle won't leave anything to us; I feel
too sure of it. I often feel disposed to go and beg him on my knees to
think of us in his will.' She laughed. 'I suppose it's impossible, and
would be useless; but I should be capable of it if I knew it would bring
money.'

Reardon said nothing.

'I didn't think so much of money when we were married,' Amy
continued. 'I had never seriously felt the want of it, you know. I did
think--there's no harm in confessing it--that you were sure to be rich
some day; but I should have married you all the same if I had known that
you would win only reputation.'

'You are sure of that?'

'Well, I think so. But I know the value of money better now. I know it
is the most powerful thing in the world. If I had to choose between
a glorious reputation with poverty and a contemptible popularity with
wealth, I should choose the latter.'

'No!'

'I should.'

'Perhaps you are right.'

He turned away with a sigh.

'Yes, you are right. What is reputation? If it is deserved, it
originates with a few score of people among the many millions who would
never have recognised the merit they at last applaud. That's the lot of
a great genius. As for a mediocrity like me--what ludicrous absurdity to
fret myself in the hope that half-a-dozen folks will say I am "above the
average!" After all, is there sillier vanity than this? A year after I
have published my last book, I shall be practically forgotten; ten years
later, I shall be as absolutely forgotten as one of those novelists of
the e