, at all events she made no kind of protest. They no longer
talked of the old subjects, but of those mean concerns of material life
which formerly they had agreed to dismiss as quickly as possible. Their
relations to each other--not long ago an inexhaustible topic--would not
bear spoken comment; both were too conscious of the danger-signal when
they looked that way.

In the time of waiting for the publishers' offer, and now again when he
was asking himself how he should use the respite granted him, Reardon
spent his days at the British Museum. He could not read to much purpose,
but it was better to sit here among strangers than seem to be idling
under Amy's glance. Sick of imaginative writing, he turned to the
studies which had always been most congenial, and tried to shape out a
paper or two like those he had formerly disposed of to editors. Among
his unused material lay a mass of notes he had made in a reading of
Diogenes Laertius, and it seemed to him now that he might make something
salable out of these anecdotes of the philosophers. In a happier mood he
could have written delightfully on such a subject--not learnedly, but in
the strain of a modern man whose humour and sensibility find free play
among the classic ghosts; even now he was able to recover something of
the light touch which had given value to his published essays.

Meanwhile the first number of The Current had appeared, and Jasper
Milvain had made a palpable hit. Amy spoke very often of the article
called 'Typical Readers,' and her interest in its author was freely
manifested. Whenever a mention of Jasper came under her notice she read
it Out to her husband. Reardon smiled and appeared glad, but he did not
care to discuss Milvain with the same frankness as formerly.

One evening at the end of January he told Amy what he had been writing
at the Museum, and asked her if she would care to hear it read.

'I began to wonder what you were doing,' she replied.

'Then why didn't you ask me?'

'I was rather afraid to.'

'Why afraid?'

'It would have seemed like reminding you that--you know what I mean.'

'That a month or two more will see us at the same crisis again. Still, I
had rather you had shown an interest in my doings.'

After a pause Amy asked:

'Do you think you can get a paper of this kind accepted?'

'It isn't impossible. I think it's rather well done. Let me read you a
page--'

'Where will you send it?' she interrupted.

'To The Ways