't budge?"

"It won't move one, as they say in Fleet Street. The book has
extraordinary beauty."

"Poor duck--after trying so hard!" Jane Highmore sighed with real
tenderness. "What _will_ then become of them?"

I was silent an instant. "You must take your mother."

She was silent too. "I must speak of it to Cecil!" she presently said.
Cecil is Mr. Highmore, who then entertained, I knew, strong views on
the inadjustability of circumstances in general to the idiosyncrasies of
Mrs. Stannace. He held it supremely happy that in an important relation
she should have met her match. Her match was Ray Limbert--not much of a
writer but a practical man. "The dear things still think, you know,"
my companion continued, "that the book will be the beginning of their
fortune. Their illusion, if you're right, will be rudely dispelled."

"That's what makes me dread to face them. I've just spent with his
volumes an unforgettable night. His illusion has lasted because so many
of us have been pledged till this moment to turn our faces the other
way. We haven't known the truth and have therefore had nothing to say.
Now that we do know it indeed we have practically quite as little.
I hang back from the threshold. How can I follow up with a burst of
enthusiasm such a catastrophe as Mr. Bousefield's visit?"

As I turned uneasily about my neighbour more comfortably snuggled.
"Well, I'm glad then I haven't read him and have nothing unpleasant to
say!" We had come back to Limbert's door, and I made the coachman stop
short of it. "But he'll try again, with that determination of his: he'll
build his hopes on the next time."

"On what else has he built them from the very first? It's never the
present for him that bears the fruit; that's always postponed and for
somebody else: there has always to be another try. I admit that his
idea of a 'new line' has made him try harder than ever. It makes no
difference," I brooded, still timorously lingering; "his achievement of
his necessity, his hope of a market will continue to attach themselves
to the future. But the next time will disappoint him as each last time
has done--and then the next and the next and the next!"

I found myself seeing it all with a clearness almost inspired: it
evidently cast a chill on Mrs. Highmore. "Then what on earth will become
of him?" she plaintively asked.

"I don't think I particularly care what may become of _him_," I returned
with a conscious, reckless increase of