omething of a friend of Corvick's, yet had only within a few weeks made
the acquaintance of his widow. I had had an early copy of the book, but
Deane had evidently had an earlier. He lacked all the same the light
hand with which Corvick had gilded the gingerbread--he laid on the
tinsel in splotches.

X

Six months later appeared "The Right of Way," the last chance, though we
didn't know it, that we were to have to redeem ourselves. Written wholly
during Vereker's absence, the book had been heralded, in a hundred
paragraphs, by the usual ineptitudes. I carried it, as early a copy as
any, I this time flattered myself, straightway to Mrs. Corvick. This was
the only use I had for it; I left the inevitable tribute of _The Middle_
to some more ingenious mind and some less irritated temper. "But I
already have it," Gwendolen said. "Drayton Deane was so good as to bring
it to me yesterday, and I've just finished it."

"Yesterday? How did he get it so soon?"

"He gets everything soon. He's to review it in _The Middle_."

"He--Drayton Deane--review Vereker?" I couldn't believe my ears.

"Why not? One fine ignorance is as good as another."

I winced, but I presently said: "You ought to review him yourself!"

"I don't 'review,'" she laughed. "I'm reviewed!"

Just then the door was thrown open. "Ah yes, here's your reviewer!"
Drayton Deane was there with his long legs and his tall forehead: he had
come to see what she thought of "The Right of Way," and to bring news
which was singularly relevant. The evening papers were just out with a
telegram on the author of that work, who, in Rome, had been ill for some
days with an attack of malarial fever. It had at first not been thought
grave, but had taken in consequence of complications a turn that might
give rise to anxiety. Anxiety had indeed at the latest hour begun to be
felt.

I was struck in the presence of these tidings with the fundamental
detachment that Mrs. Cor-vick's public regret quite failed to conceal:
it gave me the measure of her consummate independence. That independence
rested on her knowledge, the knowledge which nothing now could destroy
and which nothing could make different. The figure in the carpet might
take on another twist or two, but the sentence had virtually been
written. The writer might go down to his grave: she was the person in
the world to whom--as if she had been his favoured heir--his continued
existence was least of a need. This remind