“I suppose so. I don’t know how much it takes to fill a book.”
“Not love-letters, you say?”
“Why?” flashed from Glennard.
“Oh, nothing–only the big public is sentimental, and if they WERE–why, you could get any money for Margaret Aubyn’s love- letters.”
Glennard was silent.
“Are the letters interesting in themselves? I mean apart from the association with her name?”
“I’m no judge.” Glennard took up his hat and thrust himself into his overcoat. “I dare say I sha’n’t do anything about it. And, Flamel–you won’t mention this to anyone?”
“Lord, no. Well, I congratulate you. You’ve got a big thing.” Flamel was smiling at him from the hearth.
Glennard, on the threshold, forced a response to the smile, while he questioned with loitering indifference–“Financially, eh?”
“Rather; I should say so.”
Glennard’s hand lingered on the knob. “How much–should you say? You know about such things.”
“Oh, I should have to see the letters; but I should say–well, if you’ve got enough to fill a book and they’re fairly readable, and the book is brought out at the right time–say ten thousand down from the publisher, and possibly one or two more in royalties. If you got the publishers bidding against each other you might do even better; but of course I’m talking in the dark.”
“Of course,” said Glennard, with sudden dizziness. His hand had slipped from the knob and he stood staring down at the exotic spirals of the Persian rug beneath his feet.
“I’d have to see the letters,” Flamel repeated.
“Of course–you’d have to see them. . . .” Glennard stammered; and, without turning, he flung over his shoulder an inarticulate “Good-by. . . .”
Chapter V
The little house, as Glennard strolled up to it between the trees, seemed no more than a gay tent pitched against the sunshine. It had the crispness of a freshly starched summer gown, and the geraniums on the veranda bloomed as simultaneously as the flowers in a bonnet. The garden was prospering absurdly. Seed they had sown at random–amid laughing counter-charges of incompetence–had shot up in fragrant defiance of their blunders. He smiled to see the clematis unfolding its punctual wings about the porch. The tiny lawn was smooth as a shaven cheek, and a crimson rambler mounted to the nursery-window of a baby who never cried. A breeze shook the awning above the tea-table, and his wife, as he drew near, could be seen bending above a kettle that was just about to boil. So vividly did the whole scene suggest the painted bliss of a stage setting, that it would have been hardly surprising to see her step forward among the flowers and trill out her virtuous happiness from the veranda-rail.
The stale heat of the long day in town, the dusty promiscuity of the suburban train were now but the requisite foil to an evening of scented breezes and tranquil talk. They had been married more than a year, and each home-coming still reflected the freshness of their first day together. If, indeed, their happiness had a flaw, it was in resembling too closely the bright impermanence of their surroundings. Their love as yet was but the gay tent of holiday- makers.
His wife looked up with a smile. The country life suited her, and her beauty had gained depth from a stillness in which certain faces might have grown opaque.
“Are you very tired?” she asked, pouring his tea.
“Just enough to enjoy this.” He rose from the chair in which he had thrown himself and bent over the tray for his cream. “You’ve had a visitor?” he commented, noticing a half-empty cup beside her own.
“Only Mr. Flamel,” she said, indifferently.
“Flamel? Again?”
She answered without show of surprise. “He left just now. His yacht is down at Laurel Bay and he borrowed a trap of the Dreshams to drive over here.”
Glennard made no comment, and she went on, leaning her head back against the cushions of her bamboo-seat, “He wants us to go for a sail with him next Sunday.”
Glennard meditatively stirred his tea. He was trying to think of the most natural and unartificial thing to say, and his voice seemed to come from the outside, as though he were speaking behind a marionette. “Do you want to?”