Part 39 (2/2)

'Yes, but--you do just a little despise me?'

'Indeed, I don't, Mr Milvain.'

'If that is sincere, I'm very glad. I take it in a friendly sense. I am rather despicable, you know; it's part of my business to be so. But a friend needn't regard that. There is the man apart from his necessities.'

The silence was then unbroken till they came to the lower end of Park Street, the junction of roads which lead to Hampstead, to Highgate, and to Holloway.

'Shall you take an omnibus?' Jasper asked.

She hesitated.

'Or will you give me the pleasure of walking on with you? You are tired, perhaps?'

'Not the least.'

For the rest of her answer she moved forward, and they crossed into the obscurity of Camden Road.

'Shall I be doing wrong, Mr Milvain,' Marian began in a very low voice, 'if I ask you about the authors.h.i.+p of something in this month's Current?'

'I'm afraid I know what you refer to. There's no reason why I shouldn't answer a question of the kind.'

'It was Mr Fadge himself who reviewed my father's book?'

'It was--confound him! I don't know another man who could have done the thing so vilely well.'

'I suppose he was only replying to my father's attack upon him and his friends.'

'Your father's attack is honest and straightforward and justifiable and well put. I read that chapter of his book with huge satisfaction.

But has anyone suggested that another than Fadge was capable of that masterpiece?'

'Yes. I am told that Mr Jedwood, the publisher, has somehow made a mistake.'

'Jedwood? And what mistake?'

'Father heard that you were the writer.'

'I?' Jasper stopped short. They were in the rays of a street-lamp, and could see each other's faces. 'And he believes that?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'And you believe--believed it?'

'Not for a moment.'

'I shall write a note to Mr Yule.'

Marian was silent a while, then said:

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