Part 93 (2/2)

'That isn't exactly the question. Could you do anything that would sell?

With very moderate success in fiction you might make three times as much as you ever will by magazine pot-boilers. A girl like you. Oh, you might manage, I should think.'

'A girl like me?'

'Well, I mean that love-scenes, and that kind of thing, would be very much in your line.'Marian was not given to blus.h.i.+ng; very few girls are, even on strong provocation. For the first time Jasper saw her cheeks colour deeply, and it was with anything but pleasure. His words were coa.r.s.ely inconsiderate, and wounded her.

'I think that is not my work,' she said coldly, looking away.

'But surely there's no harm in my saying--' he paused in astonishment.

'I meant nothing that could offend you.'

'I know you didn't, Jasper. But you make me think that--'

'Don't be so literal again, my dear girl. Come here and forgive me.'

She did not approach, but only because the painful thought he had excited kept her to that spot.

'Come, Marian! Then I must come to you.'

He did so and held her in his arms.

'Try your hand at a novel, dear, if you can possibly make time. Put me in it, if you like, and make me an insensible masculine. The experiment is worth a try I'm certain. At all events do a few chapters, and let me see them. A chapter needn't take you more than a couple of hours I should think.'

Marian refrained from giving any promise. She seemed irresponsive to his caresses. That thought which at times gives trouble to all women of strong emotions was working in her: had she been too demonstrative, and made her love too cheap? Now that Jasper's love might be endangered, it behoved her to use any arts which nature prompted. And so, for once, he was not wholly satisfied with her, and at their parting he wondered what subtle change had affected her manner to him.

'Why didn't Marian come to speak a word?' said Dora, when her brother entered the girls' sitting-room about ten o'clock.

'You knew she was with me, then?'

'We heard her voice as she was going away.'

'She brought me some enspiriting news, and thought it better I should have the reporting of it to you.'

With brevity he made known what had befallen.

'Cheerful, isn't it? The kind of thing that strengthens one's trust in Providence.'

The girls were appalled. Maud, who was reading by the fireside, let her book fall to her lap, and knit her brows darkly.

'Then your marriage must be put off, of course?' said Dora.

'Well, I shouldn't be surprised if that were found necessary,' replied her brother caustically. He was able now to give vent to the feeling which in Marian's presence was suppressed, partly out of consideration for her, and partly owing to her influence.

'And shall we have to go back to our old lodgings again?' inquired Maud.

Jasper gave no answer, but kicked a footstool savagely out of his way and paced the room.

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