How have you been getting on?"
"All right," she said, regarding him. And then, "You _are_ tired.
We'll have some tea. And--let me take off your boot for you, dear.
Yes--I will."
She rang the bell, bustled out of the room, called for tea at the
staircase, came back, pulled out Madam Gadow's ungainly hassock and
began unlacing his boot. Lewisham's mood changed. "You _are_ a trump,
Ethel," he said; "I'm hanged if you're not." As the laces flicked he
bent forward and kissed her ear. The unlacing was suspended and there
were reciprocal endearments....
Presently he was sitting in his slippers, with a cup of tea in his
hand, and Ethel, kneeling on the hearthrug with the firelight on her
face, was telling him of an answer that had come that afternoon to her
advertisement in the _Athenaeum_.
"That's good," said Lewisham.
"It's a novelist," she said with the light of pride in her eyes, and
handed him the letter. "Lucas Holderness, the author of 'The Furnace
of Sin' and other stories."
"That's first rate," said Lewisham with just a touch of envy, and bent
forward to read by the firelight.
The letter was from an address in Judd Street, Euston Road, written on
good paper and in a fair round hand such as one might imagine a
novelist using.
Pages:
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