CHAPTER XVI

A MATTER OF SALES

Long after Geoffrey Alison had gone, Helena sat motionless at her desk, biting a pen-holder; looking out into the garden and thinking.

She was not thinking, as he would have imagined, about her manuscript. She was thinking about Hubert's work.

In one sense she had no great opinion of Geoffrey Alison, although she liked to have him as her friend. She did not respect him, did not think him manly, would never be swayed by his estimate of her: he was an odd, amusing, clever, little thing and she was never altogether sure when he was serious. But in another way she thought more of his words than even she had ever admitted to herself. Hubert had never taken her development as serious at all; had made it clear he thought her stupid, as he said once, "to burden her dear little head with brains, when she was so original already"; so that it had been Mr. Alison (who must be really very kind, at any rate) that had initiated her into the thrilling mysteries of Art. He had taken her round galleries, to lectures; told her this was bad or that good, then tried to show her why; and though they argued nowadays, her basic views were his: she judged things by the touchstone he had given her. What then more natural than that she should value his ideas on Art?

And now--now he had told her (oh, without meaning it, she knew, but that made it no better)--told her that Hubert's novels were not thought artistic really, they were good stories but no more, and not in the same class as vague others which sold always badly. She had been so proud of them, until _Was It Worth While?_ appeared; and now it seemed that all the others had belonged to a class of no merit, too. They were good of their sort--like a caricature...! Hubert had always spoken with such scorn of novels which were "popular": and now she had heard Mr. Alison joining that fatal adjective to his pet _Wandering Stars_....

It may be thought peculiar that Helena should have believed so easily; but as she sat there and gazed out through unseeing eyes, nothing of any weight stood in the other balance.

When she had married him, proud of his name, she was a simple girl. She had not read a word of his until she was engaged: and how could she judge after that, if she had been the best of critics? Then, once his wife--well, who would tell her anyhow? Ally, she knew, had never meant to and she liked him better than she had, for it. Hubert was so contemptuous about his paintings, that she knew he must have often felt the obvious temptation to revenge.

Hubert, in fact, had been so scornful about everybody else's work. In Literature--she now recalled--she had relied entirely on his estimates. Mr. Alison, till now, had said he really was no judge of books and told her she must ask her husband.... She had got the idea that Hubert's work was of the best sort, the most properly artistic, and when she wondered why it did not make more money, he had said that it was too good....

Now with a shock that somehow loosened far more than merely her ideas on books, this young wife learnt that the great Hubert Brett, with all his endless moods--the house revolving round his inspiration--only created novels which were "popular" in class, yet nearly always failed to sell!

She had not of course got the matter quite so definite as that in her own mind, when there came to her ears the warning sound of his door opening. There were no sheets of manuscript to hide to-day, but she put down a cedar pen-holder which had grown very ragged at the top in a half-hour.

"Well," she said, leaping up and forcing herself, like a trained wife, to be cheery, "what success to-day?" She always asked him that. He liked it.

Hubert was not satisfied to-day. "Rotten," he said; "absolutely rotten. That idiot Lily had put all the candle-sticks and things the wrong way round on my writing-desk and I'd to move them all, just when I got there feeling in the mood to work."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear," she answered humbly. "I will tell her." She knew, you see, the whole of a wife's duty now.

"Don't worry about that, my dear," he said without much conviction; "but these housemaids seem to think an artist is a sort of navvy who only wants a pen and everything's all right. They don't seem to understand that when you're doing work like mine, the least thing out of its accustomed place catches your eye and absolutely breaks the inspiration: you get up to move it. I never worked back to the proper state at all this morning. I might as well have played a round of golf."

Helena, with a curious sensation that was almost fear--fear, it may be, of herself--realised that his plaint, oft-heard, left her cold this morning. Till now she had always thought how wonderful he was, how different from her dull self, how sensitively made. To-day she felt--she felt that it was all a needless fuss! This last half-hour had crystallised thoughts vaguely growing during a whole year.

She could not trust herself to any comment. She felt that probably all writers had these affectations, and yet there _was_ this sudden lack of sympathy about the candlesticks....

"But I hope," she merely said, "the new book's working out all right?"

Hubert dropped upon the sofa, a dead weight of hopelessness. "I don't believe," he said, "I'm meant for an author--not in these days anyhow, when it's a trade. You know, my dear, it's too absurd but I can _not_ forget those beastly critics! They've put me off entirely. Every line I write, I think that such and such a paper won't like that: just as though I was writing for them and not for the public!" He took up a magazine and flung it down violently on the sofa. "I tell you though," he said confidently, as though that changed his mood, and rose to go: "I jolly well mean to get at the public, _this_ time."

"Hugh," she said, ludicrously horror-struck, "it's not another pot-boiler?" She had not dared to ask and he had vouchsafed literally nothing yet.

He smiled grimly, standing by the door. "You'll see," he said. "I'm nearly through with the synopsis now and I'll read you the first chapter soon. It's not like the last, anyhow. It's called _Eternity_. And there's one thing," he went on with a kind of brutal joy, "if it's a frost, we shall absolutely have to pack up and move off into cheaper quarters: I can't afford to keep you here!"

"But, Hugh," she began in sympathetic protest.

But he had closed the door, outside.