after that we didn’t find much to talk about.’
‘The reviews are very disagreeable,’ said Marian with a troubled face. ‘I have read the book since I saw you the other day, and I am afraid it isn’t good, but I have seen many worse novels more kindly reviewed.’
‘Jasper says it’s because Mr Reardon has no friends among the journalists.’
‘Still,’ replied Marian, ‘I’m afraid they couldn’t have given the book much praise, if they wrote honestly. Did Amy ask you to go and see her?’
‘Yes, but she said it was uncertain how long they would be living at their present address. And really. we can’t feel sure whether we should be welcome or not just now.’
Marian listened with bent head. She too had to make known to her friends that they were not welcome in her own home; but she knew not how to utter words which would sound so unkind.
‘Your brother,’ she said after a pause, ‘will soon find suitable friends for you.’
‘Before long,’ replied Dora, with a look of amusement, ‘he’s going to take us to call on Mrs Boston Wright. I hardly thought he was serious at first, but he says he really means it.’
Marian grew more and more silent. At home she had felt that it would not be difficult to explain her troubles to these sympathetic girls, but now the time had come for speaking, she was oppressed by shame and anxiety. True, there was no absolute necessity for making the confession this evening, and if she chose to resist her father’s prejudice, things might even go on in a seemingly natural way. But the loneliness of her life had developed in her a sensitiveness which could not endure situations such as the present; difficulties which are of small account to people who take their part in active social life, harassed her to the destruction of all peace. Dora was not long in noticing the dejected mood which had come upon her friend.
‘What’s troubling you, Marian?’
‘Something I can hardly bear to speak of. Perhaps it will be the end of your friendship for me, and I should find it very hard to go back to my old solitude.’
The girls gazed at her, in doubt at first whether she spoke seriously.
‘What can you mean?’ Dora exclaimed. ‘What crime have you been committing?’
Maud, who leaned with her elbows on the table, searched Marian’s face curiously, but said nothing.
‘Has Mr Milvain shown you the new number of The Current?’ Marian went on to ask.
They replied with a negative, and Maud added:
‘He has nothing in it this month, except a review.’
‘A review?’ repeated Marian in a low voice.
‘Yes; of somebody’s novel.’
‘Markland’s,’ supplied Dora.
Marian drew a breath, but remained for a moment with her eyes cast down.
‘Do go on, dear,’ urged Dora. ‘Whatever are you going to tell us?’
‘There’s a notice of father’s book,’ continued the other, ‘a very ill-natured one; it’s written by the editor, Mr Fadge. Father and he have been very unfriendly for a long time. Perhaps Mr Milvain has told you something about it?’
Dora replied that he had.
‘I don’t know how it is in other professions,’ Marian resumed, ‘but I hope there is less envy, hatred and malice than in this of ours. The name of literature is often made hateful to me by the things I hear and read. My father has never been very fortunate, and many things have happened to make him bitter against the men who succeed; he has often quarrelled with people who were at first his friends, but never so seriously with anyone as with Mr Fadge. His feeling of enmity goes so far that it includes even those who are in any way associated with Mr Fadge. I am sorry to say’—she looked with painful anxiety from one to the other of her hearers—’this has turned him against your brother, and— ‘
Her voice was checked by agitation.
‘We were afraid of this,’ said Dora, in a tone of sympathy.
‘Jasper feared it might be the case,’ added Maud, more coldly, though with friendliness.
‘Why I speak of it at all,’ Marian hastened to say, ‘is because I am so afraid it should make a difference between yourselves and me.’
‘Oh! don’t think that!’ Dora exclaimed.
‘I am so ashamed,’ Marian went on in an uncertain tone, ‘but I think it will be better if I don’t ask you to come and see me. It sounds ridiculous; it is ridiculous and shameful. I couldn’t complain if you refused to have anything more to do with me.’
‘Don’t let it trouble you,’ urged Maud, with perhaps a trifle more of magnanimity in her voice than was needful. We quite understand. Indeed, it shan’t make any difference to us.’
But Marian had averted her face, and could not meet these assurances with any show of pleasure. Now that the step was taken she felt that her behaviour had been very weak. Unreasonable harshness such as her father’s ought to have been met more steadily; she had no right to make it an excuse for such incivility to her friends. Yet only in some such way as this could she make known to Jasper Milvain how her father regarded him, which she felt it necessary to do. Now his sisters would tell him, and henceforth there would be a clear understanding on both sides. That state of things was painful to her, but it was better than ambiguous relations.
‘Jasper is very sorry about it,’ said Dora, glancing rapidly at Marian.
‘But his connection with Mr Fadge came about in such a natural way,’ added the eldest sister. ‘And it was impossible for him to refuse opportunities.’
