We were to meet that evening at eight o’clock, and it was understood that the sitting would be prolonged to a late hour, because of the readings. It would fall to my lot to take the second reading, as coming next to Mrs. St. Quinten, and I should, at any rate, not be subjected to a weary audience. We had, however, promised each other to be very patient; and I was resolved that, even to the production of Churchill Smith, who would be the last, I would give an undivided and eager attention. I determined also in my joy that I would vote against the insertion of no colleague’s contribution. Were we not in a boat together, and would not each do his best? Even though a paper might be dull, better a little dullness than the crushing of a friend’s spirit. I fear that I thought that “The New Inmate” might atone for much dullness. I dined early on that day; then took a walk round the Regent’s Park, to renew my thoughts on the very spot on which they had first occurred to me, and after that, returning home, gave a last touch to my work. Though it had been written after so hurried a fashion, there was not a word in it which I had not weighed and found to be fitting.
I was the first at Mrs. St. Quinten’s house, and found that lady very full of the magazine. She asked, however, no questions as to my contribution. Of her own she at once spoke to me. “What do you think I have done at last?” she said. In my reply to her question I made some slight allusion to “The New Inmate,” but I don’t think she caught the words. “I have reviewed Bishop Berkeley’s whole Theory on Matter,” said she. What feeling I expressed by my gesture I cannot say, but I think it must have been one of great awe. “And I have done it exhaustively,” she continued; “so that the subject need not be continued. Churchill does not like continuations.” Perhaps it did not signify much. If she were heavy, I at any rate was light. If her work should prove difficult of comprehension, mine was easy. If she spoke only to the wise and old, I had addressed myself to babes and sucklings. I said something as to the contrast, again naming my little story. But she was too full of Bishop Berkeley to heed me. If she had worked as I had worked, of course she was full of Bishop Berkeley. To me, “The New Inmate” at that moment was more than all the bishops.
The other men soon came in, clustering together, and our number was complete. Regan whispered to me that Jack Hallam had not written a line. “And you?” I asked. “Oh, I am all right,” said he. “I don’t suppose they’ll let it pass; but that’s their affair;—not mine.” Watt and Smith took their places almost without speaking, and preparation was made for the preliminary feast of the body. The after-feast was a matter of such vital importance to us that we hardly possessed our customary lighthearted elasticity. There was, however, an air of subdued triumph about our “Lydia,”—of triumph subdued by the presence of her cousin. As for myself, I was supremely happy. I said a word to Watt, asking him as to his performance. “I don’t suppose you will like it,” he replied; “but it is at any rate a fair specimen of that which it has been my ambition to produce.” I assured him with enthusiasm that I was thoroughly prepared to approve, and that, too, without carping criticism. “But we must be critics,” he observed. Of Churchill Smith I asked no question.
When we had eaten and drunk we began the work of the evening by giving in the names of our papers, and describing the nature of the work we had done. Mrs. St. Quinten was the first, and read her title from a scrap of paper. “A Review of Bishop Berkeley’s Theory.” Churchill Smith remarked that it was a very dangerous subject. The lady begged him to wait till he should hear the paper read. “Of course I will hear it read,” said her cousin. To me it was evident that Smith would object to this essay without any scruple, if he did not in truth approve of it. Then it was my turn, and I explained in the quietest tone which I could assume that I had written a little tale called “The New Inmate.” It was very simple, I said, but I trusted it might not be rejected on that score. There was silence for a moment, and I prompted Regan to proceed; but I was interrupted by Walter Watt. “I thought,” said he, “that we had positively decided against ‘prose fiction.’ ” I protested that the decision had been given against novels, against long serial stories to be continued from number to number. This was a little thing, completed within my twenty-one allotted pages. “Our vote was taken as to prose fiction,” said Watt. I appealed to Hallam, who at once took my part—as also did Regan. “Walter is quite correct as to the purport of our decision,” said Churchill Smith. I turned to Mrs. St. Quinten. “I don’t see why we
