Nobody listened. When I condescended to come down
and talk about what people could understand then everybody listened.
It wouldn't have done Rickman any good if I'd pestered people with
him. But when the time comes I shall speak out."
"I daresay, when the time comes--it will come too--when he has made
his name with no thanks to you, then you'll be the first to say 'I
told you so.' It would have been a greater thing to have helped him
when he needed it."
"I did help him. He wouldn't be writing now if it wasn't for me."
"Do you see much of him?"
"Not much. It isn't my fault," he added in answer to her reproachful
eyes. "He's shut himself up with Maddox in a stuffy little house at
Ealing."
"Does that mean that he's very badly off?"
"Well, no; I shouldn't say so. He's got an editorship. But he isn't
the sort that's made for getting on. In many things he is a fool."
"I admire his folly more than some people's wisdom."
From the look in Lucia's eyes Jewdwine was aware that his cousin no
longer adored him. Did she adore Rickman?
"You're a little hard on me, I think. After all, I was the first to
help him."
"_And_ the last. Are you quite sure you helped him? How do you know
you didn't hinder him? You kept him for years turning out inferior
work for you, when he might have been giving us his best."
"He might--if he'd been alive to do it."
"I'm only thinking of what you might have done. The sort of thing
you've done for other people--Mr.
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