Sitting here, he found it very difficult not
to gaze at Amy with uncivil persistency. Seldom in his life had
he conversed with educated women, and the sound of this clear
voice was always more delightful to him than any music.
Amy took a place near to him, and talked in her most charming way
of such things as she knew interested him. Biffen's deferential
attitude as he listened and replied was in strong contrast with
the careless ease which marked Jasper Milvain. The realist would
never smoke in Amy's presence, but Jasper puffed jovial clouds
even whilst she was conversing with him.
'Whelpdale came to see me last night,' remarked Milvain,
presently. 'His novel is refused on all hands. He talks of
earning a living as a commission agent for some sewing-machine
people.'
'I can't understand how his book should be positively refused,'
said Reardon. 'The last wasn't altogether a failure.'
'Very nearly. And this one consists of nothing but a series of
conversations between two people. It is really a dialogue, not a
novel at all. He read me some twenty pages, and I no longer
wondered that he couldn't sell it.
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