’But, Lionel, if it is a bit of my mind and heart, it must be a good book.  You have often praised books to me just on that account because they were genuine.’

’The books I praised were literature.  Their authors came into the world to write.  It isn’t enough to be genuine; there must be workmanship.  Here and there you have a page of very decent English, and you are nowhere on the level of the ordinary female novelist.  Indeed—­don’t take it ill—­I was surprised at what you had turned out.  But—­’

He finished the sentence in smoke wreaths.

‘Then I’ll try again.  I’ll do better.’

‘Never much better.  It will never be literature.’

’What does that matter?  I never thought myself a Charlotte Bronte or a George Eliot.  But so many women make money out of novels, and as I had spare time I didn’t see why I shouldn’t use it profitably.  We want money, and if it isn’t actually disgraceful—­and if I don’t use my own name—­’

’We don’t want money so badly as all that.  I am writing, because I must do something to live by, and I know of nothing else open to me except pen-work.  Whatever trash I turned out, I should be justified; as a man, it’s my duty to join in the rough-and-tumble for more or less dirty ha’pence.  You, as a woman, have no such duty; nay, it’s your positive duty to keep out of the beastly scrimmage.’

’It seemed to me that I was doing something.  Why should a woman be shut out from the life of the world?’

’It seems to me that your part in the life of the world is very considerable.  You have given the world a new inhabitant, and you are shaping him into a man.’

Nancy laughed, and reflected, and returned to her discontent.

‘Oh, every woman can do that.’

’Not one woman in a thousand can bear a sound-bodied child; and not one in fifty thousand can bring up rightly the child she has borne.  Leisure you must have; but for Heaven’s sake don’t waste it.  Read, enjoy, sit down to the feast prepared for you.’

‘I wanted to do something,’ she persisted, refusing to catch his eye.  ‘I have read enough.’

‘Read enough?  Ha, then there’s no more to be said.’

His portentous solemnity overcame her.  Laughter lighted her face, and Tarrant, laying down his pipe, shouted extravagant mirth.

‘Am I to burn it then?’

’You are not.  You are to seal it with seven seals, to write upon it peche de jeunesse, and to lay it away at the back of a very private drawer.  And when you are old, you shall some day bring it out, and we’ll put our shaky heads together over it, and drop a tear from our dim old eyes.—­By-the-bye, Nancy, will you go with me to a music-hall to-morrow night?’

‘A music-hall?’