Transcribed from 1893 Macmillan and Co. edition by DavidPrice, . Proofed by Nina Hall, MohuaSen, Bridie, Francine Smith and David.
“There are several objectionsto it, but I’ll take it if you’ll alter it,”Mr. Locket’s rather curt note had said; and there was nowaste of words in the postscript in which he had added: “Ifyou’ll come in and see me, I’ll show you what Imean.” This communication had reached Jersey Villasby the first post, and Peter Baron had scarcely swallowed hisleathery muffin before he got into motion to obey the editorialbehest. He knew that such precipitation looked eager, andhe had no desire to look eager—it was not in his interest;but how could he maintain a godlike calm, principled though hewas in favour of it, the first time one of the great magazineshad accepted, even with a cruel reservation, a specimen of hisardent young genius?
It was not till, like a child with a sea-shell at his ear, hebegan to be aware of the great roar of the“underground,” that, in his third-class carriage, thecruelty of the reservation penetrated, with the taste of acridsmoke, to his inner sense. It was really degrading to beeager in the face of having to “alter.” PeterBaron tried to figure to himself at that moment that he was notflying to betray the extremity of his need, but hurrying to fightfor some of those passages of superior boldness which wereexactly what the conductor of the “PromiscuousReview” would be sure to be down upon. He madebelieve—as if to the greasy fellow-passengeropposite—that he felt indignant; but he saw that to thesmall round eye of this still more downtrodden brother herepresented selfish success. He would have liked to lingerin the conception that he had been “approached” bythe Promiscuous; but whatever might be thought in the office ofthat periodical of some of his flights of fancy, there was nowant of vividness in his occasional suspicion that he passedthere for a familiar bore. The only thing that was clearlyflattering was the fact that the Promiscuous rarely publishedfiction. He should therefore be associated with a deviationfrom a solemn habit, and that would more than make up to him fora phrase in one of Mr. Locket’s inexorable earlier notes, aphrase which still rankled, about his showing no symptom of thefaculty really creative. “You don’t seem ableto keep a character together,” this pitiless monitor hadsomewhere else remarked. Peter Baron, as he sat in hiscorner while the train stopped, considered, in the befoggedgaslight, the bookstall standard of literature and asked himselfwhose character had fallen to pieces now. Tormenting indeedhad always seemed to him such a fate as to have the creative headwithout the creative hand.
It should be mentioned, however, that before he started on hismission to Mr. Locket his attention had been briefly engaged byan incident occurring at Jersey Villas. On leaving thehouse (he lived at No. 3, the door of which stood open to asmall front garden), he encountered the lady who, a week before,had taken possession of the rooms on the ground floor, the“parlours” of Mrs. Bundy’s terminology. He had heard her, and from his window, two or three times, hadeven seen her pass in and out, and this observation had createdin his mind a vague prejudice in her favour. Such aprejudice, it was true, had been subjected to a violent test; ithad been fairly apparent that she had a light step, but it wasstill less to be overlooked that she had a cottage piano. She had furthermore a little boy and a very sweet voice, of whichPeter Baron had caught the accent, not from her singing (for sheonly played), but from her gay admonitions to her child, whom sheoccasionally allowed to amuse himself—under restrictionsvery publicly enforced—in the tiny