There was a pause of some seconds, broken only by a crossing of "Thanks" as they got things in order; then Blatchley lay back in his office chair and blew out the first whiff of smoke.

"I certainly do," he said more definitely. "Look at it this way. _The Confessions_ has been out eight weeks and we have sold just over thirty thousand copies. That is pretty good, I know, and I'm extremely grateful to you. But that is the past. Now look at the present. By careful advertising I've induced the public to be really interested in the question as to Zoe's real ident.i.ty. That's not going to last, my son. Somebody will do a murder or find out a home cure for corpulence.

In half a week the chatty columns of the Daily will be full of something else. Every one who wants to has read Zoe and decided who she is. Very well, then. Now," and here he raised a podgy but dramatic finger, "this is the moment when we must say officially, 'The Author-Husband is Dash Blank.' In a moment the whole thing revives; every one is saying, 'I say, it _was_ Dash Blank. I knew you were wrong. But what a show-up! What, not read it? Well, then, do.' The sales will leap up to the fifty thousand and n.o.body can say where they will stop. Without it, the book's dead." He stopped, dramatically sudden.

These were the only times when Geoffrey Alison shared Helena's ideas about the volume. "I'm very sorry if so," he said wearily, "but it's sold like anything and I expect it will. I still don't see why it's not cricket?" (He spoke more warmly now.) "I always warned you that I couldn't tell you who had written it."

"Bah!" The publisher waved that aside with a smooth fat hand which left a trail of smoke. "That's always so in the beginning, it's part of the game, but now it's in my interest, the book's, your friend's, your own as her adviser--I shall see you're mentioned as discoverer of the diary's great merits--in everybody's interest...."

Geoffrey Alison stood up abruptly. Each of these points had been emphasised by that fat hand; the office was the tiniest of rooms; and he disliked the smell more almost than the taste.

"I'm sorry, Blatchley," he said, as though bored with the whole affair, "but as I've told you half a dozen times...."

The man of business never fights a losing battle. "Of course, of course, my dear fellow. I understand. The feeling does you credit.

Don't imagine I'm ungrateful. Not at all." He smoothed him with a diplomatic hand. His Zoe might write other books.

"Oh no, I don't," said the other dully.

"Look here," the publisher exclaimed, putting his cigar between protruding lips and drawing a note-book from a no less prominent waistcoat. "Why not dine with me one night to show there's no ill-will? I'm sure I owe you some commission! A little dinner somewhere gay, then the Empire or a supper--well, no details!--but what of something like that? Monday?"

"Thanks very much," said Geoffrey Alison more warmly. This was the sort of evening he liked, when some one else would pay. Then, suspiciously, in the old tones; "So long as you'll swear not to worry me any more about Zoe."

The publisher seemed hurt at this idea. "My dear fellow," he said, patting him again upon the back in a most soothing way, "what do you imagine? Business is business, yes," (he waved the hand once more expressively around his little office), "but pleasure's pleasure.

Monday then: my flat: at eight."

CHAPTER XX

PLEASURE

Thomas Blatchley (which downright English names his mother and father did not give him in his baptism) was accustomed to boast that he was not an old-fashioned publisher. He wished of course to uphold the fine traditions of literature and so forth, but he believed in modern methods. He did not see that book-production had any essential connection with fine-panelled ante-rooms where authors waited in upholstered pomp. The modern plan was not to keep them waiting.

It may therefore be perhaps set down to his modernity of business spirit that he prepared to entertain his benefactor, Geoffrey Alison, with so much thoroughness. Here (he may be imagined to have said) was a man who had done him a good turn in business. Every care, then, must be taken to provide him with an evening exactly to his taste. Then, maybe, he might do him another.

However that may be, Geoffrey Alison was thoroughly delighted.

Everything was just how he would have arranged it for himself, had he been a millionaire and not a struggling artist. When Blatchley, whom he really hardly knew, had first suggested this evening together, the programme mapped out had appealed to him; but safely home again, he had repented and been within an inch of cancelling. Yet was it wise to risk offending this man, a hard business devil, who already thought he was not playing cricket? ... So out he had come, mistrustful of the other's hospitality; with visions of Soho, and half expecting he would pay the bill.

Yet Blatchley, without any of that awkward "Where shall we dine?"

business common to bad hosts, had instantly said; "Shall we try the Ritz?" as quite the natural thing. To this he had a.s.sented no less instantly, only regretting that he had decided against a white waistcoat. Then Blatchley had proposed the actual champagne he liked.

Then there had come the Empire: two half-guinea stalls, in which they hardly sat, for Blatchley (who turned out to be a very decent sort) said he always liked the promenade much better than the programme. So they had sat about and had a drink or two, and laughed, and debated which of the beautiful ladies around them they should introduce themselves to without finally deciding upon any (exactly his own pet routine), and so on to the Cafe de l'Europe, where they had merely had a k.u.mmel and looked round a bit.

And now here they were at the Savoy, the proper end for any festive evening; with people, music, food, wine, light and everything exactly as it should be, and peace inside the soul of Geoffrey Alison.

Blatchley was a dam good sort and not a business swine at all.

It would be untrue to say that Geoffrey Alison was drunk. No one is ever drunk at the Savoy. He was inanely genial. Blatchley was a dam good fellow....

"Well," said his host, as half the lights suddenly went out, obedient to a grandmaternal law of his adopted and free fatherland, "I think we must toast the lady to whom we owe this very pleasant evening!" He raised his gla.s.s, (they had worked back through brandy to champagne), and cried, mock-heroically: "To the unknown Zoe."

"My word, yes," answered Geoffrey Alison with a fat laugh, "I'll drink that!" He raised his gla.s.s and drank it off: no heeltaps.

The publisher had merely sipped the brim of his, but he filled up his guest's. "I dare say, my boy!" he laughed cheerily. "I dare say you will. I've my suspicions about you and Zoe."

"No, no," warmly retorted the other. He was so genial as to be nearly truculent. "I won't let you say that." He was not quite so sure now about Blatchley. "That's not right. She's a dam nice girl is Zoe, and she's as innocent as anybody makes 'em. I'm very fond of her, I tell you, and she's fond of me too." He pulled himself together in a very doggy way. "But that's all there is. I won't have you having suspicions. She doesn't know what all that means. I won't let you say that, Blatchley. She never thinks of anybody but her husband, d.a.m.n him!" He looked very fierce indeed for a very few seconds: then he chuckled feebly. Dam conceited idiot, that a.s.s Brett....

"I see," answered his host vaguely. He was waiting.

The other's swiftly-changing moods veered, the next moment, to suspicion. He gave a discordant laugh. "You're a clever swine, Blatchley," he said, with a sudden longing to strike this man flickering across the table.

"You thought I was tight! You thought I should give Zoe away. You want to know who she is, don't you? But not much! I'm less of an a.s.s than you think, old man! Yes, that was it," he added in a sudden mood of contemplative depression; "you thought I was tight." All his anger had evaporated. It was a mere statement.

"Take more than that to make _you_ tight," said his host, relapsing upon flattery as a safe weapon. He could afford to wait. They would not be turned out yet for a while and he had learnt already that Zoe was quite young, a girl. That ruled out many authors' wives....

But Geoffrey Alison was on his guard. An air of watchful cunning settled on him. He saw the game now, in his own fuddled way, and he did not mean to be drawn.

"Give it up, Blatchley, old man," he said so happily as not to be offensive. "Give it up. You won't get anything from me. I'm less of an a.s.s than you think. You won't get anything from me."

He had flung his cards, bang! upon the table. The other took them up.

"I hope you don't mean to imply, Alison," he said in injured tones, "I've stood you this evening just to pump your secret out of you."

"My dear fellow, my dear fellow," crooned Geoffrey Alison, stretching out a shaky hand to rea.s.sure the other's sleeve.

The publisher withdrew his arm with dignity, as one who did not intend to be patted by a man with those ideas. "It looks extremely like it,"

he said coldly. "I look on your remarks as d.a.m.ned offensive. Here have I stood you a pleasant evening--at least I hope so--from grat.i.tude, and you attribute it to the most disgusting motives."

"My dear fellow," continued the other, who had listened to this with an open mouth suspended in the act of speech, "you misunderstand me." It came out with a rush, like one long syllable. "You misunderstand me entirely. We're gentlemen, both gentlemen. There isn't any question about anything like that. You utterly misunderstand me."

But Thomas Blatchley was not so easy to console. "It was rather hard, Alison, to understand what you said any other way."

"Look here, Blatchley old man: it's like this," said the artist, embarked now upon self-defence. "You're a good fellow, dam good fellow; very pleasant evening indeed; and I want to help you. But there's Zoe, you see; Zoe!" He laughed happily; then, more gloomy, "And there's Zoe's husband."

He sat gazing fixedly before him, as though content with having thus explained everything at last.

The great room was almost empty and yet more nearly dark, by now. A waiter who had stood anxiously close by, stepped forward eagerly, thinking that this pause would give him his chance. The publisher waved him impatiently aside with an oath easy to read from the lips.

"I don't see," he said, friendly once more, to his guest, "that Zoe's husband matters much."

Geoffrey Alison looked very wise. "Oh, but he does, you know," he answered. "He does matter. Mind you, I dislike him. Dam conceited a.s.s. But he does matter," and he wagged his head.

"How?" asked the other, who saw the head waiter approaching. It was all or nothing.

Geoffrey Alison found that the question needed thought. "Well," he said very slowly, and there was only one more table-full for the head waiter to dislodge, "well, put yourself in his place, you know. All the dam papers with their headlines. Oh yes, he does matter."

"How headlines?" He could kill the stubborn a.s.s. He knew that it was luck, not cleverness.

His guest, unconscious of all this emotion, aimlessly drew headlines high up in the air. "'Zoe mystery solved. Selfish swine discovered.

Hubert Brett the author.' All that sort of stuff," he said, chuckling at his own journalistic readiness. "Oh yes, he does matter. Dam unpleasant for him."