 for though, strictly speaking,
he had no fame at all, these persons had kept up with the progress of his small
repute, and were all distinctly glad to number among their acquaintances an
unmistakable author, one, too, who was fresh from Italy and Greece. Mrs Yule, a
lady rather too pretentious in her tone to be attractive to a man of Reardon's
refinement, hastened to assure him how well his books were known in her house,
though for the run of ordinary novels we don't care much. Miss Yule, not at all
pretentious in speech, and seemingly reserved of disposition, was good enough to
show frank interest in the author. As for the poor author himself, well, he
merely fell in love with Miss Yule at first sight, and there was an end of the
matter.
    A day or two later he made a call at their house, in the region of
Westbourne Park. It was a small house, and rather showily than handsomely
furnished; no one after visiting it would be astonished to hear that Mrs Edmund
Yule had but a small income, and that she was often put to desperate expedients
to keep up the gloss of easy circumstances. In the gauzy and fluffy and varnishy
little drawing-room Reardon found a youngish gentleman already in conversation
with the widow and her daughter. This proved to be one Mr Jasper Milvain, also a
man of letters. Mr Milvain was glad to meet Reardon, whose books he had read
with decided interest.
    »Really,« exclaimed Mrs Yule, »I don't know how it is that we have had to
wait so long for the pleasure of knowing you, Mr Reardon. If John were not so
selfish he would have allowed us a share in your acquaintance long ago.«
    Ten weeks thereafter, Miss Yule became Mrs Reardon.
    It was a time of frantic exultation with the poor fellow. He had always
regarded the winning of a beautiful and intellectual wife as the crown of a
successful literary career, but he had not dared hope that such a triumph would
be his. Life had been too hard with him on the whole. He, who hungered for
sympathy, who thought of a woman's love as the prize of mortals supremely
blessed, had spent the fresh years of his youth in monkish solitude. Now of a
sudden came friends and flattery, aye, and love itself. He was rapt to the
seventh heaven.
    Indeed, it seemed that the girl loved him. She knew that he had but a
hundred pounds or so left over from that little inheritance, that his
