 for a novelist
to study all sorts of people. How can Mr Reardon do this if he shuts himself up
in the house? I should have thought he would find it necessary to make new
acquaintances.«
    »As I said,« returned Amy, »it won't be always like this. For the present,
Edwin has quite enough material.«
    She spoke distantly; it irritated her to have to invent excuses for the
sacrifice she had just imposed on herself. Edith sipped the tea which had been
offered her, and for a minute kept silence.
    »When will Mr Reardon's next book be published?« she asked at length.
    »I'm sure I don't know. Not before the spring.«
    »I shall look so anxiously for it. Whenever I meet new people I always turn
the conversation to novels, just for the sake of asking them if they know your
husband's books.«
    She laughed merrily.
    »Which is seldom the case, I should think,« said Amy with a smile of
indifference.
    »Well, my dear, you don't expect ordinary novel-readers to know about Mr
Reardon. I wish my acquaintances were a better kind of people; then, of course,
I should hear of his books more often. But one has to make the best of such
society as offers. If you and your husband forsake me, I shall feel it a sad
loss; I shall indeed.«
    Amy gave a quick glance at the speaker's face.
    »Oh, we must be friends just the same,« she said, more naturally than she
had spoken hitherto. »But don't ask us to come and dine just now. All through
this winter we shall be very busy, both of us. Indeed, we have decided not to
accept any invitations at all.«
    »Then, so long as you let me come here now and then, I must give in. I
promise not to trouble you with any more complaining. But how you can live such
a life I don't know. I consider myself more of a reader than women generally
are, and I should be mortally offended if anyone called me frivolous; but I must
have a good deal of society. Really and truly, I can't live without it.«
    »No?« said Amy, with a smile which meant more than Edith could interpret. It
seemed slightly condescending.
    »There's no knowing; perhaps if I had married a literary man -« She paused,
smiling
