 himself and carved angrily. He
began his meal by drinking half a glass of ale; then he ate a few mouthfuls in a
quick, hungry way, his head bent closely over the plate. It happened commonly
enough that dinner passed without a word of conversation, and that seemed likely
to be the case this evening. To his wife Yule seldom addressed anything but a
curt inquiry or caustic comment; if he spoke humanly at table it was to Marian.
    Ten minutes passed; then Marian resolved to try any means of clearing the
atmosphere.
    »Mr Quarmby gave me a message for you,« she said. »A friend of his,
Nathaniel Walker, has told him that Mr Rackett will very likely offer you the
editorship of The Study.«
    Yule stopped in the act of mastication. He fixed his eyes intently on the
sirloin for half a minute; then, by way of the beer-jug and the salt-cellar,
turned them upon Marian's face.
    »Walker told him that? Pooh!«
    »It was a great secret. I wasn't to breathe a word to anyone but you.«
    »Walker's a fool and Quarmby's an ass,« remarked her father.
    But there was a tremulousness in his bushy eyebrows; his forehead half
unwreathed itself; he continued to eat more slowly, and as if with appreciation
of the viands.
    »What did he say? Repeat it to me in his words.«
    Marian did so, as nearly as possible. He listened with a scoffing
expression, but still his features relaxed.
    »I don't credit Rackett with enough good sense for such a proposal,« he said
deliberately. »And I'm not very sure that I should accept it if it were made.
That fellow Fadge has all but ruined the paper. It will amuse me to see how long
it takes him to make Culpepper's new magazine a distinct failure.«
    A silence of five minutes ensued; then Yule said of a sudden:
    »Where is Hinks's book?«
    Marian reached it from a side table; under this roof, literature was
regarded almost as a necessary part of table garnishing.
    »I thought it would be bigger than this,« Yule muttered, as he opened the
volume in a way peculiar to bookish men.
    A page was turned down, as if to draw attention to some passage. Yule put on
his eyeglasses, and soon made a discovery which had the effect of completing the
transformation of his visage. His eyes glinted, his chin worked in pleasurable
emotion
