New Grub Street Read Online Free Page A

get to know each other by
sight.
    In the same way I knew Miss Yule's father when I happened to
pass him in the road yesterday.'
    The three girls began to converse together, perforce of
trivialities. Marian Yule spoke in rather slow tones, thoughtfully,
gently; she had linked her fingers, and laid her hands, palms
downwards, upon her lap—a nervous action. Her accent was pure,
unpretentious; and she used none of the fashionable turns of speech
which would have suggested the habit of intercourse with distinctly
metropolitan society.
    'You must wonder how we exist in this out-of-the-way place,'
remarked Maud.
    'Rather, I envy you,' Marian answered, with a slight
emphasis.
    The door opened, and Alfred Yule presented himself. He was tall,
and his head seemed a disproportionate culmination to his meagre
body, it was so large and massively featured. Intellect and
uncertainty of temper were equally marked upon his visage; his
brows were knitted in a permanent expression of severity. He had
thin, smooth hair, grizzled whiskers, a shaven chin. In the
multitudinous wrinkles of his face lay a history of laborious and
stormy life; one readily divined in him a struggling and embittered
man. Though he looked older than his years, he had by no means the
appearance of being beyond the ripeness of his mental vigour.
    'It pleases me to meet you, Mr Milvain,' he said, as he
stretched out his bony hand. 'Your name reminds me of a paper in
The Wayside a month or two ago, which you will perhaps allow a
veteran to say was not ill done.'
    'I am grateful to you for noticing it,' replied Jasper.
    There was positively a touch of visible warmth upon his cheek.
The allusion had come so unexpectedly that it caused him keen
pleasure.
    Mr Yule seated himself awkwardly, crossed his legs, and began to
stroke the back of his left hand, which lay on his knee. He seemed
to have nothing more to say at present, and allowed Miss Harrow and
the girls to support conversation. Jasper listened with a smile for
a minute or two, then he addressed the veteran.'Have you seen The
Study this week, Mr Yule?'
    'Yes.'
    'Did you notice that it contains a very favourable review of a
novel which was tremendously abused in the same columns three weeks
ago?'
    Mr Yule started, but Jasper could perceive at once that his
emotion was not disagreeable.
    'You don't say so.'
    'Yes. The novel is Miss Hawk's "On the Boards." How will the
editor get out of this?'
    'H'm! Of course Mr Fadge is not immediately responsible; but
it'll be unpleasant for him, decidedly unpleasant.' He smiled
grimly. 'You hear this, Marian?'
    'How is it explained, father?'
    'May be accident, of course; but—well, there's no knowing. I
think it very likely this will be the end of Mr Fadge's tenure of
office. Rackett, the proprietor, only wants a plausible excuse for
making a change. The paper has been going downhill for the last
year; I know of two publishing houses who have withdrawn their
advertising from it, and who never send their books for review.
Everyone foresaw that kind of thing from the day Mr Fadge became
editor. The tone of his paragraphs has been detestable. Two reviews
of the same novel, eh? And diametrically opposed? Ha! Ha!'
    Gradually he had passed from quiet appreciation of the joke to
undisguised mirth and pleasure. His utterance of the name 'Mr
Fadge' sufficiently intimated that he had some cause of personal
discontent with the editor of The Study.
    'The author,' remarked Milvain, 'ought to make a good thing out
of this.'
    'Will, no doubt. Ought to write at once to the papers, calling
attention to this sample of critical impartiality. Ha! ha!'
    He rose and went to the window, where for several minutes he
stood gazing at vacancy, the same grim smile still on his face.
Jasper in the meantime amused the ladies (his sisters had heard him
on the subject already) with a description of the two antagonistic
notices. But he did not trust himself to express so freely as he
had done at home his opinion of