On sending a review of it to
The Middle I was surprised to learn from the office that a notice
was already in type. When the paper came out I had no hesitation
in attributing this article, which I thought rather vulgarly
overdone, to Drayton Deane, who in the old days had been something
of a friend of Corvick's, yet had only within a few weeks made the
acquaintance of his widow. I had had an early copy of the book,
but Deane had evidently had an earlier. He lacked all the same the
light hand with which Corvick had gilded the gingerbread--he laid
on the tinsel in splotches.
CHAPTER X.
Six months later appeared "The Right of Way," the last chance,
though we didn't know it, that we were to have to redeem ourselves.
Written wholly during Vereker's sojourn abroad, the book had been
heralded, in a hundred paragraphs, by the usual ineptitudes. I
carried it, as early a copy as any, I this time flattered myself,
straightway to Mrs. Corvick. This was the only use I had for it; I
left the inevitable tribute of The Middle to some more ingenious
mind and some less irritated temper. "But I already have it,"
Gwendolen said. "Drayton Deane was so good as to bring it to me
yesterday, and I've just finished it."
"Yesterday? How did he get it so soon?"
"He gets everything so soon! He's to review it in The Middle.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63