"
"He--Drayton Deane--review Vereker?" I couldn't believe my ears.
"'Why not? One fine ignorance is as good as another."
I winced but I presently said: "You ought to review him yourself!"
"I don't 'review,'" she laughed. "I'm reviewed!"
Just then the door was thrown open. "Ah yes, here's your
reviewer!" Drayton Deane was there with his long legs and his tall
forehead: he had come to see what she thought of "The Right of
Way," and to bring news that was singularly relevant. The evening
papers were just out with a telegram on the author of that work,
who, in Rome, had been ill for some days with an attack of malarial
fever. It had at first not been thought grave, but had taken, in
consequence of complications, a turn that might give rise to
anxiety. Anxiety had indeed at the latest hour begun to be felt.
I was struck in the presence of these tidings with the fundamental
detachment that Mrs. Corvick's overt concern quite failed to hide:
it gave me the measure of her consummate independence. That
independence rested on her knowledge, the knowledge which nothing
now could destroy and which nothing could make different. The
figure in the carpet might take on another twist or two, but the
sentence had virtually been written. The writer might go down to
his grave: she was the person in the world to whom--as if she had
been his favoured heir--his continued existence was least of a
need.
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