minutes was animated.

An interval of thought followed.

"How wearisome is society!" reflected Mrs. Selldon. "It is hard
that we must spend so much money in giving dinners and have so much
trouble for so little enjoyment."

"One pays dearly for fame," reflected the author. "What a
confounded nuisance it is to waste all this time when there are the
last proofs of 'What Caste?' to be done for the nine-o'clock post
to-morrow morning! Goodness knows what time I shall get to bed to-
night!"

Then Mrs. Selldon thought regretfully of the comfortable easy chair
that she usually enjoyed after dinner, and the ten minutes' nap, and
the congenial needle-work. And Mark Shrewsbury thought of his
chambers in Pump Court, and longed for his type-writer, and his
books, and his swivel chair, and his favourite meerschaum.

"I should be less afraid to talk if there were not always the
horrible idea that he may take down what one says," thought Mrs.
Selldon.

"I should be less bored if she would only be her natural self,"
reflected the author. "And would not talk prim platitudes." (This
was hard, for he had talked nothing else himself.) "Does she think
she is so interesting that I am likely to study her for my next
book?"