As he sat there, baffled and sombre, biting his pen and wondering
what was meant by the "rewards" of literature, he generally ended by
tossing away the composition deflowered by Mr. Locket and trying his
hand at the sort of twaddle that Mrs. Ryves might be able to set to
music. Success in these experiments wouldn't be a reward of
literature, but it might very well become a labour of love. The
experiments would be pleasant enough for him if they were pleasant
for his inscrutable neighbour. That was the way he thought of her
now, for he had learned enough about her, little by little, to guess
how much there was still to learn. To spend his mornings over cheap
rhymes for her was certainly to shirk the immediate question; but
there were hours when he judged this question to be altogether too
arduous, reflecting that he might quite as well perish by the sword
as by famine. Besides, he did meet it obliquely when he considered
that he shouldn't be an utter failure if he were to produce some
songs to which Mrs. Ryves's accompaniments would give a circulation.
He had not ventured to show her anything yet, but one morning, at a
moment when her little boy was in his room, it seemed to him that, by
an inspiration, he had arrived at the happy middle course (it was an
art by itself), between sound and sense. If the sense was not
confused it was because the sound was so familiar.

He had said to the child, to whom he had sacrificed barley-sugar (it
had no attraction for his own lips, yet in these days there was
always some of it about), he had confided to the small Sidney that if
he would wait a little he should be intrusted with something nice to
take down to his parent. Sidney had absorbing occupation and, while
Peter copied off the song in a pretty hand, roamed, gurgling and
sticky, about the room. In this manner he lurched like a little
toper into the rear of the davenport, which stood a few steps out