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."

"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