Halo suddenly felt ashamed of her own impotent anger. She could have rendered Vance no worse service than by harping to her husband on his blunder. For the sake of satisfying a burst of temper as useless as Tarrant's she had risked what little hope there was of bringing him around to a kindlier view. But it was almost impossible for her to be adroit and patient when she dealt with anything near to her heart. Then generosity and frankness were her only weapons—and they were about as availing as bows and arrows against a machine-gun. At length she said: "I can understand Dreck and Saltzer taking this stand—I suppose, from a business point of view, it's all right. But with you it's so different, isn't it? Fellow artists surely ought to look at the question from the same angle. Vance is terribly poor … his wife is ill … in some respects his collaboration hasn't been of much use to the review, and I should think you'd be glad, if the New Hour can't afford to raise his pay, to let him off his bargain, and get Dreck and Saltzer to do the same. What harm can it do either of you? And at any rate you'll have given him the chance of trying his luck elsewhere… . I daresay he was stupid, and even rude, in his talk with you—he's got no tact, no cleverness of that kind—but you, who've got all the social experience he lacks, you ought to be generous … you can afford to be… ." Her lips were so parched that she had to stop. To go on talking like that was like chewing sawdust. And when she paused she understood in a flash the extent of her miscalculation. It is too easy to think that vain people are always stupid—and this was the mistake she had made. Yet she ought to have known that her husband, though he was vain, was not stupid … or at least not always so; and that flattery administered at the wrong time will not deceive even those who most thirst for it. Tarrant stood up and looked down on her with a faintly ironic smile.

"What you really think," he said, "is that I'm a fool—but I'm not quite as an egregious one as all that. I leave that superiority to your young friend. Besides," he added, "I ought not to forget that you've never understood anything about business. It was the only gift your fairy godmothers left out. I'm awfully obliged for your advice; but really, in matters of this kind, you must leave me to deal with our contributors myself… ."

Part 7

Chapter 1

The summer light lay so rightly on the lawn and trees of the Willows that Halo Tarrant understood more clearly than ever before the spell the place had cast on Vance Weston.