Chapter 35

Part 3. Wiltshire
Chapter XXXV

From the window they looked over a sober valley, whose sides were not too sloping to be ploughed, and whose trend was followed by a grass-grown track. It was late on Sunday afternoon, and the valley was deserted except for one labourer, who was coasting slowly downward on a rosy bicycle. The air was very quiet. A jay screamed up in the woods behind, but the ring-doves, who roost early, were already silent. Since the window opened westward, the room was flooded with light, and Stephen, finding it hot, was working in his shirtsleeves.

"You guarantee they'll sell?" he asked, with a pen between his teeth. He was tidying up a pile of manuscripts.

"I guarantee that the world will be the gainer," said Mr. Pembroke, now a clergyman, who sat beside him at the table with an expression of refined disapproval on his face.

"I'd got the idea that the long story had its points, but that these shorter things didn't--what's the word?"

"'Convince' is probably the word you want. But that type of criticism is quite a thing of the past. Have you seen the illustrated American edition?"

"I don't remember."

"Might I send you a copy? I think you ought to possess one."

"Thank you." His eye wandered. The bicycle had disappeared into some trees, and thither, through a cloudless sky, the sun was also descending.

"Is all quite plain?" said Mr. Pembroke. "Submit these ten stories to the magazines, and make your own terms with the editors. Then--I have your word for it--you will join forces with me; and the four stories in my possession, together with yours, should make up a volume, which we might well call 'Pan Pipes.'"

"Are you sure 'Pan Pipes' haven't been used up already?"

Mr. Pembroke clenched his teeth. He had been bearing with this sort of thing for nearly an hour. "If that is the case, we can select another. A title is easy to come by. But that is the idea it must suggest. The stories, as I have twice explained to you, all centre round a Nature theme. Pan, being the god of--"

"I know that," said Stephen impatiently.

"--Being the god of--"

"All right. Let's get furrard. I've learnt that."

It was years since the schoolmaster had been interrupted, and he could not stand it. "Very well," he said. "I bow to your superior knowledge of the classics. Let us proceed."

"Oh yes the introduction. There must be one. It was the introduction with all those wrong details that sold the other book."

"You overwhelm me. I never penned the memoir with that intention."

"If you won't do one, Mrs. Keynes must!"

"My sister leads a busy life. I could not ask her. I will do it myself since you insist."

"And the binding?"

"The binding," said Mr. Pembroke coldly, "must really be left to the discretion of the publisher. We cannot be