"She thought," he reflected,
"that I hoisted Janet into literature, and could be
utilized again perhaps," in which he did her injustice.
But he lingered over his tea, and when he took her hand
to bid her good-by he looked down at her and said, "Was
I very brutal?" in a way which amused Her for quite half
an hour after he had gone.
Cardiff sent the amended article to the _London Magazine_
with qualms. It was so unsuitable even then, that he
hardly expected his name to do much for it, and the
half-hour he devoted to persuading his literary conscience
to let him send it was very uncomfortable indeed. Privately
he thought any journalist would be rather an ass to print
it, yet he sincerely hoped the editor of the _London
Magazine_ would prove himself such an ass. He selected
the _London Magazine_ because it seemed to him that the
quality of its matter had lately been slightly
deteriorating. A few days later, when he dropped in at
the office, impatient at the delay, to ask the fate of
the article, he was distinctly, disappointed to find that
the editor had failed to approach it in the character he
had mentally assigned to him. That gentleman took the
manuscript out of the left-hand drawer of his writing-table,
and fingered, the pages over with a kind of disparaging
consideration before handing it back,
"I'm very sorry, Cardiff, but we can't do anything with
this, I'm afraid.
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