Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/289

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pages hastily. Ah yes, Rupert had written this! She put the book down and she dressed herself as prettily as she knew how, and she went in a hansom cab to the office of the publisher of that book, and on the way she read. And more and more she saw how great a book it was, and how no one but Rupert could have written just that book. Thrill after thrill of pride ran through her. He had done this for her—because of what she had said.

Arrived at the publisher’s, she was met by a blank wall. Neither partner was visible. The senior clerk did not know the address of the author of “Work While it is Yet Day,” nor the name of him; and it was abundantly evident that even if he had known, he would not have told.

Sybil’s prettiness and her charm so wrought upon this dry-as-dust person, however, that he volunteered the address of the literary agent through whom the book had been purchased. And Sybil found him on a first floor in one of those imposing new buildings in Arundel Street. He was very nice and kind, but he could not give his client’s name without his client’s permission.

The disappointment was bitter.