NOBODY’S FAULT
Nobody’s Fault
BY NETTA SYRETT
BOSTON: ROBERTS BROS., 1896
LONDON: JOHN LANE, VIGO ST
Copyright, 1896,
By Roberts Brothers.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
NOBODY’S FAULT
Out in the London Square a dismal Novemberfog mingled with the gathering twilight, andblotted out the trees and the opposite houses.
Mrs. Trelawney’s drawing-room, where thefire burnt clear, and the softly shaded lampsshed a subdued light, was very pleasant by contrast.Mrs. Trelawney herself sat on one sideof the fire in a low seat, beside which a smalltable was drawn up, covered with multi-coloredsilks for the embroidery she held.
“Are you very busy just now?” she askedpresently of a man who sat leaning back in anarm-chair opposite her on the other side of thetable.
“Busy? Stevens is never busy,” her husbandassured her. He rose lazily from the sofaas he spoke, and sat down on the arm of hiswife’s chair. “He sits in his den before a goodfire, with a novel in one hand, and the editorialcigar in the other; and that’s what he callshard work!”
[8]Stevens groaned. “May you never do anythingharder! You don’t mention the kind ofnovel over which I’m usually to be foundgnashing my teeth!”
“Poor man! as bored and savage as all that?”Mrs. Trelawney asked, smiling. “But you geta good one sometimes, of course.”
“Once in three months, perhaps. Oh! thereare mitigations of misery, I allow. Last night,for instance, I reviewed a book that interestedme. It was good; very good,” he added, meditatively.
“A new writer?”
“Yes, or new to me, at least. It was awoman’s book,—no