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Updated: June 22, 2025
To withhold unfavourable comments from Vyse was, therefore, to make it appear that correspondence about the book had died out; and its author, mindful of his unguarded predictions, found this even more embarrassing. The simplest solution would be to get rid of Vyse; and to this end Betton began to address his energies.
He remembered Vyse's tossing it down on his table with a gesture of despair when it came back from the last publisher. Betton, taking it up indifferently, had sat riveted till daylight. When he ended, the impression was so strong that he said to himself: "I'll tell Apthorn about it I'll go and see him to-morrow."
Betton stood amazed; then he broke into a groan. "Good Lord, Vyse you're incorrigible!" The secretary pulled his thin moustache with a nervous laugh. "If you mean I'm an ass, you're right. Look here." He held out an envelope stamped with the words: "Dead Letter Office." "My effusion has come back to me marked 'unknown. There's no such person at the address she gave you."
"If I've struck the note I won't bother you again," he urged; and Betton groaningly consented. "My dear fellow, they're beautiful too beautiful. I'll be let in for a correspondence with every one of these people." Vyse, at this, meditated for a while above a blank sheet. "All right how's this?" he said, after another interval of rapid writing. Betton glanced over the page. "By George by George!
Betton began to wonder if Vyse were exercising an unauthorized discrimination, and keeping back the communications he deemed least important. This sudden conjecture carried the novelist straight to his library, where he found Vyse bending over the writing-table with his usual inscrutable pale smile.
"Though why the deuce," Betton continued in the same steady tone, "you should need to do this kind of work when you've got such faculties at your service those letters were magnificent, my dear fellow! Why in the world don't you write novels, instead of writing to other people about them?" Vyse straightened himself with an effort. "What are you talking about, Betton?
When do you wish me to begin?" Vyse enquired, ignoring the tribute. "The book's out on Monday. The deluge will begin about three days after. Will you turn up on Thursday at this hour?" Betton held his hand out with real heartiness. "It was great luck for me, your striking that advertisement. Don't be too harsh with my correspondents I owe them something for having brought us together."
Vyse departed just after Betton had despatched to Florida his second missive of entreaty, and for ten days he tasted the furtive joy of a first perusal of his letters. The answer from Florida was not among them; but Betton said to himself "She's thinking it over," and delay, in that light, seemed favourable.
For five or six blissful days Betton did not even have his mail brought to him, trusting to Vyse to single out his personal correspondence, and to deal with the rest according to their agreement.
Vyse showed no surprise when Betton announced his intention of dealing personally with the two correspondents who showed so flattering a reluctance to take their leave. But Betton immediately read a criticism in his lack of comment, and put forth, on a note of challenge: "After all, one must be decent!" Vyse looked at him with an evanescent smile.
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