"A Ladies' Page!" suggested Miss Ramsbotham--"a page that should make the woman buy it. The women, believe me, are going to be of more and more importance to the weekly press."
"But why should she want a special page to herself?" demanded Peter Hope. "Why should not the paper as a whole appeal to her?"
"It doesn't," was all Miss Ramsbotham could offer in explanation.
"We give her literature and the drama, poetry, fiction, the higher politics, the--"
"I know, I know," interrupted Miss Ramsbotham, who of late, among other failings new to her, had developed a tendency towards impatience; "but she gets all that in half a dozen other papers. I have thought it out." Miss Ramsbotham leaned further across the editorial desk and sunk her voice unconsciously to a confidential whisper. "Tell her the coming fashions. Discuss the question whether hat or bonnet makes you look the younger. Tell her whether red hair or black is to be the new colour, what size waist is being worn by the best people. Oh, come!" laughed Miss Ramsbotham in answer to Peter's shocked expression; "one cannot reform the world and human nature all at once. You must appeal to people's folly in order to get them to listen to your wisdom. Make your paper a success first. You can make it a power afterwards."
"But," argued Peter, "there are already such papers--papers devoted to--to that sort of thing, and to nothing else."
"At sixpence!" replied the practical Miss Ramsbotham. "I am thinking of the lower middle-class woman who has twenty pounds a year to spend on dress, and who takes twelve hours a day to think about it, poor creature. My dear friend, there is a fortune in it.
Think of the advertisements."
Poor Peter groaned--old Peter, the dreamer of dreams. But for thought of Tommy! one day to be left alone to battle with a stony-eyed, deaf world, Peter most assuredly would have risen in his wrath, would have said to his distinguished-looking temptress, "Get thee behind me, Miss Ramsbotham. My journalistic instinct whispers to me that your scheme, judged by the mammon of unrighteousness, is good. It is a new departure. Ten years hence half the London journals will have adopted it. There is money in it. But what of that? Shall I for mere dross sell my editorial soul, turn the temple of the Mighty Pen into a den of--of milliners! Good morning, Miss Ramsbotham. I grieve for you. I grieve for you as for a fellow-worker once inspired by devotion to a noble calling, who has fallen from her high estate. Good morning, madam."
So Peter thought as he sat tattooing with his finger-tips upon the desk; but only said - "It would have to be well done."
"Everything would depend upon how it was done," agreed Miss Ramsbotham. "Badly done, the idea would be wasted. You would be merely giving it away to some other paper."
"Do you know of anyone?" queried Peter.
"I was thinking of myself," answered Miss Ramsbotham.
"I am sorry," said Peter Hope.
"Why?" demanded Miss Ramsbotham. "Don't you think I could do it?"
"I think," said Peter, "no one could do it better. I am sorry you should wish to do it--that is all."
"I want to do it," replied Miss Ramsbotham, a note of doggedness in her voice.
"How much do you propose to charge me?" Peter smiled.
"Nothing."
"My dear lady--"
"I could not in conscience," explained Miss Ramsbotham, "take payment from both sides. I am going to make a good deal out of it.
I am going to make out of it at least three hundred a year, and they will be glad to pay it."
"Who will?"
"The dressmakers. I shall be one of the most stylish women in London," laughed Miss Ramsbotham.
"You used to be a sensible woman," Peter reminded her.
"I want to live."
"Can't you manage to do it without--without being a fool, my dear."
"No," answered Miss Ramsbotham, "a woman can't. I've tried it."
"Very well," agreed Peter, "be it so."
Peter had risen. He laid his shapely, white old hand upon the woman's shoulder. "Tell me when you want to give it up. I shall be glad."
Thus it was arranged. Good Humour gained circulation and--of more importance yet--advertisements; and Miss Ramsbotham, as she had predicted, the reputation of being one of the best-dressed women in London. Her reason for desiring such reputation Peter Hope had shrewdly guessed. Two months later his suspicions were confirmed.
Mr. Reginald Peters, his uncle being dead, was on his way back to England.
His return was awaited with impatience only by the occupants of the little flat in the Marylebone Road; and between these two the difference of symptom was marked. Mistress Peggy, too stupid to comprehend the change that had been taking place in her, looked forward to her lover's arrival with delight. Mr. Reginald Peters, independently of his profession, was in consequence of his uncle's death a man of means. Miss Ramsbotham's tutelage, which had always been distasteful to her, would now be at an end. She would be a "lady" in the true sense of the word--according to Miss Peggy's definition, a woman with nothing to do but eat and drink, and nothing to think of but dress. Miss Ramsbotham, on the other hand, who might have anticipated the home-coming of her quondam admirer with hope, exhibited a strange condition of alarmed misery, which increased from day to day as the date drew nearer.
The meeting--whether by design or accident was never known--took place at an evening party given by the proprietors of a new journal. The circumstance was certainly unfortunate for poor Peggy, whom Bohemia began to pity. Mr. Peters, knowing both women would be there and so on the look-out, saw in the distance among the crowd of notabilities a superbly millinered, tall, graceful woman, whose face recalled sensations he could not for the moment place. Chiefly noticeable about her were her exquisite neck and arms, and the air of perfect breeding with which she moved, talking and laughing, through the distinguished, fashionable throng.