He said that night at supper:
'Of course I know there must be a change of heart, but it will not
come as slowly as all that. I rang my bell because you were not
being understood.' He did not show any vexation, but I never
returned after that night; and yet I did not always believe what I
had said and only gradually gave up thinking of and planning for
some near sudden change for the better.
XI
I spent my days at the British Museum and must, I think, have been
delicate, for I remember often putting off hour after hour
consulting some necessary book because I shrank from lifting the
heavy volumes of the catalogue; and yet to save money for my
afternoon coffee and roll I often walked the whole way home to
Bedford Park. I was compiling, for a series of shilling books, an
anthology of Irish fairy stories and, for an American publisher, a
two volume selection from the Irish novelists that would be
somewhat dearer. I was not well paid, for each book cost me more
than three months' reading; and I was paid for the first some
twelve pounds, ('O Mr.
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