'Nay,' his mother was saying, 'I can't read it.' Tears of joyous pride had rendered her spectacles worse than useless. 'Here, Annie, read it aloud.'
Henry smiled, and he tried to make his smile carry so much meaning, of pleasant indifference, careless amusement, and benevolent joy in the joy of others, that it ended by being merely foolish.
'"It is not too much to say that Mr. Henry Knight, the author of _Love in Babylon_, the initial volume of the already world-famous Satin Library, is the most-talked-of writer in London at the present moment. I shall therefore make no apology for offering to my readers an account of an interview which the young and gifted novelist was kind enough to give to me the other evening. Mr. Knight is a legal luminary well known in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the right-hand man of Sir George Powell, the celebrated lawyer. I found him in his formidable room seated at a----"'
'What does she mean by "formidable," Henry? 'I don't think that's quite nice,' said Mrs. Knight.
'No, it isn't,' said Aunt Annie. 'But perhaps she means it frightened her.'
'That's it,' said Henry. 'It was Sir George's room, you know.'
'She doesn't _look_ as if she would be easily frightened,' said Aunt Annie. 'However--"seated at a large table littered with legal documents. He was evidently immersed in business, but he was so good as to place himself at my disposal for a few minutes. Mr. Knight is twenty-three years of age. His father was a silk-mercer in Oxford Street, and laid the foundation of the fortunes of the house now known as Duck and Peabody Limited."'
'That's very well put,' said Mrs. Knight.
'Yes, isn't it?' said Aunt Annie, and continued in her precise, even tones:
'"'What first gave you the idea of writing, Mr. Knight?' I inquired, plunging at once _in medias res_. Mr. Knight hesitated a few seconds, and then answered: 'I scarcely know. I owe a great deal to my late father. My father, although first and foremost a business man, was devoted to literature. He held that Shakspere, besides being our greatest poet, was the greatest moral teacher that England has ever produced. I was brought up on Shakspere,' said Mr. Knight, smiling. 'My father often sent communications to the leading London papers on subjects of topical interest, and one of my most precious possessions is a collection of these which he himself put into an album.'"'