“I don't think that you need be at all afraid to face such a task,” said Agnes. “But if you are, why not write to Mr. Westwood, telling him that you repent?”
“Oh, I would be far more afraid to face him after that than to face the drawings,” cried the girl.
“What would Mr. Westwood think of any one who would break a compact?”
Agnes looked at her in silence for a few moments. She was tempted to tell Clare the full story of the compact which she had once made with that man, and the way in which he had broken it, ignoring the fact that it had ever been entered into by either of them. She felt tempted to ask her if the susceptibilities of such a man on the subject of compacts--especially those made with women--were to be greatly respected; but she controlled herself, and when Clare sat down with tearful eyes, she did her best to comfort her.
Then Claude went to London and had an interview of a very satisfactory character with Messrs. Shekels & Shackles. All that they stipulated was that he should not give himself away--the phrase was Mr. Shekels'--at the Royal Geographical Society. The papers read by distinguished--travellers--and some who were not quite so distinguished--at the big meetings of the Society, were only designed to stimulate the imagination of the public and prepare the way for the forthcoming book. A paper that discounted any portion of the forthcoming book--Mr. Shekels took it for granted that the book was always forthcoming--was worse than futile for advertising purposes He urged upon Mr. Westwood the advisability of putting nothing into his Geographical Society lecture that the newspapers could not lay hold of for the purposes of leading articles. The newspapers did not want pathological erudition. They wanted something that all their readers could understand--something about cannibalism, for example; cannibalism as a topic never failed to attract general readers. He hoped that Mr. Westwood would see his way to talk about the cannibals of Central Africa in his paper. That would tickle the palates of the general public, causing them to look forward to the book, which need not necessarily contain a single allusion to cannibalism. In one word, Mr. Shekels explained that the lecture should be a kind of _hors d'ouvre_ to the literary banquet which was to follow.