Reardon would never be a great man; he would never even occupy a prominent place in the estimation of the public.

The two things, Amy knew, might be as different as light and darkness; but in the grief of her disappointment she would rather have had him flare into a worthless popularity than flicker down into total extinction, which it almost seemed was to be his fate.
She knew so well how 'people' were talking of him and her.

Even her unliterary acquaintances understood that Reardon's last novel had been anything but successful, and they must of course ask each other how the Reardons were going to live if the business of novel-writing proved unremunerative.

Her pride took offence at the mere thought of such conversations.

Presently she would become an object of pity; there would be talk of 'poor Mrs Reardon.' It was intolerable.
So during the last half year she had withheld as much as possible from the intercourse which might have been one of her chief pleasures.