Sorrell and Son by Warwick Deeping

There followed an interlude, marked in Kit by an impulse towards humility. He wrote and apologized. "I'm sorry I behaved like a cad, and I have no excuses to offer. When may I see you again?" His letter came to her at a moment when she was standing between yesterday and to-morrow, at the summit of a little hill of restlessness towards which she had long been climbing. Decisions sometimes seem to happen of themselves, or a mood puts on the clothes of a considered purpose, only to find that it was nothing but the shadow of that very purpose.

The shop in Taunton Street had begun to bore her; it had become superfluous, for the success of her books had made her independent of it; also it absorbed too much time. She was finding herself a very busy young woman, in the public eye. Editors approached her, asking for articles and stories; her views upon the topics of the day had social value; her agents were suggesting that she should lecture, and the more provocatively--the better. She had found her career; her work fascinated her. As for "Salome's," it had been a piece of mischief, an adventure, a testing of her wits, and now she was ready to be rid of it.