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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd77745 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66584 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66584) diff --git a/old/66584-0.txt b/old/66584-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 39770ba..0000000 --- a/old/66584-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10254 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The World of Chance, by W. D. Howells - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The World of Chance - -Author: W. D. Howells - -Release Date: October 21, 2021 [eBook #66584] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - available at The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD OF CHANCE *** - - - - - THE WORLD OF CHANCE - - - A Novel - - - BY - - W. D. HOWELLS - - AUTHOR OF “A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES” - “THE QUALITY OF MERCY” ETC. - - - [Illustration] - - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1893 - - - WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS’S NOVELS. - - _UNIFORM LIBRARY EDITION._ - - POST 8VO, CLOTH. - - - THE WORLD OF CHANCE. $1 50. - THE QUALITY OF MERCY. $1 50. - AN IMPERATIVE DUTY. $1 00. - THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. $1 00. - A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 2 Vols., $2 00. - ANNIE KILBURN. $1 50. - APRIL HOPES. $1 50. - - PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. - - - Copyright, 1893, by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. - - Electrotyped by S. J. PARKHILL & CO., Boston. - - - - -THE WORLD OF CHANCE. - - - - -I. - - -From the club where the farewell dinner was given him, Ray went to the -depot of the East & West Railroad with a friend of his own age, and they -walked up and down the platform talking of their lives and their loves, -as young men do, till they both at once found themselves suddenly very -drowsy. They each pretended not to be so; his friend made a show of not -meaning to leave him till the through express should come along at two -o’clock and pick up the sleeping-car waiting for it on the side track; -and Ray feigned that he had no desire to turn in, but would much rather -keep walking and talking. - -They got rid of each other at last, and Ray hurried aboard his sleeper, -and plunged into his berth as soon as he could get his coat and boots -off. Then he found himself very wakeful. The soporific first effect of -the champagne had passed, but it still sent the blood thumping in his -neck and pounding in his ears as he lay smiling and thinking of the -honor that had been done him, and the affection that had been shown him -by his fellow-townsmen. In the reflected light of these the future -stretched brightly before him. He scarcely felt it a hardship any more -that he should be forced to leave Midland by the business change which -had thrown him out of his place on the Midland _Echo_, and he certainly -did not envy the friend who had just parted from him, and who was going -to remain with the new owners. His mind kept, in spite of him, a sort of -grudge toward the Hanks Brothers who had bought the paper, and who had -thought they must reduce the editorial force as a first step towards -making the property pay. He could not say that they had treated him -unfairly or unkindly; they had been very frank and very considerate with -him; but he could not conceal from himself the probability that if they -had really appreciated him they would have seen that it would be a -measure of the highest wisdom to keep him. He had given the paper -standing and authority in certain matters; he knew that; and he smiled -to think of Joe Hanks conducting his department. He hoped the estimation -in which the dinner showed that his fellow-citizens held him, had done -something to open the eyes of the brothers to the mistake they had made; -they were all three at the dinner, and Martin Hanks had made a speech -expressive of regard and regret which did not reconcile Ray to them. He -now tried to see them as benefactors in disguise, and when he recalled -the words of people who said that they always thought he was thrown away -on a daily paper, he was willing to acknowledge that the Hankses had -probably, at least, not done him an injury. He had often been sensible -himself of a sort of incongruity in using up in ephemeral paragraphs, -and even leading articles, the mind-stuff of a man who had published -poems in the _Century_ Bric-à-brac and _Harper’s_ Drawer, and had for -several years had a story accepted by the _Atlantic_, though not yet -printed. With the manuscript of the novel which he was carrying to New -York, and the four or five hundred dollars he had saved from his salary, -he felt that he need not undertake newspaper work at once again. He -meant to make a thorough failure of literature first. There would be -time enough then to fall back upon journalism, as he could always do. - -He counted a good deal upon his novel in certain moods. He knew it had -weak points which he was not able to strengthen because he was too -ignorant of life, though he hated to own it; but he thought it had some -strong ones too; and he believed it would succeed if he could get a -publisher for it. - -He had read passages of it to his friend, and Sanderson had praised -them. Ray knew he had not entered fully into the spirit of the thing, -because he was merely and helplessly a newspaper mind, though since Ray -had left the _Echo_, Sanderson had talked of leaving it too, and going -on to devote himself to literature in New York. Ray knew he would fail, -but he encouraged him because he was so fond of him; he thought now what -a good, faithful fellow Sanderson was. Sanderson not only praised the -novel to its author, but he celebrated it to the young ladies. They all -knew that Ray had written it, and several of them spoke to him about it; -they said they were just dying to see it. One of them had seen it, and -when he asked her what she thought of his novel, in the pretence that he -did not imagine she had looked at the manuscript, it galled him a little -to have her say that it was like Thackeray; he knew he had imitated -Thackeray, but he feigned that he did not know; and he hoped no one else -would see it. She recognized traits that he had drawn from himself, and -he did not like that, either; in the same way that he feigned not to -know that he had imitated Thackeray, he feigned not to know that he had -drawn his own likeness. But the sum of what she said gave him great -faith in himself, and in his novel. He theorized that if its subtleties -of thought and its flavors of style pleased a girl like her, and at the -same time a fellow like Sanderson was taken with the plot, he had got -the two essentials of success in it. He thought how delicately charming -that girl was; still he knew that he was not in love with her. He -thought how nice girls were, anyway; there were lots of perfectly -delightful girls in Midland, and he should probably have fallen in love -with some of them if it had not been for that long passion of his early -youth, which seemed to have vastated him before he came there. He was -rather proud of his vastation, and he found it not only fine, but upon -the whole very convenient, to be going away heart-free. - -He had no embarrassing ties, no hindering obligations of any kind. He -had no one but himself to look out for in seeking his fortune. His -father, after long years of struggle, was very well placed in the little -country town which Ray had come from to Midland; his brothers had struck -out for themselves farther west; one of his sisters was going to be -married; the other was at school. None of them needed his help, or was -in anywise dependent upon him. He realized, in thinking of it all, that -he was a very lucky fellow; and he was not afraid but he should get on -if he kept trying, and if he did his best, the chances were that it -would be found out. He lay in his berth, with a hopeful and flattered -smile on his lips, and listened to the noises of the station: the feet -on the platforms; the voices, as from some disembodied life; the clang -of engine bells; the jar and clash and rumble of the trains that came -and went, with a creaking and squealing of their slowing or starting -wheels, while his sleeper was quietly side-tracked, waiting for the -express to arrive and pick it up. He felt a sort of slight for the town -he was to leave behind; a sort of contemptuous fondness; for though it -was not New York, it had used him well; it had appreciated him, and Ray -was not ungrateful. Upon the whole, he was glad that he had agreed to -write those letters from New York which the Hanks Brothers had finally -asked him to do for the _Echo_. He knew that they had asked him under a -pressure of public sentiment, and because they had got it through them -at last that other people thought he would be a loss to the paper. He -liked well enough the notion of keeping the readers of the _Echo_ in -mind of him; if he failed to capture New York, Midland would always be a -good point to fall back upon. He expected his novel to succeed, and then -he should be independent. But till then, the five dollars a week which -the Hanks Brothers proposed to pay him for his letters would be very -convenient, though the sum was despicable in itself. Besides, he could -give up the letters whenever he liked. He had his dreams of fame and -wealth, but he knew very well that they were dreams, and he was not -going to kick over his basket of glass till they had become realities. - -A keen ray from one of the electric moons depending from the black roof -of the depot suddenly pierced his window at the side of his drawn -curtain; and he felt the car jolted backward. He must have been -drowsing, for the express had come in unknown to him, and was picking up -his sleeper. With a faint thrill of homesickness for the kindly town he -was leaving, he felt the train pull forward and so out of its winking -lamps into the night. He held his curtain aside to see the last of these -lights. Then, with a luxurious sense of helplessness against fate, he -let it fall; and Midland slipped back into the irrevocable past. - - - - -II. - - -The next evening, under a rich, mild October sky, the train drew in -towards New York over a long stretch of trestle-work spanning a New -Jersey estuary. Ray had thriftily left his sleeper at the station where -he breakfasted, and saved the expense of it for the day’s journey by -taking an ordinary car. He could be free with his dollars when he did -not suppose he might need them; but he thought he should be a fool to -throw one of them away on the mere self-indulgence of a sleeper through -to New York, when he had no use for it more than half way. He -experienced the reward of virtue in the satisfaction he felt at having -that dollar still in his pocket; and he amused himself very well in -making romances about the people who got on and off at different points -throughout the day. He read a good deal in a book he had brought with -him, and imagined a review of it. He talked with passengers who shared -his seat with him, from time to time. He ate ravenously at the station -where the train stopped twenty minutes for dinner, and he took little -supernumerary naps during the course of the afternoon, and pieced out -the broken and abbreviated slumbers of the night. From the last of these -naps he woke with a sort of formless alarm, which he identified -presently as the anxiety he must naturally feel at drawing so near the -great, strange city which had his future in keeping. He was not so -hopeful as he was when he left Midland; but he knew he had really no -more cause now than he had then for being less so. - -The train was at a station. Before it started, a brakeman came in and -called out in a voice of formal warning: “This train express to Jersey -City. Passengers for way stations change cars. This train does not stop -between here and Jersey City.” - -He went out and shut the door behind him, and at the same time a young -woman with a baby in her arms jumped from her seat and called out, “Oh, -dear, what did he say?” - -Another young woman, with another baby in her arms, rose and looked -round, but she did not say anything. She had the place in front of the -first, and their two seats were faced, as if the two young women were -travelling together. Ray noted, with the interest that he felt in all -young women as the elements both of love and of literature, that they -looked a good deal alike, as to complexion and feature. The distraction -of the one who rose first seemed to communicate itself to her dull, -golden-brown hair, and make a wisp of it come loose from the knot at the -back of her head, and stick out at one side. The child in her arms was -fretful, and she did not cease to move it to and fro and up and down, -even in the panic which brought her to her feet. Her demand was launched -at the whole carful of passengers, but one old man answered for all: -“He said, this train doesn’t stop till it gets to Jersey City.” - -The young woman said, “Oh!” and she and the other sat down again, and -she stretched across the fretful child which clung to her, and tried to -open her window. She could not raise it, and the old man who had -answered her question lifted it for her. Then she sank back in her seat, -and her sister, if it was her sister, leaned forward, and seemed to -whisper to her. She put up her hand and thrust the loosened wisp of her -hair back into the knot. To do this she gave the child the pocket-book -which she seemed to have been holding, and she did not take it away -again. The child stopped fretting, and began to pull at its play-thing -to get it open; then it made aimless dabs with it at the back of the car -seat and at its mother’s face. She moved her head patiently from side to -side to escape the blows; and the child entered with more zest into the -sport, and began to laugh and strike harder. Suddenly, mid-way of the -long trestle-work, the child turned towards the window and made a dab at -the sail of a passing sloop. The pocket-book flew from its hand, and the -mother sprang to her feet again with a wail that filled the car. “Oh, -what shall I do! He’s thrown my pocket-book out of the window, and it’s -got every cent of my money in it. Oh, couldn’t they stop the train?” - -The child began to cry. The passengers all looked out of the windows on -that side of the aisle; and Ray could see the pocket-book drifting by in -the water. A brakeman whom the young woman’s lamentation had called to -the rescue, passed through the car with a face of sarcastic compassion, -and spoke to the conductor entering from the other end. The conductor -shook his head; the train kept moving slowly on. Of course it was -impossible and useless to stop. The young women leaned forward and -talked anxiously together, as Ray could see from his distant seat; they -gave the conductor their tickets, and explained to him what had -happened; he only shook his head again. - -When he came to get Ray’s ticket, the young fellow tried to find out -something about them from him. - -“Yes, I guess she told the truth. She had all her money, ten dollars and -some change, in that pocket-book, and of course she gave it to her baby -to play with right by an open window. Just like a woman! They’re just -about as _fit_ as babies to handle money. If they had to earn it, they’d -be different. Some poor fellow’s week’s work was in that pocket-book, -like as not. They don’t look like the sort that would have a great deal -of money to throw out of the window, if they was men.” - -“Do you know where they’re going?” Ray asked. “Are they going on any -further?” - -“Oh, no. They live in New York. ’Way up on the East Side somewhere.” - -“But how will they get there with those two babies? They can’t walk.” - -The conductor shrugged. “Guess they’ll have to try it.” - -“Look here!” said Ray. He took a dollar note out of his pocket, and gave -it to the conductor. “Find out whether they’ve got any change, and if -they haven’t, tell them one of the passengers wanted them to take this -for car fares. Don’t tell them which one.” - -“All right,” said the conductor. - -He passed into the next car. When he came back Ray saw him stop and -parley with the young women. He went through the whole train again -before he stopped for a final word with Ray, who felt that he had -entered into the poetry of his intentions towards the women, and had -made these delays and detours of purpose. He bent over Ray with a -detached and casual air, and said: - -“Every cent they had was in that pocket-book. Only wonder is they hadn’t -their tickets there, too. They didn’t want to take the dollar, but I -guess they had to. They live ’way up on Third Avenue about Hundred and -First Street; and the one that gave her baby her money to hold looks all -played out. They _couldn’t_ have walked it. I told ’em the dollar was -from a lady passenger. Seemed as if it would make it kind of easier for -’em.” - -“Yes, that was, right,” said Ray. - - - - -III. - - -When they stopped in Jersey City, Ray made haste out of the car to see -what became of his beneficiaries, and he followed closely after them, -and got near them on the ferry-boat. They went forward out of the cabin -and stood among the people at the bow who were eager to get ashore -first. They each held her heavy baby, and silently watched the New York -shore, and scarcely spoke. - -Ray looked at it too, with a sense of the beauty struggling through the -grotesqueness of the huge panorama, and evoking itself somehow from the -grossest details. The ferry-boats coming and going; the great barges -with freight trains in sections on them; the canal-boats in tow of the -river steamers; the shabby sloops slouching by with their sails -half-filled by the flagging breeze; the ships lying at anchor in the -stream, and wooding the shore with their masts, which the coastwise -steamboats stared out of like fantastic villas, all window-shutters and -wheel-houses; the mean, ugly fronts and roofs of the buildings beyond, -and hulking high overhead in the further distance in vast bulks and -clumsy towers, the masses of those ten-storied edifices which are the -necessity of commerce and the despair of art, all helped to compose the -brutal and stupid body of the thing, whose soul was collectively -expressed in an incredible picturesqueness. Ray saw nothing amiss in it. -This agglomeration of warring forms, feebly typifying the ugliness of -the warring interests within them, did not repulse him. He was not -afraid. He took a new grip of the travelling-bag where he had his -manuscript, so that he should not be parted from it for a moment till it -went into some publisher’s keeping. He would not trust it to the trunk -which he had checked at Midland, and which he now recognized among the -baggage piled on a truck near him. He fingered the outside of his bag to -make sure by feeling its shape that his manuscript was all right within. -All the time he was aware of those two young women, each with her baby -in her arms, which they amused with various devices, telling them to -look at the water, the craft going by, and the horses in the wagon-way -of the ferry-boat. The children fretted, and pulled the women’s hair, -and clawed their hats; and the passengers now and then looked -censoriously at them. From time to time the young women spoke to each -other spiritlessly. The one whose child had thrown her pocket-book away -never lost a look of hopeless gloom, as she swayed her body half round -and back, to give some diversion to the baby. Both were pretty, but she -had the paleness and thinness of young motherhood; the other, though she -was thin too, had the fresh color and firm texture of a young girl; she -was at once less tragic and more serious than her sister, if it was her -sister. When she found Ray gazing fixedly at her, she turned discreetly -away, after a glance that no doubt took in the facts of his neat, -slight, rather undersized person; his regular face, with its dark eyes -and marked brows; his straight fine nose and pleasant mouth; his -sprouting black moustache, and his brown tint, flecked with a few -browner freckles. - -He was one of those men who have no vanity concerning their persons; he -knew he was rather handsome, but he did not care; his mind was on other -things. When he found those soft woman-eyes lingering a moment on him he -had the wish to please their owner, of course, but he did not think of -his looks, or the effect they might have with her. He fancied knowing -her well enough to repeat poetry to her, or of reading some favorite -author aloud with her, and making her sympathize in his admiration of -the book. He permitted his fancy this liberty because, although he -supposed her married, his fancy safely operated their intellectual -intimacy in a region as remote from experience as the dreamland of -sleep. She and her sister had both a sort of refinement; they were -ladies, he felt, although they were poorly dressed, and they somehow did -not seem as if they had ever been richly dressed. They had not the New -Yorkeress air; they had nothing of the stylishness which Ray saw in the -other women about him, shabby or splendid; their hats looked as if they -had been trimmed at home, and their simple gowns as if their wearers had -invented and made them up themselves, after no decided fashion, but -after a taste of their own, which he thought good. He began to make -phrases about them to himself, and he said there was something -pathetically idyllic about them. The phrase was indefinite, but it was -sufficiently clear for his purpose. The baby which had thrown away the -pocket-book began to express its final dissatisfaction with the -prospect, and its mother turned distractedly about for some new -diversion, when there came from the ladies’ cabin a soft whistle, like -the warbling of a bird, low and rich and full, which possessed itself of -the sense to the exclusion of all other sounds. Some of the people -pressed into the cabin; others stood smiling in the benediction of the -artless strain. Ray followed his idyllic sisters within, and saw an old -negro, in the middle of the cabin floor, lounging in an easy pose, with -his hat in one hand and the other hand on his hip, while his thick lips -poured out those mellow notes, which might have come from the heart of -some thrush-haunted wild wood. When the sylvan music ceased, and the old -negro, with a roll of his large head, and a twist of his burly shape, -began to limp round the circle, every one put something in his hat. Ray -threw in a nickel, and he saw the sisters, who faced him from the other -side of the circle, conferring together. The younger had the bill in her -hand which Ray had sent them by the conductor to pay their car fares -home. She parleyed a moment with the negro when he reached them, and he -took some of the silver from his hat and changed the bill for her. She -gave him a quarter back. He ducked his head, and said, “Thank yeh, -miss,” and passed on. - -The transaction seemed to amuse some of the bystanders, and Ray heard -one of them, who stood near him, say: “Well, that’s the coolest thing -I’ve seen yet. I should have about as soon thought of asking the deacon -to change a bill for me when he came round with the plate in church. -Well, it takes all kinds to make a world!” - -He looked like a country merchant, on a first business visit to the -city; his companion, who had an air of smart ease, as of a man who had -been there often, said: - -“It takes all kinds to make a town like New York. You’ll see queerer -things than that before you get home. If that old darkey makes much on -that transaction, I’m no judge of human nature.” - -“Pshaw! You don’t mean it wasn’t a good bill?” - -The two men lost themselves in the crowd now pressing out of the cabin -door. The boat was pushing into her slip. She bumped from one elastic -side to the other, and settled with her nose at the wharf. The snarl of -the heavy chains that held her fast was heard; the people poured off and -the hollow thunder of the hoofs and wheels of the disembarking teams -began. Ray looked about for a last glimpse of the two young women and -their babies; but he could not see them. - - - - -IV. - - -Ray carried his bag himself when he left the elevated road, and resisted -the offer of the small Italian dodging about his elbow, and proposing to -take it, after he had failed to get Ray to let him black his boots. The -young man rather prided himself on his thrift in denying the boy, whose -naked foot came half through one of his shoes; he saw his tatters and -nakedness with the indifference of inexperience, and with his country -breeding he considered his frugality a virtue. His senses were not -offended by the foulness of the streets he passed through, or hurt by -their sordid uproar; his strong young nerves were equal to all the -assaults that the city could make; and his heart was lifted in a dream -of hope. He was going to a hotel that Sanderson had told him of, where -you could get a room, on the European plan, for seventy-five cents, and -then eat wherever you pleased; he had gone to an American hotel when he -was in New York before, and he thought he could make a saving by trying -Sanderson’s. It had a certain gayety of lamps before it, but the -splendor diminished within, and Ray’s pride was further hurt by the -clerk’s exacting advance payment for his room from him. The clerk said -he could not give him an outside room that night, but he would try to -change him in the morning; and Ray had either to take the one assigned -him or go somewhere else. But he had ordered his trunk sent to this -hotel by the express, and he did not know how he should manage about -that if he left; so he staid, and had himself shown to his room. It -seemed to be a large cupboard in the wall of the corridor; but it had a -window near the bed, and the usual equipment of stand and bureau, and -Ray did not see why he should not sleep very well there. Still, he was -glad that his friends at Midland could none of them see him in that -room, and he resolved to leave the hotel as soon as he could the next -day. It did not seem the place for a person who had left Midland with -the highest social honors that could be paid a young man. He hurried -through the hotel office when he came out, so as not to be seen by any -other Midlander that might happen to be there, and he went down to the -basement, where the clerk said the restaurant was, and got his supper. -When he had finished his oyster stew he started towards the street-door, -but was overtaken at the threshold by a young man who seemed to have run -after him, and who said, “You didn’t pay for your supper.” - -Ray said, “Oh, I forgot it,” and he went back to his table and got his -check, and paid at the counter, where he tried in vain to impress the -man who took his money with a sense of his probity by his profuse -apologies. Apparently they were too used to such tricks at that -restaurant. The man said nothing, but he looked as if he did not believe -him, and Ray was so abashed that he stole back to his room, and tried -to forget what had happened in revising the manuscript of his story. He -was always polishing it; he had written it several times over, and at -every moment he got he reconstructed sentences in it, and tried to bring -the style up to his ideal of style; he wavered a little between the -style of Thackeray and the style of Hawthorne, as an ideal. It made him -homesick, now, to go over the familiar pages: they put him so strongly -in mind of Midland, and the people of the kindly city. The pages smelt a -little of Sanderson’s cigar smoke; he wished that Sanderson would come -to New York; he perceived that they had also a fainter reminiscence of -the perfume he associated with that girl who had found him out in his -story; and then he thought how he had been in the best society at -Midland, and it seemed a great descent from the drawing-rooms where he -used to call on all those nice girls to this closet in a fourth-rate New -York hotel. His story appeared to share his downfall; he thought it -cheap and poor; he did not believe now that he should ever get a -publisher for it. He cowered to think how scornfully he had thought the -night before of his engagement with the Hanks Brothers to write letters -for the Midland _Echo_; he was very glad he had so good a basis; he -wondered how far he could make five dollars a week go toward supporting -him in New York; he could not bear to encroach upon his savings, and yet -he probably must. In Midland, you could get very good board for five -dollars a week. - -He determined to begin a letter to the _Echo_ at once; and he went to -open the window to give himself some air in the close room; but he found -that it would not open. He pulled down the transom over his door to keep -from stifling in the heat of his gas-burner, and some voices that had -been merely a dull rumbling before now made themselves heard in talk -which Ray could not help listening to. - -Two men were talking together, one very hopelessly, and the other in a -vain attempt to cheer him from time to time. The comforter had a deep -base voice, and was often unintelligible; but the disheartened man spoke -nervously, in a high key of plangent quality, like that of an unhappy -bell. - -“No,” he said; “I’d better fail, Bill. It’s no use trying to keep along. -I can get pretty good terms from the folks at home, there; they all know -me, and they know I done my best. I can pay about fifty cents on the -dollar, I guess, and that’s more than most business men could, if they -stopped; and if I ever get goin’ again, I’ll pay dollar for dollar; they -know that.” - -The man with the deep voice said something that Ray did not catch. The -disheartened man seemed not to have caught it either; he said, “What -say?” and when the other repeated his words, he said: “Oh yes! I know. -But I been dancing round in a quart cup all my life there; and now it’s -turning into a pint cup, and I guess I better get out. The place did -grow for a while, and we got all ready to be a city as soon as the -railroad come along. But when the road come, it didn’t do all we -expected of it. We could get out into the world a good deal easier than -we could before, and we had all the facilities of transportation that we -could ask for. But we could get away so easy that most of our people -went to the big towns to do their trading, and the facilities for -transportation carried off most of our local industries. The luck was -against us. We bet high on what the road would do for us, and we lost. -We paid out nearly our last dollar to get the road to come our way, and -it came, and killed us. We subscribed to the stock, and we’ve got it -yet; there ain’t any fight for it anywhere else; we’d let it go without -a fight. We tried one while for the car shops, but they located them -further up the line, and since that we ha’n’t even wiggled. What say? -Yes; but, you see, I’m part of the place. I’ve worked hard all my life, -and I’ve held out a good many times when ruin stared me in the face, but -I guess I sha’n’t hold out this time. What’s the use? Most every -business man I know has failed some time or other; some of ’em three or -four times over, and scrambled up and gone on again, and I guess I got -to do the same. Had a kind of pride about it, m’ wife and me; but I -guess we got to come to it. It does seem, sometimes, as if the very -mischief was in it. I lost pretty heavy, for a small dealer, on -Fashion’s Pansy, alone--got left with a big lot of ’em. What say? It was -a bustle. Women kept askin’ for Fashion’s Pansy, till you’d ’a’ thought -every last one of ’em was going to live and be buried in it. Then all -at once none of ’em wanted it--wouldn’t touch it. That and butter begun -it. You know how a country merchant’s got to take all the butter the -women bring him, and he’s got to pay for sweet butter, and sell it for -grease half the time. You can tell a woman she’d better keep an eye on -her daughter, but if you say she don’t make good butter, that’s the last -of that woman’s custom. But what’s finally knocked me out is this drop -in bric-à-brac. If it hadn’t been for that, I guess I could have pulled -through. Then there was such a rush for Japanese goods, and it lasted so -long, that I loaded up all I could with ’em last time I was in New York, -and now nobody wants ’em; couldn’t give ’em away. Well, it’s all a game, -and you don’t know any more how it’s comin’ out--you can’t bet on it -with any more certainty--than you can on a trottin’ match. My! I wish I -was dead.” - -The deep-voiced man murmured something again, and the high-voiced man -again retorted: - -“What say? Oh, it’s all well enough to preach; and I’ve heard about the -law of demand and supply before. There’s about as much of a law to it as -there is to three-card monte. If it wasn’t for my poor wife, I’d let ’em -take me back on ice. I would that.” - -The deep-voiced man now seemed to have risen; there was a shuffling of -feet, and presently a parley at the open door about commonplace matters; -and then the two men exchanged adieux, and the door shut again, and all -was silent in the room opposite Ray’s. He felt sorry for the unhappy -man shut in there; but he perceived no special significance in what he -had overheard. He had no great curiosity about the matter; it was one of -those things that happened every day, and for tragedy was in no wise -comparable to a disappointment in first love, such as he had carefully -studied for his novel from his own dark experience. Still it did suggest -something to Ray; it suggested a picturesque opening for his first New -York letter for the Midland _Echo_, and he used it in illustration of -the immensity of New York, and the strange associations and -juxtapositions of life there. He treated the impending failure of the -country storekeeper from an overstock of Japanese goods rather -humorously: it was not like a real trouble, a trouble of the heart; and -the cause seemed to him rather grotesquely disproportionate to the -effect. In describing the incident as something he had overheard in a -hotel, he threw in some touches that were intended to give the notion of -a greater splendor than belonged to the place. - -He made a very good start on his letter, and when he went to bed the -broken hairs that pierced his sheet from the thin mattress did not keep -him from falling asleep, and they did prove that it was a horse-hair -mattress. - - - - -V. - - -In the morning, Ray determined that he would not breakfast at the -restaurant under the hotel, partly because he was ashamed to meet the -people who, he knew, suspected him of trying to beat them out of the -price of his supper, and partly because he had decided that it was -patronized chiefly by the country merchants who frequented the hotel, -and he wanted something that was more like New York. He had heard of -those foreign eating-houses where you got a meal served in courses at a -fixed price, and he wandered about looking for one. He meant to venture -into the first he found, and on a side street he came on a hotel with a -French name, and over the door in an arch of gilt letters the -inscription, Restaurant Français. There was a large tub on each side of -the door, with a small evergreen tree in it; some strings or wires ran -from these tubs to the door-posts and sustained a trailing vine that -formed a little bower on either hand; a Maltese cat in the attitude of a -sphinx dozed in the thicket of foliage, and Ray’s heart glowed with a -sense of the foreignness of the whole effect. He had never been abroad, -but he had read of such things, and he found himself at home in an -environment long familiar to his fancy. - -The difference of things was the source of his romance, as it is with -all of us, and he looked in at the window of this French restaurant with -the feelings he would have had in the presence of such a restaurant in -Paris, and he began to imagine gay, light-minded pictures about it. At -the same time, while he was figuring inside at one of the small tables, -_vis-à-vis_ with a pretty actress whom he invented for the purpose, he -was halting on the sidewalk outside, wondering whether he could get -breakfast there so early as eight o’clock, and doubtful whether he -should not betray his strangeness to New York hours if he tried. When he -went in there was nobody there but one white-aproned waiter, who was -taking down some chairs from the middle table where they had been -stacked with their legs in the air while he was sweeping. But he did not -disdain to come directly to Ray, where he had sat down, with a plate and -napkin and knife and fork, and exchange a good-morning with him in -arranging them before him. Then he brought half a yard of French bread -and a tenuous, translucent pat of American butter; and asked Ray whether -he would have chops or beefsteak with his coffee. The steak came with a -sprig of water-cress on it, and the coffee in a pot; and the waiter, who -had one eye that looked at Ray, and another of uncertain focus, poured -out the coffee for him, and stood near, with a friendly countenance, and -a cordial interest in the young fellow’s appetite. By this time a neat -_dame de comptoir_, whom Ray knew for a _dame de comptoir_ at once, -though he had never seen one before, took her place behind a little -desk in the corner, and the day had begun for the Restaurant Français. - -Ray felt that it was life, and he prolonged his meal to the last drop of -the second cup of coffee that his pot held, and he wished that he could -have Sanderson with him to show him what life really was in New York. -Sanderson had taken all his meals in the basement of that seventy-five -cent hotel, which Ray meant to leave at once. Where he was he would not -have been ashamed to have any of the men who had given him that farewell -dinner see him. He was properly placed, as a young New York literary -man; he was already a citizen of that great Bohemia which he had heard -and read so much of. He was sure that artists must come there, and -actors, but of course much later in the day. His only misgiving was lest -the taxes of Bohemia might be heavier than he could pay, and he asked -the waiter for his account somewhat anxiously. It was forty cents, and -his ambition leaped at the possibility of taking all his meals at that -place. He made the occasion of telling the cross-eyed waiter to keep the -change out of the half-dollar he gave him, serve for asking whether one -could take board there by the week, and the waiter said one could for -six dollars: a luncheon like the breakfast, but with soup and wine, and -a dinner of fish, two meats, salad, sweets, and coffee. “On Sundays,” -said the waiter, “the dinner is something splendid. And there are rooms; -oh, yes, it is a hotel.” - -“Yes, I knew it was a hotel,” said Ray. - -The six dollars did not seem to him too much; but he had decided that he -must live on ten dollars a week in order to make his money last for a -full experiment of New York, or till he had placed himself in some -permanent position of profit. The two strains of prudence and of poetry -were strongly blended in him; he could not bear to think of wasting -money, even upon himself, whom he liked so well, and whom he wished so -much to have a good time. He meant to make his savings go far; with -those five hundred dollars he could live a year in New York if he helped -himself out on dress and incidental expenses with the pay for his -Midland _Echo_ letters. He would have asked to see some of the rooms in -the hotel, but he was afraid it was too early, and he decided to come to -dinner and ask about them. On his way back to the place where he had -lodged he rapidly counted the cost, and he decided, at any rate, to try -it for awhile; and he shut himself into his cupboard at the hotel, and -began to go over some pages of his manuscript for the last time, with a -lightness of heart which decision, even a wrong decision, often brings. - -It was still too soon to go with the story to a publisher; he could not -hope to find any one in before ten o’clock, and he had a whole hour yet -to work on it. He was always putting the last touches on it; but he -almost wished he had not looked at it, now, when the touches must really -be the last. It seemed to suffer a sort of disintegration in his mind. -It fell into witless and repellent fragments; it lost all beauty and -coherence, so that he felt ashamed and frightened with it, and he could -not think what the meaning of it had once so clearly been. He knew that -no publisher would touch it in the way of business, and he doubted if -any would really have it read or looked at. It seemed to him quite -insane to offer it, and he had to summon an impudently cynical courage -in nerving himself to the point. The best way, of course, would have -been to get the story published first as a serial, in one of the -magazines that had shown favor to his minor attempts; and Ray had tried -this pretty fully. The manuscript had gone the rounds of a good many -offices; and returned, after a longer or shorter sojourn, bearing on -some marginal corner the hieroglyphic or numerical evidence that it had -passed through the reader’s hand in each. Ray innocently fancied that he -suppressed the fact by clipping this mark away with the scissors; but -probably no one was deceived. In looking at it now he was not even -deceived himself; the thing had a desperately worn and battered air; it -was actually dog’s-eared; but he had still clung to the hope of getting -it taken somewhere, because in all the refusals there was proof that the -magazine reader had really read it through; and Ray argued that if this -were so, there must be some interest or property in it that would -attract the general reader if it could ever be got to his eye in print. - -He was not wrong; for the story was fresh and new, in spite of its -simple-hearted, unconscious imitations of the style and plot of other -stories, because it was the soul if not the body of his first love. He -thought that he had wrapped this fact impenetrably up in so many -travesties and disguises that the girl herself would not have known it -if she had read it; but very probably she would have known it. Any one -who could read between the lines could penetrate through the innocent -psychical posing and literary affectation to the truth of conditions -strictly and peculiarly American, and it was this which Ray had tried to -conceal with all sorts of alien splendors of make and manner. It seemed -to him now, at the last moment, that if he could only uproot what was -native and indigenous in it, he should make it a strong and perfect -thing. He thought of writing it over again, and recoloring the heroine’s -hair and the hero’s character, and putting the scene in a new place; but -he had already rewritten it so many times that he was sick of it; and -with all his changing he had not been able to change it much. He decided -to write a New York novel, and derive the hero from Midland, as soon as -he could collect the material; the notion for it had already occurred to -him; the hero should come on with a play; but first of all it would be -necessary for Ray to get this old novel behind him, and the only way to -do that was to get it before the public. - - - - -VI. - - -Ray put his manuscript back into its covering, and took it under his -arm. He meant to make a thorough trial of the publishers, and not to be -discouraged by his failures as long as a publisher was left untried. He -knew from his experience with the magazine editors that it would be a -slow affair, and he must have patience. Some of the publishers, even if -they did not look at his story, would keep it for days or weeks with the -intention or the appearance of reading it, and if they did read it they -would of course want time for it. He expected this, and he calculated -that it might very well take his manuscript six months to go the rounds -of all the houses in New York. Yet he meant, if he could, to get it -through sooner, and he was going to use his journalistic connection to -make interest for it. He would have given everything but honor to have -it known that he had written some things for _Harper’s_ and the -_Century_; he did not wish, or he said to himself and stood to it that -he did not wish, any favor shown his novel because he had written those -things. At the same time he was willing the fact that he was the -correspondent of the Midland _Echo_ should help him to a prompt -examination of his manuscript if it could; and he meant to let it be -known that he was a journalist before he let it be known that he was an -author. - -He formulated some phrases introducing himself in his newspaper -character, as he walked up Broadway with his manuscript held tight under -his arm, and with that lifting and glowing of the heart which a young -man cannot help feeling if he walks up Broadway on a bright October -morning. The sun was gay on the senseless facades of the edifices, -littered with signs of the traffic within, and hung with effigies and -emblems of every conceit and color, from the cornice to the threshold, -where the show-cases crowded the passengers toward the curbstones, and -to the cellarways that overflowed the sidewalks with their wares. The -frantic struggle and jumble of these appeals to curiosity and interest -jarred themselves to an effect of kaleidoscopic harmony, just as the -multitudinous noises of the hoofs and wheels and feet and tongues broke -and bruised themselves to one roar on the ear; and the adventurer among -them found no offence in their confusion. He had his stake, too, in the -tremendous game that all were playing, some fair and some foul, and -shrieking out their bets in these strident notes; and he believed so -much he should win that he was ready to take the chances of losing. From -the stainless blue sky overhead the morning sun glared down on the -thronged and noisy street, and brought out all its details with keen -distinctness; but Ray did not feel its anarchy. The irregularity of the -buildings, high and low, as if they were parts of a wall wantonly -hacked and notched, here more and here less, was of the same moral -effect to him as the beautiful spire of Grace Church thrilling -heavenward like a hymn. - -He went along, wondering if he should happen to meet either of those -young women whom he had befriended the evening before. He had heard that -you were sure to meet somebody you knew whenever you stepped out on -Broadway, and he figured meeting them, in fancy. He had decided to put -them into his story of New York life, and he tried to imagine the -character he should assign them, or rather one of them; the one who had -given the old darkey a quarter out of his dollar. He did not quite know -what to do with the child; something could be made of the child if it -were older, but a mere baby like that would be difficult to manage in -such a story as Ray meant to write. He wondered if it would do to have -her deserted by her husband, and have the hero, a young literary -adventurer, not at all like himself, fall in love with her, and then -have them both die when the husband, a worthless, drunken brute, came -back in time to prevent their marriage. Such a scheme would give scope -for great suffering; Ray imagined a scene of renunciation between the -lovers, who refused each other even a last kiss; and he felt a lump rise -in his throat. It could be made very powerful. - -He evolved a character of reckless generosity for her from her -beneficence to the old negro in the ferry-boat. Under that still, almost -cold exterior, he made her conceal a nature of passionate impulse, -because the story required a nature of that sort. He did not know -whether to have the husband finally die, and the lovers marry, or -whether to have the lovers killed in an accident. It would be more -powerful to have them killed; it would be so conventional and expected -to have them happily married; but he knew the reader liked a novel that -ended well. It would be at once powerful and popular to have them elope -together. Perhaps the best thing he could do would be to have them -elope; there was a fascination in the guilty thought; he could make such -a _dénoument_ very attractive; but upon the whole he felt that he must -not, for very much the same reason that he must not himself run off with -his neighbor’s wife. - -All the time that this went on in his mind, Ray was walking up Broadway, -and holding fast to the novel under his arm, which the novel in his -brain was eclipsing. His inner eye was fixed on the remembered face of -that strange girl, or woman, whom he was fashioning into a fictitious -heroine, but his outward vision roved over the women faces it -encountered, and his taste made its swift selection among them, and his -ambidextrous fancy wove romances around such, as he found pretty or -interesting enough to give his heart to. They were mostly the silly or -sordid faces that women wear when they are shopping, and they expressed -such emotions as are roused by the chase of a certain shade of ribbon, -or the hope of getting something rich and fashionable for less than its -worth. But youth is not nice, or else its eyes are keener than those of -after-life; and Ray found many beautiful and stylish girls where the -middle-aged witness would have seen a long procession of average -second-rate young women. He admired their New-Yorky dash; he saw their -difference in look and carriage from the Midland girls; and he wondered -what they would be like, if he knew them. He reflected that he did not -know any one in New York; but he expected soon to be acquainted. If he -got his novel taken he would very soon be known, and then his -acquaintance would be sought. He saw himself launched upon a brilliant -social career, and he suddenly had a difficulty presented to him which -he had not foreseen a moment before; he had to choose between a -brilliant marriage with a rich and well-born girl and fealty to the -weird heroine of his story. The unexpected contingency suggested a new -ending to his original story. The husband could die and the lovers be -about to marry, when they could become aware that the rich girl was in -love with the hero. They could renounce each other, and the hero could -marry the rich girl; and shortly after the heroine could die. An ending -like that could be made very powerful; and it would be popular, too. - -Ray found himself in a jam of people who had begun suddenly to gather at -the corner he was approaching. They were looking across at something on -the other corner, and Ray looked too. Trunks and travelling-bags had -overflowed from a store in the basement there, and piled themselves on -the sidewalk and up the house wall; and against the background they -formed stood two figures. One was a decent-looking young man in a Derby -hat, and wearing spectacles, which gave him a sort of scholarly air; he -remained passive in the grip of another, probably the shopman, who was -quite colorless with excitement, and who clung fast to the shoulder of -the first, as if his prisoner were making violent efforts to escape. A -tall young policeman parted the crowd, and listened a moment to the -complaint the shopman made, with many gestures toward his wares. Then he -turned to the passive captive, and Ray heard the click of the handcuffs -as they snapped on the wrists of this scholarly-looking man; and the -policeman took him by the arm and led him away. - -The intrusion of such a brutal fact of life into the tragic atmosphere -of his revery made the young poet a little sick, but the young -journalist avidly seized upon it. The poet would not have dreamed of -using such an incident, but the journalist saw how well it would work -into the scheme of that first letter he was writing home to the _Echo_, -where he treated of the surface contrasts of life in New York as they -present themselves to the stranger. A glad astonishment at the profusion -of the material for his letters possessed him; at this rate he should -have no trouble in writing them; he could make them an indispensable -feature; they would be quoted and copied, and he could get a rise out of -Hanks Brothers on the price. - -He crossed to the next corner, where the shopman was the centre of a -lessening number of spectators, and found him willing to prolong the -interest he had created in the public mind. He said the thief had priced -a number of bags in the place below, and on coming up had made a grab at -one and tried to get off with it; but he was onto him like lightning. He -showed Ray which bag it was, and turned it round and upside down as if -with a fresh sense of its moral value. He said he should have to take -that bag into court, and he set it aside so that he should not forget -it. - -“I suppose,” said a tall, elderly gentleman, who seemed to have been -listening to Ray’s dialogue with the shopman, “you wouldn’t be willing -to sell me that bag?” He spoke slowly with a thick, mellow voice, deep -in his throat. - -“Money wouldn’t buy that bag; no sir,” said the shopman; but he seemed -uneasy. - -“You know,” urged the soft-voiced stranger, “you could show some other -bag in court that was just like it.” - -“I couldn’t swear to no other bag,” said the shopman, daunted, and -visibly relenting. - -“That is true,” said the stranger. “But you could swear that it was -exactly like this. Still, I dare say you’re quite right, and it’s better -to produce the _corpus delicti_, if possible.” - -He glanced at Ray with a whimsical demand for sympathy; Ray smiled, and -they walked off together, leaving the shopman in dubious study of his -eventful bag. He was opening it, and scrutinizing the inside. - - - - -VII. - - -The stranger skipped into step with Ray more lightly than would have -been expected from one of his years. He wore a soft felt hat over locks -of silken silver that were long enough to touch his beautiful white -beard. He wore it with an effect of intention, as if he knew it was out -of character with the city, but was so much in character with himself -that the city must be left to reconcile itself to the incongruity or -not, as it chose. For the same reason, apparently, his well-fitting -frock-coat was of broadcloth, instead of modern diagonal; a black silk -handkerchief tied in an easy knot at his throat strayed from under his -beard, which had the same waviness as his hair; he had black trousers, -and drab gaiters showing themselves above wide, low shoes. In his hands, -which he held behind him, he dangled a stick with an effect of leisure -and ease, enhanced somehow by the stoop he made towards the young -fellow’s lower stature, and by his refusal to lift his voice above a -certain pitch, whatever the uproar of the street about them. Ray -screamed out his words, but the stranger spoke in what seemed his wonted -tone, and left Ray to catch the words as he could. - -“I didn’t think,” he said, after a moment, and with some misgiving, -that this stranger who had got into step with him might be some kind of -confidence man--“I didn’t think that fellow looked like a thief much.” - -“You are a believer in physiognomy?” asked the stranger, with a -philosophic poise. He had himself a regular face, with gay eyes, and a -fine pearly tint; lips that must have been beautiful shaped his -branching mustache to a whimsical smile. - -“No,” said Ray. “I wasn’t near enough to see his face. But he looked so -decent and quiet, and he behaved with so much dignity. Perhaps it was -his spectacles.” - -“Glasses can do much,” said the stranger, “to redeem the human -countenance, even when worn as a protest against the presence of one’s -portrait in the rogues’ gallery. I don’t say you’re wrong; I’m only -afraid the chances are that you’ll never be proved right. I should -prefer to make a speculative approach to the facts on another plane. As -you suggest, he had a sage and dignified appearance; I observed it -myself; he had the effect--how shall I express it?--of some sort of -studious rustic. Say he was a belated farm youth, working his way -through a fresh-water college, who had great latent gifts of peculation, -such as might have won him a wide newspaper celebrity as a defaulter -later in life, and under more favorable conditions. He finds himself -alone in a great city for the first time, and is attracted by the -display of the trunk-dealer’s cellarway. The opportunity seems favorable -to the acquisition of a neat travelling-bag; perhaps he has never owned -one, or he wishes to present it to the object of his affections, or to a -sick mother; he may have had any respectable motive; but his outlook has -been so restricted that he cannot realize the difference between -stealing a travelling-bag and stealing, say, a street; though I believe -Mr. Sharp only bought Broadway of those who did not own it, and who sold -it low; but never mind, it may stand for an illustration. If this young -man had stolen a street, he would not have been arrested and handcuffed -in that disgraceful way and led off to the dungeon-keep of the Jefferson -Market Police Court--I presume that is the nearest prison, though I -won’t be quite positive--but he would have had to be attacked and -exposed a long time in the newspapers; and he would have had counsel, -and the case would have been fought from one tribunal to another, till -at last he wouldn’t have known whether he was a common criminal or a -public benefactor. The difficulty in his case is simply an inadequate -outlook.” - -The philosophic stranger lifted his face and gazed round over Ray’s -head, but he came to a halt at the same time with the young fellow. -“Well, sir,” he said, with bland ceremony, “I must bid you good-morning. -As we go our several ways let us remember the day’s lesson, and when we -steal, always steal enough.” - -He held out his hand, and Ray took it with a pleasure in his discourse -which he was wondering how he should express to him. He felt it due -himself to say something clever in return, but he could not think of -anything. “I’m sure I shall remember your interpretation of it,” was all -he could get out. - -“Ah, well, don’t act upon that without due reflection,” the stranger -said; and he gave Ray’s hand a final and impressive downward shake. -“Dear me!” he added, for Ray made no sign of going on. “Are we both -stopping here--two spiders at the parlor of the same unsuspecting fly? -But perhaps you are merely a buyer, not a writer, of books? After you, -sir!” - -The stranger promoted a little polite rivalry that ensued between them; -he ended it by passing one hand through the young man’s arm, and with -the other pressing open the door which they had both halted at, and -which bore on either jamb a rounded metallic plate with the sign, “H. C. -Chapley & Co., Publishers.” Within, he released Ray with a courteous -bow, as if willing to leave him now to his own devices. He went off to a -distant counter in the wide, low room, and occupied himself with the -books on it; Ray advanced and spoke to a clerk, who met him half-way. He -asked for Mr. Chapley, and the clerk said he was not down yet--he seldom -got down so early; but Mr. Brandreth would be in almost any minute now. -When Ray said he had a letter for the firm, and would wait if the clerk -pleased, the clerk asked if he would not take a chair in Mr. Brandreth’s -room. - -Ray could not help thinking the civility shown him was for an imaginable -customer rather than a concealed author, but he accepted it all the -same, and sat looking out into the salesroom, with its counters of -books, and its shelves full of them around its walls, while he waited. -Chapley & Co. were of the few old-fashioned publishers who had remained -booksellers too, in a day when most publishers have ceased to be so. -They were jobbers as well as booksellers; they took orders and made -terms for public and private libraries; they had customers all over the -country who depended on them for advice and suggestion about -forth-coming books, and there were many booksellers in the smaller -cities who bought through them. The bookseller in Midland, who united -bookselling with a stationery and music business, was one of these, and -he had offered Ray a letter to them. - -“If you ever want to get a book published,” he said, with a touch on the -quick that made the conscious author wince, “they’re your men.” - -Ray knew their imprint and its relative value better than the Midland -bookseller, stationer, and music-dealer; and now, as he sat in the -junior partner’s neat little den, with the letter of introduction in his -hand, it seemed to him such a crazy thing to think of having his book -brought out by them that he decided not to say anything about it, but to -keep to that character of literary newspaper man which his friend gave -him in his rather florid letter. He had leisure enough to make this -decision and unmake it several times while he was waiting for Mr. -Brandreth to come. It was so early that, with all the delays Ray had -forced, it was still only a little after nine, and no one came in for a -quarter of an hour. The clerks stood about and chatted together. The -bookkeepers, in their high-railed enclosure, were opening their ledgers -under the shaded gas-burners that helped out the twilight there. Ray -could see his unknown street friend scanning the books on the upper -shelf and moving his person from side to side, and letting his cane rise -and fall behind him as if he were humming to himself and keeping time to -the tune. - - - - -VIII. - - -The distant street door opened at last, and a gentleman came in. His -entrance caused an indefinite sensation in the clerks, such as we all -feel in the presence of the man who pays our wages. At the sound of his -step, Ray’s street friend turned about from his shelf, but without -offering to leave it. - -“Ah, good-morning, good-morning!” he called out; and the other called -back, “Ah, good-morning, Mr. Kane!” and pushed on up towards a door near -that of Ray’s retreat. A clerk stopped him, and after a moment’s parley -he came in upon the young fellow. He was a man of fifty-five or sixty, -with whiskers slightly frosted, and some puckers and wrinkles about his -temples and at the corners of his mouth, and a sort of withered bloom in -his cheeks, something like the hardy self-preservation of the -late-hanging apple that people call a frozen-thaw. He was a thin man, -who seemed once to have been stouter; he had a gentle presence and a -somewhat careworn look. - -“Mr. Brandreth?” Ray said, rising. - -“No,” said the other; “Mr. Chapley.” - -“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Ray. “They showed me into Mr. Brandreth’s -room, and I thought”-- - -“It’s quite right, quite right,” said Mr. Chapley. “Mr. Brandreth will -be in almost any moment if you wish to see him personally.” Mr. Chapley -glanced at the parcel in Ray’s hand. - -“Oh no; I have a letter for the firm,” and Ray gave it to Mr. Chapley, -who read it through and then offered his hand, and said he was glad to -meet Mr. Ray. He asked some questions of commonplace friendliness about -his correspondent, and he said, with the kind of melancholy which seemed -characteristic of him: “So you have come to take a hand in the great -game here. Well, if there is anything I can do to serve you, I shall be -very glad.” - -Ray answered promptly, in pursuance of his plan: “You are very kind, Mr. -Chapley. I’m going to write letters to the paper I’ve been connected -with in Midland, and I wish to give them largely a literary character. I -shall be obliged to you for any literary news you have.” - -Mr. Chapley seemed relieved of a latent dread. A little knot of anxiety -between his eyes came untied; he did not yet go to the length of laying -off his light overcoat, but he set his hat down on Mr. Brandreth’s desk, -and he loosed the grip he had kept of his cane. - -“Why, Mr. Brandreth rather looks after that side of the business. He’s -more in touch with the younger men--with what’s going on, in fact, than -I am. He can tell you all there is about our own small affairs, and put -you in relations with other publishers, if you wish.” - -“Thank you--” Ray began. - -“Not at all; it will be to our advantage, I’m sure. We should be glad to -do much more for any friend of our old friends”--Mr. Chapley had to -refer to the letter-head of the introduction before he could make sure -of his old friends’ style--“Schmucker & Wills. I hope they are -prospering in these uncertain times?” - -Ray said they were doing very well, he believed, and Mr. Chapley went -on. - -“So many of the local booksellers are feeling the competition of the -large stores which have begun to deal in books as well as everything -else under the sun, nowadays. I understand they have completely -disorganized the book trade in some of our minor cities; completely! -They take hold of a book like _Robert Elsmere_, for instance, as if it -were a piece of silk that they control the pattern of, and run it at a -price that is simply ruinous; besides doing a large miscellaneous -business in books at rates that defy all competition on the part of the -regular dealers. But perhaps you haven’t suffered from these commercial -monstrosities yet in Midland?” - -“Oh, yes,” said Ray; “We have our local Stewart’s or Macy’s, whichever -it is; and I imagine Schmucker & Wills feel it, especially at the -holidays.” He had never had to buy any books himself, because he got the -copies sent to the _Echo_ for review; and now, in deference to Mr. -Chapley, he was glad that he had not shared in the demoralization of the -book trade. “But I think,” he added, cheerfully, “that they are holding -their own very well.” - -“I am very glad to hear it, very glad, indeed,” said Mr. Chapley. “If we -can only get this international copyright measure through and dam up the -disorganizing tide of cheap publications at its source, we may hope to -restore the tone of the trade. As it is, we are ourselves constantly -restricting our enterprise as publishers. We scarcely think now of -looking at the manuscript of an unknown author.” - -Mr. Chapley looked at the manuscript of the unknown author before him, -as if he divined it through its wrappings of stiff manilla paper. Ray -had no reason to think that he meant to prevent a possible offer of -manuscript, but he could not help thinking so, and it cut him short in -the inquiries he was going to make as to the extent of the -demoralization the book trade had suffered through the competition of -the large variety stores. He had seen a whole letter for the _Echo_ in -the subject, but now he could not go on. He sat blankly staring at Mr. -Chapley’s friendly, pensive face, and trying to decide whether he had -better get himself away without seeing Mr. Brandreth, or whether he had -better stay and meet him, and after a cold, formal exchange of -civilities, shake the dust of Chapley & Co.’s publishing house from his -feet forever. The distant street door opened again, and a small light -figure, much like his own, entered briskly. Mr. Kane turned about at the -new-comer’s step as he had turned at Mr. Chapley’s, and sent his -cheerful hail across the book counters as before. “Ah, good-morning, -good-morning!” - -“Good-morning, Mr. Kane; magnificent day,” said the gentleman, who -advanced rapidly towards Ray and Mr. Chapley, with a lustrous silk hat -on his head, and a brilliant smile on his face. His overcoat hung on his -arm, and he looked fresh and warm as if from a long walk. “Ah, -good-morning,” he said to Mr. Chapley; “how are you this morning, sir?” -He bent his head inquiringly towards Ray, who stood a moment while Mr. -Chapley got himself together and said: - -“This is Mr.--ah--Ray, who brings a letter from our old friends”--he had -to glance at the letter-head--“Schmucker & Wills, of--Midland.” - -“Ah! Midland! yes,” said Mr. Brandreth, for Ray felt it was he, although -his name had not been mentioned yet. “Very glad to see you, Mr. Ray. -When did you leave Midland? Won’t you sit down? And you, Mr. Chapley?” - -“No, no,” said Mr. Chapley, nervously. “I was going to my own room. How -is poor Bella this morning?” - -“Wonderfully well, wonderfully! I waited for the doctor’s visit before I -left home, so as to report reliably, and he says he never saw a better -convalescence. He promises to let her go out in a fortnight or so, if -the weather’s good.” - -“You must be careful! Don’t go too fast!” said Mr. Chapley. “And -the--child?” - -“Perfectly splendid! He slept like a top last night, and we could hardly -get him awake for breakfast.” - -“Poor thing!” said Mr. Chapley. He offered Ray his hand, and said that -he hoped they should see him often; he must drop in whenever he was -passing. “Mr. Ray,” he explained, “has come on to take up his residence -in New York. He remains connected with one of the papers in--Midland; -and I have been referring him to you for literary gossip, and that kind -of thing.” - -“All right, sir, all right!” said Mr. Brandreth. He laughed out after -Mr. Chapley had left them, and then said: “Excuse me, Mr. Ray. You -mustn’t mind my smiling rather irrelevantly. We’ve had a great event at -my house this week--in fact, we’ve had a boy.” - -“Indeed!” said Ray. He had the sort of contempt a young man feels for -such domestic events; but he easily concealed it from the happy father, -who looked scarcely older than himself. - -“An eight-pounder,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I have been pretty anxious for -the last few weeks, and--I don’t know whether you married or not, Mr. -Ray?” - -“No.” - -“Well, then you wouldn’t understand.” Mr. Brandreth arrested himself -reluctantly, Ray thought, in his confidences. “But you will, some day; -you will, some day,” he added, gayly; “and then you’ll know what it is -to have an experience like that go off well. It throws a new light on -everything.” A clerk came in with a pile of opened letters and put them -on Mr. Brandreth’s desk, with some which were still sealed; Ray rose -again. “No, don’t go. But you won’t mind my glancing these over while we -talk. I don’t know how much talk you’ve been having with Mr. -Chapley--he’s my father-in-law, you know?” - -Ray owned that he did not. - -“Yes; I came into the firm and into the family a little over a year ago. -But if there are any points I can give you, I’m quite at your service.” - -“Thank you,” said Ray. “Mr. Chapley was speaking of the effect of the -competition of the big variety stores on the regular booksellers.” - -Mr. Brandreth slitted the envelope of one of the letters with a slim -paper-knife, and glanced the letter over. “Well, that’s a little matter -I differ with Mr. Chapley about. Of course, I know just how he feels, -brought up the way he was, in the old traditions of the trade. It seems -to him we must be going to the bad because our books are sold over a -counter next to a tin-ware counter, or a perfume and essence counter, or -a bric-à-brac counter. I don’t think so. I think the great thing is to -sell the books, and I wish we could get a book into the hands of one of -those big dealers; I should be glad of the chance. We should have to -make him a heavy discount; but look at the discounts we have to make to -the trade, now! Forty per cent., and ten cents off for cash; so that a -dollar and a half book, that it costs twenty-five cents or thirty cents -to make, brings you in about seventy cents. Then, when you pay the -author his ten per cent. copyright, how far will the balance go towards -advertising, rent, clerk hire and sundries? If you want to get a book -into the news companies, you have got to make them a discount of sixty -per cent. out of hand.” - -“Is it possible?” asked Ray. “I’d no idea it was anything like that!” - -“No; people haven’t. They think publishers are rolling in riches at the -expense of the author and the reader. And some publishers themselves -believe that if we could only keep up the old system of letting the -regular trade have the lion’s share on long credit, their prosperity -would be assured. I don’t, myself. If we could get hold of a good, -breezy, taking story, I’d like to try my chance with it in the hands of -some large dry-goods man.” - -Ray’s heart thrilled. His own story had often seemed to him good and -taking; whether it was breezy or not, he had never thought. He wished he -knew just what Mr. Brandreth meant by breezy; but he did not like to ask -him. His hand twitched nervelessly on the manuscript in his lap, and he -said, timidly: “Would it be out of the way for me to refer to some of -these facts--they’re not generally known--in my letters? Of course not -using your name.” - -“Not at all! I should be very glad to have them understood,” said Mr. -Brandreth. - -“And what do you think is the outlook for the winter trade, Mr. -Brandreth?” - -“Never better. I think we’re going to have a _good_ trade. We’ve got a -larger list than we’ve had for a great many years. The fact is,” said -Mr. Brandreth, and he gave a glance at Ray, as if he felt the trust the -youthful gravity of his face inspired in most people--“the fact is, -Chapley & Co. have been dropping too much out of sight, as publishers; -and I’ve felt, ever since I’ve been in the firm, that we ought to give -the public a sharp reminder that we’re not merely booksellers and -jobbers. I want the house to take its old place again. I don’t mean it’s -ever really lost caste, or that its imprint doesn’t stand for as much as -it did twenty years ago. I’ll just show you our list if you can wait a -moment.” Mr. Brandreth closed a pair of wooden mandibles lying on his -desk; an electric bell sounded in the distance, and a boy appeared. “You -go and ask Miss Hughes if she’s got that list of announcements ready -yet.” The boy went, and Mr. Brandreth took up one of the cards of the -firm. “If you would like to visit some of the other houses, Mr. Ray, -I’ll give you our card,” and he wrote on the card, “Introducing Mr. Ray, -of the Midland _Echo_. P. Brandreth,” and handed it to him. “Not Peter, -but Percy,” he said, with a friendly smile for his own pleasantry. “But -for business purposes it’s better to let them suppose it’s Peter.” - -Ray laughed, and said he imagined so. He said he had always felt it a -disadvantage to have been named Shelley; but he could not write himself -P. B. S. Ray, and he usually signed simply S. Ray. - -“Why, then, we really have the same first name,” said Mr. Brandreth. -“It’s rather an uncommon name, too. I’m very glad to share it with you, -Mr. Ray.” It seemed to add another tie to those that already bound them -in the sympathy of youth, and the publisher said, “I wish I could ask -you up to my house; but just now, you know, it’s really a nursery.” - -“You are very kind,” said Ray. “I couldn’t think of intruding on you, of -course.” - -Their exchange of civilities was checked by the return of the boy, who -said Miss Hughes would have the list ready in a few minutes. - -“Well, just ask her to bring it here, will you?” said Mr. Brandreth. “I -want to speak to her about some of these letters.” - -“I’m taking a great deal of your time, Mr. Brandreth,” Ray said. - -“Not at all, not at all. I’m making a kind of holiday week of it, -anyway. I’m a good deal excited,” and Mr. Brandreth smiled so -benevolently that Ray could not help taking advantage of him. - -The purpose possessed him almost before he was aware of its activity; he -thought he had quelled it, but now he heard himself saying in a stiff -unnatural voice, “I have a novel of my own, Mr. Brandreth, that I should -like to submit to you.” - - - - -IX. - - -“Oh, indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a change in his voice, too, which -Ray might well have interpreted as a tone of disappointment and injury. -“Just at present, Mr. Ray, trade is rather quiet, you know.” - -“Yes, I know,” said Ray, though he thought he had been told the -contrary. He felt very mean and guilty; the blood went to his head, and -his face burned. - -“Our list for the fall trade is full, as I was saying, and we couldn’t -really touch anything till next spring.” - -“Oh, I didn’t suppose it would be in time for the fall trade,” said Ray, -and in the sudden loss of the easy terms which he had been on with the -publisher, he could not urge anything further. - -Mr. Brandreth must have felt their estrangement too, for he said, -apologetically: “Of course it’s our business to examine manuscripts for -publication, and I hope it’s going to be our business to publish more -and more of them, but an American novel by an unknown author, as long as -we have the competition of these pirated English novels--If we can only -get the copyright bill through, we shall be all right.” - -Ray said nothing aloud, for he was busy reproaching himself under his -breath for abusing Mr. Brandreth’s hospitality. - -“What is the--character of your novel?” asked Mr. Brandreth, to break -the painful silence, apparently, rather than to inform himself. - -“The usual character,” Ray answered, with a listlessness which perhaps -passed for careless confidence with the young publisher, and piqued his -interest. “It’s a love-story.” - -“Of course. Does it end well? A great deal depends upon the ending with -the public, you know.” - -“I suppose it ends badly. It ends as badly as it can,” said the author, -feeling that he had taken the bit in his teeth. “It’s unrelieved -tragedy.” - -“That isn’t so bad, sometimes,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is, if the -tragedy is intense enough. Sometimes a thing of that kind takes with the -public, if the love part is good and strong. Have you the manuscript -here in New York with you?” - -“I have it here in my lap with me,” said Ray, with a desperate laugh. - -Mr. Brandreth cast his eye over the package. “What do you call it? So -much depends upon a title with the public.” - -“I had thought of several titles: the hero’s name for one; the heroine’s -for another. Then I didn’t know but _A Modern Romeo_ would do. It’s very -much on the lines of the play.” - -“Indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a sudden interest that flattered Ray -with fresh hopes. “That’s very curious. I once took part in an amateur -performance of _Romeo_ myself. We gave it in the open air. The effect -was very novel.” - -“I should think it might be,” said Ray. He hastened to add, “My story -deals, of course, with American life, and the scene is laid in the -little village where I grew up.” - -“Our play,” said Mr. Brandreth, “was in a little summer place in -Massachusetts. One of the ladies gave us her tennis-ground, and we made -our exits and our entrances through the surrounding shrubbery. You’ve no -idea how beautiful the mediæval dresses looked in the electric light. It -was at night.” - -“It must have been beautiful,” Ray hastily admitted. “My Juliet is the -daughter of the village doctor, and my Romeo is a young lawyer, who half -kills a cousin of hers for trying to interfere with them.” - -“That’s good,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I took the part of Romeo myself, and -Mrs. Brandreth--she was Miss Chapley, then--was cast for Juliet; but -another girl who had refused the part suddenly changed her mind and -claimed it, and we had the greatest time to keep the whole affair from -going to pieces. I beg your pardon; I interrupted you.” - -“Not at all,” said Ray. “It must have been rather difficult. In my story -there has been a feud between the families of the lovers about a land -boundary; and both families try to break off the engagement.” - -“That’s very odd,” said Mr. Brandreth. “The play nearly broke off my -acquaintance with Mrs. Brandreth. Of course she was vexed--as anybody -would be--at having to give up the part at the eleventh hour, when -she’d taken so much trouble with it; but when she saw my suffering with -the other girl, who didn’t know half her lines, and walked through it -all like a mechanical doll, she forgave me. _Romeo_ is my favorite play. -Did you ever see Julia Marlowe in it?” - -“No.” - -“Then you never _saw_ Juliet! I used to think Margaret Mather was about -the loveliest Juliet, and in fact she has a great deal of passion”-- - -“My Juliet,” Ray broke in, “is one of those impassioned natures. When -she finds that the old people are inexorable, she jumps at the -suggestion of a secret marriage, and the lovers run off and are married, -and come back and live separately. They meet at a picnic soon after, -where Juliet goes with her cousin, who makes himself offensive to the -husband, and finally insults him. They happen to be alone together near -the high bank of a river, and the husband, who is a quiet fellow of the -deadly sort, suddenly throws the cousin over the cliff. The rest are -dancing”-- - -“We introduced a minuet in our theatricals,” Mr. Brandreth interposed, -“and people said it was the best thing in it. I _beg_ your pardon!” - -“Not at all. It must have been very picturesque. The cousin is taken up -for dead, and the husband goes into hiding until the result of the -cousin’s injuries can be ascertained. They are searching for the husband -everywhere, and the girl’s father, who has dabbled in hypnotism, and -has hypnotized his daughter now and then, takes the notion of trying to -discover the husband’s whereabouts by throwing her into a hypnotic -trance and questioning her: he believes that she knows. The trance is -incomplete, and with what is left of her consciousness the girl suffers -tremendously from the conflict that takes place in her. In the midst of -it all, word comes from the room where the cousin is lying insensible -that he is dying. The father leaves his daughter to go to him, and she -lapses into the cataleptic state. The husband has been lurking about, -intending to give himself up if it comes to the worst. He steals up to -the open window--I forgot to say that the hypnotization scene takes -place in her father’s office, a little building that stands apart from -the house, and of course it’s a ground floor--and he sees her stretched -out on the lounge, all pale and stiff, and he thinks she is dead.” - -Mr. Brandreth burst into a laugh. “I _must_ tell you what our Mercutio -said--he was an awfully clever fellow, a lawyer up there, one of the -natives, and he made simply a _perfect_ Mercutio. He said that our -Juliet was magnificent in the sepulchre scene; and if she could have -played the part as a dead Juliet throughout, she would have beat us -all!” - -“Capital!” said Ray. “Ha, ha, ha!” - -“Well, go on,” said Mr. Brandreth. - -“Oh! Well, the husband gets in at the window and throws himself on her -breast, and tries to revive her. She shows no signs of life, though all -the time she is perfectly aware of what is going on, and is struggling -to speak and reassure him. She recovers herself just at the moment he -draws a pistol and shoots himself through the heart. The shot brings the -father from the house, and as he enters the little office, his daughter -lifts herself, gives him one ghastly stare, and falls dead on her -husband’s body.” - -“That is strong,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is a very powerful scene.” - -“Do you think so?” Ray asked. He looked flushed and flattered, but he -said: “Sometimes I’ve been afraid it was overwrought, and -improbable--weak. It’s not, properly speaking, a novel, you see. It’s -more in the region of romance.” - -“Well, so much the better. I think people are getting tired of those -commonplace, photographic things. They want something with a little more -imagination,” said Mr. Brandreth. - -“The motive of my story might be called psychological,” said the author. -“Of course I’ve only given you the crudest outline of it, that doesn’t -do it justice”-- - -“Well, they say that _roman psychologique_ is superseding the realistic -novel in France. Will you allow me?” - -He offered to take the manuscript, and Ray eagerly undid it, and placed -it in his hands. He turned over some pages of it, and dipped into it -here and there. - -“Yes,” he said. “Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Mr. Ray. You leave -this with us, and we’ll have our readers go over it, and report to us, -and then we’ll communicate with you about it. What did you say your New -York address was?” - -“I haven’t any yet,” said Ray; “but I’ll call and leave it as soon as -I’ve got one.” He rose, and the young publisher said: - -“Well, drop in any time. We shall always be glad to see you. Of course I -can’t promise you an immediate decision.” - -“Oh, no; I don’t expect that. I can wait. And I can’t tell you how -much--how much I appreciate your kindness.” - -“Oh, not at all. Ah!” The boy came back with a type-written sheet in his -hand; Mr. Brandreth took it and gave it to Ray. “There! You can get some -idea from that of what we’re going to do. Take it with you. It’s -manifolded, and you can keep this copy. Drop in again when you’re -passing.” - -They shook hands, but they did not part there. Mr. Brandreth followed -Ray out into the store, and asked him if he would not like some advance -copies of their new books; he guessed some of them were ready. He -directed a clerk to put them up, and then he said, “I’d like to -introduce you to one of our authors. Mr. Kane!” he called out to what -Ray felt to be the gentleman’s expectant back, and Mr. Kane promptly -turned about from his bookshelf and met their advance half-way. “I want -to make you acquainted with Mr. Ray.” - -“Fortune,” said Mr. Kane, with evident relish of his own voice and -diction, “had already made us friends, in the common interest we took in -a mistaken fellow-man whom we saw stealing a bag to travel with instead -of a road to travel on. Before you came in, we were street intimates of -five minutes’ standing, and we entered your temple of the Muses -together. But I am very glad to know my dear friend by name.” He gave -Ray the pressure of a soft, cool hand. “My name is doubtless familiar to -you, Mr. Ray. We spell it a little differently since that unfortunate -affair with Abel; but it is unquestionably the same name, and we are of -that ancient family. Am I right,” he said, continuing to press the young -man’s hand, but glancing at Mr. Brandreth for correction, with ironical -deference, “in supposing that Mr. Ray is _one_ of us? I was sure,” he -said, letting Ray’s hand go, with a final pressure, “that it must be so -from the first moment! The signs of the high freemasonry of letters are -unmistakable!” - -“Mr. Ray,” said Mr. Brandreth, “is going to cast his lot with us here in -New York. He is from Midland, and he is still connected with one of the -papers there.” - -“Then he is a man to be cherished and avoided,” said Mr. Kane. “But -don’t tell me that he has no tenderer, no more sacred tie to literature -than a meretricious newspaper connection!” - -Ray laughed, and said from his pleased vanity, “Mr. Brandreth has kindly -consented to look at a manuscript of mine.” - -“Poems?” Mr. Kane suggested. - -“No, a novel,” the author answered, bashfully. - -“The great American one, of course?” - -“We are going to see,” said the young publisher, gaily. - -“Well, that is good. It is pleasant to have the old literary tradition -renewed in all the freshness of its prime, and to have young Genius -coming up to New York from the provinces with a manuscript under its -arm, just as it used to come up to London, and I’ve no doubt to Memphis -and to Nineveh, for that matter; the indented tiles must have been a -little more cumbrous than the papyrus, and were probably conveyed in an -ox-cart. And when you offered him your novel, Mr. Ray, did Mr. Brandreth -say that the book trade was rather dull, just now?” - -“Something of that kind,” Ray admitted, with a laugh; and Mr. Brandreth -laughed too. - -“I’m glad of that,” said Mr. Kane. “It would not have been perfect -without that. They always say that. I’ve no doubt the publishers of -Memphis and Nineveh said it in their day. It is the publishers’ way with -authors. It makes the author realize the immense advantage of getting a -publisher on any terms at such a disastrous moment, and he leaves the -publisher to fix the terms. It is quite right. You are launched, my dear -friend, and all you have to do is to let yourself go. You will probably -turn out an ocean greyhound; we expect no less when we are launched. In -that case, allow an old water-logged derelict to hail you, and wish you -a prosperous voyage to the Happy Isles.” Mr. Kane smiled blandly, and -gave Ray a bow that had the quality of a blessing. - -“Oh, that book of yours is going to do well yet, Mr. Kane,” said Mr. -Brandreth, consolingly. “I believe there’s going to be a change in the -public taste, and good literature is going to have its turn again.” - -“Let us hope so,” said Mr. Kane, devoutly. “We will pray that the -general reader may be turned from the error of his ways, and eschew -fiction and cleave to moral reflections. But not till our dear friend’s -novel has made its success!” He inclined himself again towards Ray. -“Though, perhaps,” he suggested, “it is a novel with a purpose?” - -“I’m afraid hardly”--Ray began; but Mr. Brandreth interposed. - -“It is a psychological romance--the next thing on the cards, _I_ -believe!” - -“Indeed!” said Mr. Kane. “Do you speak by the card, now, as a confidant -of fate; or is this the exuberant optimism of a fond young father? Mr. -Ray, I am afraid you have taken our friend when he is all molten and -fluid with happiness, and have abused his kindness for the whole race to -your single advantage!” - -“No, no! Nothing of the kind, I assure you!” said Mr. Brandreth, -joyously. “Everything is on a strict business basis with me, always. But -I wish you could see that little fellow, Mr. Kane. Of course it sounds -preposterous to say it of a child only eight days old, but I believe he -begins to notice already.” - -“You must get him to notice your books. Do get him to notice mine! He is -beginning young, but perhaps not _too_ young for a critic,” said Mr. -Kane, and he abruptly took his leave, as one does when he thinks he has -made a good point, and Mr. Brandreth laughed the laugh of a man who -magnanimously joins in the mirth made at his expense. - -Ray stayed a moment after Mr. Kane went out, and Brandreth said, “There -is one of the most puzzling characters in New York. If he could put -himself into a book, it would make his fortune. He’s a queer genius. -Nobody knows how he lives; but I fancy he has a little money of his own; -his book doesn’t sell fifty copies in a year. What did he mean by that -about the travelling-bag?” - -Ray explained, and Mr. Brandreth said: “Just like him! He must have -spotted you in an instant. He has nothing to do, and he spends most of -his time wandering about. He says New York is his book, and he reads it -over and over. If he could only work up that idea, he could make a book -that everybody would want. But he never will. He’s one of those men -whose talk makes you think he could write anything; but his book is -awfully dry--perfectly crumby. Ever see it? _Hard Sayings_? Well, -good-by! I _wish_ I could ask you up to my house; but you see how it -is!” - -“Oh, yes! I see,” said Ray. “You’re only too good as it is, Mr. -Brandreth.” - - - - -X. - - -Ray’s voice broke a little as he said this; but he hoped Mr. Brandreth -did not notice, and he made haste to get out into the crowded street, -and be alone with his emotions. He was quite giddy with the turn that -Fortune’s wheel had taken, and he walked a long way up town before he -recovered his balance. He had never dreamt of such prompt consideration -as Mr. Brandreth had promised to give his novel. He had expected to -carry it round from publisher to publisher, and to wait weeks, and -perhaps whole months, for their decision. Most of them he imagined -refusing to look at it at all; and he had prepared himself for rebuffs. -He could not help thinking that Mr. Brandreth’s different behavior was -an effect of his goodness of heart, and of his present happiness. Of -course he was a little ridiculous about that baby of his; Ray supposed -that was natural, but he decided that if he should ever be a father he -would not gush about it to the first person he met. He did not like Mr. -Brandreth’s interrupting him with the account of those amateur -theatricals when he was outlining the plot of his story; but that was -excusable, and it showed that he was really interested. If it had not -been for the accidental fact that Mr. Brandreth had taken the part of -Romeo in those theatricals, he might not have caught on to the notion of -_A Modern Romeo_ at all. The question whether he was not rather silly -himself to enter so fully into his plot, helped him to condone Mr. -Brandreth’s weakness, which was not incompatible with shrewd business -sense. All that Mr. Brandreth had said of the state of the trade and its -new conditions was sound; he was probably no fool where his interest was -concerned. Ray resented for him the cruelty of Mr. Kane in turning the -baby’s precocity into the sort of joke he had made of it; but he admired -his manner of saying things, too. He would work up very well in a story; -but he ought to be made pathetic as well as ironical; he must be made to -have had an early unhappy love-affair; the girl either to have died, or -to have heartlessly jilted him. He could be the hero’s friend at some -important moment; Ray did not determine just at what moment; but the -hero should be about to wreck his happiness, somehow, and Mr. Kane -should save him from the rash act, and then should tell him the story of -his own life. Ray recurred to the manuscript he had left with Mr. -Brandreth, and wondered if Mr. Brandreth would read it himself, and if -he did, whether he would see any resemblance between the hero and the -author. He had sometimes been a little ashamed of that mesmerization -business in the story, but if it struck a mood of the reading public, it -would be a great piece of luck; and he prepared himself to respect it. -If Chapley & Co. accepted the book, he was going to write all that -passage over, and strengthen it. - -He was very happy; and he said to himself that he must try to be very -good and to merit the fortune that had befallen him. He must not let it -turn his head, or seem more than it really was; after all it was merely -a chance to be heard that he was given. He instinctively strove to -arrest the wheel which was bringing him up, and must carry him down if -it kept on moving. With an impulse of the old heathen superstition -lingering in us all, he promised his god, whom he imagined to be God, -that he would be very grateful and humble if He would work a little -miracle for him, and let the wheel carry him up without carrying him -over and down. In the unconscious selfishness which he had always -supposed morality, he believed that the thing most pleasing to his god -would be some immediate effort in his own behalf, of prudent industry or -frugality; and he made haste to escape from the bliss of his high hopes -as if it were something that was wrong in itself, and that he would -perhaps be punished for. - -He went to the restaurant where he had breakfasted, and bargained for -board and lodging by the week. It was not so cheap as he had expected to -get it; with an apparent flexibility, the landlord was rigorous on the -point of a dollar a day for the room; and Ray found that he must pay -twelve dollars a week for his board and lodging instead of the ten he -had set as a limit. But he said to himself that he must take the risk, -and must make up the two dollars, somehow. His room was at the top of -the house, and it had a view of the fourth story of a ten-story -apartment-house opposite; but it had a southerly exposure, and there -was one golden hour of the day when the sun shone into it, over the -shoulder of a lower edifice next to the apartment-house, and round the -side of a clock tower beyond the avenue. He could see a bit of the -châlet-roof of an elevated railroad station; he could see the tops of -people’s heads in the street below if he leaned out of his window far -enough, and he had the same bird’s-eye view of the passing carts and -carriages. He shared it with the sparrows that bickered in the -window-casing, and with the cats that crouched behind the chimneys and -watched the progress of the sparrows’ dissensions with furtive and -ironical eyes. - -Within, the slope of the roof gave a picturesque slant to the ceiling. -The room was furnished with an American painted set; there was a clock -on the little shelf against the wall that looked as if it were French; -but it was not going, and there was no telling what accent it might tick -with if it were wound up. There was a little mahogany table in one -corner near the window to write on, and he put his books up on the shelf -on each side of the clock. - -It was all very different from the dignified housing of his life at -Midland, where less than the money he paid here got him a stately -parlor, with a little chamber out of it, at the first boarding-house in -the place. But still he would not have been ashamed to have any one from -Midland see him in his present quarters. They were proper to New York in -that cosmopolitan phase which he had most desired to see. He tried -writing at the little table, and found it very convenient. He forced -himself, just for moral effect, and to show himself that he was master -of all his moods, to finish his letter to the _Echo_, and he pleased -himself very well with it. He made it light and lively, and yet -contrived to give it certain touches of poetry and to throw in bits of -description which he fancied had caught something of the thrill and -sparkle of the air, and imparted some sense of such a day as he felt it -to be. He fancied different friends turning to the letter the first -thing in the paper; and in the fond remembrance of the kindness he had -left behind there, he became a little homesick. - - - - -XI. - - -Ray would have liked to go again that day, and give Mr. Brandreth his -new address in person; but he was afraid it would seem too eager, and -would have a bad effect on the fortunes of his book. He mastered himself -so far that even the next day he did not go, but sent it in a note. Then -he was sorry he had done this, for it might look a little too -indifferent; that is, he feigned that it might have this effect; but -what he really regretted was that it cut him off from going to see Mr. -Brandreth as soon as he would have liked. It would be absurd to run to -him directly after writing. He languished several days in the heroic -resolution not to go near Chapley & Co. until a proper time had passed; -then he took to walking up and down Broadway, remote from their place at -first, and afterwards nearer, till it came to his pacing slowly past -their door, and stopping at their window, in the hope that one or other -of the partners would happen upon him in some of their comings or -goings. But they never did, and he had a faint, heart-sick feeling of -disappointment, such as he used to have when he hung about the premises -of his first love in much the same fashion and to much the same effect. - -He cajoled himself by feigning interviews, now with Mr. Chapley and now -with Mr. Brandreth; the publishers accepted his manuscript with -transport, and offered him incredible terms. The good old man’s voice -shook with emotion in hailing Ray as the heir of Hawthorne; Mr. -Brandreth had him up to dinner, and presented him to his wife and baby; -he named the baby for them jointly. As nothing of this kind really -happened, Ray’s time passed rather forlornly. Without being the richer -for it, he won the bets he made himself, every morning, that he should -not get a letter that day from Chapley & Co., asking to see him at once, -or from Mr. Brandreth hoping for the pleasure of his company upon this -social occasion or that. He found that he had built some hopes upon Mr. -Brandreth’s hospitable regrets; and as he did not know how long it must -be after a happiness of the kind Mrs. Brandreth had conferred upon her -husband before her house could be set in order for company, he was -perhaps too impatient. But he did not suffer himself to be censorious; -he was duly grateful to Mr. Brandreth for his regrets; he had not -expected them; but for them he would not have expected anything. - -He did what he could to pass the time by visiting other publishers with -Mr. Brandreth’s card. He perceived sometimes, or fancied that he -perceived, a shadow of anxiety in the gentlemen who received him so -kindly, but it vanished, if it ever existed, when he put himself frankly -on the journalistic ground, and satisfied them that he had no manuscript -lurking about him. Then he found some of them willing to drop into chat -about the trade, and try to forecast its nearer future, if not to -philosophize its conditions. They appeared to think these were all -right; and it did not strike Ray as amiss that a work of literary art -should be regarded simply as a merchantable or unmerchantable commodity, -or as a pawn in a game, a counter that stood for a certain money value, -a risk which the player took, a wager that he made. - -“You know it’s really that,” one publisher explained to Ray. “_No_ one -can tell whether a book will succeed or not; no one knows what makes a -book succeed. We have published things that I’ve liked and respected -thoroughly, and that I’ve taken a personal pride and pleasure in -pushing. They’ve been well received and intelligently praised by the -best critics from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and cultivated people -have talked about them everywhere; and they haven’t sold fifteen hundred -copies. Then we’ve tried trash--decent trash, of course; we always -remember the cheek of the Young Person--and we’ve all believed that we -had something that would hit the popular mood, and would leap into the -tens of thousands; and it’s dropped dead from the press. Other works of -art and other pieces of trash succeed for no better reason than some -fail. You can’t tell anything about it. If I were to trust my own -observation, I should say it was _luck_, pure and simple, and mostly bad -luck. Ten books fail, and twenty books barely pay, where one succeeds. -Nobody can say why. Can’t I send you some of our new books?” He had a -number of them on a table near him, and he talked them over with Ray, -while a clerk did them up; and he would not let Ray trouble himself to -carry them away with him. They were everywhere lavish of their -publications with him, and he had so many new books and advance sheets -given him that if he had been going to write his letters for the _Echo_ -about literature alone, he would have had material for many weeks ahead. - -The letters he got at this time were some from home: a very sweet one -from his mother, fondly conjecturing and questioning about his comfort -in New York, and cautioning him not to take cold; a serious one from his -father, advising him to try each week to put by something for a rainy -day. There was also a letter from Sanderson, gay with news of all the -goings on in Midland, and hilariously regretful of his absence. -Sanderson did not say anything about coming to New York to seek his -fortune, and the effect of his news was to leave Ray pining for the -society of women, which had always been the sweetest thing in life to -him, and next to literature the dearest. If he could have had immediate -literary success, the excitement of it might have made him forget the -privilege he had enjoyed at Midland of going every evening to call on -some lovely young girl, and of staying as long as he liked. What made -him feel still more lonesome and dropped out was Sanderson’s telling of -several engagements among the girls they knew in Midland; it appeared to -him that he only was destined to go loveless and mateless through life. - -There were women enough in his hotel, but after the first interest of -their strangeness, and the romantic effect of hearing them speak in -their foreign tongues as if they were at home in them, he could not -imagine a farther interest in those opaque Southern blondes, who spoke -French, or the brunettes with purple-ringed vast eyes, who coughed out -their Spanish gutturals like squirrels. He was appointed a table for his -meals in a dining-room that seemed to be reserved for its inmates, as -distinguished from the frequenters of the restaurant, who looked as if -they were all Americans; and he was served by a shining black waiter -weirdly ignorant of English. He gazed wistfully across into the -restaurant at times, and had half a mind to ask if he might not eat -there; but he liked the glances of curiosity and perhaps envy which its -frequenters now and then cast at him in the hotel dining-room. There -were no young ladies among them, that he ever saw, but sometimes there -were young men whom he thought he would have liked to talk with. Some of -them came in company, and at dinner they sat long, discussing matters -which he could overhear by snatches were literary and artistic matters. -They always came late, and rarely sat down before seven, when Ray was -finishing his coffee. One night these comrades came later than usual and -in unusual force, and took a large table set somewhat apart from the -rest in the bay of a deep window which had once looked out into the -little garden of the dwelling that the hotel had once been. They sat -down, with a babble of questions and answers, as of people who had not -all met for some time, and devoured the little radishes and olives and -anchovies, with which the table had been prefatorily furnished, in -apparent patience till all the places but the head of the table had been -taken; then they began to complain and to threaten at the delay of the -dinner. Ray was not aware just how a furious controversy suddenly began -to rage between two of them. As nearly as he could make out, amidst the -rapid thrust and parry of the principals, and the irregular lunges of -this one or that of the company which gave it the character of a free -fight, it turned upon a point of æsthetics, where the question was -whether the moral aspect ought or ought not to be sought in it. In the -heat of the debate the chiefs of the discussion talked both at once, -interrupted each other, tried which should clamor loudest and fastest, -and then suddenly the whole uproar fell to silence. The two parties -casually discovered that they were of exactly the same mind, but each -had supposed the other thought differently. Some one came in during the -lull that followed, and took the seat at the head of the table. - -It was Mr. Kane, and Ray’s heart leaped with the hope that he would see -him and recognize him, but out of self-respect he tried to look as if it -were not he, but perhaps some one who closely resembled him. He -perceived that it was a club dinner of some literary sort; but because -he could not help wishing that he were one of the company, he snubbed -his desires with unsparing cruelty. He looked down at his plate, and -shunned the roving glance which he felt sure Mr. Kane was sending into -the room where he now sat almost alone; and he did his best to be -ashamed of overhearing the talk now and then. He grew very bitter in his -solitude, and he imagined himself using Mr. Kane with great hauteur, -after _A Modern Romeo_ had succeeded. He was not obliged to go out that -way, when he left the dining-room, but he feigned that he must, and in -spite of the lofty stand he had taken with Mr. Kane in fancy, he meanly -passed quite near him. Kane looked up, and called out, “Ah, -good-evening, good-evening!” and rose and shook hands with him, and -asked him how in the world he happened to have found out that -restaurant, and he was astonished to hear that Ray was staying in the -hotel; he said that was very _chic_. He introduced him to the company -generally, as his young friend Mr. Ray, of Midland, who had come on to -cast in his literary lot with them in New York; and then he presented -him personally to the nearest on either hand. They were young fellows, -but their names were known to Ray with the planetary distinctness that -the names of young authors have for literary aspirants, though they are -all so nebulous to older eyes. - -Mr. Kane asked Ray to sit down and take his coffee with them; Ray said -he had taken his coffee; they all urged that this was no reason why he -should not take some more; he stood out against them, like a fool--as he -later called himself with gnashing teeth. He pretended he had an -engagement, and he left the pleasant company he was hungering so to -join, and went out and walked the streets, trying to stay himself with -the hope that he had made a better impression than if he had remained -and enjoyed himself. He was so lonesome when he came back, and caught -the sound of their jolly voices on his way up stairs, that he could -hardly keep from going in upon them, and asking if they would let him -sit with them. In his room he could not work; he wanted to shed tears in -his social isolation. He determined to go back to Midland, at any cost -to his feelings or fortunes, or even to the little village where his -family lived, and where he had been so restless and unhappy till he -could get away from it. Now, any place seemed better than this waste of -unknown hundreds of thousands of human beings, where he had not a -friend, or even an enemy. - - - - -XII. - - -In the morning Ray woke resolved to brace up against the nerveless -suspense he had been in ever since he had left his manuscript with Mr. -Brandreth, and go and present the letters that some people in Midland -had given him to their friends in New York. At least he need not suffer -from solitude unless he chose; he wondered if it would do to present his -letters on Sunday. - -He breakfasted in this question. Shortly after he went back to his room, -there was a knock at his door, and when he shouted “Come in!” it was set -softly ajar, and Mr. Kane showed his face at the edge of it. - -“I suppose you know,” he said, ignoring Ray’s welcome, “or if you -haven’t been out, you don’t know, that this is one of those Sunday -mornings which make you feel that it has been blessed and hallowed above -all the other days of the week. But I dare say,” he added, coming -inside, “that the Mohammedans feel exactly so about a particularly fine -Friday.” - -He glanced round the little room with an air of delicate impartiality, -and asked leave to look from Ray’s window. As he put his head out, he -said to the birds in the eaves, “Ah, sparrows!” as if he knew them -personally, before he began to make compliments to the picturesque -facts of the prospect. Then he stood with his back to Ray, looking down -into the street, and praising the fashion of the shadow and sunshine in -meeting so solidly there, at all sorts of irregular points and angles. -Once he looked round and asked, with the sun making his hair all a -shining silver: - -“Has any one else been shown this view? No? Then let me be the first to -utter the stock imbecility that it ought to inspire you if anything -could.” He put out his head again, and gave a glance upward at the -speckless heaven, and then drew it in. “Yes,” he said, thoughtfully, “a -partially clouded sky is better for us, no doubt. Why didn’t you sit -down with us last night? I saw that you wished to do so.” He faced Ray -benignly, with a remote glimmer of mocking in his eye. - -Ray felt it safest to answer frankly. “Yes, I did want to join you -awfully. I overheard a good deal you were saying where I was sitting, -but I couldn’t accept your invitation. I knew it was a great chance, but -I couldn’t.” - -“Don’t you know,” Mr. Kane asked, “that the chances have a polite horror -of iteration? Those men and those moods may never be got together again. -You oughtn’t to have thrown such a chance away!” - -“I know,” said Ray. “But I had to.” - -Mr. Kane leaned back in the chair he had taken, and murmured as if to -himself: “Ah, youth, youth! Yes, it has to throw chances away. Waste is -a condition of survival. Otherwise we should perish of mere fruition. -But could you,” he asked, addressing Ray more directly, “without too -much loss to the intimacies that every man ought to keep sacred, could -you tell me just _why_ you had to refuse us your company?” - -“Oh, yes,” said Ray, with the self-scorn which Mr. Kane’s attitude -enabled him to show. “I was so low-spirited that I couldn’t rise to the -hands that offered to pull me out of my Slough of Despond. I felt that -the slightest exertion would sink me over head and ears. I had better -stay as I was.” - -“I understand,” said Mr. Kane. “But why should a man of your age be in -low spirits?” - -“Why? Nobody can tell why he’s in low spirits exactly. I suppose I got -to thinking the prospect for my book wasn’t very gay. It’s hard to -wait.” - -“Was that all?” - -“I was a little homesick, too. But wasn’t the other enough?” - -“I can’t say. It’s a long time since I was your age. But shall I tell -you what I first thought your unhappiness was, when you confessed it -just now?” - -“Yes, by all means.” - -“I wonder if I’d better! I supposed it was not such as any _man_ could -inflict. Excuse me!” He kept his eyes smilingly on the young fellow’s -face, as if to prevent his taking the audacity in bad part. “I don’t -know why I should say this to you, except that it really went through my -mind, and I did you the wrong to wonder why you should mention it.” - -“I can forgive the wrong; it’s so very far from the fact”--Ray began. - -“Ah, you’ve already noticed _that_!” Mr Kane interrupted. - -“Noticed what?” - -“That we can forgive people their injurious conjectures when they’re -wrong rather than when they’re right?” - -“No, I hadn’t noticed,” Ray confessed; and he added, “I was only -thinking how impossible that was for me in a place where I haven’t -spoken to a woman yet.” - -If Mr. Kane tasted the bitterness in a speech which Ray tried to carry -off with a laugh, his words did not confess it. “It wasn’t a reasoned -conjecture, and I don’t defend it; I’m only too glad to escape from it -without offence. When I was of your age, a slight from a woman was the -only thing that could have kept me from any pleasure that offered -itself. But I understand that now youth is made differently.” - -“I don’t see why,” said Ray, and he quelled a desire he had to boast of -his wounds; he permitted himself merely to put on an air of gloom. - -“Why, I’ve been taught that modern society and civilization generally -has so many consolations for unrequited affection that young men don’t -suffer from that sort of trouble any more, or not deeply.” - -Ray was sensible that Mr. Kane’s intrusiveness was justifiable upon the -ground of friendly interest; and he was not able to repel what seemed -like friendly interest. “It may be as you say, in New York; I’ve not -been here long enough to judge.” - -“But in Midland things go on in the old way? Tell me something about -Midland, and why any one should ever leave Midland for New York?” - -“I can’t say, generally speaking,” answered Ray, with pleasure in Kane’s -pursuit, “but I think that in my case Midland began it.” - -“Yes?” - -Ray was willing enough to impart as much of his autobiography as related -to the business change that had thrown him out of his place on the -_Echo_. Then he sketched with objective airiness the sort of life one -led in Midland, if one was a young man in society; and he found it no -more than fair to himself to give some notion of his own local value in -a graphic little account of the farewell dinner. - -“Yes,” said Mr. Kane, “I can imagine how you should miss all that, and I -don’t know that New York has anything so pleasant to offer. I fancy the -conditions of society are incomparably different in Midland and in New -York. You seem to me a race of shepherds and shepherdesses out there; -your pretty world is like a dream of my own youth, when Boston was still -only a large town, and was not so distinctly an aoristic Athens as it is -now.” - -“I had half a mind to go to Boston with my book first,” said Ray. “But -somehow I thought there were more chances in New York.” - -“There are certainly more publishers,” Kane admitted. “Whether there -are more chances depends upon how much independent judgment there is -among the publishers. Have you found them very judicial?” - -“I don’t quite understand what you mean.” - -“Did any one of them seem to be a man who would give your novel an -unprejudiced reading if you took it to him and told him honestly that it -had been rejected by all the others?” - -“No, I can’t say any of them did. But I don’t know that I could give my -manuscript an unprejudiced reading myself under the same circumstances. -I certainly shouldn’t blame any publisher who couldn’t. Should you?” - -“I? I blame nobody, my dear friend,” said Kane. “That is the way I keep -my temper. I should not blame you if Chapley & Co. declined your book, -and you went to the rest of the trade carefully concealing from each -publisher, the fact that he was not the first you had approached with -it.” - -Ray laughed, but he winced, too. “I suppose that’s what I should have to -do. But Chapley & Co. haven’t declined it yet.” - -“Ah, I’m glad of that. Not that you could really impose upon any one. -There would be certain infallible signs in your manuscript that would -betray you: an air of use; little private marks and memoranda of earlier -readers; the smell of their different brands of tobacco and sachet -powder.” - -“I shouldn’t try to impose upon any one,” Ray began, with a flush of -indignation, which ended in shame. “What would _you_ do under the same -circumstances?” he demanded, with desperation. - -“My dear friend! My dear boy,” Mr. Kane protested. “I am not censuring -you. It’s said that Bismarck found it an advantage to introduce truth -even into diplomacy. He discovered there was nothing deceived _like_ it; -_nobody_ believed him. Some successful advertisers have made it work in -commercial affairs. You mustn’t expect me to say what I should do under -the same circumstances; the circumstances couldn’t be the same. I am not -the author of a manuscript novel with a potential public of tens of -thousands. But you can imagine that as the proprietor of a volume of -essays which has a certain sale--Mr. Brandreth used that fatal term in -speaking of my book, I suppose?” - -“No, I don’t remember that he did,” said Ray. - -“He was kinder than I could have expected. It is the death-knell of hope -to the devoted author when his publisher tells him that his book will -always have a certain sale; he is expressing in a pitying euphemism of -the trade that there is no longer any chance for it, no happy accident -in the future, no fortuity; it is dead. As the author of a book with a -certain sale, I feel myself exempt from saying what I should do in your -place. But I’m very glad it hasn’t come to the ordeal with you. Let us -hope you won’t be tempted. Let us hope that Messrs. Chapley & Co. will -be equal to the golden opportunity offered them, and gradually--snatch -it.” - -Kane smiled, and Ray laughed out. He knew that he was being played -upon, but he believed the touch was kindly, and even what he felt an -occasional cold cynicism in it had the fascination that cynicism always -has for the young when it does not pass from theory to conduct; when it -does that, it shocks. He thought that Mr. Kane was something like -Warrington in _Pendennis_, and again something like Coverdale in -_Blithedale Romance_. He valued him for that; he was sure he had a -history; and when he now rose, Ray said: “Oh, must you go?” with eager -regret. - -“Why, I had thought of asking you to come with me. I’m going for a walk -in the Park, and I want to stop on the way for a moment to see an old -friend of mine”--he hesitated, and then added--“a man whom I was once -intimately associated with in some joint hopes we had for reconstructing -the world. I think you will be interested in him, as a type, even if you -don’t like him.” - -Ray professed that he should be very much interested, and they went out -together. - - - - -XIII. - - -The streets had that Sunday sense which is as unmistakable as their -week-day effect. Their noises were subdued almost to a country quiet; as -he crossed with his friend to the elevated station, Ray noted with a -lifting heart the sparrows that chirped from the knots and streamers of -red Virginia-creeper hanging here and there from a porch roof or over a -bit of garden wall; overhead the blue air was full of the jargoning of -the blended church bells. - -He tried to fit these facts with phrases in the intervals of his -desultory talk with Kane, and he had got two or three very good epithets -by the time they found seats together in an up-town train. It was not -easy to find them, for the cars were thronged with work-people going to -the Park for one of the last Sundays that could be fine there. - -Kane said: “The man we are going to see belongs to an order of thinking -and feeling that one would have said a few years ago had passed away -forever, but of late its turn seems to be coming again; it’s curious how -these things recur. Do you happen to hate altruism in any of its protean -forms?” - -Ray smiled with the relish for the question which Kane probably meant -him to feel. “I can’t say that I have any violent feeling against it.” - -“It is usually repulsive to young people,” Kane went on, “and I could -very well conceive your loathing it. My friend has been an altruist of -one kind or another all his life. He’s a man whom it would be perfectly -useless to tell that the world is quite good enough for the sort of -people there are in it; he would want to set about making the people -worthy of a better world, and he would probably begin on _you_. You have -heard of Brook Farm, I suppose?” - -“Of course,” Ray answered, with a show of resentment for such a -question. “_Blithedale Romance_--I think it’s the best of Hawthorne’s -books.” - -“Blithedale,” said Mr. Kane, ignoring the literary interest, “is no more -Brook Farm than--But we needn’t enter upon that! My friend’s career as -an altruist began there; and since then there’s hardly been a -communistic experiment in behalf of Man with a capital and without -capital that he hasn’t been into and out of.” - -“I should like immensely to see him,” said Ray. “Any man who was at -Brook Farm--Did he know Hollingsworth and Zenobia, and Priscilla and -Coverdale? Was it at Brook Farm that you met?” - -Kane shook his head. “I think no one knew them but Hawthorne. I don’t -speak positively; Brook Farm was a little before my day, or else I -should have been there too, I dare say. But I’ve been told those -characters never were.” - -Then it was doubly impossible that Hawthorne should have studied Miles -Coverdale from Kane; Ray had to relinquish a theory he had instantly -formed upon no ground except Kane’s sort of authority in speaking of -Brook Farm; what was worse he had to abandon an instant purpose of -carrying forward the romance and doing _The Last Days of Miles -Coverdale_; it would have been an attractive title. - -“I met David Hughes,” Kane continued, “after the final break-up of the -community, when I was beginning to transcendentalize around Boston, and -he wanted me to go into another with him, out West. He came out of his -last community within the year; he founded it himself, upon a perfectly -infallible principle. It was so impregnable to the logic either of -metaphysics or events, that Hughes had to break it up himself, I -understand. At sixty-nine he has discovered that his efforts to oblige -his fellow-beings ever since he was twenty have been misdirected. It -isn’t long for an error of that kind in the life of the race, but it -hasn’t exactly left my old friend in the vigor of youth. However, his -hope and good-will are as athletic as ever.” - -“It’s rather pathetic,” Ray suggested. - -“Why, I don’t know--I don’t know! Is it so? He hasn’t found out the -wrong way without finding the right way at the same time, and he’s -buoyantly hopeful in it, though he’s not only an old man; he’s a sick -man, too. Of course, he’s poor. He never was a fellow to do things by -halves, and when he dispersed his little following he divided nearly -all his substance among his disciples. He sees now that the right way to -universal prosperity and peace is the political way; and if he could -live long enough, we should see him in Congress--if _we_ lived long -enough. Naturally, he is paving the way with a book he’s writing.” Kane -went on to speak of his friend at length; he suddenly glanced out of the -car window, and said: “Ah, we’re just there. This is our station.” - -The avenue had been changing its character as they rushed along. It had -ceased to be a street of three or four story houses, where for the most -part the people lived over their shops, and where there was an effect of -excessive use on everything, a worn-out and shabby look, rather than a -squalid look. The cross-streets of towering tenement-houses, had come -and gone, and now the buildings were low again, with greater or less -gaps between them, while the railroad had climbed higher, and was like a -line drawn through the air without reference to the localities which the -train left swiftly behind. The houses had begun to be of wood here and -there, and it was at a frame of two stories that Mr. Kane stopped with -Ray, when they clambered down the long iron staircase of the station to -the footway below. They pulled a bell that sounded faintly somewhere -within, and the catch of the lock clicked as if it were trying to -release itself; but when they tried the door it was still fast, and Mr. -Kane rang again. Then a clatter of quick, impatient feet sounded on the -stairs; the door was pulled sharply open, and they confronted a tall -young man, with a handsome pale face, who bent on them a look of -impartial gloom from clouded blue eyes under frowning brows. A heavy -fringe of dull yellow hair almost touched their level with its straight -line, which the lower lip of the impassioned mouth repeated. - -“Ah, Denton!” said Mr. Kane. “Good-morning, good-morning! This is my -friend, Mr. Ray.” The young men shook hands with a provisional civility, -and Mr. Kane asked, “Are you all at home?” - -“We are, at the moment,” said the other. “I’m just going out with the -babies; but father will be glad to see you. Come in.” - -He had a thick voice that came from his throat by nervous impulses; he -set the door open and twisted his head in the direction of the stairs, -as if to invite them to go up. They found he had a perambulator in the -narrow hall behind the door, and two children facing each other in it. -He got it out on the sidewalk without further attention to them, and -shut the door after him. But in the light which his struggles to get out -had let into the entry they made their way up the stairs, where a -woman’s figure stood silhouetted against an open door-way behind her. - -“Ah, Mrs. Denton, how do you do?” said Kane, gaily. - -The figure answered gaily back, “Oh, Mr. Kane!” and after Kane’s -presentation of Ray, set open a door that opened from the landing into -the apartment. “Father will be so glad to see you. Please walk in.” - -Ray found himself in what must be the principal room of the apartment; -its two windows commanded an immediate prospect of the elevated road, -with an effect of having their sills against its trestle work. Between -them stood a tall, gaunt old man, whose blue eyes flamed under the heavy -brows of age, from a face set in a wilding growth of iron-gray hair and -beard. He was talking down upon a gentleman whom Ray had black against -the light, and he was saying: “No, Henry, no! Tolstoï is mistaken. I -don’t object to his theories of non-resistance; the Quakers have found -them perfectly practicable for more than two centuries; but I say that -in quitting the scene of the moral struggle, and in simplifying himself -into a mere peasant, he begs the question as completely as if he had -gone into a monastery. He has struck out some tremendous truths, I don’t -deny that, and his examination of the conditions of civilization is one -of the most terrifically searching studies of the facts that have ever -been contributed to the science of sociology; but his conclusions are as -wrong as his premises are right. If I had back the years that I have -wasted in a perfectly futile effort to deal with the problem of the race -at a distance where I couldn’t touch it, I would have nothing to do with -eremitism in any of its forms, either collectively as we have had it in -our various communistic experiments, or individually on the terms which -Tolstoï apparently advises.” - -“But I don’t understand him to advise eremitism,” the gentleman began. - -“It amounts to the same thing,” said the other, cutting himself short in -hollow cough, so as not to give up the word. “He would have us withdraw -from the world, as if, where any man was, the world was not there in the -midst of him!” - -“Poor Tolstoï,” said Mr. Kane, going up and shaking hands with the -others, “as I understand it, is at present able only to rehearse his -rôle, because his family won’t consent to anything else. He’s sold all -he has in order to give to the poor, but his wife manages the proceeds.” - -“It’s easy enough to throw ridicule on him,” said the gentleman against -the window, who now stood up. - -“_I_ throw no ridicule upon him,” said the tall, gaunt man. “He has -taught me at least this, that contempt is of the devil--I beg your -pardon, Kane--and I appreciate to the utmost the spiritual grandeur of -the man’s nature. But practically, I don’t follow him. We shall never -redeem the world by eschewing it. Society is not to be saved by -self-outlawry. The body politic is to be healed politically. The way to -have the golden age is to elect it by the Australian ballot. The people -must vote themselves into possession of their own business, and intrust -their economic affairs to the same faculty that makes war and peace, -that frames laws, and that does justice. What I object to in Tolstoï is -his utter unpracticality. I cannot forgive any man, however good and -great, who does not measure the means to the end. If there is anything -in my own life that I can regard with entire satisfaction it is that at -every step of my career I have invoked the light of common-sense. -Whatever my enemies may say against me, they cannot say that I have not -instantly abandoned any project when I found it unpractical. I abhor -dreamers; they have no place in a world of thinking and acting.” Ray saw -Kane arching his eyebrows, while the other began again: “I tell you”-- - -“I want to introduce my young friend Mr. Ray,” Mr. Kane broke in. - -The old man took Ray’s hand between two hot palms, and said, “Ah!” with -a look at him that was benign, if somewhat bewildered. - -“You know Mr. Ray, Chapley,” Kane pursued, transferring him to the -other, who took his hand in turn. - -“Mr. Ray?” he queried, with the distress of the elderly man who tries to -remember. - -“If you forget your authors in the green wood so easily, how shall it be -with them in the dry?” Kane sighed; and now the publisher woke up to -Ray’s identity. - -“Oh, yes, yes, yes! Of course! Mr. Ray, of--of--Mr. Ray, of”-- - -“Midland,” Ray suggested, perspiring. - -“Why, certainly!” Mr. Chapley pressed his hand with as much apologetic -entreaty as he could intimate in that way, and assured him that he was -glad to see him; and then he said to the old man, whose name Kane had -not mentioned to Ray in presenting him, but whom Ray knew to be Hughes, -“Well, I must be going now. I’m glad to find you looking so much better -this morning.” - -“Oh; I’m quite a new man--quite a new man!” - -“You were always that!” said Mr. Chapley, with a certain fondness. He -sighed, “I wish I knew your secret.” - -“Stay, and let him expound it to us all!” Kane suggested. “I’ve no doubt -he would.” - -“No; I must be going,” said Mr. Chapley. “Good-by.” He shook hands with -the old man. “Good-by, Kane. Er--good-morning, Mr.--er--Ray. You must -drop in and see us, when you can find time.” - -Ray bubbled after him some incoherencies about being afraid he could -find only too much time. Apparently Mr. Chapley did not hear. He -pottered out on the landing, and Ray heard him feeling his way carefully -down stairs. It was an immense relief for him to have met Mr. Chapley -there. It stamped his own presence in the place with propriety; he was -fond of adventure and hungry for experience, but he wished all his -adventures and experiences to be respectable. He had a young dread of -queerness and irregularity; and he could not conceal from himself that -but for Mr. Chapley his present environment was not in keeping with his -smooth Philistine traditions. He had never been in an apartment before, -much less a mere tenement; at Midland every one he knew lived in his own -house; most of the people he knew lived in handsome houses of their -own, with large grass-plots and shade-trees about them. But if Mr. -Chapley were here, with this old man who called him by his first name, -and with whom he and Mr. Kane seemed to have the past if not the present -in common, it must be all right. - - - - -XIV. - - -Ray woke from his rapid mental formulation of this comforting -reassurance to find the old man saying to him, “What is the nature of -the work that Chapley has published for you? I hope something by which -you intend to advance others, as well as yourself: something that is to -be not merely the means of your personal aggrandizement in fame and -fortune. Nothing, in my getting back to the world, strikes me as more -shamelessly selfish than the ordinary literary career. I don’t wonder -the art has sunk so low; its aims are on the business level.” - -Mr. Kane listened with an air of being greatly amused, and even -gratified, and Ray thought he had purposely let the old man go on as if -he were an author who had already broken the shell. Before he could -think of some answer that should at once explain and justify him, Kane -interposed: - -“I hope Mr. Ray is no better than the rest of us; but he may be; you -must make your arraignment and condemnation conditional, at any rate. -He’s an author _in petto_, as yet; Chapley may never publish him.” - -“Then why,” said the old man, irascibly, “did you speak of him as you -did to Chapley? It was misleading.” - -“In the world you’ve come back to, my dear friend,” said Kane, “you’ll -find that we have no time to refine upon the facts. We can only sketch -the situation in large, bold outlines. Perhaps I wished to give Mr. Ray -a hold upon Chapley by my premature recognition of him as an author, and -make the wicked publisher feel that there was already a wide general -impatience to see Mr. Ray’s book.” - -“That would have been very corrupt, Kane,” said the other. “But I owe -Mr. Ray an apology.” - -Ray found his tongue. “Perhaps you won’t think so when you see my -novel.” - -“A novel! Oh, I have no time to read novels!” the old man burst out. “A -practical man”-- - -“Nor volumes of essays,” said Kane, picking up a book from the table at -his elbow. “Really, as a measure of self-defence, I must have the leaves -of my presentation copies cut, at any rate. I must sacrifice my taste to -my vanity. Then I sha’n’t know when the grateful recipients haven’t -opened them.” - -“I’ve no time to read books of any kind”--the old man began again. - -“You ought to set up reviewer,” Kane interposed again. - -“Oh, I’ve looked into your essays, Kane, here and there. The literature -is of a piece with the affectation of the uncut edges: something utterly -outdated and superseded. It’s all as impertinent as the demand you make -that the reader should do the work of a bookbinder, and cut your -leaves.” - -“Do you know that I’m really hurt--not for myself, but for you!--by -what you say of my uncut edges? You descend to the level of a -Brandreth,” said Kane. - -“A Brandreth? What is a Brandreth?” - -“It is a publisher: Chapley’s son-in-law and partner.” - -“Oh, yes, yes,” said Hughes. - -“I spent many hours,” said Kane, plaintively, “pleading with him for an -edition with uncut edges. He contended that the public would not buy it -if the edges were not cut; and I told him that I wished to have that -fact to fall back upon, in case they didn’t buy it for some other -reason. And I was right. The edition hasn’t sold, and the uncut edges -have saved me great suffering until now. Why not have confined your own -remarks, my dear friend, to the uncut edges? I might have agreed with -you.” - -“Because,” said the old man, “I cannot have patience with a man of your -age who takes the mere dilettante view of life--who regards the world as -something to be curiously inspected and neatly commented, instead of -toiled for, sweated for, suffered for!” - -“It appears to me that there is toiling and sweating and suffering -enough for the world already,” said Kane, with a perverse levity. “Look -at the poor millionnaires, struggling to keep their employés in work! If -you’ve come back to the world for no better purpose than to add to its -perseverance and perspiration, I could wish for your own sake that you -had remained in some of your communities--or all of them, for that -matter.” - -The other turned half round in his chair, and looked hard into Kane’s -smiling face. “You are a most unserious spirit, Kane, and you always -were! When will you begin to be different? Do you expect to continue a -mere frivolous maker of phrases to the last? Your whole book there is -just a bundle of phrases--labels for things. Do you ever intend to _be_ -anything?” - -“I intend to be an angel, some time--or some eternity,” said Kane. “But, -in the meanwhile, have you ever considered that perhaps you are -demanding, in your hopes of what you call the redemption of the race -from selfishness, as sheer and mere an impossibility as a change of the -physical basis of the soul?” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I mean--or, I won’t put it affirmatively; I will put it -interrogatively.” - -“Yes, that was always your way!” - -“I will merely ask you,” Kane went on, without heeding the interruption, -“what reason you have to suppose the altruistic is not eternally -conditioned in the egoistic, just as the spiritual is conditioned in the -animal?” - -“What jargon is that?” demanded the old man, throwing one leg over the -other, and smoothing the upper one down with his hand, as he bent -forward to glower at Kane. - -“It is the harmony of the spheres, my dear David; it is a metaphysical -variation of the pleasing air that the morning stars sang together; it -is the very truth. The altruistic can no more shake off the egoistic in -this world than the spiritual can shake off the animal. As soon as man -ceases to get hungry three times a day, just so soon will he cease to -eat his fellow-man.” - -“There is the usual trivial truth in what you say,” Hughes replied, “and -the usual serious impiety. You probably are not aware that your -miserable paradox accuses the Creative Intelligence.” - -“Ah, but use another word! Say Nature, and then where is the impiety?” - -“But I decline to use the other word,” Hughes retorted. - -“And I insist upon it; I must. It is Nature that I accuse; not the -divine nature, or even human nature, but brute nature, that commits a -million blunders, and destroys myriads of types, in order to arrive at -such an imperfect creature as man still physically is, after untold ages -of her blind empiricism. If the human intelligence could be put in -possession of the human body, we should have altruism at once. We should -not get hungry three times a day; instead of the crude digestive -apparatus which we have inherited with apparently no change whatever -from the cave-dweller, we should have an organ delicately adjusted to -the exigencies of modern life, and responsive to all the emotions of -philanthropy. But no! The stomach of the nineteenth century remains -helplessly in the keeping of primeval nature, who is a mere Bourbon; who -learns nothing and forgets nothing. She obliges us to struggle on with a -rude arrangement developed from the mollusk, and adapted at best to the -conditions of the savage; imperative and imperfect; liable to get out of -order with the carefulest management, and to give way altogether with -the use of half a lifetime. No, David! You will have to wait until man -has come into control of his stomach, and is able to bring his ingenuity -to bear upon its deficiencies. Then, and not till then, you will have -the Altruistic Man. Until then the egoistic man will continue to eat his -brother, and more or less indigest him--if there is such a verb.” - -Ray listened with one ear to them. The other was filled with the soft -murmur of women’s voices from the further end of the little apartment; -they broke now and then from a steady flow of talk, and rippled into -laughter, and then smoothed themselves to talk again. He longed to know -what they were talking about, laughing about. - -“No, David,” Kane went on, “when you take man out of the clutches of -Nature, and put Nature in the keeping of man, we shall have the -millennium. I have nothing to say against the millennium, _per se_, -except that it never seems to have been on time. I am willing to excuse -its want of punctuality; there may have always been unavoidable delays; -but you can’t expect me to have as much faith in it as if it had never -disappointed people. Now with you I admit it’s different. You’ve seen it -come a great many times, and go even oftener.” - -“Young man!” the other called so abruptly to Ray that it made him start -in his chair, “I wish you would step out into the room yonder, and ask -one of my daughters to bring me my whiskey and milk. It’s time for it,” -and he put down a watch which he had taken from the table beside him. - -He nodded toward a sort of curtained corridor at one side of the room, -and after a glance of question at Kane, who answered with a reassuring -smile, Ray went out through this passage. The voices had suddently -fallen silent, but he found their owners in the little room beyond; they -were standing before their chairs as if they had jumped to their feet in -a feminine dismay which they had quelled. In one he made out the young -Mrs. Denton, whose silhouette had received him and Kane; the other -looked like her, but younger, and in the two Ray recognized the heroines -of the pocket-book affair on the train. - -He trembled a little inwardly, but he said, with a bow for both: “I beg -your pardon. Your father wished me to ask you for his”-- - -He faltered at the queerness of it all, but the younger said, simply and -gravely: “Oh, yes, I’ll take it in. I’ve got it ready here,” and she -took up a tumbler from the hearth of the cooking-stove keeping itself -comfortable at one side of a little kitchen beyond the room where they -were, and went out with it. - -Ray did not know exactly what to do, or rather how he should do what he -wished. He hesitated, and looked at Mrs. Denton, who said, “Won’t you -sit down--if it isn’t too hot here?” - - - - -XV. - - -“Oh, it isn’t at all hot,” said Ray, and in fact the air was blowing -freely in through the plants at the open window. Then he sat down, as if -to prove that it was not too hot; there was no other reason that he -could have given for staying, instead of going back to Kane and her -father. - -“We can keep the windows open on this side,” said Mrs. Denton, “but the -elevated makes too much noise in front. When we came here first, it was -warm weather; it was stifling when we shut the windows, and when we -opened them, it seemed as if the trains would drive us wild. It was like -having them in the same room with us. But now it’s a little cooler, and -we don’t need the front windows open; so it’s very pleasant.” - -Ray said it was delightful, and he asked, “Then you haven’t been in New -York long?” - -“No; only since the beginning of September. We thought we would settle -in New Jersey first, and we did take a house there, in the country; but -it was too far from my husband’s work, and so we moved in. Father wants -to meet people; he’s more in the current here.” - -As she talked, Mrs. Denton had a way of looking down at her apron, and -smoothing it across her knees with one hand, and now and then glancing -at Ray out of the corner of her eye, as if she were smiling on the -further side of her face. - -“We went out there a little while ago to sell off the things we didn’t -want to keep. The neighbors took them.” She began to laugh, and Ray -laughed, too, when she said, “We found they had taken _some_ of them -before we got there. They might as well have taken all, they paid us so -little for the rest. I didn’t suppose there would be such a difference -between first-hand and second-hand things. But it was the first time we -had ever set up housekeeping for ourselves, and we had to make mistakes. -We had always lived in a community.” - -She looked at him for the impression of this fact, and Ray merely said, -“Yes; Mr. Kane told me something of the kind.” - -“It’s all very different in the world. I don’t know whether you’ve ever -been in a community?” - -“No,” said Ray. - -“Well,” she went on, “we’ve had to get used to all sorts of things since -we came out into the world. The very day we left the community, I heard -some people in the seat just in front of me, in the car, planning how -they should do something to get a living; it seemed ridiculous and -dreadful. It fairly frightened me.” - -Ray was struck with the literary value of the fact. He said: “I suppose -it would be startling if we could any of us realize it for the first -time. But for most of us there never is any first time.” - -Mrs. Denton said: “No, but in the community we never had to think how we -should get things to eat and wear, any more than how we should get air -to breathe. You know father believes that the world can be made like the -Family, in that, and everybody be sure of a living, if he is willing to -work.” - -She glanced at Ray with another of her demure looks, which seemed -inquiries both as to his knowledge of the facts and his opinion of them. - -“I didn’t know just what your father’s ideas were,” he said; and she -went on: - -“Yes; he thinks all you’ve got to do is to have patience. But it seems -to me you’ve got to have money too, or you’ll starve to death before -your patience gives out.” - -Mrs. Denton laughed, and Ray sat looking at her with a curious mixture -of liking and misgiving: he would have liked to laugh with her from the -poet in him, but his civic man could not approve of her -irresponsibility. In her quality of married woman, she was more -reprehensible than she would have been as a girl; as a girl, she might -well have been merely funny. Still, she was a woman, and her voice, if -it expressed an irresponsible nature, was sweet to hear. She seemed not -to dislike hearing it herself, and she let it run lightly on. “The -hardest thing for us, though, has been getting used to money, and the -care of it. It seems to be just as bad with a little as a great -deal--the care does; and you have to be thinking about it all the time; -we never had to think of it at all in the Family. Most of us never saw -it, or touched it; only the few that went out and sold and bought -things.” - -“That’s very odd,” said Ray, trying the notion if it would not work -somewhere into literature; at the same time he felt the charm of this -pretty young woman, and wondered why her sister did not come back. He -heard her talking with Kane in the other room; now and then her voice, -gentle and clear and somewhat high, was lost in Kane’s laugh, or the -hoarse plunge of her father’s bass. - -“Yes,” Mrs. Denton went on, “I think I feel it more than my husband or -my sister does; they just have to earn the money, but I have to take -care of it, and see how far I can make it go. It’s perfectly -distracting; and sometimes when I forget, and do something careless!” -She let an impressive silence follow, and Ray laughed. - -“Yes, that’s an anxious time for us, even if we’re brought up with the -advantages of worldly experience.” - -“Anxious!” Mrs. Denton repeated; and her tongue ran on. “Why, the day I -went out to New Jersey with my sister to settle up our ‘estate’ out -there, we each of us had a baby to carry--my children are twins, and we -couldn’t leave them here with father; it was bad enough to leave him! -and my husband was at work; and on the train coming home I forgot and -gave the twins my pocket-book to play with; and just then a kind old -gentleman put up the car window for me, and the first thing I knew they -threw it out into the water--we were crossing that piece of water before -you get to Jersey City. It had every cent of my money in it; and I was -so scared when they threw my pocket-book away--we always say _they_, -because they’re so much alike we never can remember which did a thing--I -was so scared that I didn’t know what I was doing, and I just screamed -out all about it.” Ray listened restively; he felt as if he were -eavesdropping; but he did not know quite how, or when, or whether, after -all, to tell her that he had witnessed the whole affair; he decided that -he had better not; and she went on: “My sister said it was just as if I -had begged of the whole carful; and I suppose it was. I don’t suppose -that a person who was more used to money would have given it to a baby -to play with.” - -She stopped, and Ray suddenly changed his mind; he thought he ought not -to let her go on as if he knew nothing about it; that was hardly fair. - -“The conductor,” he said, “appeared to think _any_ woman would have done -it.” - -Mrs. Denton laughed out her delight. “It _was_ you, then. My sister was -sure it was, as soon as she saw you at Mr. Chapley’s.” - -“At Mr. Chapley’s?” - -“Yes; his store. That is where she works. You didn’t see her, but she -saw you,” said Mrs. Denton; and then Ray recalled that Mr. Brandreth had -sent to a Miss Hughes for the list of announcements she had given him. - -“We saw you noticing us in the car, and we saw you talking with the -conductor. Did he say anything else about us?” she asked, significantly. - -“I don’t know exactly what you mean,” Ray answered, a little -consciously, and coloring slightly. - -“Why,” Mrs. Denton began; but she stopped at sight of her sister, who -came in with the empty tumbler in her hand, and set it down in the room -beyond. “Peace!” she called to her, and the girl came back reluctantly, -Ray fancied. He had remained standing since her reappearance, and Mrs. -Denton said, introducing them, “This is my sister, Mr. Ray;” and then -she cried out joyfully, “It _was_ Mr. Ray!” while he bowed ceremoniously -to the girl, who showed an embarrassment that Mrs. Denton did not share. -“The conductor told him that any woman would have given her baby her -pocket-book to play with; and so you see I wasn’t so very bad, after -all. But when one of these things happens to me, it seems as if the -world had come to an end; I can’t get over it. Then we had another -experience! One of the passengers that heard me say all our money was in -that pocket-book, gave the conductor a dollar for us, to pay our -car-fares home. We had to take it; we _couldn’t_ have carried the -children from the ferry all the way up here; but I never knew before -that charity hurt so. It was dreadful!” - -A certain note made itself evident in her voice which Ray felt as an -appeal. “Why, I don’t think you need have considered it as charity. It -was what might have happened to any lady who had lost her purse.” - -“It wasn’t like that,” Miss Hughes broke in. “It would have been offered -then so that it could be returned. We were to blame for not making the -conductor say who gave it. But we were so confused!” - -“I think the giver was to blame for not sending his address with it. But -perhaps he was confused too,” said Ray. - -“The conductor told us it was a lady,” said Mrs. Denton, with a sudden -glance upward at Ray. - -They all broke into a laugh together, and the girl sprang up and went -into another room. She came back with a bank-note in her hand, which she -held out toward Ray. - -He did not offer to take it. “I haven’t pleaded guilty yet.” - -“No,” said Mrs. Denton; “but we know you did it. Peace always thought -you did; and now we’ve got you in our power, and you _must_ take it -back.” - -“But you didn’t use it all. You gave a quarter to the old darkey who -whistled. You’re as bad as I am. You do charity, too.” - -“No; he earned his quarter. You paid him something yourself,” said the -girl. - -“He did whistle divinely,” Ray admitted. “How came you to think of -asking him to change your bill? I should have thought you’d have given -it all to him.” - -They had a childlike joy in his railery, which they laughed simply out. -“We did want to,” Mrs. Denton said; “but we didn’t know how we could get -home.” - -“I don’t see but that convicts me.” Ray put out his hand as if to take -the note, and then withdrew it. “I suppose I ought to take it,” he -began. “But if I did, I should just spend it on myself. And the fact is, -I had saved it on myself, or else, perhaps, I shouldn’t have given it to -the conductor for you.” He told them how he had economized on his -journey, and they laughed together at the picture he gave of his -satisfaction in his self-denial. - -“Oh, I know that _good_ feeling!” said Mrs. Denton. - -“Yes, but you can’t imagine how _superior_ I felt when I handed my -dollar over to the conductor. _Good_ is no name for it; and I’ve simply -gloated over my own merit ever since. Miss Hughes, you must keep that -dollar, and give it to somebody who needs it!” - -This was not so novel as it seemed to Ray; but the sisters glanced at -each other as if struck with its originality. - -Then the girl looked at him steadily out of her serene eyes a moment, as -if thinking what she had better do, while Mrs. Denton cooed her pleasure -in the situation. - -“I knew just as _well_, when the conductor said it was a lady passenger -sent it! He said it like a sort of after-thought, you know; he turned -back to say it just after he left us.” - -“Well, I will do that,” said the girl to Ray; and she carried the money -back to her room. - -“Do sit down!” said Mrs. Denton to Ray when she came back. The community -of experience, and the wonder of the whole adventure, launched them -indefinitely forward towards intimacy in their acquaintance. “We were -awfully excited when my sister came home and said she had seen you at -Mr. Chapley’s.” Her sister did not deny it; but when Mrs. Denton added -the question, “Are you an author?” she protested--“Jenny!” - -“I wish I were,” said Ray; “but I can’t say I am, yet. That depends upon -whether Mr. Chapley takes my book.” - -He ventured to be so frank because he thought Miss Hughes probably knew -already that he had offered a manuscript; but if she knew, she made no -sign of knowing, and Mrs. Denton said: - -“Mr. Chapley gives my sister all the books he publishes. Isn’t it -splendid? And he lets her bring home any of the books she wants to, out -of the store. Are you acquainted in his family?” - -“No; I only know Mr. Brandreth, his son-in-law.” - -“My sister says he’s very nice. Everybody likes Mr. Brandreth. Mr. -Chapley is an old friend of father’s. I should think his family would -come to see us, some of them. But they haven’t. Mr. Chapley comes ever -so much.” - -Ray did not know what to say of a fact which Mrs. Denton did not suffer -to remain last in his mind. She went on, as if it immediately followed. - -“We are reading Browning now. But my husband likes Shelley the best of -all. Which is your favorite poet?” - -Ray smiled. “I suppose Shelley ought to be. I was named after him.” When -he had said this he thought it rather silly, and certainly superfluous. -So he added, “My father was a great reader of him when he was a young -man, and I got the benefit of his taste, if it’s a benefit.” - -“Why, do you hate to be named Shelley?” Mrs. Denton asked. - -“Oh, no; except as I should hate to be named Shakespeare; it suggests -comparisons.” - -“Yes; but it’s a very pretty name.” As if it recalled him, she said, “My -husband was just going out with the twins when you came in with Mr. -Kane. He was taking them over to the Park. Do you like cats?” She leaned -over and lugged up into her lap a huge Maltese from the further side of -her. “My sister doesn’t because they eat sparrows.” She passed her hand -slowly down the cat’s smooth flank, which snapped electrically, while -the cat shut its eyes to a line of gray light. - -“If your cat’s fond of sparrows, he ought to come and live with me,” -said Ray. “I’ve got a whole colony of them outside of my dormer-window.” - -Mrs. Denton lifted the cat’s head and rubbed her cheek on it. “Oh, we’ve -got plenty of sparrows here, too. Where do you live? Down town? Mr. Kane -does.” - -Ray gave a picturesque account of his foreign hotel; but he had an -impression that its strangeness was thrown away upon his hearers, who -seemed like children in their contact with the world; it was all so -strange that nothing was stranger than another to them. They thought -what he told them of life in Midland as queer as life in New York. - -The talk went on without sequence or direction, broken with abrupt -questions and droll comments; and they laughed a good deal. They spoke -of poems and of dreams. Ray told of a fragment of a poem he had made in -a dream, and repeated it; they thought it was fine, or at least Mrs. -Denton said she did. Her sister did not talk much, but she listened, and -now and then she threw in a word. She sat against the light, and her -face was in shadow to Ray, and this deepened his sense of mystery in -her; her little head, so distinctly outlined, was beautiful. Her voice, -which was so delicate and thin, had a note of childish innocence in it. -Mrs. Denton cooed deep and low. She tried to make her sister talk more, -and tell this and that. The girl did not seem afraid or shy, but only -serious. Several times they got back to books, and at one of these times -it appeared that she knew of Ray’s manuscript, and that it was going -through the hands of the readers. - -“And what is the name of your story?” Mrs. Denton asked, and before he -could tell her she said, “Oh, yes; I forgot,” and he knew that they must -have talked of it together. He wondered if Miss Hughes had read it. -“Talking of names,” Mrs. Denton went on, “I think my sister’s got the -queerest one: Peace. Isn’t it a curious name?” - -“It’s a beautiful name,” said Ray. “The Spanish give it a great deal, I -believe.” - -“Do they? It was a name that mother liked; but she had never heard of -it, although there were so many Faiths, Hopes, and Charities. She died -just a little while after Peace was born, and father gave her the name.” - -Ray was too young to feel the latent pathos of the lightly treated fact. -“It’s a beautiful name,” he said again. - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Denton, “and it’s so short you can’t _nick_ it. There -can’t be anything shorter than Peace, can there?” - -“Truce,” Ray suggested, and this made them laugh. - -The young girl rose and went to the window, and began looking over the -plants in the pots there. Ray made bold to go and join her. - -“Are you fond of flowers?” she asked gently, and with a seriousness as -if she really expected him to say truly. - -“I don’t know. I’ve never thought,” he answered, thinking how pretty she -was, now he had her face where he could see it fully. Her hair was of -the indefinite blonde tending to brown, which most people’s hair is of; -her sensitive face was cast in the American mould that gives us such a -high average of good looks in our women; her eyes were angelically -innocent. When she laughed, her lip caught on her upper teeth, and -clung there; one of the teeth was slightly broken; and both these little -facts fascinated Ray. She did not laugh so much as Mrs. Denton, whose -talk she let run on with a sufferance like that of an older person, -though she was the younger. She and Ray stood awhile there playing the -game of words in which youth hides itself from its kind, and which bears -no relation to what it is feeling. The charm of being in the presence of -a lovely and intelligent girl enfolded Ray like a caressing atmosphere, -and healed him of all the hurts of homesickness, of solitude. Their talk -was intensely personal, because youth is personal, and they were young; -they thought that it dealt with the different matters of taste they -touched on, but it really dealt with themselves, and not their -preferences in literature, in flowers, in cats, in dress, in country and -city. Ray was aware that they were discussing these things in a place -very different from the parlors where he used to enjoy young ladies’ -society in Midland; it was all far from the Midland expectation of his -career in New York society. He recalled how, before the days of his -social splendor in Midland, he had often sat and watched his own mother -and sisters about their household work, which they did for themselves, -while they debated the hopes and projects of his future, or let their -hearts out in jest and laughter. Afterwards, he would not have liked to -have this known among the fashionable people in Midland, with whom he -wished to be so perfectly _comme il faut_. - -From time to time Mrs. Denton dropped the cat out of her lap, and ran -out to pull the wire which operated the latch of the street door; and -then Ray heard her greeting some comer and showing him into the front -room, where presently he heard him greeting her father. At last there -was a sound below as of some one letting himself in with a latch-key, -and then came the noises of the perambulator wheels bumping from step to -step as it was pulled up. Mrs. Denton sat still, and kept on talking to -Ray, but her sister went out to help her husband; and reappeared with a -sleeping twin in her arms, and carried it into the room adjoining. The -husband, with his pale face flushed from his struggle with the -perambulator, came in with the other, and when he emerged from the next -room again, Mrs. Denton introduced him to Ray. - -“Oh, yes,” he said; “I saw you with Mr. Kane.” He sat down a moment at -the other window, and put his bare head out for the air. “It has grown -warm,” he said. - -“Was the Park very full?” his wife asked. - -“Crowded. It’s one of their last chances for the year.” - -“I suppose it made you homesick.” - -“Horribly,” said the husband, with his head still half out of the -window. He took it in, and listened with the tolerance of a husband -while she explained him to Ray. - -“My husband’s so homesick for the old Family place--it _was_ a pretty -place!--that he almost dies when he goes into the Park; it brings it all -back so. Are you homesick, too, Mr. Ray?” - -“Well, not exactly for the country,” said Ray. “I’ve been homesick for -the place I came from--for Midland, that is.” - -“Midland?” Denton repeated. “I’ve been there. I think those small cities -are more deadly than New York. They’re still trying to get rid of the -country, and New York is trying to get some of it back. If I had my way, -there wouldn’t be a city, big or little, on the whole continent.” He did -not wait for any reply from Ray, but he asked his wife, “Who’s come?” - -She mentioned a number of names, ten or twelve, and he said, “We’d -better go in,” and without further parley he turned toward the curtained -avenue to the front room. - - - - -XVI. - - -In the front room the little assemblage had the effect of some small -religious sect. The people were plainly dressed in a sort of keeping -with their serious faces; there was one girl who had no sign of a ribbon -or lace about her, and looked like a rather athletic boy in her short -hair and black felt hat, and her jacket buttoned to her throat. She sat -with her hands in the side pockets of her coat, and her feet pushed out -beyond the hem of her skirt. There were several men of a foreign type, -with beards pointed and parted; an American, who looked like a -school-master, and whose mouth worked up into his cheek at one side with -a sort of mechanical smile when he talked, sat near a man who was so -bald as not to have even a spear of hair anywhere on his head. The rest -were people who took a color of oddity from these types; a second glance -showed them to be of the average humanity; and their dress and its -fashion showed them to be of simple condition. They were attired with a -Sunday consciousness and cleanliness, though one gentleman, whose coat -sleeves and seams were brilliant with long use, looked as if he would be -the better for a little benzining, where his moustache had dropped soup -and coffee on his waistcoat; he had prominent eyes, with a straining, -near-sighted look. - -Kane sat among them with an air at once alert and aloof; his arms were -folded, and he glanced around from one to another with grave interest. -They were all listening, when Ray came in, to a young man who was -upholding the single-tax theory, with confidence and with eagerness, as -something which, in its operation, would release the individual energies -to free play and to real competition. Hughes broke in upon him: - -“That is precisely what I object to in your theory. I don’t _want_ that -devil released. Competition is the Afreet that the forces of -civilization have bottled up after a desperate struggle, and he is -always making fine promises of what he will do for you if you will let -him out. The fact is he will do nothing but mischief, because that is -his nature. He is Beelzebub, he is Satan; in the Miltonic fable he -attempted to compete with the Almighty for the rule of heaven; and the -fallen angels have been taking the consequence ever since. Monopoly is -the only prosperity. Where competition is there can be finally nothing -but disaster and defeat for one side or another. That is self-evident. -Nothing succeeds till it begins to be a monopoly. This holds good from -the lowest to the highest endeavor--from the commercial to the æsthetic, -from the huckster to the artist. As long, for instance, as an author is -young and poor”--Ray felt, looking down, that the speaker’s eye turned -on him--“he must compete, and his work must be deformed by the struggle; -when it becomes known that he alone can do his kind of work, he -monopolizes and prospers in the full measure of his powers; and he -realizes his ideal unrestrictedly. Competition enslaves, monopoly -liberates. We must, therefore, have the greatest possible monopoly; one -that includes the whole people economically as they are now included -politically. Try to think of competition in the political administration -as we now have it in the industrial. It isn’t thinkable! Or, yes! They -do have it in those Eastern countries where the taxes are farmed to the -highest bidder, and the taxpayer’s life is ground out of him.” - -“I think,” said the school-masterly-looking man, “we all feel this -instinctively. The trusts and the syndicates are doing our work for us -as rapidly as we could ask.” - -A voice, with a German heaviness of accent, came from one of the -foreigners. “But they are not doing it for our sake, and they mean to -stop distinctly short of the whole-people trust. As far back as Louis -Napoleon’s rise we were expecting the growth of the corporate industries -to accomplish our purposes for us. But between the corporation and the -collectivity there is a gulf--a chasm that has never yet been passed.” - -“We must bridge it!” cried Hughes. - -A young man, with a clean-cut, English intonation, asked, “Why not fill -it up with capitalists?” - -“No,” said Hughes, “our cause should recognize no class as enemies.” - -“I don’t think it matters much to them whether we recognize them or not, -if we let them have their own w’y,” said the young man, whose cockney -origin betrayed itself in an occasional vowel and aspirate. - -“We shall not let them have their own way unless it is the way of the -majority, too,” Hughes returned. “From my point of view they are simply -and purely a part of the movement, as entirely so as the proletariat.” - -“The difficulty will be to get them to take your point of view,” the -young man suggested. - -“It isn’t necessary they should,” Hughes answered, “though some of them -do already. Several of the best friends of our cause are capitalists; -and there are numbers of moneyed people who believe in the -nationalization of the telegraphs, railroads, and expresses.” - -“Those are merely the first steps,” urged the young man, “which may lead -now’ere.” - -“They are the first steps,” said Hughes, “and they are not to be taken -over the bodies of men. We must advance together as brothers, marching -abreast, to the music of our own heart-beats.” - -“Good!” said Kane. Ray did not know whether he said it ironically or -not. It made the short-haired girl turn round and look at him where he -sat behind her. - -“We, in Russia,” said another of the foreign-looking people, “have seen -the futility of violence. The only force that finally prevails is love; -and we must employ it with those that can feel it best--with the little -children. The adult world is hopeless; but with the next generation we -may do something--everything. The highest office is the teacher’s, but -we must become as little children if we would teach them, who are of -the kingdom of heaven. We must begin by learning of them.” - -“It appears rather complicated,” said the young Englishman, gayly; and -Ray heard Kane choke off a laugh into a kind of snort. - -“Christ said He came to call sinners to repentance,” said the man who -would have been the better for benzining. “He evidently thought there -was some hope of grown-up people if they would cease to do evil.” - -“And several of the disciples were elderly men,” the short-haired girl -put in. - -“Our Russian friend’s idea seems to be a version of our Indian policy,” -said Kane. “Good adults, dead adults.” - -“No, no. You don’t understand, all of you,” the Russian began, but -Hughes interrupted him. - -“How would you deal with the children?” - -“In communities here, at the heart of the trouble, and also in the West, -where they could be easily made self-supporting.” - -“I don’t believe in communities,” said Hughes. “If anything in the world -has thoroughly failed, it is communities. They have failed all the more -lamentably when they have succeeded financially, because that sort of -success comes from competition with the world outside. A community is an -aggrandized individual; it is the extension, of the egoistic motive to a -large family, which looks out for its own good against other families, -just as a small family does. I have had enough of communities. The -family we hope to found must include all men who are willing to work; it -must recognize no aliens except the drones, and the drones must not be -suffered to continue. They must either cease to exist by going to work, -or by starving to death. But this great family--the real human -family--must be no agglutinated structure, no mere federation of -trades-unions; it must be a natural growth from indigenous stocks, which -will gradually displace individual and corporate enterprises by pushing -its roots and its branches out wider and over them, till they have no -longer earth or air to live in. It will then slowly possess itself of -the whole field of production and distribution.” - -“_Very_ slowly,” said the young Englishman; and he laughed. - -The debate went on, and it seemed as if there were almost as many -opinions as there were people present. At times it interested Ray, at -times it bored him; but at all times he kept thinking that if he could -get those queer zealots into a book, they would be amusing material, -though he shuddered to find himself personally among them. Hughes -coughed painfully in the air thickened with many breaths, and the -windows had to be opened for him; then the rush of the elevated trains -filled the room, and the windows were shut again. After one of these -interludes, Ray was aware of Hughes appealing to some one in the same -tone in which he had asked him to go and send in his whiskey and milk; -he looked up, and saw that Hughes was appealing to him. - -“Young man, have you nothing to say on all these questions? Is it -possible that you have not thought of them?” - -Ray was so startled that for a moment he could not speak. Then he said, -hardily, but in the frank spirit of the discussion, “No, I have never -thought of them at all.” - -“It is time you did,” said Hughes. “All other interests must yield to -them. We can have no true art, no real literature, no science worthy the -name, till the money-stamp of egoism is effaced from success, and it is -honored, not paid.” - -The others turned and stared at Ray; old Kane arched his eyebrows at -him, and made rings of white round his eyes; he pursed his mouth as if -he would like to laugh. Ray saw Mrs. Denton put her hand on her mouth; -her husband glowered silently; her sister sat with downcast eyes. - -Hughes went on: “I find it easier to forgive enmity than indifference; -he who is not for us is against us in the worst sense. Our cause has a -sacred claim upon all generous and enlightened spirits; they are -recreant if they neglect it. But we must be patient, even with -indifference; it is hard to bear, but we cannot fight it, and we must -bear it. Nothing has astonished me more, since my return to the world, -than to find the great mass of men living on, as when I left it, in -besotted indifference to the vital interests of the hour. I find the -politicians still talking of the tariff, just as they used to talk; low -tariff and cheap clothes for the working-man; high tariff and large -wages for the working-man. Whether we have high tariff or low, the -working-man always wins. But he does not seem to prosper. He is poor; he -is badly fed and housed; when he is out of work he starves in his den -till he is evicted with a ruthlessness unknown in the history of Irish -oppression. Neither party means to do anything for the working-man, and -he hasn’t risen himself yet to the conception of anything more -philosophical than more pay and fewer hours.” - -A sad-faced man spoke from a corner of the room. “We must have time to -think, and something to eat to-day. We can’t wait till to-morrow.” - -“That is true,” Hughes answered. “Many must perish by the way. But we -must have patience.” - -His son-in-law spoke up, and his gloomy face darkened. “I have no heart -for patience. When I see people perishing by the way, I ask myself how -they shall be saved, not some other time, but now. Some one is guilty of -the wrong they suffer. How shall the sin be remitted?” His voice shook -with fanatical passion. - -“We must have patience,” Hughes repeated. “We are all guilty.” - -“It would be a good thing,” said the man with a German accent, “if the -low-tariff men would really cut off the duties. The high-tariff men -don’t put wages up because they have protection, but they would surely -put them down if they didn’t have it. Then you would see labor troubles -everywhere.” - -“Yes,” said Hughes; “but such hopes as that would make me hate the -cause, if anything could. Evil that good may come? Never! Always good, -and good for evil, that the good may come more and more! We must have -the true America in the true American way, by reasons, by votes, by -laws, and not otherwise.” - -The spirit which he rebuked had unlocked the passions of those around -him. Ray had a vision of them in the stormy dispute which followed, as -waves beating and dashing upon the old man; the head of the bald man was -like a buoy among the breakers, as it turned and bobbed about, in his -eagerness to follow all that was said. - -Suddenly the impulses spent themselves, and a calm succeeded. One of the -men looked at his watch; they all rose one after another to go. - -Hughes held them a little longer. “I don’t believe the good time is so -far off as we are apt to think in our indignation at wrong. It is coming -soon, and its mere approach will bring sensible relief. We must have -courage and patience.” - -Ray and Kane went away together. Mrs. Denton looked at him with demure -question in her eyes when they parted; Peace imparted no feeling in her -still glance. Hughes took Ray’s little hand in his large, loose grasp, -and said: - -“Come again, young man; come again!” - - - - -XVII. - - -“If ever I come again,” Ray vowed to himself, when he got into the -street, “I think I shall know it!” He abhorred all sorts of social -outlandishness; he had always wished to be conformed, without and -within, to the great world of smooth respectabilities. If for the -present he was willing to Bohemianize a little, it was in his quality of -author, and as part of a world-old tradition. To have been mixed up with -a lot of howling dervishes like those people was intolerable. He tingled -with a sense of personal injury from Hughes’s asking him to take part in -their discussion; and he was all the angrier because he could not resent -it, even to Kane, on account of that young girl, who could not let him -see that it distressed her, too; he felt bound to her by the tie of -favor done which he must not allow to become painful. - -He knew, as they walked rapidly down the avenue, crazy with the trains -hurtling by over the jingling horse-cars and the clattering holiday -crowds, that old Kane was seeking out his with eyes brimming with -laughter, but he would not look at him, and he would not see any fun in -the affair. He would not speak, and he held his tongue the more -resolutely because he believed Kane meant to make him speak first. - -He had his way; it was Kane who broke the silence, after they left the -avenue and struck into one of the cross-streets leading to the Park. -Piles of lumber and barrels of cement blocked two-thirds of its space, -in front of half-built houses, which yawned upon it from cavernous -depths. Boys were playing over the boards and barrels, and on the rocky -hill-side behind the houses, where a portable engine stood at Sunday -rest, and tall derricks rose and stretched their idle arms abroad. At -the top of the hill a row of brown-stone fronts looked serenely down -upon the havoc thrown up by the blasting, as if it were a quiet -pleasance. - -“Amiable prospect, isn’t it?” said Kane. “It looks as if Hughes’s Afreet -has got out of his bottle, and had a good time here, holding on for a -rise, and then building on spec. But perhaps we oughtn’t to judge of it -at this stage, when everything is in transition. Think how beautiful it -will be when it is all solidly built up here as it is down-town!” He -passed his hand through Ray’s lax arm, and leaned affectionately toward -him as they walked on, after a little pause he made for this remark on -the scenery. “Well, my dear young friend, what do you think of my dear -old friend?” - -“Of Mr. Hughes?” Ray asked; and he restrained himself in a pretended -question. - -“Of Mr. Hughes, and of Mr. Hughes’s friends.” - -Ray flashed out upon this. “I think his friends are a lot of cranks.” - -“Yes; very good; very excellent good! They _are_ a lot of cranks. Are -they the first you have met in New York?” - -“No; the place seems to be full of them.” - -“Beginning with the elderly gentleman whom you met the first morning?” - -“Beginning with the young man who met the elderly gentleman.” - -Kane smiled with appreciation. “Well, we won’t be harsh on those two. We -won’t call _them_ cranks. They are philosophical observers, or inspired -dreamers, if you like. As I understand it, we are all dreamers. If we -like a man’s dream, we call him a prophet; if we don’t like his dream, -we call him a crank. Now, what is the matter with the dreams, severally -and collectively, of my dear old friend and his friends? Can you deny -that any one of their remedies, if taken faithfully according to the -directions blown on the bottle, would cure the world of all its woes -inside of six months?” - -The question gave Ray a chance to vent his vexation impersonally. “What -is the matter with the world?” he burst out. “I don’t see that the world -is so very sick. Why isn’t it going on very well? I don’t understand -what this talk is all about. I don’t see what those people have got to -complain of. All any one can ask is a fair chance to show how much his -work is worth, and let the best man win. What’s the trouble? Where’s the -wrong?” - -“Ah,” said Kane, “what a pity you didn’t set forth those ideas when -Hughes called upon you!” - -“And have all that crew jump on me? Thank you!” said Ray. - -“You would call them a crew, then? Perhaps they were a crew,” said Kane. -“I don’t know why a reformer should be so grotesque; but he is, and he -is always the easy prey of caricature. I couldn’t help feeling to-day -how very like the burlesque reformers the real reformers are. And they -are always the same, from generation to generation. For all outward -difference, those men and brethren of both sexes at poor David’s were -very like a group of old-time abolitionists conscientiously qualifying -themselves for tar and feathers. Perhaps you don’t like being spoken to -in meeting?” - -“No, I don’t,” said Ray, bluntly. - -“I fancied a certain reluctance in you at the time, but I don’t think -poor David meant any harm. He preaches patience, but I think he secretly -feels that he’s got to hurry, if he’s going to have the kingdom of -heaven on earth in his time; and he wants every one to lend a hand.” - -For the reason, or from the instinct, that forbade Ray to let out his -wrath directly against Hughes, he now concealed his pity. He asked -stiffly: “Couldn’t he be got into some better place? Where he wouldn’t -be stunned when he tried to keep from suffocating?” - -“No, I don’t know that he could,” said Kane, with a pensive singleness -rare in him. “Any help of that kind would mean dependence, and David -Hughes is proud.” - -They had passed through lofty ranks of flats, and they now came to the -viaduct carrying the northern railways; one of its noble arches opened -before them like a city gate, and the viaduct in its massy extent was -like a wall that had stood a hundred sieges. Beyond they found open -fields, with the old farm fences of stone still enclosing them, but with -the cellars of city blocks dug out of the lots. In one place there was a -spread of low sheds, neighbored by towering apartment-houses; some old -cart-horses were cropping the belated grass; and comfortable companies -of hens and groups of turkeys were picking about the stableyard; a -shambling cottage fronted on the avenue next the park, and drooped -behind its dusty, leafless vines. - -“He might be got into that,” said Kane, whimsically, “at no increase of -rent, and at much increase of comfort and quiet--at least till the -Afreet began to get in his work.” - -“Wouldn’t it be rather too much like that eremitism which he’s so down -on?” asked Ray, with a persistence in his effect of indifference. - -“Perhaps it would, perhaps it would,” Kane consented, as they struck -across into the Park. The grass was still very green, though here and -there a little sallow; the leaves, which had dropped from the trees in -the October rains, had lost their fire, and lay dull and brown in the -little hollows and at the edges of the paths and the bases of the rocks; -the oaks kept theirs, but in death; on some of the ash-trees and lindens -the leaves hung in a pale reminiscence of their summer green. - -“I understood the son-in-law to want a hermitage somewhere--a -co-operative hermitage, I suppose,” Ray went on. He did not feel bound -to spare the son-in-law, and he put contempt into his tone. - -“Ah, yes,” said Kane. “What did you make of the son-in-law?” - -“I don’t know. He’s a gloomy sprite. What is he, anyway? His wife spoke -of his work.” - -“Why, it’s rather a romantic story, I believe,” said Kane. “He was a -young fellow who stopped at the community on his way to a place where he -was going to find work; he’s a wood-engraver. I believe he’s always had -the notion that the world was out of kilter, and it seems that he wasn’t -very well himself when he looked in on the Family to see what they were -doing to help it. He fell sick on their hands, and the Hugheses took -care of him. Naturally, he married one of them when he got well enough, -and naturally he married the wrong one.” - -“Why the wrong one?” demanded Ray, with an obscure discomfort. - -“Well, I don’t know! But if it isn’t evident to you that Mrs. Denton is -hardly fitted to be the guide, philosopher, and friend of such a man”-- - -Ray would not pursue this branch of the inquiry. “_His_ notion of what -the world wanted was to have its cities eliminated. Then he thought it -would be all serene.” - -“Ah, that wouldn’t do,” said Kane. “Cities are a vice, but they are -essential to us now. We could not live without them; perhaps we are to -be saved by them. But it is well to return to Nature from time to -time.” - -“I thought I heard you saying some rather disparaging things of Nature a -little while ago,” said Ray, with a remaining grudge against Kane, and -with a young man’s willingness to convict his elder of any -inconsistency, serious or unserious. - -“Oh, primeval Nature, yes. But I have nothing but praise for this -kind--the kind that man controls and guides. It is outlaw Nature that I -object to, the savage survival from chaos, the mother of earthquakes and -cyclones, blizzards and untimely frosts, inundations and indigestions. -But ordered Nature--the Nature of the rolling year; night and day, and -seedtime and harvest”-- - -“The seasons,” Ray broke in scornfully, from the resentment still -souring in his soul, “turn themselves upside down and wrong end to, -about as often as financial panics occur, and the farmer that has to -rely on them is as apt to get left as the husbandman that sows and reaps -in Wall Street.” - -“Ah!” sighed Kane. “That was well said. I wish I had thought of it for -my second series of _Hard Sayings_.” - -“Oh, you’re welcome to it!” - -“Are you so rich in paradoxes? But I will contrive to credit it somehow -to the gifted author of _A New Romeo_. Is that what you call it?” - -Ray blushed and laughed, and Kane continued: - -“It’s a little beyond the fact, but it’s on the lines of truth. I don’t -justify Nature altogether. She is not free from certain little foibles, -caprices; perhaps that’s why we call her _she_. But I don’t think that, -with all her faults, she’s quite so bad as Business. In that we seem to -have gone to Nature for her defects. Why copy her weakness and bad -faith? Why not study her steadfastness, her orderliness, her obedience, -in laying the bases of civilization? We don’t go to her for the -justification of murder, incest, robbery, gluttony, though you can find -them all in her. We have our little prejudice against these things, and -we seem to derive it from somewhere outside of what we call Nature. Why -not go to that Somewhere for the law of economic life? But come,” Kane -broke off, gayly, “let us babble of green fields; as for God, God, I -hope we have no need to think of such things yet. Please Heaven, our -noses are not as sharp as pens, by a long way. I don’t wonder you find -it a beautiful and beneficent world, in spite of our friends yonder, who -want to make it prettier and better, in their way.” Kane put his arm -across Ray’s shoulder, and pulled him affectionately towards him. “Are -you vexed with me for having introduced you to those people? I have been -imagining something of the kind.” - -“Oh, no”--Ray began. - -“I didn’t really mean to stay for Hughes’s conventicle,” said Kane. -“Chapley was wise, and went in time, before he could feel the wild charm -of those visionaries; it was too much for me; when they began to come, I -_couldn’t_ go. I forgot how repugnant the golden age has always been to -the heart of youth, which likes the nineteenth century much better. The -fact is, I forgot that I had brought you till it was too late to take -you away.” - -He laughed, and Ray, more reluctantly, laughed with him. - -“I have often wondered,” he went on, “how it is we lose the youthful -point of view. We have it some night, and the next morning we haven’t -it; and we can hardly remember what it was. I don’t suppose you could -tell me what the youthful point of view of the present day is, though I -should recognize that of forty years ago. I”-- - -He broke off to look at a party of horsemen pelting by on the stretch of -the smooth hard road, and dashing into a bridle-path beyond. They were -heavy young fellows, mounted on perfectly groomed trotters, whose round -haunches trembled and dimpled with their hard pace. - -“Perhaps _that_ is the youthful point of view now: the healthy, the -wealthy, the physically strong, the materially rich. Well, I think ours -was better; pallid and poor in person and in purse as we imagined the -condition of the ideal man to be. There is something,” said Kane, “a -little more expressive of the insolence of money in one of those brutes -than in the most glittering carriage and pair. I think if I had in me -the material for really hating a fellow-man, I should apply it to the -detestation of the rider of one of those animals. But I haven’t. I am -not in prospective need even, and I am at the moment no hungrier than a -gentleman ought to be who is going to lunch with a lady in the Mandan -Flats. By-the-way! Why shouldn’t you come with me? They would be -delighted to see you. A brilliant young widow, with a pretty -step-daughter, is not to be lunched with every day, and I can answer for -your welcome.” - -Ray freed himself. “I’m sorry I can’t go. But I can’t. You must excuse -me; I really couldn’t; I am very much obliged to you. But”-- - -“You don’t trust me!” - -“Oh, yes, I do. But I don’t feel quite up to meeting people just now; -I’ll push on down town. I’m rather tired. Good-by.” - -Kane held his hand between both his palms. “I wonder what the real -reason is! Is it grudge, or pride, or youth?” - -“Neither,” said Ray. “It’s--clothes. My boots are muddy, and I’ve got on -my second-best trousers.” - -“Ah, now you are frank with me, and you give me a real reason. Perhaps -you are right. I dare say I should have thought so once.” - - - - -XVIII. - - -Ray did not go to deliver any of his letters that afternoon; he decided -now that it would be out of taste to do so on Sunday, as he had already -doubted that it would be, in the morning. He passed the afternoon in his -room, trying from time to time to reduce the turmoil of his reveries to -intelligible terms in verse, and in poetic prose. He did nothing with -them; in the end, though, he was aware of a new ideal, and he resolved -that if he could get his story back from Chapley & Co., he would rewrite -the passages that characterized the heroine, and make it less like the -every-day, simple prettiness of his first love. He had always known that -this did not suit the character he had imagined; he now saw that it -required a more complex and mystical charm. But he did not allow himself -to formulate these volitions and perceptions, any more than his -conviction that he had now a double reason for keeping away from Mr. -Brandreth and from Miss Hughes. He spent the week in an ecstasy of -forbearance. On Saturday afternoon he feigned the necessity of going to -ask Mr. Brandreth how he thought a novel in verse, treating a strictly -American subject in a fantastic way, would succeed. He really wished to -learn something without seeming to wish it, about his manuscript, but -he called so late in the afternoon that he found Mr. Brandreth putting -his desk in order just before starting home. He professed a great -pleasure at sight of Ray, and said he wished he would come part of the -way home with him; he wanted to have a little talk. - -As if the word home had roused the latent forces of hospitality in him, -he added, “I want to have you up at my place, some day, as soon as we -can get turned round. Mrs. Brandreth is doing first-rate, now; and that -boy--well, sir, he’s a perfect Titan. I wish you could see him -undressed. He’s just like the figure of the infant Hercules strangling -the serpent when he grips the nurse’s finger. I know it sounds -ridiculous, but I believe that fellow recognizes me, and distinguishes -between me and his mother. I suppose it’s my hat--I come in with my hat -on, you know, just to try him; and when he catches sight of that hat, -you ought to see his arms go!” - -The paternal rhapsodies continued a long time after they were in the -street, and Ray got no chance to bring in either his real or pretended -business. He listened with mechanical smiles and hollow laughter, alert -at the same time for the slightest vantage which Mr. Brandreth should -give him. But the publisher said of his own motion: - -“Oh, by-the-way, you’ll be interested to know that our readers’ reports -on your story are in.” - -“Are they?” Ray gasped. He could not get out any more. - -Mr. Brandreth went on: “I didn’t examine the reports very attentively -myself, but I think they were favorable, on the whole. There were -several changes suggested: I don’t recall just what. But you can see -them all on Monday. We let Miss Hughes go after lunch on Saturdays, and -she generally takes some work home with her, and I gave them to her to -put in shape for you. I thought it would be rather instructive for you -to see the different opinions in the right form. I believe you can’t -have too much method in these things.” - -“Of course,” said Ray, in an anguish of hope and fear. The street seemed -to go round; he hardly knew where he was. He bungled on inarticulately -before he could say: “I believe in method, too. But I’m sorry I couldn’t -have had the reports to-day, because I might have had Sunday to think -the suggestions over, and see what I could do with them.” - -“Well, I’m sorry, too. She hadn’t been gone half an hour when you came -in. If I’d thought of your happening in! Well, it isn’t very long till -Monday! She’ll have them ready by that time. I make it a rule myself to -put all business out of my mind from 2 P.M. on Saturday till Monday 9 -A.M., and I think you’ll find it an advantage, too. I won’t do business, -and I won’t talk business, and I won’t think business after two o’clock -on Saturday. I believe in making Sunday a day of rest and family -enjoyment. We have an early dinner; and then I like to have my wife read -or play to me, and now we have in the baby, and that amuses us.” - -Ray forced himself to say that as a rule he did not believe in working -on Sunday either; he usually wrote letters. He abruptly asked Mr. -Brandreth how he thought it would do for him to go and ask Miss Hughes -for a sight of the readers’ reports in the rough. - -Mr. Brandreth laughed. “You _are_ anxious! Do you know where she lives?” - -“Oh, yes; I stopped there last Sunday with Mr. Kane on our way to the -Park. I saw Mr. Chapley there.” - -“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth, with the effect of being arrested by the last -fact in something he might otherwise have said. It seemed to make him -rather unhappy. “Then you saw Miss Hughes’s father?” - -“Yes; and all his friends,” Ray answered, in a way that evidently -encouraged Mr. Brandreth to go on. - -“Yes? What did you think of them?” - -“I thought they were mostly harmless; but one or two of them ought to -have been in the violent wards.” - -“Did Mr. Chapley meet them?” - -“Oh, no; he went away before any of them came in. As Mr. Kane took me, I -had to stay with him.” - -Mr. Brandreth got back a good deal of his smiling complacency, which had -left him at Ray’s mention of Mr. Chapley in connection with Hughes. “Mr. -Chapley and Mr. Hughes are old friends.” - -“Yes; I understood something of that kind.” - -“They date back to the Brook Farm days together.” - -“Mr. Hughes is rather too much of the Hollingsworth type for my use,” -said Ray. He wished Mr. Brandreth to understand that he had no sympathy -with Hughes’s wild-cat philosophy, both because he had none, and because -he believed it would be to his interest with Mr. Brandreth to have none. - -“I’ve never seen him,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I like Mr. Chapley’s loyalty -to his friends--it’s one of his fine traits; but I don’t see any -necessity for my taking them up. He goes there every Sunday morning to -see Mr. Hughes, and they talk--political economy together. You knew Mr. -Chapley has been a good deal interested in this altruistic agitation.” - -“No, I didn’t,” said Ray. - -“Yes. You can’t very well keep clear of it altogether. I was mixed up in -it myself at one time: our summer place is on the outskirts of a -manufacturing town in Massachusetts, and we had our _Romeo and Juliet_ -for the benefit of a social union for the work-people; we made over two -hundred dollars for them. Mr. Chapley was a George man in ’86. Not that -he agreed with the George men exactly; but he thought there ought to be -some expression against the way things are going. You know a good many -of the nicest kind of people went the same way at that time. I don’t -object to that kind of thing as long as it isn’t carried too far. Mr. -Chapley used to see a good deal of an odd stick of a minister at our -summer place that had got some of the new ideas in a pretty crooked kind -of shape; and then he’s read Tolstoï a good deal, and he’s been -influenced by him. I think Hughes is a sort of safety valve for Mr. -Chapley, and that’s what I tell the family. Mr. Chapley isn’t a fool, -and he’s always had as good an eye for the main chance as anybody. -That’s all.” - -Ray divined that Mr. Brandreth would not have entered into this -explanation of his senior partner and father-in-law, except to guard -against the injurious inferences which he might draw from having met Mr. -Chapley at Hughes’s, but he did not let his guess appear in his words. -“I don’t wonder he likes Mr. Hughes,” he said. “He’s fine, and he seems -a light of sanity and reason among the jack-a-lanterns he gathers round -him. He isn’t at all Tolstoïan.” - -“He’s a gentleman, born and bred,” said Mr. Brandreth, “and he was a -rich man for the days before he began his communistic career. And Miss -Hughes is a perfect lady. She’s a cultivated girl, too, and she reads a -great deal. I’d rather have her opinion about a new book than half the -critics’ I know of, because I know I could get it honest, and I know it -would be intelligent. Well, if you’re going up there, you’ll want to be -getting across to the avenue to take the elevated.” He added, “I don’t -mean to give you the impression that we’ve made up our minds about your -book, yet. We haven’t. A book is a commercial venture as well as a -literary venture, and we’ve got to have a pow-wow about that side of it -before we come to any sort of conclusion. You understand?” - -“Oh, yes, I understand that,” said Ray, “and I’ll try not to be -unreasonably hopeful,” but at the same moment his heart leaped with -hope. - -“Well, that’s right,” said Mr. Brandreth, taking his hand for parting. -He held it, and then he said, with a sort of desperate impulse, -“By-the-way, why not come home with me, now, and take dinner with us?” - - - - -XIX. - - -Ray’s heart sank. He was so anxious to get at those opinions; and yet he -did not like to refuse Mr. Brandreth; a little thing might prejudice the -case; he ought to make all the favor at court that he could for his -book. “I--I’m afraid it mightn’t be convenient--at such a time--for Mrs. -Brandreth”-- - -“Oh, yes it would,” said Mr. Brandreth in the same desperate note. “Come -along. I don’t know that Mrs. Brandreth will be able to see you, but I -want you to see my boy; and we can have a bachelor bite together, -anyway.” - -Ray yielded, and the stories of the baby began again when he moved on -with Mr. Brandreth. It was agony for him to wrench his mind from his -story, which he kept turning over and over in it, trying to imagine what -the readers had differed about, and listen to Mr. Brandreth saying, -“Yes, sir, I believe that child knows his grandmother and his nurse -apart, as well as he knows his mother and me. He’s got his likes and his -dislikes already: he cries whenever his grandmother takes him. -By-the-way, you’ll see Mrs. Chapley at dinner, I hope. She’s spending -the day with us.” - -“Oh, I’m very glad,” said Ray, wondering if the readers objected to his -introduction of hypnotism. - -“She’s a woman of the greatest character,” said Mr. Brandreth, “but she -has some old-fashioned notions about children. I want my boy to be -trained as a boy from the very start. I think there’s nothing like a -manly man, unless it’s a womanly woman. I hate anything masculine about -a girl; a girl ought to be yielding and gentle; but I want my boy to be -self-reliant from the word Go. I believe in a man’s being master in his -own house; his will ought to be law, and that’s the way I shall bring up -my boy. Mrs. Chapley thinks there ought always to be a light in the -nurse’s room, but I don’t. I want my boy to get used to the dark, and -not be afraid of it, and I shall begin just as soon as I can, without -seeming arbitrary. Mrs. Chapley is the best soul in the world, and of -course I don’t like to differ with her.” - -“Of course,” said Ray. The mention of relationship made him think of the -cousin in his story; if he had not had the cousin killed, he thought it -would have been better; there was too much bloodshed in the story. - -They turned into a cross-street from Lexington Avenue, where they had -been walking, and stopped at a pretty little apartment-house, which had -its door painted black and a wide brass plate enclosing its key-hole, -and wore that air of standing aloof from its neighbors peculiar to -private houses with black doors and brass plates. - -Mr. Brandreth let himself in with a key. “There are only three families -in our house, and it’s like having a house of our own. It’s so much -easier living in a flat for your wife, that I put my foot down, and -wouldn’t hear of a separate house.” - -They mounted the carpeted stairs through the twilight that prevails in -such entries, and a sound of flying steps was heard within the door -where Mr. Brandreth applied his latch-key again, and as he flung it open -a long wail burst upon the ear. - -“Hear that?” he asked, with a rapturous smile, as he turned to Ray for -sympathy; and then he called gayly out in the direction that the wail -came from; “Oh, hello, hello, hello! What’s the matter, what’s the -matter? You sit down here,” he said to Ray, leading the way forward into -a pretty drawing-room. He caught something away from before the fire. -“Confound that nurse! She’s always coming in here in spite of -everything. I’ll be with you in a moment. Heigh! What ails the little -man?” he called out, and disappeared down the long narrow corridor, and -he was gone a good while. - -At moments Ray caught the sound of voices in hushed, but vehement -dispute; a door slammed violently; there were murmurs of expostulation. -At last Mr. Brandreth reappeared with his baby in his arms, and its -nurse at his heels, twitching the infant’s long robe into place. - -“What do you think of that?” demanded the father, and Ray got to his -feet and came near, so as to be able to see if he could think anything. - -By an inspiration he was able to say, “Well, he _is_ a great fellow!” -and this apparently gave Mr. Brandreth perfect satisfaction. His son’s -downy little oblong skull wagged feebly on his weak neck, his arms waved -vaguely before his face. - -“Now give him your finger, and see if he won’t do the infant Hercules -act.” - -Ray promptly assumed the part of the serpent, but the infant Hercules -would not open his tightly-clinched, wandering fist. - -“Try the other one,” said his father; and Ray tried the other one with -no more effect. “Well, he isn’t in the humor; he’ll do it for you some -time. All right, little man!” He gave the baby, which had acquitted -itself with so much distinction, back into the arms of its nurse, and it -was taken away. - -“Sit down, sit down!” he said, cheerily. “Mrs. Chapley will be in -directly. It’s astonishing,” he said, with a twist of his head in the -direction the baby had been taken, “but I believe those little things -have their moods just like any of us. That fellow knows as well as you -do, when he’s wanted to show off, and if he isn’t quite in the key for -it, he won’t do it. I wish I had tried him with my hat, and let you see -how he notices.” - -Mr. Brandreth went on with anecdotes, theories, and moral reflections -relating to the baby, and Ray answered with praiseful murmurs and -perfunctory cries of wonder. He was rescued from a situation which he -found more and more difficult by the advent of Mrs. Chapley, and not of -Mrs. Chapley alone, but of Mrs. Brandreth. She greeted Ray with a -certain severity, which he instinctively divined was not so much for him -as for her husband. A like quality imparted itself, but not so -authoritatively, from her mother; if Mr. Brandreth was not master in his -house, at least his mother-in-law was not. Mrs. Brandreth went about the -room and made some housekeeperly rearrangements of its furniture, which -had the result of reducing it, as it were, to discipline. Then she sat -down, and Ray, whom she waited to have speak first, had a feeling that -she was sitting in judgment on him, and the wish, if possible, to -justify himself. He began to praise the baby, its beauty, and great -size, and the likeness he professed to find in it to its father. - -Mrs. Brandreth relented slightly. She said, with magnanimous -impartiality, “It’s a very _healthy_ child.” - -Her mother made the reservation, “But even healthy children are a great -care,” and sighed. - -The daughter must have found this intrusive. “Oh, I don’t know that -Percy is any great care as yet, mamma.” - -“He pays his way,” Mr. Brandreth suggested, with a radiant smile. “At -least,” he corrected himself, “we shouldn’t know what to do without -him.” - -His wife said, drily, as if the remark were in bad taste, “It’s hardly a -question of that, I think. Have you been long in New York, Mr. Ray?” she -asked, with an abrupt turn to him. - -“Only a few weeks,” Ray answered, inwardly wondering how he could render -the fact propitiatory. - -“Everything is very curious and interesting to me as a country person,” -he added, deciding to make this sacrifice of himself. - -It evidently availed somewhat. “But you don’t mean that you are really -from the country?” Mrs. Brandreth asked. - -“I’m from Midland; and I suppose that’s the country, compared with New -York.” - -Mrs. Chapley asked him if he knew the Mayquayts there. He tried to think -of some people of that name; in the meantime she recollected that the -Mayquayts were from Gitchigumee, Michigan. They talked some -irrelevancies, and then she said, “Mr. Brandreth tells me you have _met_ -my husband,” as if they had been talking of him. - -“Yes; I had that pleasure even before I met Mr. Brandreth,” said Ray. - -“And you know Mr. Kane?” - -“Oh, yes. He was the first acquaintance I made in New York.” - -“Mr. Brandreth told me.” Mrs. Chapley made a show of laughing at the -notion of Kane, as a harmless eccentric, and she had the effect of -extending her kindly derision to Hughes, in saying, “And you’ve been -taken to sit at the feet of his prophet already, Mr. Brandreth tells me; -that strange Mr. Hughes.” - -“I shouldn’t have said he was Mr. Kane’s prophet exactly,” said Ray with -a smile of sympathy. “Mr. Kane doesn’t seem to need a prophet; but I’ve -certainly seen Mr. Hughes. And heard him, for that matter.” He smiled, -recollecting his dismay when he heard Hughes calling upon him in -meeting. He had a notion to describe his experience, and she gave him -the chance. - -“Yes?” she said, with veiled anxiety. “Do tell me about him!” - -At the end of Ray’s willing compliance, she drew a deep breath, and -said, “Then he is _not_ a follower of Tolstoï?” - -“Quite the contrary, I should say.” - -Mrs. Chapley laughed more easily. “I didn’t know but he made shoes that -nobody could wear. I couldn’t imagine what other attraction he could -have for my husband. I believe he would really like to go into the -country and work in the fields.” Mrs. Chapley laughed away a latent -anxiety, apparently, in making this joke about her husband, and seemed -to feel much better acquainted with Ray. “How are they living over -there? What sort of family has Mr. Hughes? I mean, besides the daughter -we know of?” - -Ray told, as well as he could, and he said they were living in an -apartment. - -“Oh!” said Mrs. Chapley, “I fancied a sort of tenement.” - -“By-the-way,” said Mr. Brandreth, “wouldn’t you like to see our -apartment, Mr. Ray”--his wife quelled him with a glance, and he -added,--“some time?” - -Ray said he should, very much. - -Mrs. Brandreth, like her mother, had been growing more and more -clement, and now she said, “Won’t you stay and take a family dinner with -us, Mr. Ray?” - -Ray looked at her husband, and saw that he had not told her of the -invitation he had already given. He did not do so now, and Ray rose and -seized his opportunity. He thanked Mrs. Brandreth very earnestly, and -said he was so sorry he had an appointment to keep, and he got himself -away at once. - -Mrs. Chapley hospitably claimed him for her Thursdays, at parting; and -Mrs. Brandreth said he must let Mr. Brandreth bring him some other day; -they would always be glad to see him. - -Mr. Brandreth went down to the outer door with him, to make sure that he -found the way, and said, “Then you _will_ come some time?” and -gratefully wrung his hand. “I saw how anxious you were about those -opinions!” - - - - -XX. - - -With an impatience whose intensity he began to feel as soon as he -permitted himself to indulge it, Ray hurried across to the line of the -elevated road. Now he perceived how intolerable it would be to have -staid to dinner with the Brandreths. He did not resent the failure of -Mr. Brandreth to tell his wife that he had already asked him when she -asked him again; he did not even care to know what his reasons or -exigencies were; the second invitation had been a chance to get away. -From time to time while Mr. Brandreth was showing him the baby, and then -while Mrs. Chapley was setting her mind at rest about her husband by her -researches into the philosophy and character of Hughes, he had -superficially forgotten that the readers’ opinions of his story were in, -while his nether thought writhed in anguish around the question of what -their opinions were. When at moments this fully penetrated his -consciousness, it was like a sort of vertigo, and he was light-headed -with it now as he walked, or almost ran, away from Mr. Brandreth’s door. -He meant to see Miss Hughes, and beg for a sight of the criticisms; -perhaps she might say something that would save him from the worst, if -they were very bad. He imagined a perfect interview, in which he met no -one but her. - -It was Mrs. Denton who stood at the head of the stairs to receive him -when the door promptly opened to his ring; she explained that her -husband had put the lock in order since she last admitted him. Ray -managed to say that he wished merely to see her sister for a moment, and -why, and she said that Peace had gone out, but would be at home again -very soon. She said her father would be glad to have him sit down with -him till Peace came back. - -Ray submitted. He found the old man coughing beside the front window, -that looked out on the lines of the railroad, and the ugly avenue -beneath. - -Hughes knew him at once, and called to him: “Well, young man! I am glad -to see you! How do you do?” He held out his hand when he was seated, and -when Ray had shaken it, he motioned with it to the vacant chair on the -other side of the window. - -“I hope you are well, sir?” said Ray. - -“I’m getting the better of this nasty cough gradually, and I pick up a -little new strength every day. Yes, I’m doing very well. For the present -I have to keep housed, and that’s tiresome. But it gives me time for a -bit of writing that I have in hand; I’m putting together the impressions -that this civilization of yours makes on me, in a little book that I -call _The World Revisited_.” - -Ray did not see exactly why Hughes should say _his_ civilization, as if -he had invented it; but he did not disclaim it; and Hughes went on -without interruption from him. - -“I hope to get my old friend Chapley to bring it out for me, if I can -reconcile him to its radical opinions. He’s timid, Chapley is; and my -book’s rather bold.” - -Ray’s thought darted almost instantly to his own book, and ran it over -in every part, seeking whether there might be something in it that was -too bold for a timid publisher, or a timid publisher’s professional -readers. He was aware of old Hughes monologuing on with the satisfaction -of an author who speaks of his work to a listener he has at his mercy. - -“My book is a criticism of modern life in all its aspects, though -necessarily as the field is so vast, I can touch on some only in the -most cursory fashion. For instance, take this whole architectural -nightmare that we call a city. I hold that the average tasteless man has -no right to realize his ideas of a house in the presence of a great -multitude of his fellow-beings. It is an indecent exposure of his mind, -and should not be permitted. All these structural forms about us, which -with scarcely an exception are ugly and senseless, I regard as so many -immoralities, as deliriums, as imbecilities, which a civilized state -would not permit, and I say so in my book. The city should build the -city, and provide every denizen with a fit and beautiful habitation to -work in and rest in.” - -“I’m afraid,” said Ray, tearing his mind from his book to put it on this -proposition, “that such an idea might be found rather startling.” - -“How, startling? Why, startling?” Hughes demanded. - -“I don’t know. Wouldn’t it infringe upon private rights? Wouldn’t it be -a little tyrannical?” - -“What private rights has a man in the outside of his house,” Hughes -retorted. “The interior might be left to his ignorance and vulgarity. -But the outside of my house is not for _me_! It’s for others! The public -sees it ten times where I see it once. If I make it brutal and stupid, -_I_ am the tyrant, _I_ am the oppressor--I, the individual! Besides, -when the sovereign people is really lord of itself, it can and will do -no man wrong.” - -Ray had his misgivings, but he would not urge them, because it was a -gnawing misery to think of anything but his story, and he let Hughes -break the silence that he let follow. - -“And so,” the old man said presently, as if speaking of his own book had -reminded him of Ray’s, “you have written a novel, young man. And what is -your justification for writing a novel at a time like this, when we are -all trembling on the verge of a social cataclysm?” - -“Justification?” Ray faltered. - -“Yes. How does it justify itself? How does it serve God and help man? -Does it dabble with the passion of love between a girl and boy as if -that were the chief concern of men and women? Or does it touch some of -the real concerns of life--some of the problems pressing on to their -solution, and needing the prayerful attention of every human creature?” - -“It isn’t merely a love-story,” said Ray, glad to get to it on any -terms, “though it is a love-story. But I’ve ventured to employ a sort of -psychological motive.” - -“What sort?” - -“Well--hypnotism.” - -“A mere toy, that Poe and Hawthorne played with in the old mesmerist -days, and I don’t know how many others.” - -“I don’t play with it as they did, exactly,” said Ray. - -“Oh, I’ve no doubt you employ it to as new effect as the scientifics who -are playing with it again. But how can you live in this camp of -embattled forces, where luxury and misery are armed against each other, -and every lover of his kind should give heart and brain to the solution -of the riddle that is maddening brother against brother,--how can you -live on here and be content with the artistic study of hysteria?” - -The strong words of the old man, which fell tingling with emotion, had -no meaning for the soul of youth in Ray; he valued them æsthetically, -but he could not make personal application of them. He had a kind of -amusement in answering: “Well, I’m not quite so bad as you think, Mr. -Hughes. I wrote my story several years ago. I don’t suppose I could do -anything of the kind, now.” - -Hughes’s mouth seemed stopped for the moment by this excuse. He sat -glaring at Ray’s bright, handsome face through his overhanging, shaggy -eyebrows, and seemed waiting to gather strength for another onset, when -his daughter Peace came silently into the room behind Ray. - -Her father did not give her time to greet their visitor. “Well,” he -called out with a voice of stormy pathos, “how did you leave that poor -woman?” - -“She is dead,” answered the girl. - -“Good!” said Hughes. “So far, so good. Who is living?” - -“There are several children. The people in the house are taking care of -them.” - -“Of course! There, young man,” said Hughes, “is a psychological problem -better worth your study than the phenomena of hypnotism: the ability of -poverty to provide for want out of its very destitution. The miracle of -the loaves and fishes is wrought here every day in the great -tenement-houses. Those who have nothing for themselves can still find -something for others. The direst want may be trusted to share its crust -with those who have not a crust; and still something remains, as if -Christ had blessed the bread and broken it among the famishing. Don’t -you think that an interesting and romantic fact, a mystery meriting the -attention of literary art?” - -It did strike Ray as a good notion; something might be done with it, say -in a Christmas story, if you could get hold of a tenement-house incident -of that kind, and keep it from becoming allegorical in the working out. - -This went through Ray’s mind as he stood thinking also how he should -ask the girl for his manuscript and the criticisms on it without seeming -foolishly eager. Her father’s formidable intervention had dispensed him -from the usual greetings, and he could only say, “Oh! Miss Hughes, Mr. -Brandreth told me I might come and get my story of you--_A Modern -Romeo_--and the readers’ opinions. I--I thought I should like to look -them over; and--and”-- - -“I haven’t had time to copy them yet,” she answered. “Mr. Brandreth -wished you to see them; but we keep the readers anonymous, and he -thought I had better show them to you all in my handwriting.” - -“I shouldn’t know the writers. He said I could see them as they are.” - -“Well, then, I will go and get them for you,” she answered. She left him -a moment, and he remained with her father unmolested. The old man sat -staring out on the avenue, with his head black against its gathering -lights. - -She gave him the packet she brought back with her, and then she followed -him out of the apartment upon the landing, after he had made his -acknowledgments and adieux. - -“I thought,” she said, timidly, “you would like to know that I had given -your dollar for these poor children. Was that right?” - -Ray’s head was so full of his story that he answered vaguely, “My -dollar?” Then he remembered. “Oh! Oh yes! It was right--quite right! I’m -glad you did it. Miss Hughes! Excuse me; but would you mind telling me -whether you have happened to look at the story yourself?” - -She hesitated, and then answered: “Yes, I’ve read it.” - -“Oh, then,” he bubbled out, knowing that he was wrong and foolish, but -helpless to refrain, “before I read those things, won’t you tell me--I -should care more--I should like so much to know what _you_--I suppose -I’ve no right to ask!” - -He tried to make some show of decency about the matter, but in fact he -had the heart to ask a dying man his opinion, in that literary passion -which spares nothing, and is as protean as love itself in its disguises. - -“I suppose,” she answered, “that I had no right to read it; I wasn’t -asked to do it.” - -“Oh, yes, you had. I’m very glad you did.” - -“The opinions about it were so different that I couldn’t help looking at -it, and then--I kept on,” she said. - -“Were they so _very_ different?” he asked, trembling with his author’s -sensitiveness, while the implication of praise in her confession worked -like a frenzied hope in his brain. “And you kept on? Then it interested -you?” - -She did not answer this question, but said: “None of them thought just -alike about it. But you’ll see them”-- - -“No, no! Tell me what you thought of it yourself! Was there some part -that seemed better than the rest?” - -She hesitated. “No, I would rather not say. I oughtn’t to have told you -I had read it.” - -“You didn’t like it!” - -“Yes; I did like parts of it. But I musn’t say any more.” - -“But what parts?” he pleaded. - -“You mustn’t ask me. The readers’ opinions”-- - -“I don’t care for them. I care for your opinion,” said Ray, perversely. -“What did you mean by their being all different? Of course, I’m absurd! -But you don’t know how much depends upon this book. It isn’t that it’s -the only book I expect ever to write; but if it should be rejected! I’ve -had to wait a long while already; and then to have to go peddling it -around among the other publishers! Do you think that it’s hopelessly -bad, or could I make it over? What did you dislike in it? Didn’t you -approve of the hypnotism? That was the only thing I could think of to -bring about the climax. And did it seem too melodramatic? _Romeo and -Juliet_ is melodramatic! I hope you won’t think I’m usually so nervous -about my work,” he went on, wondering that he should be giving himself -away so freely, when he was really so reserved. “I’ve been a long time -writing the story; and I’ve worked over it and worked over it, till I’ve -quite lost the sense of it. I don’t believe I can make head or tail of -those opinions. That’s the reason why I wanted you to tell me what you -thought of it yourself.” - -“But I have no right to do that. It would be interfering with other -people’s work. It wouldn’t be fair towards Mr. Brandreth,” she pleaded. - -“I see. I didn’t see that before. And you’re quite right, and I beg your -pardon. Good-night!” - -He put his manuscript on the seat in the elevated train, and partly sat -upon it, that he might not forget it when he left the car. But as he -read the professional opinions of it he wished the thing could lose him, -and never find him again. No other novel, he thought, could ever have -had such a variety of certain faults, together with the vague merit -which each of its critics seemed to feel in greater measure or less. -Their work, he had to own, had been faithfully done; he had not even the -poor consolation of accusing them of a neglect of duty. They had each -read his story, and they spoke of it with intelligence in a way, if not -every way. Each condemned it on a different ground, but as it stood they -all joined in condemning it; and they did not so much contradict one -another as dwell on different defects; so that together they covered the -whole field with their censure. One of them reproached it for its crude -realism, and the sort of helpless fidelity to provincial conditions -which seemed to come from the author’s ignorance of anything different. -Another blamed the youthful romanticism of its dealings with passion. A -third pointed out the gross improbability of the plot in our modern -circumstance. A fourth objected to the employment of hypnotism as a -clumsy piece of machinery, and an attempt to reach the public interest -through a prevailing fad. A fifth touched upon the obvious imitation of -Hawthorne in the psychical analyses. A sixth accused the author of -having adopted Thackeray’s manner without Thackeray’s material. - -Ray resented, with a keen sense of personal affront, these criticisms in -severalty, but their combined effect was utter humiliation, though they -were less true taken together than they were separately. At the bottom -of his sore and angry heart he could not deny their truth, and yet he -knew that there was something in his book which none of them had taken -account of, and that this was its life, which had come out of his own. -He was aware of all those crude and awkward and affected things, but he -believed there was something, too, that went with them, and that had not -been in fiction before. - -It was this something which he hoped that girl had felt in his story, -and which he was trying to get her to own to him before he looked at the -opinions. They confounded and distracted him beyond his foreboding even, -and it was an added anguish to keep wondering, as he did all night, -whether she had really found anything more in the novel than his critics -had. As he turned from side to side and beat his pillow into this shape -and that, he reconstructed the story after one critic’s suggestion, and -then after another’s; but the material only grew more defiant and -impossible; if it could not keep the shape it had, it would take no -other. That was plain; and the only thing to be done was to throw it -away, and write something else; for it was not reasonable to suppose -that Mr. Brandreth would think of bringing the book out in the teeth of -all these adverse critics. But now he had no heart to think of anything -else, although he was always thinking of something else, while there was -hope of getting this published. His career as an author was at an end; -he must look about for some sort of newspaper work; he ought to be very -glad if he could get something to do as a space man. - - - - -XXI. - - -He rose, after a late nap following his night-long vigils, with despair -in his soul. He believed it was despair, and so it was to all intents -and purposes. But, when he had bathed, he seemed to have washed a little -of his despair away; when he had dressed, he felt hungry, and he ate his -breakfast with rather more than his usual appetite. - -The reaction was merely physical, and his gloom settled round him again -when he went back to his attic and saw his manuscript and those deadly -opinions. He had not the heart to go out anywhere, and he cowered alone -in his room. If he could only get the light of some other mind on the -facts he might grapple with them; but without this he was limp and -helpless. Now he knew, in spite of all his pretences to the contrary, in -spite of the warnings and cautions he had given himself, that he had not -only hoped, but had expected, that his story would be found good enough -to publish. Yet none of these readers--even those who found some -meritorious traits in it--had apparently dreamed of recommending it for -publication. It was no wonder that Miss Hughes had been so unwilling to -tell him what she thought of it; that she had urged him so strongly to -read the opinions first. What a fool she must have thought him! - -There was no one else he could appeal to, unless it was old Kane. He did -not know where Kane lived, even if he could have gathered the courage to -go to him in his extremity; and he bet himself that Kane would not -repeat his last Sunday’s visit. The time for any reasonable hope of -losing passed, and then to his great joy he lost. There came a -hesitating step outside his door, as if some one were in doubt where to -knock, and then a tap at it. - -Ray flung it open, and at sight of Kane the tears came into his eyes, -and he could not speak. - -“Why, my dear friend!” cried Kane, “what is the matter?” - -Ray kept silent till he could say coldly, “Nothing. It’s all over.” - -Kane stepped into the room, and took off his hat. “If you haven’t been -rejected by the object of your affections, you have had the manuscript -of your novel declined. These are the only things that really bring -annihilation. I think the second is worse. A man is never so absolutely -and solely in love with one woman but he knows some other who is -potentially lovable; that is the wise provision of Nature. But while a -man has a manuscript at a publisher’s, it is the only manuscript in the -world. You can readily work out the comparison. I hope you have merely -been disappointed in love, my dear boy.” - -Ray smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid it’s worse.” - -“Then Chapley & Co. have declined your novel definitely?” - -“Not in set terms; or not yet. But their readers have all reported -against it, and I’ve passed the night in reading their opinions. I’ve -got them by heart. Would you like to hear me repeat them?” he demanded, -with a fierce self-scorn. - -Kane looked at him compassionately. “Heaven forbid! I could repeat them, -I dare say, as accurately as you; the opinions of readers do not vary -much, and I have had many novels declined.” - -“Have you?” Ray faltered with compunction for his arrogation of all such -suffering to himself. - -“Yes. That was one reason why I began to write _Hard Sayings_. But if -you will let me offer you another leaf from my experience, I will -suggest that there are many chances for reprieve and even pardon after -the readers have condemned your novel. I once had a novel accepted--the -only novel I ever had accepted--after all the publisher’s readers had -pronounced against it.” - -“Had you?” Ray came tremulously back at him. - -“Yes,” sighed Kane. “That is why Chapley is so fond of me; he has -forgiven me a deadly injury.” He paused to let his words carry Ray down -again, and then he asked, with a nod toward the bed where the young -fellow had flung his manuscript and the readers’ opinions, “Might I?” - -“Oh, certainly,” said Ray from his depths; and Kane took up the opinions -and began to run them over. - -“Yes, they have a strangely familiar effect; they are like echoes from -my own past.” He laid them down again. “Do you think they are right?” - -“Yes. Perfectly! That is”-- - -“Oh! _That is._ There is hope, I see.” - -“How, hope?” Ray retorted. “Does my differing with them make any -difference as to the outcome?” - -“For the book, no, perhaps; for you, yes, decidedly. It makes all the -difference between being stunned and being killed. It is not pleasant to -be stunned, but it is not for such a long time as being killed. What is -your story about?” - -It astonished Ray himself to find how much this question revived his -faith and courage. His undying interest in the thing, by and for itself, -as indestructible as a mother’s love, revived, and he gave Kane the -outline of his novel. Then he filled this in, and he did not stop till -he had read some of the best passages. He suddenly tossed his manuscript -from him. “What a fool I am!” - -Kane gave his soft, thick laugh, shutting his eyes, and showing his -small white teeth, still beautifully sound. “Oh, no! Oh, no! I have read -worse things than that! I have written worse than that. Come, come! Here -is nothing to beat the breast for. I doubt if Chapley’s will take it, in -defiance of their readers; their experience with me has rendered that -very improbable. But they are not the only publishers in New York, or -Philadelphia even; I’m told they have very eager ones in Chicago. Why -shouldn’t the _roman psychologique_, if that’s the next thing, as Mr. -Brandreth believes, get on its legs at Chicago, and walk East?” - -“I wonder,” Ray said, rising aimlessly from his chair, “whether it would -do to call on Mr. Brandreth to-day? This suspense--Do you know whether -he is very religious?” - -“How should I know such a thing of my fellow-man in New York? I don’t -know it even of myself. At times I am very religious, and at times, not. -But Mr. Brandreth is rather a formal little man, and a business -interview on Sunday, with an agonized author, might not seem exactly -decorous to him.” - -“I got the impression he wasn’t very stiff. But it wouldn’t do,” said -Ray, before Kane had rounded his neat period. “What an ass I am!” - -“We are all asses,” Kane sighed. “It is the great bond of human -brotherhood. When did you get these verdicts?” - -“Oh, Mr. Brandreth told me Miss Hughes had taken them home with her -yesterday, and I couldn’t rest till I had his leave to go and get them -of her.” - -“Exactly. If we know there is possible unhappiness in store for us, we -don’t wait for it; we make haste and look it up, and embrace it. And how -did my dear old friend Hughes, if you saw him, impress you this time?” - -“I saw him, and I still prefer him to _his_ friends,” said Ray. - -“Naturally. There are not many people, even in a planet so overpeopled -as this, who are the peers of David Hughes. He goes far to make me -respect my species. Of course he is ridiculous. A man so hopeful as -Hughes is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the human proposition. How can -there reasonably be hope in a world where poverty and death are? To be -sure, Hughes proposes to eliminate poverty and explain death. You know -he thinks--he really believes, I suppose--that if he could once get his -millenium going, and everybody so blessed in this life that the absolute -knowledge of heavenly conditions in another would not tempt us to -suicide, then the terror and the mystery of death would be taken away, -and the race would be trusted with its benificent meaning. It’s rather a -pretty notion.” - -Ray, with his narrow experience, would not have been able to grasp it -fully. Now he broke out without the least relevancy to it, “I wonder how -it would do to remodel my story so far as to transfer the scene to New -York? It might be more popular.” The criticism that one of those readers -had made on the helplessness of his fidelity to simple rustic conditions -had suddenly begun to gall him afresh. “I beg your pardon. I _didn’t_ -notice what you were saying! I can’t get my mind off that miserable -thing!” - -Kane laughed. “Oh, don’t apologize. I know how it is. Perhaps a change -of scene _would_ be good; it’s often advised, you know.” He laughed -again, and Ray with him, ruefully, and now he rose. - -“Oh, must you go?” Ray entreated. - -“Yes. You are best alone; when we are in pain we _are_, alone, anyway. -If misery loves company, company certainly does not love misery. I can -stand my own troubles, but not other people’s. Good-by! We will meet -again when you are happier.” - - - - -XXII. - - -Mr. Brandreth tried hard to escape from the logic of his readers’ -opinions. In the light of his friendly optimism they took almost a -favorable cast. He argued that there was nothing absolutely damnatory in -those verdicts, that they all more or less tacitly embodied a -recommendation to mercy. So far his personal kindliness carried him, but -beyond this point business put up her barrier. He did not propose to -take the book in spite of his readers; he said he would see; and after -having seen for a week longer, he returned the MS. with a letter -assuring Ray of his regret, and saying that if he could modify the story -according to the suggestions of their readers, Chapley & Co. would be -pleased to examine it again. - -Ray had really expected some such answer as this, though he hoped -against reason for something different. In view of it he had spent the -week mentally recasting the story in this form and in that; sometimes it -yielded to his efforts in one way or another; when the manuscript came -into his hands again, he saw that it was immutably fixed in the terms he -had given it, and that it must remain essentially what it was, in spite -of any external travesty. - -He offered Mr. Brandreth his thanks and his excuses for not trying to -make any change in it until he had first offered it as it was to other -publishers. He asked if it would shut him out of Chapley & Co.’s grace -if he were refused elsewhere, and received an answer of the most -flattering cordiality to the effect that their desire to see the work in -another shape was quite unconditioned. Mr. Brandreth seemed to have put -a great deal of heart in this answer; it was most affectionately -expressed; it closed with the wish that he might soon see Ray at his -house again. - -Ray could not have believed, but for the experience which came to him, -that there could be so many reasons for declining to publish any one -book as the different publishers now gave him. For the most part they -deprecated the notion of even looking at it. The book-trade had never -been so prostrate before; events of the most unexpected nature had -conspired to reduce it to a really desperate condition. The unsettled -state of Europe had a good deal to do with it; the succession of bad -seasons at the West affected it most distinctly. The approach of a -Presidential year was unfavorable to this sensitive traffic. Above all, -the suspense created by the lingering and doubtful fate of the -international copyright bill was playing havoc with it; people did not -know what course to take; it was impossible to plan any kind of -enterprise, or to risk any sort of project. Men who had been quite -buoyant in regard to the bill seemed carried down to the lowest level of -doubt as to its fate by the fact that Ray had a novel to offer them; -they could see no hope for American fiction, if that English trash was -destined to flood the market indefinitely. They sympathized with him, -but they said they were all in the same boat, and that the only thing -was to bring all the pressure each could to bear upon Congress. The sum -of their counsel and condolence came to the effect in Ray’s mind that -his best hope was to get _A Modern Romeo_ printed by Congress as a -Public Document and franked by the Senators and Representatives to their -constituents. He found a melancholy amusement in noting the change in -the mood of those who used to meet him cheerfully and carelessly as the -correspondent of a newspaper, and now found themselves confronted with -an author, and felt his manuscript at their throats. Some tried to joke; -some became helplessly serious; some sought to temporize. - -Those whose circumstances and engagements forbade them even to look at -his novel were the easiest to bear with. They did not question the -quality or character of his work; they had no doubt of its excellence, -and they had perfect faith in its success; but simply their hands were -so full they could not touch it. The other sort, when they consented to -examine the story, kept it so long that Ray could not help forming false -hopes of the outcome; or else they returned it with a precipitation that -mortified his pride, and made him sceptical of their having looked into -it at all. He did not experience unconditional rejection everywhere. In -some cases the readers proposed radical and impossible changes, as -Chapley & Co.’s readers had done. In one instance they so far -recommended it that the publisher was willing to lend his imprint and -manage the book for the per cent usually paid to authors, if Ray would -meet all the expenses. There was an enthusiast who even went so far as -to propose that he would publish it if Ray would pay the cost of the -electrotype plates. He appeared to think this a handsome offer, and Ray -in fact found it so much better than nothing that he went into some -serious estimates upon it. He called in the help of old Kane, who was an -expert in the matter of electrotyping, and was able from his sad -experience to give him the exact figures. They found that _A New Romeo_ -would make some four hundred and thirty or forty pages, and that at the -lowest price the plates would cost more than three hundred dollars. The -figure made Ray gasp; the mere thought of it impoverished him. His -expenses had already eaten a hundred dollars into his savings beyond the -five dollars a week he had from the _Midland Echo_ for his letters. If -he paid out this sum for his plates, he should now have some ninety -dollars left. - -“But then,” said Kane, arching his eyebrows, “the trifling sum of three -hundred dollars, risked upon so safe a venture as _A New Romeo_, will -probably result in riches beyond the dreams of avarice.” - -“Yes: or it may result in total loss,” Ray returned. - -“It is a risk. But what was it you have been asking all these other -people to do? One of them turns and asks you to share the risk with him; -he asks you to risk less than half on a book that you have written -yourself, and he will risk the other half. What just ground have you for -refusing his generous offer?” - -“It isn’t my business to publish books; it’s my business to write them,” -said Ray, coldly. - -“Ah-h-h! Very true! That is a solid position. Then all you have to do to -make it quite impregnable is to write such books that other men will be -eager to take all the risks of publishing them. It appears that in the -present case you omitted to do that.” Kane watched Ray’s face with -whimsical enjoyment. “I was afraid you were putting your reluctance upon -the moral ground, and that you were refusing to bet on your book because -you thought it wrong to bet.” - -“I’m afraid,” said Ray, dejectedly, “that the moral question didn’t -enter with me. If people thought it wrong to make bets of that kind, it -seems to me that all business would come to a standstill.” - -“‘Sh!” said Kane, putting his finger to his lip, and glancing round with -burlesque alarm. “This is open incivism. It is accusing the whole -framework of commercial civilization. Go on; it’s delightful to hear -you; but don’t let any one _over_hear you.” - -“I don’t know what you mean,” said Ray, with sullen resentment, “about -incivism. I’m saying what everybody knows.” - -“Ah! But what everybody _knows_ is just what nobody _says_. If people -said what they knew, society would tumble down like a house of cards.” - -Ray was silent, far withdrawn from these generalities into his personal -question. - -Kane asked compassionately, “Then you think you can’t -venture--risk--chance it? Excuse me! I was trying to find a euphemism -for the action, but there seems none!” - -“No; I daren’t do it! The risk is too great.” - -“That seems to be the consensus of the book trade concerning it. Perhaps -you are right. _Would_ you mind,” asked Kane with all his sweet -politeness, “letting me take your manuscript home, and go over it -carefully?” - -“_Let_ you!” Ray began in a rapture of gratitude, but Kane stopped him. - -“No, no! Don’t expect anything! _Don’t_ form any hopes. Simply suppose -me to be reading it as a lover of high-class fiction, with no ulterior -view whatever. I am really the feeblest of conies, and I have not even -the poor advantage of having my habitation in the rocks. Good-by! -Good-day! Don’t try to stop me with civilities! Heaven knows how far my -noble purpose will hold if it is weakened by any manner of delay.” - -Ray lived a day longer in the flimsiest air-castles that ever the -vagrant winds blew through. In the evening Kane came back with his -story. - -“Well, my dear young friend, you have certainly produced the despair of -criticism in this extraordinary fiction of yours. I don’t wonder all the -readers have been of so many minds about it. I only wonder that any one -man could be of any one mind about it long enough to get himself down -on paper. In some respects it is the very worst thing I ever saw, and -yet--and yet--it interested me, it held me to the end. I will make a -confession; I will tell you the truth. I took the thing home, hoping to -find justification in it for approaching a poor friend of mine who is in -the publishing line, and making him believe that his interest lay in -publishing it. But I could not bring myself to so simple an act of bad -faith. I found I should have to say to my friend, ‘Here is a novel which -might make your everlasting fortune, but most of the chances are against -it. There are twenty chances that it will fail to one that it will -succeed; just the average of failure and success in business life. You -had better take it.’ Of course he would not take it, because he could -not afford to add a special risk to the general business risk. You see?” - -“I see,” said Ray, but without the delight that a case so beautifully -reasoned should bring to the logical mind. At the bottom of his heart, -though he made such an outward show of fairness and impersonality, he -was simply and selfishly emotional about his book. He could not enter -into the humor of Kane’s dramatization of the case; he tacitly accused -him of inconsistency, and possibly of envy and jealousy. It began to be -as if it were Kane alone who was keeping his book from its chance with -the public. This conception, which certainly appeared perverse to Ray at -times, was at others entirely in harmony with one of several theories of -the man. He had chilled Ray more than once by the cold cynicism of his -opinions concerning mankind at large; and now Ray asked himself why -Kane’s cynicism should not characterize his behavior towards him, too. -Such a man would find a delight in studying him in his defeat, and -turning his misery into phrases and aphorisms. - -He was confirmed in his notion of Kane’s heartlessness by the strange -behavior of Mr. Brandreth, who sent for his manuscript one morning, -asking if he might keep it a few days, and then returned it the same -day, with what Ray thought an insufficient explanation of the -transaction. He proudly suffered a week under its inadequacy, and then -he went to Mr. Brandreth, and asked him just what the affair meant; it -seemed to him that he had a right to know. - -Mr. Brandreth laughed in rather a shame-faced way. “I may as well make a -clean breast of it. As I told you when we first met, I’ve been wanting -to publish a novel for some time; and although I haven’t read yours, the -plot attracted me, and I thought I would give it another chance--the -best chance I could. I wanted to show it to a friend of yours--I suppose -I may say friend, at least it was somebody that I thought would be -prejudiced more in favor of it than against it; and I had made up my -mind that if the person approved of it I would read it too, and if we -agreed about it, I would get Mr. Chapley to risk it. But--I found that -the person had read it.” - -“And didn’t like it.” - -“I can’t say that, exactly.” - -“If it comes to that,” said Ray, with a bitter smile, “it doesn’t -matter about the precise terms.” He could not speak for a moment; then -he swallowed the choking lump in his throat, and offered Brandreth his -hand. “Thank _you_, Mr. Brandreth! I’m sure _you’re_ my friend; and I -sha’n’t forget your kindness.” - - - - -XXIII. - - -The disappointment which Ray had to suffer would have been bad enough -simply as the refusal of his book; with the hope raised in him and then -crushed after the first great defeat, the trial was doubly bitter. It -was a necessity of his suffering and his temperament to translate it -into some sort of literary terms, and he now beguiled his enforced -leisure by beginning several stories and poems involving his experience. -One of the poems he carried so far that he felt the need of another eye -on it to admire it and confirm him in his good opinion of it; he -pretended that he wanted criticism, but he wanted praise. He would have -liked to submit the poem to Kane; but he could not do this now, though -the coldness between them was tacit, and they met as friends when they -met. He had a vulgar moment when he thought it would be a fine revenge -if he could make Kane listen to that passage of his poem which described -the poet’s betrayal by a false friend, by the man who held his fate in -his hand and coolly turned against him. Kane must feel the sting of -self-reproach from this through all the disguises of time and place -which wrapped it; but the vulgar moment passed, and Ray became disgusted -with that part of his poem, and cut it out. - -As it remained then, it was the pathetic story of a poet who comes up to -some Oriental court with his song, but never gains a hearing, and dies -neglected and unknown; he does not even achieve fame after death. Ray -did not know why he chose an Oriental setting for his story, but perhaps -it was because it removed it farther from the fact, and made it less -recognizable. It would certainly lend itself more easily to illustration -in that shape, if he could get some magazine to take it. - -When he decided that he could not show it to Kane, and dismissed a -fleeting notion of Mr. Brandreth as impossible, he thought of Miss -Hughes. He had in fact thought of her first of all, but he had to feign -that he had not. There had lingered in his mind a discomfort concerning -her which he would have removed much sooner if it had been the only -discomfort there; mixed with his other troubles, his shame for having -indelicately urged her to speak of his story when he saw her last, did -not persist separately or incessantly. He had imagined scenes in which -he repaired his error, but he had never really tried to do so. It was -now available as a pretext for showing her his poem; he could make it -lead on to that; but he did not own any such purpose to himself when he -put the poem into his pocket and went to make his tardy excuses. - -The Hughes family were still at table when Denton let him into their -apartment, and old Hughes came himself into the front room where Ray was -provisionally shown, and asked him to join them. - -“My children thought that I was wanting in the finer hospitalities when -you were here before, and I forced my superabundance of reasons upon -you. I forget, sometimes, that no man ever directly persuaded me, in my -eagerness to have people think as I do. Will you show that you have -forgiven me by eating salt with us?” - -“There is a little potato to eat it on, Mr. Ray,” Mrs. Denton called -gayly from the dining-room; and as Ray appeared there, Peace rose and -set a plate for him next the old man. In front were the twins in high -chairs, one on each side of their father, who from time to time put a -knife or fork or cup and saucer beyond their reach, and left them to -drub the table with nothing more offensive than their little soft fists. - -There were not only potatoes, but some hot biscuits too, and there was -tea. Ray had often sat down to no better meal at his father’s table, and -he thought it good enough, even after several years’ sophistication in -cities. - -“There was to have been steak,” Mrs. Denton went on, with a teasing look -at her husband, “but Ansel saw something on the way home which took away -his appetite so completely that he thought we wouldn’t want any steak.” - -Hughes began to fill himself with the tea and biscuit and potatoes, and -he asked vaguely, “What did he see?” - -“Oh, merely a family that had been put out on the sidewalk for their -rent. I think that after this, when Ansel won’t come home by the -Elevated, he ought to walk up on the west side, so that he can get some -good from the exercise. He won’t see families set out on the sidewalk in -Fifth Avenue.” - -Ray laughed with her at her joke, and Peace smiled with a deprecating -glance at Denton. Hughes paid no heed to what they were saying, and -Denton said: “The more we see and feel the misery around us, the better. -If we shut our eyes to it, and live in luxury ourselves”-- - -“Oh, I don’t call salt and potatoes luxury,” exactly, said his wife. - -Denton remained darkly silent a moment, and then began to laugh with the -helplessness of a melancholy man when something breaks through his -sadness. “I should like to see a family set out on Fifth Avenue for back -rent,” he said, and he laughed on; and then he fell suddenly silent -again. - -Ray said, for whatever relief it could give the situation, that it was -some comfort to realize that the cases of distress which one saw were -not always genuine. He told of a man who had begged of him at a certain -point that morning, and then met him a few minutes later, and asked alms -again on the ground that he had never begged before in his life. “I -recalled myself to him, and he apologized handsomely, and gave me his -blessing.” - -“Did he look as if he had got rich begging?” Denton asked. - -“No; he looked as if he could have got a great deal richer working,” Ray -answered, neatly. - -Mrs. Denton laughed, but her laugh did not give him the pleasure it -would have done if Peace had not remained looking seriously at him. - -“You think so,” Denton returned. “How much should you say the average -laboring-man with a family could save out of his chances of wages?” - -Hughes caught at the word save, and emerged with it from his revery. -“Frugality is one of the vices we must hope to abolish. It is one of the -lowest forms of selfishness, which can only be defended by reference to -the state of Ishmaelitism in which we live.” - -“Oh, but surely, father,” Mrs. Denton mocked, “you want street beggars -to save, don’t you, so they can have something to retire on?” - -“No; let them take their chance with the rest,” said the old man, with -an imperfect hold of her irony. - -“There are so many of them,” Ray suggested, “they couldn’t all hope to -retire on a competency. I never go out without meeting one.” - -“I wish there were more,” said Denton, passionately. “I wish they would -swarm up from their cellars and garrets into all the comfortable streets -of the town, till every rich man’s door-step had a beggar on it, to show -him what his wealth was based on.” - -“It wouldn’t avail,” Hughes replied. “All that is mere sentimentality. -The rich man would give to the first two or three, and then he would -begin to realize that if he gave continually he would beggar himself. He -would harden his heart; he would know, as he does now, that he must not -take the chance of suffering for himself and his family by relieving -the suffering of others. He could put it on the highest moral ground.” - -“In the Family,” said Peace, speaking for the first time, “there was no -chance of suffering.” - -“No. But the community saved itself from chance by shutting out the rest -of the world. It was selfish, too. The Family must include the whole -world,” said her father. “There is a passage bearing upon that point in -what I have been writing to-day. I will just read a part of it.” - -He pushed back his chair, but Peace said, “I’ll get your manuscript, -father,” and brought it to him. - -The passage was a long one, and Hughes read it all with an author’s -unsparing zest. At that rate Ray saw no hope of being able to read his -poem, and he felt it out of taste for Hughes to take up the time. When -he ended at last and left the table, Peace began to clear it away, while -Mrs. Denton sat hearing herself talk and laugh. The twins had fallen -asleep in their chairs, and she let their father carry them off and -bestow them in the adjoining room. As he took them tenderly up from -their chairs, he pressed his face close upon their little slumbering -faces, and mumbled their fingers with his bearded lips. The sight of his -affection impressed Ray, even in the preoccupation of following the -movements of Peace, as she kept about her work. - -“Is he as homesick as ever?” Ray asked Mrs. Denton, when he was gone. - -“Yes; he’s worse,” she answered lightly. “He hasn’t got father’s faith -in the millennium to keep him up. He would like to go back to-morrow, if -there was anything to go back to.” - -Peace halted a moment in her passing to and fro, and said, as if in -deprecation of any slight or censure that her sister’s words might seem -to imply: “He sees a great many discouraging things. They’re doing so -much now by process, and unless an engraver has a great deal of talent, -and can do the best kind of work, there’s very little work for him. -Ansel has seen so many of them lose their work by the new inventions. -What seems so bad to him is that these processes really make better -pictures than the common engravers can, and yet they make life worse. He -never did believe that an artist ought to get a living by his art.” - -“Then I don’t see why he objects to the new processes,” said Ray, with -the heartlessness which so easily passes for wit. Peace looked at him -with grave surprise. - -Mrs. Denton laughed over the cat which had got up in her lap. “That’s -what I tell him. But it doesn’t satisfy him.” - -“You know,” said the younger sister, with a reproach in her tone, which -brought Ray sensibly under condemnation, too, “that he means that art -must be free before it can be true, and that there can be no freedom -where there is the fear of want.” - -“Well,” said Mrs. Denton, turning her head for a new effect of the -sleeping cat, “there was no fear of want in the Family; but there -wasn’t much art, either.” - -Ray was tempted to laugh, but he wanted above all to read his poem, and -to lead up to it without delay, and he denied himself the pleasure of a -giggle with Mrs. Denton. “I suppose,” he said, “the experiment of -emancipation is tried on too small a scale in a community.” - -“That is what father thinks,” said Peace. “That is why he wants the -whole world to be free.” - -“Yes,” said Ray, aware of a relenting in her towards himself; and he -added, with apparent inconsequence: “Perhaps it would help forward the -time for it if every artist could express his feeling about it, or -represent it somehow.” - -“I don’t see exactly how they could in a picture or a statue,” said Mrs. -Denton. - -“No,” Ray assented from the blind alley where he had unexpectedly -brought up. He broke desperately from it, and said, more toward Peace -than toward her sister, “I have been trying to turn my own little -disappointment into poetry. You know,” he added, “that Chapley & Co. -have declined my book?” - -“Yes,” she admitted, with a kind of shyness. - -“I wonder,” and here Ray took the manuscript out of his pocket, “whether -you would let me read you some passages of my poem.” - -Mrs. Denton assented eagerly, and Peace less eagerly, but with an -interest that was enough for him. Before he began to read, Mrs. Denton -said a number of things that seemed suddenly to have accumulated in her -mind, mostly irrelevant; she excused herself for leaving the room, and -begged Ray to wait till she came back. Several times during the reading -she escaped and returned; the poet finished in one of her absences. - - - - -XXIV. - - -“You see,” Ray said, “it’s merely a fragment.” He wiped the perspiration -from his forehead. - -“Of course,” the girl answered, with a sigh. “Isn’t disappointment -always fragmentary?” she asked, sadly. - -“How do you mean?” - -“Why, happiness is like something complete; and disappointment like -something broken off, to me. A story that ends well seems rounded; and -one that ends badly leaves you waiting, as you do just after some one -dies.” - -“Is that why you didn’t like my story?” Ray asked, imprudently. He added -quickly, at an embarrassment which came into her face, “Oh, I didn’t -mean to add to my offence! I came here partly to excuse it. I was too -persistent the other night.” - -“Oh, no!” - -“Yes, I was. I had no right to an opinion from you. I knew it at the -time, but I couldn’t help it. You were right to refuse. But you can tell -me how my poem strikes you. It isn’t offered for publication!” - -He hoped that she would praise some passages that he thought fine; but -she began to speak of the motive, and he saw that she had not missed -anything, that she had perfectly seized his intention. She talked to -him of it as if it were the work of some one else, and he said -impulsively, “If I had you to criticise my actions beforehand, I should -not be so apt to make a fool of myself.” - -Mrs. Denton came back. “I ran off toward the last. I didn’t want to be -here when Peace began to criticise. She’s so severe.” - -“She hasn’t been at all severe this time,” said Ray. - -“I don’t see how she could be,” Mrs. Denton returned. “All that I heard -was splendid.” - -“It’s merely a fragment,” said Ray, with grave satisfaction in her -flattery. - -“You must finish it, and read us the rest of it.” - -Ray looked at Peace, and something in her face made him say, “I shall -never finish it; it isn’t worth it.” - -“Did Peace say that?” - -“No.” - -Mrs. Denton laughed. “That’s just like Peace. She makes other people say -the disagreeable things she thinks about them.” - -“What a mysterious power!” said Ray. “Is it hypnotic suggestion?” - -He spoke lightly toward Peace, but her sister answered: “Oh, we’re full -of mysteries in this house. Did you know that my husband had a Voice?” - -“A voice! Is a voice mysterious?” - -“This one is. It’s an internal Voice. It tells him what to do.” - -“Oh, like the demon of Socrates.” - -“I _hope_ it isn’t a demon!” said Mrs. Denton. - -“That depends upon what it tells him to do,” said Ray. “In Socrates’ day -a familiar spirit could be a demon without being at all bad. How proud -you must be to have a thing like that in the family!” - -“I don’t know. It has its inconveniences, sometimes. When it tells him -to do what we don’t want him to,” said Mrs. Denton. - -“Oh, but think of the compensations!” Ray urged. “Why, it’s equal to a -ghost.” - -“I suppose it is a kind of ghost,” said Mrs. Denton, and Ray fancied she -had the pride we all feel in any alliance, direct or indirect, with the -supernatural. “Do you believe in dreams?” she asked abruptly. - -“Bad ones, I do,” said Ray. “We always expect bad dreams and dark -presentiments to come true, don’t we!” - -“I don’t know. My husband does. He has a Dream as well as a Voice.” - -“Oh, indeed!” said Ray; and he added: “I see. The Voice is the one he -talks with in his sleep.” - -The flippant suggestion amused Mrs. Denton; but a shadow of pain came -over Peace’s face, that made Ray wish to get away from the mystery he -had touched; she might be a believer in it, or ashamed of it. - -“I wonder,” he added, “why we never expect our day-dreams to come true?” - -“Perhaps because they’re never bad ones--because we know we’re just -making them,” said Mrs. Denton. - -“It must be that! But, do we always make them? Sometimes my day-dreams -seem to make themselves, and they keep on doing it so long that they -tire me to death. They’re perfect daymares.” - -“How awful! The only way would be to go to sleep, if you wanted to get -rid of them.” - -“Yes; and that isn’t so easy as waking up. Anybody can wake up; a man -can wake up to go to execution; but it takes a very happy man to go to -sleep.” - -The recognition of this fact reminded Ray that he was himself a very -unhappy man; he had forgotten it for the time. - -“He might go into society and get rid of them that way,” Mrs. Denton -suggested, with an obliquity which he was too simply masculine to -perceive. “I suppose you go into society a good deal, Mr. Ray?” - -Peace made a little movement as of remonstrance, but she did not speak, -and Ray answered willingly: “_I_ go into society? I have been inside of -just one house--or flat--besides this, since I came to New York.” - -“Why!” said Mrs. Denton. - -She seemed to be going to say something more, but she stopped at a look -from her sister, and left Ray free to so on or not, as he chose. He told -them it was Mr. Brandreth’s flat he had been in; at some little hints of -curiosity from Mrs. Denton, he described it to her. - -“I have some letters from people in Midland, but I haven’t presented -them yet,” he added at the end. “The Brandreths are all I know of -society.” - -“They’re much more than we know. Well, it seems like fairyland,” said -Mrs. Denton, in amiable self-derision. “I used to think that was the way -we should live when we left the Family. I suppose there are people in -New York that would think it was like fairyland to live like us, and not -all in one room. Ansel is always preaching that when I grumble.” - -The cat sprang up into her lap, and she began to smooth its long flank, -and turn her head from side to side, admiring its enjoyment. - -“Well,” Ray said, “whatever we do, we are pretty sure to be sorry we -didn’t do something else.” - -He was going to lead up to his own disappointments by this commonplace, -but Mrs. Denton interposed. - -“Oh, I’m not sorry we left the Family, if that’s what you mean. There’s -some chance, here, and there everything went by rule; you had your share -of the work, and you knew just what you had to expect every day. I used -to say I wished something _wrong_ would happen, just so as to have -_something_ happen. I believe it was more than half that that got father -out, too,” she said, with a look at her sister. - -“I thought,” said Ray, “but perhaps I didn’t understand him, that your -father wanted to make the world over on the image of your community.” - -“I guess he wanted to have the fun of chancing it, too,” said Mrs. -Denton. “Of course he wants to make the world over, but he has a pretty -good time as it is; and I’m glad of all I did and said to get him into -it. He had no chance to bring his ideas to bear on it in the Family.” - -“Then it was you who got him out of the community,” said Ray. - -“I did my best,” said Mrs. Denton. “But I can’t say I did it, -altogether.” - -“Did you help?” he asked Peace. - -“I wished father to do what he thought was right. He had been doubtful -about the life there for a good while--whether it was really doing -anything for humanity.” - -She used the word with no sense of cant in it; Ray could perceive that. - -“And do you ever wish you were back in the Family?” - -Mrs. Denton called out joyously: “Why, there is no Family to be back in, -I’m thankful to say! Didn’t you know that?” - -“I forgot.” Ray smiled, as he pursued, “Well, if there was one to be -back in, would you like to be there, Miss Hughes?” - -“I can’t tell,” she answered, with a trouble in her voice. “When I’m not -feeling very strong or well, I should. And when I see so many people -struggling so hard here, and failing after all they do, I wish they -could be where there was no failure, and no danger of it. In the Family -we were safe, and we hadn’t any care.” - -“We hadn’t any choice, either,” said her sister. - -“What choice has a man who doesn’t know where the next day’s work is -coming from?” - -Ray looked round to find that Denton had entered behind them from the -room where he had been, and was sitting beside the window apparently -listening to their talk. There was something uncanny in the fact of his -unknown presence, though neither of the sisters seemed to feel it. - -“Oh, you’re there,” said Mrs. Denton, without turning from her cat. -“Well, I suppose that’s a question that must come home to you more and -more. Did you ever hear of such a dreadful predicament as my husband’s -in, Mr. Ray? He’s just hit on an invention that’s going to make us rich, -and throw all the few remaining engravers out of work, when he gets it -finished.” Her husband’s face clouded, but she went on: “His only hope -is that the invention will turn out a failure. You don’t have any such -complications in your work, do you, Mr. Ray?” - -“No,” said Ray, thinking what a good situation the predicament would be, -in a story. “If they had taken my novel, and published an edition of -fifty thousand, I don’t see how it could have reduced a single author to -penury. But I don’t believe I could resist the advances of a publisher, -even if I knew it might throw authors out of work right and left. I -could support their families till they got something to do.” - -“Yes, you might do that, Ansel,” his wife suggested, with a slanting -smile at him. “I only hope we may have the opportunity. But probably it -will be as hard to get a process accepted as a book.” - -“That hasn’t anything to do with the question,” Denton broke out. “The -question is whether a man ought not to kill his creative thought as he -would a snake, if he sees that there is any danger of its taking away -work another man lives by. That is what I look at.” - -“And father,” said Mrs. Denton, whimsically, “is so high-principled that -he won’t let us urge on the millenium by having pandemonium first. If we -were allowed to do that, Ansel might quiet his conscience by reflecting -that the more men he threw out of work, the sooner the good time would -come. I don’t see why that isn’t a good plan, and it would work in so -nicely with what we want to do. Just make everything so bad people -cannot bear it, and then they will rise up in their might and make it -better for themselves. Don’t you think so, Mr. Ray?” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. - -All this kind of thinking and feeling, which was a part and parcel of -these people’s daily life, was alien to his habit of mind. He grasped it -feebly and reluctantly, without the power or the wish to follow it to -conclusions, whether it was presented ironically by Mrs. Denton, or with -a fanatical sincerity by her husband. - -“No, no! That won’t do,” Denton said. “I have tried to see that as a -possible thoroughfare; but it isn’t possible. If we were dealing with -statistics it would do; but it’s men we’re dealing with: men like -ourselves that have women and children dependent on them.” - -“I am glad to hear you say that, Ansel,” Peace said, gently. - -“Yes,” he returned, bitterly, “whichever way I turn, the way is barred. -My hands are tied, whatever I try to do. Some one must be responsible. -Some one must atone. Who shall it be?” - -“Well,” said Mrs. Denton, with a look of comic resignation, “it seems to -be a pretty personal thing, after all, in spite of father’s philosophy. -I always supposed that when we came into the world we should have an -election, and vote down all these difficulties by an overwhelming -majority.” - -Ray quoted, musingly: - - “The world is out of joint:--O cursed spite! - That ever I was born to set it right!” - -“Yes? Who says that?” - -“Hamlet.” - -“Oh yes. Well, I feel just exactly as Ham does about it.” - -Denton laughed wildly out at her saucy drolling, and she said, as if his -mirth somehow vexed her, “I should think if you’re so much troubled by -that hard question of yours, you would get your Voice to say something.” - -Her husband rose, and stood looking down, while a knot gathered between -his gloomy eyes. Then he turned and left the room without answering -her. - -She sent a laugh after him. “Sometimes,” she said to the others, “the -Voice doesn’t know any better than the rest of us.” - -Peace remained looking gravely at her a moment, and then she followed -Denton out of the room. - -Mrs. Denton began to ask Ray about Mrs. Brandreth and Mrs. Chapley, -pressing him with questions as to what kind of people they really were, -and whether they were proud; she wondered why they had never come to -call upon her. It would all have been a little vulgar if it had not been -so childlike and simple. Ray was even touched by it when he thought that -the chief concern of these ladies was to find out from him just what -sort of crank her father was, and to measure his influence for evil on -Mr. Chapley. - -At the same time he heard Peace talking to Denton in a tone of entreaty -and pacification. She staid so long that Ray had risen to go when she -came back. He had hoped for a moment alone with her at parting, so that -he might renew in better form the excuses that he pretended he had come -to make. But the presence of her sister took all the seriousness and -delicacy from them; he had to make a kind of joke of them; and he could -not tell her at all of the mysterious message from Mr. Brandreth about -the friend to whom he wished to submit his book, and of the final pang -of disappointment which its immediate return had given him. He had meant -that she should say something to comfort him for this, but he had to -forego his intended consolation. - - - - -XXV. - - -Ray had no doubt that Kane was the court of final resort which the case -against his novel had been appealed to, and he thought it hard that he -should have refused to give it a last chance, or even to look at it -again. Surely it was not so contemptible as that, so hopelessly bad that -a man who seemed his friend could remember nothing in it that would make -it valuable in a second reading. If the fault were not in the book, then -it must be in the friend, and Ray renounced old Kane by every means he -could command. He could not make it an open question; he could only -treat him more and more coldly, and trust to Kane’s latent sense of -guilt for the justification of his behavior. But Kane was either so -hardened, or else regarded his own action as so venial, or perhaps -believed it so right, that he did not find Ray’s coldness intelligible. - -“My dear young friend,” he frankly asked, “is there anything between us -but our disparity of years? That existed from the first moment of our -acquaintance. I have consoled myself at times with the notion of our -continuing together in an exemplary friendship, you growing older and -wiser, and I younger and less wise, if possible, like two Swedenborgian -spirits in the final state. But evidently something has happened to -tinge our amity with a grudge in your mind. Do you object to saying just -what property in me has imparted this unpleasant discoloration to it?” - -Ray was ashamed to say, or rather unable. He answered that nothing was -the matter, and that he did not know what Kane meant. He was obliged to -prove this by a show of cordiality, which he began perhaps to feel when -he reasoned away his first resentment. Kane had acted quite within his -rights, and if there was to be any such thing as honest criticism, the -free censure of a friend must be suffered and even desired. He said this -to himself quite heroically; he tried hard to be ruled by a truth so -obvious. - -In other things his adversity demoralized him, for a time. He ceased to -live in the future, as youth does and should do; he lived carelessly and -wastefully in the present. With nothing in prospect, it was no longer -important how his time or money went; he did not try to save either. He -never finished his poem, and he did not attempt anything else. - -In the midst of his listlessness and disoccupation there came a letter -from Hanks Brothers asking if he could not give a little more social -gossip in his correspondence for the _Echo_; they reminded him that -there was nothing people liked so much as personalities. Ray scornfully -asked himself, How should he, who knew only the outsides of houses, -supply social gossip, even if he had been willing? He made a sarcastic -reply to Hanks Brothers, intimating his readiness to relinquish the -correspondence if it were not to their taste; and they took him at his -word, and wrote that they would hereafter make use of a syndicate -letter. - -It had needed this blow to rouse him from his reckless despair. If he -were defeated now, it would be in the face of all the friends who had -believed in him and expected success of him. His motive was not high; it -was purely egoistic at the best; but he did not know this; he had a -sense of virtue in sending his book off to a Boston publisher without -undoing the inner wrappings in which the last New York publisher had -returned it. - -Then he went round to ask Mr. Brandreth if he knew of any literary or -clerical or manual work he could get to do. The industrial fury which -has subdued a continent, and brought it under the hard American hand, -wrought in him, according to his quality, and he was not only willing -but eager to sacrifice the scruples of delicacy he had in appealing to a -man whom he had sought first on such different terms. His only question -was how to get his business quickly, clearly, and fully before him. - -Mr. Brandreth received him with a gayety that put this quite out of his -mind; and he thought the publisher was going to tell him that he had -decided, after all, to accept his novel. - -“Ah, Mr. Ray,” Mr. Brandreth called out at sight of him, “I was just -sending a note to you! Sit down a moment, won’t you? The editor of -_Every Evening_ was in here just now, and he happened to say he wished -he knew some one who could make him a synopsis of a rather important -book he’s had an advanced copy of from the other side. It’s likely to be -of particular interest in connection with Coquelin’s visit; it’s a study -of French comic acting from Molière down; and I happened to think of -you. You know French?” - -“Why, yes, thank you--to read. You’re very kind, Mr. Brandreth, to think -of me.” - -“Oh, not at all! I didn’t know whether you ever did the kind of thing -the _Every Evening_ wants, or whether you were not too busy; but I -thought I’d drop an anchor to windward for you, on the chance that you -might like to do it.” - -“I should like very much to do it; and”-- - -“I’ll tell you why I did it,” Mr. Brandreth interrupted, radiantly. “I -happened to know they’re making a change in the literary department of -the _Every Evening_, and I thought that if this bit of work would let -you show your hand--See?” - -“Yes; and I’m everlastingly”-- - -“Not at all, not at all!” Mr. Brandreth opened the letter he was -holding, and gave Ray a note that it inclosed. “That’s an introduction -to the editor of the _Every Evening_, and you’ll strike him at the -office about now, if you’d like to see him.” - -Ray caught with rapture the hand Mr. Brandreth offered him. “I don’t -know what to say to you, but I’m extremely obliged. I’ll go at once.” He -started to the door, and turned. “I hope Mrs. Brandreth is well, -and--and--the baby?” - -“Splendidly. I shall want to have you up there again as soon as we can -manage it. Why haven’t you been at Mrs. Chapley’s? Didn’t you get her -card?” - -“Yes; but I haven’t been very good company of late. I didn’t want to -have it generally known.” - -“I understand. Well, now you must cheer up. Good-by, and good luck to -you!” - -All the means of conveyance were too slow for Ray’s eagerness, and he -walked. On his way down to that roaring and seething maelstrom of -business, whose fierce currents swept all round the _Every Evening_ -office, he painted his future as critic of the journal with minute -detail; he had died chief owner and had his statue erected to his memory -in Park Square before he crossed that space and plunged into one of the -streets beyond. - -He was used to newspaper offices, and he was not surprised to find the -editorial force of the _Every Evening_ housed in a series of dens, -opening one beyond the other till the last, with the chief in it, looked -down on the street from which he climbed. He thought it all fit enough, -for the present; but, while he still dwelt in the future, and before the -office-boy had taken his letter from him to the chief, he swiftly flung -up a building for the _Every Evening_ as lofty and as ugly as any of the -many-storied towers that rose about the frantic neighborhood. He -blundered upon two other writers before he reached the chief; one of -them looked up from his desk, and roared at him in unintelligible -affliction; the other simply wagged his head, without lifting it, in the -direction of the final room, where Ray found himself sitting beside the -editor-in-chief, without well knowing how he got there. The editor did -not seem to know either, or to care that he was there, for some time; he -kept on looking at this thing and that thing on the table before him; at -everything but the letter Ray had sent in. When he did take that up he -did not look at Ray; and while he talked with him he scarcely glanced at -him; there were moments when he seemed to forget there was anybody -there; and Ray’s blood began to burn with a sense of personal indignity. -He wished to go away, and leave the editor to find him gone at his -leisure; but he felt bound to Mr. Brandreth, and he staid. At last the -editor took up a book from the litter of newspapers and manuscripts -before him, and said: - -“What we want is a rapid and attractive _résumé_ of this book, with -particular reference to Coquelin and his place on the stage and in art. -No one else has the book yet, and we expect to use the article from it -in our Saturday edition. See what you can do with it, and bring it here -by ten to-morrow. You can run from one to two thousand words--not over -two.” - -He handed Ray the book and turned so definitively to his papers and -letters again that Ray had no choice but to go. He left with the editor -a self-respectful parting salutation, which the editor evidently had no -use for, and no one showed a consciousness of him, not even the -office-boy, as he went out. - -He ground his teeth in resentment, but he resolved to take his revenge -by making literature of that _résumé_, and compelling the attention of -the editor to him through his work. He lost no time in setting about it; -he began to read the book at once, and he had planned his article from -it before he reached his hotel. He finished it before he slept, and he -went to bed as the first milkman sent his wail through the street below. -His heart had worked itself free of its bitterness, and seemed to have -imparted its lightness to the little paper, which he was not ashamed of -even when he read it after he woke from the short rest he suffered -himself. He was sure that the editor of _Every Evening_ must feel the -touch which he knew he had imparted to it, and he made his way to him -with none of the perturbation, if none of the romantic interest of the -day before. - -The editor took the long slips which Ray had written his copy on, and -struck them open with his right hand while he held them with his left. - -“Why the devil,” he demanded, “don’t you write a better hand?” Before -Ray could formulate an answer, he shouted again, “Why the devil don’t -you begin with a _fact_?” - -He paid no heed to the defence which the hurt author-pride of the young -fellow spurred him to make, but went on reading the article through. -When he had finished he threw it down and drew toward him a narrow book -like a check-book, and wrote in it, and then tore out the page, and gave -it to Ray. It was an order on the counting-room for fifteen dollars. - -Ray had a weak moment of rage in which he wished to tear it up and -fling it in the editor’s face. But he overcame himself and put the order -in his pocket. He vowed never to use it, even to save himself from -starving, but he kept it because he was ashamed to do otherwise. Even -when the editor at the sound of his withdrawal called out, without -looking round, “What is your address?” he told him; but this time he -wasted no parting salutations upon him. - -The hardest part was now to make his acknowledgments to Mr. Brandreth, -without letting him know how little his personal interest in the matter -had availed. He succeeded in keeping everything from him but the fact -that his work had been accepted, and Mr. Brandreth was delighted. - -“Well, that’s first-rate, as far as it goes, and I believe it’s going to -lead to something permanent. You’ll be the literary man of _Every -Evening_ yet; and I understand the paper’s making its way. It’s a good -thing to be connected with; thoroughly clean and decent, and yet -lively.” - -Though Ray hid his wrath from Mr. Brandreth, because it seemed due to -his kindness, he let it break out before Kane, whom he found dining -alone at his hotel that evening when he came down from his room. - -“I don’t know whether I ought to sit down with you,” he began, when Kane -begged him to share his table. “I’ve just been through the greatest -humiliation I’ve had yet. It’s so thick on me that I’m afraid some of it -will come off. And it wasn’t my fault, either; it was my misfortune.” - -“We can bear to suffer for our misfortunes,” said Kane, dreamily. “To -suffer for our faults would be intolerable, because then we couldn’t -preserve our self-respect. Don’t you see? But the consciousness that our -anguish is undeserved is consoling; it’s even flattering.” - -“I’m sorry to deprive you of a _Hard Saying_, if that’s one, but my -facts are against you.” - -“Ah, but facts must always yield to reasons,” Kane began. - -Ray would not be stopped. But he suddenly caught the humorous aspect of -his adventure with the editor of _Every Evening_, and gave it with -artistic zest. He did not spare his ridiculous hopes or his ridiculous -pangs. - -From time to time Kane said, at some neat touch: “Oh, good!” “Very -good!” “Capital!” “Charming, charming!” When Ray stopped, he drew a long -breath, and sighed out: “Yes, I know the man. He’s not a bad fellow. -He’s a very good fellow.” - -“A good fellow?” Ray demanded. “Why did he behave like a brute, then? -He’s the only man who’s been rude to me in New York. Why couldn’t he -have shown me the same courtesy that all the publishers have? Every one -of them has behaved decently, though none of them, confound them! wanted -my book.” - -“Ah,” said Kane, “his conditions were different. They had all some -little grace of leisure, and according to your report he had none. I -don’t know a more pathetic picture than you’ve drawn of him, trying to -grasp all those details of his work, and yet seize a new one. It’s -frightful. Don’t you feel the pathos of it?” - -“No man ought to place himself in conditions where he has to deny -himself the amenities of life,” Ray persisted, and he felt that he had -made a point, and languaged it well. “He’s to blame if he does.” - -“Oh, no man willingly places himself in hateful or injurious -conditions,” said Kane. “He is pushed into them, or they grow up about -him through the social action. He’s what they shape him to, and when -he’s taken his shape from circumstances, he knows instinctively that he -won’t fit into others. So he stays put. You would say that the editor of -_Every Evening_ ought to forsake his conditions at any cost, and go -somewhere else and be a civilized man; but he couldn’t do that without -breaking himself in pieces and putting himself together again. Why did I -never go back to my own past? I look over my life in New York, and it is -chiefly tiresome and futile in the retrospect; I couldn’t really say why -I’ve staid here. I don’t expect anything of it, and yet I can’t leave -it. The _Every Evening_ man does expect a great deal of his conditions; -he expects success, and I understand he’s getting it. But he didn’t -place himself in his conditions in any dramatic way, and he couldn’t -dramatically break with them. They may be gradually detached from him -and then he may slowly change. Of course there are signal cases of -renunciation. People have abdicated thrones and turned monks; but -they’ve not been common, and I dare say, if the whole truth could be -known, they have never been half the men they were before, or become -just the saints they intended to be. If you’ll take the most -extraordinary instance of modern times, or of all times--if you’ll take -Tolstoï himself, you’ll see how impossible it is for a man to rid -himself of his environment. Tolstoï believes unquestionably in a life of -poverty and toil and trust; but he has not been able to give up his -money; he is defended against want by the usual gentlemanly sources of -income; and he lives a ghastly travesty of his unfulfilled design. He’s -a monumental warning of the futility of any individual attempt to escape -from conditions. That’s what I tell my dear old friend Chapley, who’s -quite Tolstoï mad, and wants to go into the country and simplify -himself.” - -“Does he, really?” Ray asked, with a smile. - -“Why not? Tolstoï convinces your reason and touches your heart. There’s -no flaw in his logic and no falsity in his sentiment. I think that if -Tolstoï had not become a leader, he would have had a multitude of -followers.” - -The perfection of his paradox afforded Kane the highest pleasure. He -laughed out his joy in it, and clapped Ray on the shoulder, and provoked -him to praise it, and was so frankly glad of having made it that all -Ray’s love of him came back. - - - - -XXVI. - - -From one phase of his experience with his story, Ray took a hint, and -made bold to ask Mr. Brandreth if he could not give him some manuscripts -to read; he had rather a fancy for playing the part of some other man’s -destiny since he could have so little to do with deciding his own. -Chapley & Co. had not much work of that kind to give, but they turned -over a number of novels to him, and he read them with a jealous -interest; he wished first of all to find whether other people were -writing better novels than his, and he hoped to find that they were not. -Mostly, they really were not, and they cumulatively strengthened him -against an impulse which he had more than once had to burn his -manuscript. From certain of the novels he read he got instruction both -of a positive and negative kind; for it was part of his business to look -at their construction, and he never did this without mentally revising -the weak points of his story, and considering how he could repair them. - -There was not a great deal of money in this work; but Ray got ten or -fifteen dollars for reading a manuscript and rendering an opinion of it, -and kept himself from the depravation of waiting for the turn of the -cards. He waited for nothing; he worked continually, and he filled up -the intervals of the work that was given to him with work that he made -for himself. He wrote all sorts of things,--essays, stories, sketches, -poems,--and sent them about to the magazines and the weekly newspapers -and the syndicates. When the editors were long in reporting upon them, -he went and asked for a decision; and in audacious moments he carried -his manuscript to them, and tried to surprise an instant judgment from -them. This, if it were in the case of a poem, or a very short sketch, he -could sometimes get; and it was usually adverse, as it usually was in -the case of the things he sent them by mail. They were nowhere unkindly; -they were often sympathetic, and suggested that what was not exactly -adapted to their publications might be adapted to the publication of a -fellow-editor; they were willing to sacrifice one another in his behalf. -They did not always refuse his contributions. Kane, who witnessed his -struggles at this period with an interest which he declared truly -paternal, was much struck by the fact that Ray’s failures and successes -exactly corresponded to those of business men; that is, he failed -ninety-five times out of a hundred to get his material printed. His -effort was not of the vast range suggested by these numbers; he had a -few manuscripts that were refused many times over, and made up the large -sum of his rejections by the peculiar disfavor that followed them. - -Besides these regular attacks on the literary periodicals, Ray carried -on guerilla operations of several sorts. He sold jokes at two dollars -apiece to the comic papers; it sometimes seemed low for jokes, but the -papers paid as much for a poor joke as a good one, and the market was -steady. He got rather more for jokes that were ordered of him, as when -an editor found himself in possession of an extremely amusing -illustration without obvious meaning. He developed a facility wholly -unexpected to himself in supplying the meaning for a picture of this -kind; if it were a cartoon, he had the courage to ask as much as five -dollars for his point. - -A mere accident opened up another field of industry to him, when one day -a gentleman halted him at the foot of the stairway to an elevated -station, and after begging his pardon for first mistaking him for a -Grand Army man, professed himself a journalist in momentary difficulty. - -“I usually sell my things to the _Sunday Planet_, but my last poem was -too serious for their F. S., and I’m down on my luck. Of course, I see -_now_,” said the journalist in difficulty, “that you _couldn’t_ have -been in the war; at first glance I took you for an old comrade of mine; -but if you’ll leave your address with me--Thank you, sir! Thank you!” - -Ray had put a quarter in his hand, and he thought he had bought the -right to ask him a question. - -“I know that I may look twice my age when people happen to see double”-- - -“Capital!” said the veteran. “First-rate!” and he clapped Ray on the -shoulder, and then clung to him long enough to recover his balance. - -“But _would_ you be good enough to tell me what the F. S. of the _Sunday -Planet_ is?” - -“Why, the Funny Side--the page where they put the jokes and the comic -poetry. F. S. for short. Brevity is the soul of wit, you know.” - -Ray hurried home and put together some of the verses that had come back -to him from the comic papers, and mailed them to the _Sunday Planet_. He -had learned not to respect his work the less for being rejected, but the -_Planet_ did not wane in his esteem because the editor of the F. S. -accepted all his outcast verses. The pay was deplorably little, however, -and for the first time he was tempted to consider an offer of -partnership with a gentleman who wrote advertisements for a living, and -who, in the falterings of his genius from overwork, had professed -himself willing to share his honors and profits with a younger man; the -profits, at any rate, were enormous. - -But this temptation endured only for a moment of disheartenment. In all -his straits Ray not only did his best, but he kept true to a certain -ideal of himself as an artist. There were some things he could not do -even to make a living. He might sell anything he wrote, and he might -write anything within the bounds of honesty that would sell, but he -could not sell his pen, or let it for hire, to be used as the lessee -wished. It was not the loftiest grade of æsthetics or ethics, and -perhaps the distinctions he made were largely imaginary. But he refused -the partnership offered him, though it came with a flattering -recognition of his literary abilities, and of his peculiar fitness for -the work proposed. - -He got to know a good many young fellows who were struggling forward on -the same lines with himself, and chancing it high and low with the great -monthlies, where they offered their poems and short stories, and with -the one-cent dailies, where they turned in their space-work. They had a -courage in their risks which he came to share in its gayety, if not its -irreverence, and he enjoyed the cheerful cynicism with which they -philosophized the facts of the newspaper side of their trade: they had -studied its average of successes and failures, and each of them had his -secret for surprising the favor of the managing editor, as infallible as -the gambler’s plan for breaking the bank at Monaco. - -“You don’t want to be serious,” one blithe spirit volunteered for Ray’s -instruction in a moment of defeat; “you want to give a light and -cheerful cast to things. For instance, if a fireman loses his life in a -burning building, you mustn’t go straight for the reader’s pity; you -must appeal to his sense of the picturesque. You must call it, ‘Knocked -out in a Fight with Fire,’ or something like that, and treat the -incident with mingled pathos and humor. If you’ve got a case of suicide -by drowning, all you’ve got to do is to call it ‘Launch of one more -Unfortunate,’ and the editor is yours. Go round and make studies of our -metropolitan civilization; write up the ‘Leisure Moments of Surface-Car -Conductors,’ or ‘Talks with the Ticket-Choppers.’ Do the amateur -scavenger, and describe the ‘Mysteries of the Average Ash-Barrel.’” - -As the time wore on, the circle of Ray’s acquaintance widened so much -that he no longer felt those pangs of homesickness which used to seize -him whenever he got letters from Midland. He rather neglected his -correspondence with Sanderson; the news of parties and sleigh-rides and -engagements and marriages which his friend wrote, affected him like -echoes from some former life. He was beginning to experience the -fascination of the mere city, where once he had a glimpse of the -situation fleeting and impalpable as those dream-thoughts that haunt the -consciousness on the brink of sleep. Then it was as if all were driving -on together, no one knew why or whither; but some had embarked on the -weird voyage to waste, and some to amass; their encounter formed the -opportunity of both, and a sort of bewildered kindliness existed between -them. Their common ignorance of what it was all for was like a bond, and -they clung involuntarily together in their unwieldy multitude because of -the want of meaning, and prospered on, suffered on, through vast -cyclones of excitement that whirled them round and round, and made a -kind of pleasant drunkenness in their brains, and consoled them for -never resting and never arriving. - -The fantastic vision passed, and Ray again saw himself and those around -him full of distinctly intended effort, each in his sort, and of -relentless energy, which were self-sufficing and self-satisfying. Most -of the people he knew were, like himself, bent upon getting a story, or -a poem, or an essay, or an article, printed in some magazine or -newspaper, or some book into the hands of a publisher. They were all, -like himself, making their ninety-five failures out of a hundred -endeavors; but they were all courageous, if they were not all gay, and -if they thought the proportion of their failures disastrous, they said -nothing to show it. They did not try to blink them, but they preferred -to celebrate their successes; perhaps the rarity of these merited it -more. - - - - -XXVII. - - -As soon as Ray had pulled himself out of his slough of despond, and -began to struggle forward on such footing as he found firm, he felt the -rise of the social instinct in him. He went about and delivered his -letters; he appeared at one of Mrs. Chapley’s Thursdays, and began to be -passed from one afternoon tea to another. He met the Mayquaits at Mrs. -Chapley’s, those Gitchigumee people she had asked him about, and at -their house he met a lady so securely his senior that she could let him -see at once she had taken a great fancy to him. The Mayquaits have since -bought a right of way into the heart of society, but they were then in -the peripheral circles, and this lady seemed anxious to be accounted for -in that strange company of rich outcasts. Something in Ray’s intelligent -young good looks must have appealed to her as a possible solvent. As -soon as he was presented to her she began to ply him with subtle -questions concerning their hostess and their fellow-guests, with whom -she professed to find herself by a species of accident springing from -their common interest in a certain charity: that particular tea was to -promote it. Perhaps it was the steadfast good faith of the pretty boy in -refusing to share in her light satire, while he could not help showing -that he enjoyed it, which commended Ray more and more to her. He told -her how he came to be there, not because she asked, for she did not ask, -but because he perceived that she wished to know, and because it is -always pleasant to speak about one’s self upon any pretext, and he -evinced a delicate sympathy with her misgiving. It flattered him that -she should single him out for her appeal as if he were of her sort, and -he eagerly accepted an invitation she made him. Through her favor and -patronage he began to go to lunches and dinners; he went to balls, and -danced sometimes when his pockets were so empty that he walked one way -to save his car fares. But his poverty was without care; it did not eat -into his heart, for no one else shared it; and those spectres of want -and shame which haunt the city’s night, and will not always away at -dawn, but remain present to eyes that have watched and wept, vanished in -the joyous light that his youth shed about him, as he hurried home with -the waltz music beating in his blood. A remote sense, very remote and -dim, of something all wrong attended him at moments in his pleasure; at -moments it seemed even he who was wrong. But this fled before his -analysis; he could not see what harm he was doing. To pass his leisure -in the company of well-bred, well-dressed, prosperous, and handsome -people was so obviously right and fit that it seemed absurd to suffer -any question of it. He met mainly very refined persons, whose interests -were all elevated, and whose tastes were often altruistic. He found -himself in a set of young people, who loved art and literature and -music, and he talked to his heart’s content with agreeable girls about -pictures and books and theatres. - -It surprised him that with all this opportunity and contiguity he did -not fall in love; after the freest give and take of æsthetic sympathies -he came away with a kindled fancy and a cold heart. There was one girl -he thought would have let him be in love with her if he wished, but when -he questioned his soul he found that he did not wish, or could not. He -said to himself that it was her money, for she was rich as well as -beautiful and wise; and he feigned that if it had not been for her money -he might have been in love with her. Her people, an aunt and uncle, whom -she lived with, made much of him, and the way seemed clear. They began -to tell each other about themselves, and once he interested her very -much by the story of his adventures in first coming to New York. - -“And did you never meet the two young women afterwards?” she asked. - -“Yes. That was the curious part of it,” he said, and piqued that she -called them “two young women,” he went on to tell her of the Hugheses, -whom he set forth in all the picturesqueness he could command. She -listened intensely, and even provoked him with some questions to go on; -but at the end she said nothing; and after that she was the same and not -the same to him. At first he thought it might be her objection to his -knowing such queer people; she was very proud; but he was still made -much of by her family, and there was nothing but this difference in her -that marked with its delicate distinctness the loss of a chance. - -He was not touched except in his vanity. Without the subtle willingness -which she had subtly withdrawn, his life was still surpassingly rich on -the side where it had been hopelessly poor; and in spite of his personal -poverty he was in the enjoyment of a social affluence beyond the magic -of mere money. Sometimes he regarded it all as his due, and at all times -he took it with simple ingratitude; but he had moments of passionate -humility when he realized that he owed his good fortune to the caprice -of a worldly old woman, whom he did not respect very much. - -When he began to go into society, he did not forget his earlier friends; -he rather prided himself on his constancy; he thought it was uncommon, -and he found it a consolation when other things failed him. It was even -an amusement full of literary suggestion for him to turn from his own -dream of what the world was to Hughes’s dream of what the world should -be; and it flattered him that the old man should have taken the sort of -fancy to him that he had. Hughes consulted him as a person with a -different outlook on life, and valued him as a practical mind, akin to -his own in quality, if not in direction. First and last, he read him his -whole book; he stormily disputed with him about the passages which Ray -criticised as to their basal facts; but he adopted some changes Ray -suggested. - -The young fellow was a whole gay world to Mrs. Denton, in his -reproduction of his society career for her. She pursued him to the -smallest details of dress and table and manner; he lived his society -events over again for her with greater consciousness than he had known -in their actual experience; and he suffered patiently the little -splenetic resentment in which her satiety was apt finally to express -itself. He decided that he must not take Mrs. Denton in any wise -seriously; and he could see that Peace was grateful to him for his -complaisance and forbearance. She used to listen, too, when he described -the dinners and dances for her sister, and their interest gave the -material a fascination for Ray himself: it emphasized the curious -duality of his life, and lent the glamor of unreality to the regions -where they could no more have hoped to follow him than to tread the -realms of air. Sometimes their father hung about him--getting points for -his morals, as Ray once accused him of doing. - -“No, no!” Hughes protested. “I am interested to find how much better -than their conditions men and women always are. The competitive -conditions of our economic life characterize society as well as -business. Yet business men and society women are all better and kinder -than you would believe they could be. The system implies that the weak -must always go to the wall, but in actual operation it isn’t so.” - -“From Mr. Ray’s account there seem to be a good many wall-flowers,” Mrs. -Denton suggested. - -Hughes ignored her frivolity. “It shows what glorious beings men and -women would be if they were rightly conditioned. There is a whole heaven -of mercy and loving-kindness in human nature waiting to open itself: we -know a little of what it may be when a man or woman rises superior to -circumstance and risks a generous word or deed in a selfish world. Then -for a moment we have a glimpse of the true life of the race.” - -“Well, I wish I had a glimpse of the untrue life of the race, myself,” -said Mrs. Denton, as her father turned away. “I would give a whole year -of the millennium for a week in society.” - -“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said her husband. He had -been listening in gloomy silence to Ray’s talk, and he now turned on his -wife. “I would rather see you dead than in such ‘good society’ as that.” - -“Oh, well,” she answered, “you’re much likelier to see me dead. If I -understand Mr. Ray, it’s a great deal easier to get into heaven than to -get into good society.” She went up to her husband and pushed his hair -back from his eyes. “If you wore it that way, people could see what a -nice forehead you’ve got. You look twice as ‘brainy,’ now, Ansel.” - -He caught her hand and flung it furiously away. “Ansel,” she said, “is -beginning to feel the wear and tear of the job of setting the world -right as much as I do. He never had as much faith in the millennium as -father has; he thinks there’s got to be some sort of sacrifice first; -he hasn’t made up his mind quite what it’s to be, yet.” - -Denton left them abruptly, and after a while Ray heard him talking in -the next room; he thought he must be talking to some one there, till his -wife said, “Ansel doesn’t say much in company, but he’s pretty sociable -when he gets by himself.” - - - - -XXVIII. - - -The next time Ray came, he found Denton dreamily picking at the strings -of a violin which lay in his lap; the twins were clinging to his knees, -and moving themselves in time to the music. “You didn’t know Ansel was a -musician?” his wife said. “He’s just got a new violin--or rather it’s a -second-hand one; but it’s splendid, and he got it so cheap.” - -“I profited by another man’s misfortune,” said Denton. “That’s the way -we get things cheap.” - -“Oh, well, never mind about that, now. Play the ‘Darky’s Dream,’ won’t -you, Ansel? I wish we had our old ferry-boat darky here to whistle!” - -After a moment in which he seemed not to have noticed her, he put the -violin to his chin, and began the wild, tender strain of the piece. It -seemed to make the little ones drunk with delight. They swayed -themselves to and fro, holding by their father’s knees, and he looked -down softly into their uplifted faces. When he stopped playing, their -mother put out her hand toward one of them, but it clung the faster to -its father. - -“Let me take your violin a moment,” said Ray. He knew the banjo a -little, and now he picked out on the violin an air which one of the -girls in Midland had taught him. - -The twins watched him with impatient rejection; and they were not easy -till their father had the violin back. Denton took them up one on each -knee, and let them claw at it between them; they looked into his face -for the effect on him as they lifted themselves and beat the strings. -After a while Peace rose and tried to take it from them, for their -father seemed to have forgotten what they were doing; but they stormed -at her, in their baby way, by the impulse that seemed common to them, -and screamed out their shrill protest against her interference. - -“Let them alone,” said their father, gently, and she desisted. - -“You’ll spoil those children, Ansel,” said his wife, “letting them have -their own way so. The first thing you know, they’ll grow up -capitalists.” - -He had been looking down at them with dreamy melancholy, but he began to -laugh helplessly, and he kept on till she said: - -“I think it’s getting to be rather out of proportion to the joke; don’t -you, Mr. Ray? Not that Ansel laughs too much, as a rule.” - -Denton rose, when the children let the violin slip to the floor at last, -and improvised the figure of a dance with them on his shoulders, and let -himself go in fantastic capers, while he kept a visage of perfect -seriousness. - -Hughes was drawn by the noise, and put his head into the room. - -“We’ve got the old original Ansel back, father!” cried Mrs. Denton, and -she clapped her hands and tried to sing to the dance, but broke down, -and mocked at her own failure. - -When Denton stopped breathless, Peace took the children from him, and -carried them away. His wife remained. - -“Ansel was brought up among the Shakers; that’s the reason he dances so -nicely.” - -“Oh, was that a Shaker dance?” Ray asked, carelessly. - -“No. The Shaker dance is a rite,” said Denton, angrily. “You might as -well expect me to burlesque a prayer.” - -“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Ray. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about -it.” - -But Denton left the room without visible acceptance of his excuse. - -“You must be careful how you say anything about the Shakers before -Ansel,” his wife explained. “I believe he would be willing to go back to -them now, if he knew what to do with the children and me.” - -“If it were not for their unpractical doctrine of celibacy,” said -Hughes, “the Shakers, as a religious sect, could perform a most useful -office in the transition from the status to better conditions. They are -unselfish, and most communities are not.” - -“We might all go back with Ansel,” said Mrs. Denton, “and they could -distribute us round in the different Families. I wonder if Ansel’s bull -is hanging up in the South Family barn yet? You know,” she said, “he -painted a red bull on a piece of shingle when they were painting the -barn one day, and nailed it up in a stall; when the elders found it they -labored with him, and then Ansel left the community, and went out into -the world. But they say, once a Shaker always a Shaker, and I believe -he’s had a bad conscience ever since he’s left them.” - -Not long after this Ray came in one night dressed for a little dance -that he was going to later, and Mrs. Denton had some moments alone with -him before Peace joined them. She made him tell where he was going, and -who the people were that were giving the dance, and what it would all be -like--the rooms and decorations, the dresses, the supper. - -“And don’t you feel very strange and lost, in such places?” she asked. - -“I don’t know,” said Ray. “I can’t always remember that I’m a poor -Bohemian with two cents in my pocket. Sometimes I imagine myself really -rich and fashionable. But to-night I shan’t, thank you, Mrs. Denton.” - -She laughed at the look he gave her in acknowledgment of her little -scratch. “Then you wouldn’t refuse to come to a little dance here, if we -were rich enough to give one?” she asked. - -“I would come instantly.” - -“And get your fashionable friends to come?” - -“That might take more time. When are you going to give your little -dance?” - -“As soon as Ansel’s invention is finished.” - -“Oh! Is he going on with that?” - -“Yes. He has seen how he can do more good than harm with it--at last.” - -“Ah! We can nearly always coax conscience along the path of -self-interest.” - -This pleased Mrs. Denton too. “That sounds like Mr. Kane.” - -Peace came in while Mrs. Denton was speaking, and gave Ray her hand, -with a glance at his splendor, enhanced by his stylish manner of holding -his silk hat against his thigh. - -“Who was it told you that Mr. Kane was sick?” Mrs. Denton asked. - -Peace answered, “Mr. Chapley.” - -“Kane? Is Mr. Kane sick?” said Ray. “I must go and see him.” - -He asked Peace some questions about Kane, but she knew nothing more than -that Mr. Chapley said he was not very well, and he was going to step -round and see him on his way home. Ray thought of the grudge he had -borne for a while against Kane, and he was very glad now that there was -none left in his heart. - -“It’s too late to-night; but I’ll go in the morning. He usually drops in -on me Sundays; he didn’t come last Sunday; but I never thought of his -being sick.” He went on to praise Kane, and he said, as if it were one -of Kane’s merits, “He’s been a good friend of mine. He read my novel all -over after Chapley declined it, and tried to find enough good in it to -justify him in recommending it to some other publisher. I don’t blame -him for failing, but I did feel hard about his refusing to look at it -afterwards; I couldn’t help it for a while.” He was speaking to Peace, -and he said, as if it were something she would be cognizant of, “I mean -when Mr. Brandreth sent for it again after he first rejected it.” - -“Yes,” she admitted, briefly, and he was subtly aware of the withdrawal -which he noticed in her whenever the interest of the moment became -personal. - -But there was never any shrinking from the personal interest in Mrs. -Denton; her eagerness to explore all his experiences and sentiments was -vivid and untiring. - -“Why did he send for it?” she asked. “What in the world for?” - -Ray was willing to tell, for he thought the whole affair rather -creditable to himself. “He wanted to submit it to a friend of mine; and -if my friend’s judgment was favorable he might want to reconsider his -decision. He returned the manuscript the same day, with a queer note -which left me to infer that my mysterious friend had already seen it, -and had seen enough of it. I knew it was Mr. Kane, and for a while I -wanted to destroy him. But I forgave him, when I thought it all over.” - -“It was pretty mean of him,” said Mrs. Denton. - -“No, no! He had a perfect right to do it, and I had no right to -complain. But it took me a little time to own it.” - -Mrs. Denton turned to Peace. “Did you know about it?” - -Denton burst suddenly into the room, and stared distractedly about as if -he were searching for something. - -“What is it, Ansel?” Peace asked. - -“That zinc plate.” - -“It’s on the bureau,” said his wife. - -He was rushing out, when she recalled him. - -“Here’s Mr. Ray.” - -He turned, and glanced at Ray impatiently, as if he were eager to get -back to his work; but the gloomy face which he usually wore was gone; -his eyes expressed only an intense preoccupation through which gleamed a -sudden gayety, as if it flashed into them from some happier time in the -past. “Oh, yes,” he said to his wife, while he took hold of Ray’s arm -and turned him about; “this is the way you want me to look.” - -“As soon as your process succeeds, I expect you to look that way all the -time. And I’m going to go round and do my work in a low-neck dress; and -we are going to have champagne at every meal. I am going to have a day, -on my card, and I am going to have afternoon teas and give dinners. We -are going into the best society.” - -Denton slid his hand down Ray’s arm, and kept Ray’s hand in his hot -clasp while he rapidly asked him about the side of his life which that -costume represented, as though now for the first time he had a reason -for caring to know anything of the world and its pleasures. - -“And those people don’t do anything else?” he asked, finally. - -“Isn’t it enough?” Ray retorted. “They think they do a great deal.” - -Denton laughed in a strange nervous note, catching his breath, and -keeping on involuntarily. “Yes; too much. I pity them.” - -“Well,” said his wife, “I want to be an object of pity as soon as -possible. Don’t lose any more time, now, Ansel, from that precious -process.” The light went out of his face again, and he jerked his head -erect sharply, like one listening, while he stood staring at her. “Oh, -now, don’t be ridiculous, Ansel!” she said. - - - - -XXIX. - - -The next day after a little dance does not dawn very early. Ray woke -late, with a vague trouble in his mind, which he thought at first was -the sum of the usual regrets for awkward things done and foolish things -said the night before. Presently it shaped itself as an anxiety which -had nothing to do with the little dance, and which he was helpless to -deal with when he recognized it. Still, as a definite anxiety, it was -more than half a question, and his experience did not afford him the -means of measuring its importance or ascertaining its gravity. He -carried it loosely in his mind when he went to see Kane, as something he -might or might not think of. - -Kane was in bed, convalescent from a sharp gastric attack, and he -reached Ray a soft moist hand across the counterpane and cheerily -welcomed him. His coat and hat hung against a closet door, and looked so -like him that they seemed as much part of him as his hair and beard, -which were smoothly brushed, and gave their silver delicately against -the pillow. A fire of soft coal purred in the grate, faded to a fainter -flicker by the sunlight that poured in at the long south windows, and -lit up the walls book-lined from floor to ceiling. - -“Yes,” he said, in acceptance of the praises of its comfort that Ray -burst out with, “I have lived in this room so long that I begin to -cherish the expectation of dying in it. But, really, is this the first -time you’ve been here?” - -“The first,” said Ray. “I had to wait till you were helpless before I -got in.” - -“Ah, no; ah, no! Not so bad as that. I’ve often meant to ask you, when -there was some occasion; but there never seemed any occasion; and I’ve -lived here so much alone that I’m rather selfish about my solitude; I -like to keep it to myself. But I’m very glad to see you; it was kind of -you to think of coming.” He bent a look of affection on the young -fellow’s handsome face. “Well, how wags the gay world?” he asked. - -“Does the gay world do anything so light-minded as to wag?” Ray asked in -his turn, with an intellectual coxcombry that he had found was not -offensive to Kane. “It always seems to me very serious as a whole, the -gay world, though it has its reliefs, when it tries to enjoy itself.” He -leaned back in his chair, and handled his stick a moment, and then he -told Kane about the little dance which he had been at the night before. -He sketched some of the people and made it amusing. - -“And which of your butterfly friends told you I was ill?” asked Kane. - -“The butterflyest of all: Mrs. Denton.” - -“Oh! Did _she_ give the little dance?” - -“No. I dropped in at the Hugheses’ on the way to the dance. But I don’t -know how soon she may be doing something of the kind. They’re on the -verge of immense prosperity. Her husband has invented a new art process, -and it’s going to make them rich. He doesn’t seem very happy about it, -but she does. He’s a dreary creature. At first I used to judge her -rather severely, as we do with frivolous people. But I don’t know that -frivolity is so bad; I doubt if it’s as bad as austerity; they’re both -merely the effect of temperament, it strikes me. I like Mrs. Denton, -though she does appear to care more for the cat than the twins. Perhaps -she thinks she can safely leave them to him. He’s very devoted to them; -it’s quite touching. It’s another quality of paternal devotion from Mr. -Brandreth’s; it isn’t half so voluble. But it’s funny, all the same, to -see how much more care of them he takes than their mother does. He looks -after them at table, and he carries them off and puts them to bed with -his own hands apparently,” said Ray, in celibate contempt of the -paternal tenderness. - -“I believe that in David’s community,” Kane suggested, “the male -assisted the female in the care of their offspring. We still see the -like in some of the feathered tribes. In the process of social evolution -the father bird will probably leave the baby bird entirely to the mother -bird; and the mother bird, as soon as she begins to have mind and money, -will hire in some poor bird to look after them. Mrs. Denton seems to -have evolved in the direction of leaving them entirely to the father -bird.” - -“Well, she has to do most of the talking. Have you ever heard,” Ray -asked from the necessary association of ideas, “about her husband’s -Voice?” - -“What do you mean?” - -“Why, it seems that Mr. Denton has an inward monitor of some kind, like -the demon of Socrates, that they call a Voice, and that directs his -course in life, as I understand. I suppose it’s authorized him to go on -with his process, which he was doubtful about for a good while, because -if it succeeded it would throw a lot of people out of work. Then you’ve -never heard of his Voice?” - -“No,” said Kane. He added: “I suppose it’s part of the psychical -nonsense that they go into in all sorts of communities. And Hughes,” he -asked after a moment--“how is Hughes now?” - -“He’s generally busy with his writing, and I don’t always see him. He’s -a fine old fellow, if he does prefer to call me out of my name; he still -addresses me generally as Young Man. Mrs. Denton has tried to teach him -better; but he says that names are the most external of all things, and -that I am no more essentially Ray than I am Hughes. There’s something in -it; I think one might get a kind of story out of the notion.” - -Kane lay silent in a pensive muse, which he broke to ask with a smile: -“And how is Peace these days? Do you see her?” - -“Yes; she’s very well, I believe,” said Ray, briefly, and he rose. - -“Oh!” said Kane, “must you go?” - -He kept Ray’s hand affectionately, and seemed loath to part with him. -“I’m glad you don’t forget the Hugheses in the good time you’re having. -It shows character in you not to mind their queerness; I’m sure you -won’t regret it. Your visits are a great comfort to them, I know. I was -afraid that you would not get over the disagreeable impression of that -first Sunday, and I’ve never been sure that you’d quite forgiven me for -taking you.” - -“Oh yes, I had,” said Ray, and he smiled with the pleasure we all feel -when we have a benefaction attributed to us. “I’ve forgiven you much -worse things than that!” - -“Indeed! You console me! But for example?” - -“Refusing to look at my novel a second time,” answered Ray, by a sudden -impulse. - -“I don’t understand you,” said Kane, letting his hand go. - -“When Mr. Brandreth offered to submit it to you in the forlorn hope that -you might like it and commend it.” - -“Brandreth never asked me to look at it at all; the only time I saw it -was when you let me take it home with me. What do you mean?” - -“Mr. Brandreth wrote me saying he wanted to try it on a friend of mine, -and it came back the same day with word that my friend had already seen -it,” said Ray, in an astonishment which Kane openly shared. - -“And was that the reason you were so cold with me for a time? Well, I -don’t wonder! You had a right to expect that I would say anything in -your behalf under the circumstances. And I’m afraid I should. But I -never was tempted. Perhaps Brandreth got frightened and returned the -manuscript with that message because he knew he couldn’t trust me.” - -“Perhaps,” said Ray, blankly. - -“Who else could it have been? Have you any surmise?” - -“What is the use of surmising?” Ray retorted. “It’s all over. The story -is dead, and I wish it was buried. Don’t bother about it! And try to -forgive me for suspecting _you_.” - -“It was very natural. But you ought to have known that I loved you too -much not to sacrifice a publisher to you if I had him fairly in my -hand.” - -“Oh, thank you! And--good-by. Don’t think anything more about it. I -sha’n’t.” - - - - -XXX. - - -There could be only one answer to the riddle, if Kane’s suggestion that -Mr. Brandreth had returned the manuscript without showing it to any one -were rejected. The publisher could speak of no one besides Kane as a -friend except Miss Hughes, and it was clearly she who had refused to -look again at Ray’s book. She had played a double part with him; she had -let him make a fool of himself; she had suffered him to keep coming to -her, and reading his things to her, and making her his literary -confidante. He ground his teeth with shame to think how he had sought -her advice and exulted in her praise; but the question was not merely, -it was not primarily, a question of truth or untruth, kindness or -unkindness toward himself, but of justice toward Kane. He had told her -of the resentment he had felt toward Kane; he had left her to the belief -that he still suspected Kane of what she had done. If she were willing -that he should remain in this suspicion, it was worse than anything he -now accused her of. - -He kept away from Chapley’s all day, because of the embarrassment of -seeing her with that in his mind. He decided that he must never see her -again till she showed some wish to be relieved from the false position -she had suffered herself to be placed in. At the end of the afternoon -there came a knock at his door, and he set the door open and confronted -Mr. Brandreth, who stood smiling at the joke of his being there, with -his lustrous silk hat and gloves and light overcoat on. Ray passed some -young banter with him in humorous recognition of the situation, before -they came to business, as Mr. Brandreth called it. - -“Look here!” said the publisher, with a quizzical glance at him from -Ray’s easy-chair, while Ray himself lounged on the edge of his bed. “Did -you think I wanted to show your novel to old Kane, that time when I sent -back for it?” - -“Yes,” said Ray; and he could not say any more for his prescience of -what was coming. - -“Well, I didn’t,” Mr. Brandreth returned. “And if I’d ever thought you -suspected him, I should have told you so long ago. The person that I did -want it for is anxious you should know it wasn’t Kane, and I thought I’d -better come and tell you so by word of mouth; I rather made a mess of it -before, in writing. If you’ve any feeling about the matter, it’s only -fair to Kane to assure you that he wasn’t at all the person.” - -“Kane told me so himself to-day,” said Ray; “and all the grudge I felt -was gone long ago.” - -“Well, of course! It’s a matter of business.” In turning it off in this -common-sense way Mr. Brandreth added lightly, “I’m authorized to tell -you who it really was, if you care to know.” - -Ray shook his head. “I don’t care to know. What’s the use?” - -“There isn’t any. I’m glad you take it the way you do, and it will be a -great relief to--the real one.” - -“It’s all right.” - -Ray had been strengthening his defences against any confidential -approach from the moment Mr. Brandreth began to speak; he could not help -it. Now they began to talk of other things. At the end the publisher -returned to the book with a kind of desperate sigh: “You haven’t done -anything with your story yet, I suppose?” - -“No,” said Ray. - -Mr. Brandreth, after a moment’s hesitation, went away without saying -anything more. Even that tentative inquiry about the fate of his book -could not swerve Ray now from his search for the motives which had -governed Peace in causing this message to be sent him. It could only be -that she had acted in Kane’s behalf, who had a right to justice from -her, and she did not care what Ray thought of her way of doing justice. -In the complex perversity of his mood the affair was so humiliating to -him, as it stood, that he could not rest in it. That evening he went -determined to make an opportunity to speak with her alone, if none -offered. - -It was she who let him in, and then she stood looking at him in a kind -of daze, which he might well have taken for trepidation. It did not give -him courage, and he could think of no better way to begin than to say, -“I have come to thank you, Miss Hughes, for your consideration for Mr. -Kane. I couldn’t have expected less of you, when you found out that I -had been suspecting him of that friendly refusal to look at my -manuscript the second time.” - -His hard tone, tense with suppressed anger, had all the effect he could -have wished. He could see her wince, and she said, confusedly, “I told -Mr. Brandreth, and he said he would tell you it wasn’t Mr. Kane.” - -“Yes,” said Ray, stiffly, “he came to tell me.” - -She hesitated, and then she asked, “Did he tell you who it was?” - -“No. But I knew.” - -If she meant him to say something more, he would not; he left to her the -strain and burden that in another mood he would have shared so -willingly, or wholly assumed. - -At a little noise she started, and looked about, and then, as if -returning to him by a painful compliance with his will, she said, “When -he told me what he had done to get the manuscript back, I couldn’t let -him give it to me.” - -She stopped, and Ray perceived that, for whatever reason, she could say -nothing more, at least of her own motion. But it was not possible for -him to leave it so. - -“Of course,” he said, angrily, “I needn’t ask you why.” - -“It was too much for me to decide,” she answered, faintly. - -“Yes,” he assented, “it’s a good deal to take another’s fate in one’s -hands. But you knew,” he added, with a short laugh, “you had my fortune -in your hands, anyway.” - -“I didn’t see that then,” she answered, and she let her eyes wander, and -lapsed into a kind of absence, which vexed him as a slight to the -importance of the affair. - -“But it doesn’t really matter whether you decided it by refusing or -consenting to look at the book again,” he said. “The result would have -been the same, in any case.” - -She lifted her eyes to his with a scared look, and began, “I didn’t say -that”--and then she stopped again, and looked away from him as before. - -“But if I can’t thank you for sparing me an explicit verdict,” he pushed -on, “I can appreciate your consideration for Kane, and I will carry him -any message you will trust me with.” He rose as he said this, and he -found himself adding, “And I admire your strength in keeping your own -counsel when I’ve been talking my book over with you. It must have been -amusing for you.” - -When he once began to revenge himself he did not stop till he said all -he had thought he thought. She did not try to make any answer or -protest. She sat passive under his irony; at times he thought her hardly -conscious of it, and that angered him the more, and he resented the -preoccupation, and then the distraction with which she heard him to the -end. - -“Only I don’t understand exactly,” he went on, “how you could let me do -it, in spite of the temptation. I can imagine that the loss of my -acquaintance will be a deprivation to you; you’ll miss the pleasure of -leading me on to make a fool of myself; but you know you can still laugh -at me, and that ought to keep you in spirits for a long time. I won’t -ask your motive in sending word to me by a third person. I dare say you -didn’t wish to tell me to my face; and it couldn’t have been an easy -thing to write.” - -“I ought to have written,” she said, meekly. “I see that now. But -to-day, I couldn’t. There is something--He offered to go to you--he -wished to; and--I let him. I was wrong. I didn’t think how it might -seem.” - -“Oh, there was no reason why you should have thought of me in the -matter. I’m glad you thought of Mr. Kane; I don’t ask anything more than -that.” - -“Oh, you don’t understand,” she began. “You don’t know”-- - -“Yes, I understand perfectly, and I know all that I wish to know. There -was no reason why you should have protected me against my own folly. I -have got my deserts, and you are not to blame if I don’t like them. -Good-by.” - -As he turned to go, she lifted her eyes, and he could see that they were -blind with tears. - -He went out and walked up and down the long, unlovely avenue, conscious -of being the ugliest thing in it, and unconsciously hammered by its -brutal noises, while he tried to keep himself from thinking how, in -spite of all he had said, he knew her to be the soul of truth and -goodness. He knew that all he had said was from the need of somehow -venting his wounded vanity. As far as any belief in wrong done him was -concerned, the affair was purely histrionic on his part; but he had seen -that the pain he gave was real; the image of her gentle sufferance of -his upbraiding went visibly before him. The wish to go back and own -everything to her became an intolerable stress, and then he found -himself again at her door. - -He rang, and after waiting a long time to hear the click of the -withdrawing latch, he rang again. After a further delay the door opened, -and he saw Hughes standing at the top of the stairs with a lamp held -above his head. - -“Who is there?” the old man called down, with his hoarse voice. - -“It’s I, Mr. Hughes,” Ray answered, a new trouble blending with his -sense of the old man’s picturesque pose, and the leonine grandeur of his -shaggy head. “Mr. Ray,” he explained. - -“Oh!” said Hughes. “I’m glad to see you. Will you come up?” He added, as -Ray mounted to him, and they entered his room together, “I am alone here -for the time. My daughters have both gone out. Will you sit down?” Ray -obeyed, with blank disappointment. Hughes could not have known of his -earlier visit, or had forgotten it. “They will be in presently. Peace -was here till a little while ago; when Ansel and Jenny came in, they all -went out together.” He lapsed into a kind of muse, staring absently at -Ray from his habitual place beside the window. He came back to a sense -of him with words that had no evident bearing upon the situation. - -“The thing which renders so many reformers nugatory and ridiculous, and -has brought contempt and disaster on so many good causes, is the attempt -to realize the altruistic man in competitive conditions. That must -always be a failure or worse.” He went on at length to establish this -position. Then, “Here is my son-in-law”--and the old man had the effect -of stating the fact merely in illustration of the general principle he -had laid down--“who has been giving all his spare time this winter to an -invention in the line of his art, and had brought it to completion -within a few days. He has all along had misgivings as to the moral -bearing of his invention, since every process of the kind must throw a -number of people out of work, and he has shown a morbid scruple in the -matter which I have tried to overcome with every argument in my power.” - -“I thought,” Ray made out to say, in the pause Hughes let follow, “he -had come to see all that in another light.” - -“Yes,” the old man resumed, “he has commonly yielded to reason, but -there is an unpractical element in the man’s nature. In fact, here, this -morning, while we supposed he was giving the finishing touches to his -work, he was busy in destroying every vestige of result which could -commend it to the people interested in it. Absolutely nothing remains to -show that he ever had anything of the kind successfully in hand.” - -“Is it possible?” said Ray, deeply shocked. “I am so sorry to hear -it”-- - -The old man had not heard him or did not heed him. “He has been in a -very exalted state through the day, and my daughters have gone out to -walk with him; it may quiet his nerves. He believes that he has acted in -obedience to an inner Voice which governs his conduct. I know nothing -about such things; but all such suggestions from beyond are to my -thinking mischievous. Have you ever been interested in the phenomena of -spiritualism, so-called?” - -Ray shook his head decidedly. “Oh, no!” he said, with abhorrence. - -“Ah! The Family were at one time disposed to dabble in those shabby -mysteries. But I discouraged it; I do not deny the assumptions of the -spiritualists; but I can see no practical outcome to the business; and I -have used all my influence with Ansel to put him on his guard against -this Voice, which seems to be a survival of some supernatural -experiences of his among the Shakers. It had lately been silent, and had -become a sort of joke with us. But he is of a very morbid temperament, -and along with this improvement, there have been less favorable -tendencies. He has got a notion of expiation, of sacrifice, which is -perhaps a survival of his ancestral Puritanism. I suppose the hard -experiences of the city have not been good for him. They prey upon his -fancy. It would be well if he could be got into the country somewhere; -though I don’t see just how it could be managed.” - -Hughes fell into another muse, and Ray asked, “What does he mean by -expiation?” - -The old man started impatiently. “Mere nonsense; the rags and tatters of -man’s infancy, outworn and outgrown. The notion that sin is to be atoned -for by some sort of offering. It makes me sick; and of late I haven’t -paid much attention to his talk. I supposed he was going happily forward -with his work; I was necessarily much preoccupied with my own; I have -many interruptions from irregular health, and I must devote every -available moment to my writing. There is a passage, by-the-way, which I -had just completed when you rang, and which I should like to have your -opinion of, if you will allow me to read it to you. It is peculiarly -apposite to the very matter we have been speaking of; in fact, I may say -it is an amplification of the truth that I am always trying to impress -upon Ansel, namely, that when you are in the midst of a battle, as we -all are here, you must fight, and fight for yourself, always, of course, -keeping your will fixed on the establishment of a lasting peace.” Hughes -began to fumble among the papers on the table beside him for his -spectacles, and then for the scattered sheets of his manuscript. “Yes, -there is a special obligation upon the friends of social reform to a -life of common-sense. I have regarded the matter from rather a novel -standpoint, and I think you will be interested.” - -The old man read on and on. At last Ray heard the latch of the street -door click, and the sound of the opening and then the shutting of the -door. A confused noise of feet and voices arrested the reading which -Hughes seemed still disposed to continue, and light steps ascended the -stairs, while as if in the dark below a parley ensued. Ray knew the -high, gentle tones of Peace in the pleading words, “But try, try to -believe that if it says that, it can’t be the Voice you used to hear, -and that always told you to do what was right. It is a wicked Voice, -now, and you must keep saying to yourself that it is wicked and you -mustn’t mind it.” - -“But the words, the words! Whose words were they? Without the shedding -of blood: what does that mean? If it was a sin for me to invent my -process, how shall the sin be remitted?” - -“There is that abject nonsense of his again!” said old Hughes, in a -hoarse undertone which drowned for Ray some further words from Denton. -“It’s impossible to get him away from that idea. Men have nothing to do -with the remission of sins; it is their business to cease to do evil! -But you might as well talk to a beetle!” - -Ray listened with poignant eagerness for the next words of Peace, which -came brokenly to his ear. He heard-- “...justice and not sacrifice. If -you try to do what is right--and--and to be good, then”-- - -“I will try, Peace, I will try. O Lord, help me!” came in Denton’s deep -tones. “Say the words again. The Voice keeps saying those--But I will -say yours after you!” - -“I will have justice.” The girl’s voice was lifted with a note in it -that thrilled to Ray’s heart, and made him start to his feet; Hughes -laid a detaining hand upon his arm. - -“I will have justice,” Denton repeated. - -“And not sacrifice,” came in the girl’s tremulous accents. - -“And not sacrifice,” followed devoutly from the man. “I will have -justice, without the shedding of blood--it gets mixed; I can’t keep the -Voice out!--and not sacrifice. What is justice? What is justice but -sacrifice?” - -“Yes, it is self-sacrifice! All our selfish wishes”-- - -“I have burnt them in a fire, and scattered their ashes!” - -“And all gloomy and morbid thoughts that distress other people.” - -“Oh, you know I wouldn’t distress any one! You know how my heart is -breaking for the misery of the world.” - -“Let her alone!” said old Hughes to Ray, in his thick murmur, as if he -read Ray’s impulse in the muscle of his arm. “She will manage him.” - -“But say those words over again!” Denton implored. “The Voice keeps -putting them out of my mind!” - -She said the text, and let him repeat it after her word by word, as a -child follows its mother in prayer. - -“And try hard, Ansel! Remember the children and poor Jenny!” - -“Yes, yes. I will, Peace! Poor Jenny! I’m sorry for her. And the -children--You know I wouldn’t harm any one for the whole world, don’t -you, Peace?” - -“Yes, I do know, Ansel, how good and kind you are; and I know you’ll -see all this in the true light soon. But now you’re excited.” - -“Well, say it just once more, and then I shall have it.” - -Once more she said the words, and he after her. He got them straight -this time, without admixture from the other text. There came a rush of -his feet on the stairs, and a wild laugh. - -“Jenny! Jenny! It’s all right now, Jenny!” he shouted, as he plunged -into the apartment, and was heard beating as if on a door closed against -him. It must have opened, for there was a sound like its shutting, and -then everything was still except a little pathetic, almost inaudible -murmur as of suppressed sobbing in the dark of the entry below. -Presently soft steps ascended the stairs and lost themselves in the rear -of the apartment. - -“Now, young man,” said Hughes, “I think you had better go. Peace will be -in here directly to look after me, and it will distress her to find any -one else. It is all right now.” - -“But hadn’t I better stay, Mr. Hughes? Can’t I be of use?” - -“No. I will defer reading that passage to another time. You will be -looking in on us soon again. We shall get on very well. We are used to -these hypochrondriacal moods of Ansel’s.” - - - - -XXXI. - - -There was nothing for Ray to do but to accept his dismissal. He got -himself stealthily down stairs and out of the house, but he could not -leave it. He walked up and down before it, doubting whether he ought not -to ring and try to get in again. When he made up his mind to this he saw -that the front windows were dark. That decided him to go home. - -He did not sleep, and the next morning he made an early errand to the -publishers’. He saw Peace bent over her work in Mr. Chapley’s room. He -longed to go and speak to her, and assure himself from her own words -that all was well; but he had no right to do that, and with the first -stress of his anxiety abated, he went to lay the cause of it before -Kane. - -“It was all a mere chance that I should know of this; but I thought you -ought to know,” he explained. - -“Yes, certainly,” said Kane; but he was less moved than Ray had -expected, or else he showed his emotion less. “Hughes is not a fool, -whatever Denton is; this sort of thing must have been going on a good -while, and he’s got the measure of it. I’ll speak to Chapley about it. -They mustn’t be left altogether to themselves with it.” - -As the days began to go by, and Ray saw Peace constantly in her place -at the publishers’, his unselfish anxiety yielded to the question of his -own relation to her, and how he should make confession and reparation. -He went to Kane in this trouble, as in the other, after he had fought -off the necessity as long as he could, but they spoke of the other -trouble first. - -Then Ray said, with the effort to say it casually, “I don’t think I told -you that the great mystery about my manuscript had been solved.” Kane -could not remember at once what the mystery was, and Ray was forced to -add, “It seems that the unknown friend who wouldn’t look twice at my -book was--Miss Hughes.” - -Kane said, after a moment, “Oh!” and then, as if it should be a very -natural thing, he asked, “How did you find that out?” - -“She got Mr. Brandreth to tell me it wasn’t you, as soon as she knew -that I had suspected you.” - -“Of course. Did he tell you who it was?” - -“He was to tell me if I wished. But I knew it couldn’t be anybody but -she, if it were not you, and I went to see her about it.” - -“Well?” said Kane, with a kind of expectation in his look and voice that -made it hard for Ray to go on. - -“Well, I played the fool. I pretended that I thought she had used me -badly. I don’t know. I tried to make her think so.” - -“Did you succeed?” - -“I succeeded in making her very unhappy.” - -“That was success--of a kind,” said Kane, and he lay back in his chair -looking into the fire, while Ray sat uncomfortably waiting at the other -corner of the hearth. - -“Did she say why she wouldn’t look at your manuscript a second time?” -Kane asked finally. - -“Not directly.” - -“Did you ask?” - -“Hardly!” - -“You knew?” - -“It was very simple,” said Ray. “She wouldn’t look at it because it -wasn’t worth looking at. I knew that. That was what hurt me, and made me -wish to hurt her.” - -Kane offered no comment. After a moment he asked: “Has all this just -happened? Have you just found it out?” - -“Oh, it’s bad enough, but isn’t so bad as that,” said Ray, forcing a -laugh. “Still, it’s as bad as I could make it. I happened to go to see -her that evening when I overheard her talk with Denton.” - -“Oh! And you spoke to her after that?” - -There was a provisional condemnation in Kane’s tone which kindled Ray’s -temper and gave him strength to retort: “No, Mr. Kane! I spoke to her -before that; and it was when I came back--to tell her I was all wrong, -and to beg her pardon--that I saw her father, and heard what I’ve told -you.” - -“Oh, I didn’t understand; I might have known that the other thing was -impossible,” said Kane. - -They were both silent, and Ray’s anger had died down into the shame that -it had flamed up from, when Kane thoughtfully asked, “And you want my -advice?” - -“Yes.” - -“Concretely?” - -“As concretely as possible.” - -“Then, if you don’t really know the reason why a girl so conscientious -as Peace Hughes wouldn’t look at your manuscript again when she was -practically left to decide its fate, I think you’d better not go there -any more.” - -Kane spoke with a seriousness the more impressive because he was so -rarely serious, and Ray felt himself reddening under his eye. - -“Aren’t you rather enigmatical?” he began. - -“No, I don’t think so,” said Kane, and then neither spoke. - -Some one knocked at the door. Kane called out, “Come in!” and Mr. -Chapley entered. - -After he had shaken hands with Kane and made Ray out, and had shaken -hands with him, he said, with not more than his usual dejection, “I’m -afraid poor David is in fresh trouble, Kane.” - -“Yes?” said Kane, and Ray waited breathlessly to hear what the trouble -was. - -“That wretched son-in-law of his--though I don’t know why I should -condemn him--seems to have been somewhere with his children and exposed -them to scarlet fever; and he’s down with diphtheritic sore throat -himself. Peace has been at home since the trouble declared itself, -helping take care of them.” - -“Is it going badly with them?” Kane asked. - -“I don’t know. It’s rather difficult to communicate with the family -under the circumstances.” - -“You might have said impossible, without too great violence, Henry,” -said Kane. - -“I had thought of seeing their doctor,” suggested Mr. Chapley, with his -mild sadness. “Ah, I wish David had stayed where he was.” - -“We are apt to think these things are accidents,” said Kane. “Heaven -knows. But scarlet fever and diphtheria are everywhere, and they take -better care of them in town than they do in the country. Who did you say -their doctor was?” - -“Dear me! I’m sure I don’t know who he is. I promised Mr. Brandreth to -look the matter up,” said Mr. Chapley. “He’s very anxious to guard -against any spread of the infection to his own child, and my whole -family are so apprehensive that it’s difficult. I should like to go and -see poor David, myself, but they won’t hear of it. They’re quite in a -panic as it is.” - -“They’re quite right to guard against the danger,” said Kane, and he -added, “I should like to hear David philosophize the situation. I can -imagine how he would view the effort of each one of us to escape the -consequences that we are all responsible for.” - -“It is civilization which is in the wrong,” said Mr. Chapley. - -“True,” Kane assented. “And yet our Indians suffered terribly from the -toothache and rheumatism. You can carry your return to nature too far, -Henry; Nature must meet Man half-way.” Kane’s eye kindled with pleasure -in his phrase, and Ray could perceive that the literary interest was -superseding the personal interest in his mind. “The earth is a dangerous -planet; the great question is how to get away from it alive,” and the -light in Kane’s eyes overspread his face in a smile of deep satisfaction -with his paradox. - -The cold-blooded talk of the two elderly men sent a chill to Ray’s -heart. For him, at least, there was but one thing to do; and half an -hour later he stood at the open street door of the Hughes apartment, -looking up at Mrs. Denton silhouetted against the light on the landing -as he had first seen her there. - -“Oh, Mrs. Denton,” he called up, “how are the children?” - -“I--I don’t know. They are very sick. The doctor is afraid”-- - -“Oh!” Ray groaned, at the stop she made. “Can I help--can’t I do -something? May I come up?” - -“Oh, yes,” she answered mechanically, and Ray was stooping forward to -mount the stairs when he saw her caught aside, and Peace standing in her -place. - -“Don’t come up, Mr. Ray! You can’t do any good. It’s dangerous.” - -“I don’t care for the danger,” he began. “Some one--some one must help -you! Your father”-- - -“My father doesn’t need any help, and we don’t. Every moment you stay -makes the danger worse!” - -“But you, _you_ are in danger! You”-- - -“It’s my _right_ to be. But it’s wrong for you. Oh, do go away!” She -wrung her hands, and he knew that she was weeping. “I do thank you for -coming. I was afraid you would come.” - -“Oh, were you?” he exulted. “I am glad of that! You know how I must have -felt, when I came to think what I had said.” - -“Yes--but, go, now!” - -“How can I do that? I should be ashamed”-- - -“But you mustn’t,” she entreated. “It would put others in danger, too. -You would carry the infection. You must go,” she repeated. - -“Well, I shall come again. I must know how it is with you. When may I -come again!” - -“I don’t know. You mustn’t come inside again.” She thought a moment. “If -you come I will speak to you from that window over the door. You must -keep outside. If you will ring the bell twice, I shall know it is you.” - -She shut the door, and left him no choice but to obey. It was not -heroic; it seemed cowardly; and he turned ruefully away. But he -submitted, and twice a day, early in the morning and late at night, he -came and rang for her. The neighbors, such as cared, understood that he -was the friend of the family who connected its exile with the world; -sometimes the passers mistook these sad trysts for the happy lovers’ -meetings which they resembled, and lingered to listen, and then passed -on. - -They caught only anxious questions and hopeless answers; the third -morning that Ray came, Peace told him that the little ones were dead. - -They had passed out of the world together, as they had entered it, and -Ray stood with their mother beside the grave where they were both laid, -and let her cling to his hand as if he were her brother. Her husband was -too sick to be with them, and there had been apparently no question of -Hughes’s coming, but Peace was there. The weather was that of a day in -late March, bitter with a disappointed hope of spring. Ray went back to -their door with the mourners. The mother kept on about the little ones, -as if the incidents of their death were facts of a life that was still -continuing. - -“Oh, I know well enough,” she broke off from this illusion, “that they -are gone, and I shall never see them again; perhaps their father will. -Well, I don’t think I was so much to blame. I didn’t make myself, and I -never asked to come here, any more than they did.” - -She had the woe-begone hopeless face which she wore the first day that -Ray saw her, after the twins had thrown her porte-monnaie out of the car -window; she looked stunned and stupefied. - -They let her talk on, mostly without interruption. Only, at this point -Peace said, “That will be thought of, Jenny,” and the other asked, -wistfully, “Do you think so, Peace? Well!” - - - - -XXXII. - - -Peace did not come back to her work at the publishers’ for several -weeks. The arrears began to accumulate, and Mr. Brandreth asked Ray to -help look after it; Ray was now so often with him that their friendly -acquaintance had become a confidential intimacy. - -Men’s advance in these relations is rapid, even in later life; in youth -it is by bounds. Before a week of their daily contact was out, Ray knew -that Mrs. Chapley, though the best soul in the world, and the most -devoted of mothers and grandmothers, had, in Mr. Brandreth’s opinion, a -bad influence on his wife, and through her on his son. She excited Mrs. -Brandreth by the long visits she paid her; and she had given the baby -medicine on one occasion at least that distinctly had not agreed with -it. “That boy has taken so much belladonna, as a preventive of scarlet -fever, that I believe it’s beginning to affect his eyes. The pupils are -tremendously enlarged, and he doesn’t notice half as much as he did a -month ago. I don’t know when Mrs. Chapley will let us have Miss Hughes -back again. Of course, I believe in taking precautions too, and I never -could forgive myself if anything really happened. But I don’t want to be -a perfect slave to my fears, or my mother-in-law’s, either--should -you?” - -He asked Ray whether, under the circumstances, he did not think he ought -to get some little place near New York for the summer, rather than go to -his country home in Massachusetts, where the Chapleys had a house, and -where his own mother lived the year round. When Ray shrank from the -question as too personal for him to deal with, Mr. Brandreth invited him -to consider the more abstract proposition that if the two grandmothers -had the baby there to quarrel over all summer, they would leave nothing -of the baby, and yet would not part friends. - -“I’ll tell you another reason why I want to be near my business so as to -keep my finger on it all the time, this year,” said Mr. Brandreth, and -he went into a long and very frank study of the firm’s affairs with Ray, -who listened with the discreet intelligence which made everybody trust -him. “With Mr. Chapley in the state he’s got into about business, when -he doesn’t care two cents whether school keeps or not, I see that I’ve -got to take the reins more and more into my own hands.” Mr. Brandreth -branched off into an examination of his own character, and indirectly -paid himself some handsome tributes as a business man. “I don’t mean to -say,” he concluded, “that I’ve got the experience of some of the older -men, but I do mean to say that experience doesn’t count for half of what -they claim, in the book business, and I can prove it out of their own -mouths. They all admit that nobody can forecast the fate of a book. Of -course if you’ve got a book by a known author, you’ve got something to -count on, but not so much as people think, and some unknown man may -happen along with a thing that hits the popular mood and outsell him ten -times over. It’s a perfect lottery.” - -“I wonder they let you send your lists of new publications through the -mails,” said Ray, dryly. - -“Oh, it isn’t quite as bad as that,” said Mr. Brandreth. “Though there -are a good many blanks too. I suppose the moral difference between -business and gambling is that in business you do work for a living, and -you don’t propose to give nothing for something, even when you’re buying -as cheap as you can to sell as dear as you can. With a book it’s even -better. It’s something you’ve put value into, and you have a right to -expect to get value out of it. That’s what I tell Mr. Chapley when he -gets into one of his Tolstoï moods, and wants to give his money to the -poor and eat his bread in the sweat of his brow.” - -The two young men laughed at these grotesque conceptions of duty, and -Mr. Brandreth went on: - -“Yes, sir, if I could get hold of a good, strong, lively novel”-- - -“Well, there is always _A Modern Romeo_,” Ray suggested. - -Mr. Brandreth winced. “I know.” He added, with the effect of hurrying to -get away from the subject, “I’ve had it over and over again with Mr. -Chapley till I’m tired of it. Well, I suppose it’s his age, somewhat, -too. Every man, when he gets to Mr. Chapley’s time of life, wants to go -into the country and live on the land. I’d like to see him living on the -land in Hatboro’, Massachusetts! You can stand up in your buggy and -count half-a-dozen abandoned farms wherever you’ve a mind to stop on the -road. By-the-way,” said Mr. Brandreth, from an association of ideas that -Ray easily followed, “have you seen anything of the book that Mr. Hughes -is writing? He’s got a good title for it. ‘The World Revisited’ ought to -sell the first edition of it at a go.” - -“Before people found out what strong meat it was? It condemns the whole -structure of society; he’s read me parts of it.” - -“Well, well,” said Mr. Brandreth, in a certain perplexity, “that might -make it go too. People like strong meat. They like to have the structure -of society condemned. There’s a good deal of sympathy with the -underpinning; there’s no use trying to deny it. Confound it! I should -like to try such a book as that in the market. But it would be regarded -by everybody who knew him as an outcome of Mr. Chapley’s Tolstoï twist.” - -“I understand that Mr. Hughes’s views are entirely opposed to Tolstoï’s. -He regards him as unpractical,” said Ray, with a smile for Hughes’s -practicality. - -“It wouldn’t make any difference. They would call it Tolstoïan on Mr. -Chapley’s account. People don’t know. There was _Looking Backward_; they -took that at a gulp, and didn’t know that it was the rankest sort of -socialism. My! If I could get hold of a book like _Looking Backward_!” - -“I might have it come out that the wicked cousin in _A Modern Romeo_ was -a secret Anarchist. That ought to make the book’s fortune.” - -Ray could deal lightly with his rejected novel, but even while he made -an open jest of it, the book was still inwardly dear to him. He still -had his moments of thinking it a great book, in places. He was always -mentally comparing it with other novels that came out, and finding it -better. He could not see why they should have got publishers, and his -book not; he had to fall back upon that theory of mere luck which first -so emboldens and then so embitters the heart; and the hope that lingered -in him was mixed with cynicism. - - - - -XXXIII. - - -When Peace came back to her work, Mr. Brandreth, in admiration of her -spirit, confided to Ray that she had refused to take pay for the time -she had been away, and that no arguments availed with her. - -“They must have been at unusual expense on account of this sickness, and -I understand that the son-in-law hasn’t earned anything for a month. But -what can you do?” - -“You can’t do anything,” said Ray. Their poverty might be finally -reached from without, and it was not this which made him chiefly anxious -in his futile sympathy for Peace. He saw her isolated in the presence of -troubles from which he was held as far aloof as her father lived in his -dream of a practicable golden age. Their common sorrow, which ought to -have drawn the mother and father of the dead children nearer together, -seemed to have alienated them. After the first transports of her grief, -Mrs. Denton appeared scarcely to miss the little ones; the cat, which -they had displaced so rarely, was now always in her lap, and her idle, -bantering talk went on, about anything, about everything, as before, but -with something more of mockery for her husband’s depressions and -exaltations. It might have been from a mistaken wish to rouse him to -some sort of renewed endeavor that she let her reckless tongue run upon -what he had done with his process; it might have been from her -perception that he was most vulnerable there; Ray could not decide. For -the most part Denton remained withdrawn from the rest, a shadow and a -silence which they ignored. Sometimes he broke in with an irrelevant -question or comment, but oftener he evaded answering when they spoke to -him. If his wife pressed him at such times he left them; and then they -heard him talking to himself in his room, after an old habit of his; now -and then Ray thought he was praying. If he did not come back, Peace -followed him, and then her voice could be heard in entreaty with him. - -“She’s the only one that can do anything with Ansel,” her sister lightly -explained one evening. “She has so much patience with him; father hasn’t -any more than I have; but Peace can persuade him out of almost anything -except his great idea of sacrifice.” - -“Sacrifice?” Ray repeated. - -“Yes. I don’t know what he means. But he thinks he’s been very wicked, -trying to invent that process, and he can’t get forgiveness without some -kind of sacrifice. He’s found it in the Old Testament somewhere. _I_ -tell him it’s a great pity he didn’t live in the days of the prophets; -he might have passed for one. I don’t know what he’s going to do. He -says we must make some sacrifice; but I can’t see what we’ve got left -to sacrifice. We might make a burnt offering of the chairs in father’s -stove; the coal’s about gone.” - -She stopped, and looked up at Denton, who had come in with a book in his -hand; Peace glided in behind him. - -“Oh, are you going to read us something, Ansel?” his wife asked with her -smile of thoughtless taunting. “I don’t see why you don’t give public -readings. You could read better than the elocutionists that used to read -to us in the Family. And it wouldn’t be taking the bread out of any one -else’s mouth.” She turned to Ray: “You know Ansel’s given up his place -so as to let another man have his chance. It was the least he could do -after he had tried to take away the livelihood of so many by inventing -that wicked process of his.” - -Denton gave no sign of having heard her. He fixed his troubled eyes on -Ray. “Do you know that poem?” he asked, handing him the open book. - -“Oh, yes,” said Ray. - -“It’s a mistake,” said Denton, “all a mistake. I should like to write to -Tennyson and tell him so. I’ve thought it out. The true sacrifice would -have been the best, not the dearest; the best.” - -The next day was Sunday, and it broke, with that swift, capricious heat -of our climate, after several days of cloudy menace. The sun shone, and -the streets were thronged with people. They were going to church in -different directions, but there was everywhere a heavy trend toward the -stations of the elevated road, and the trains were crammed with men, -women and children going to the Park. When Ray arrived there with one of -the throngs he had joined, he saw the roads full of carriages, and in -the paths black files of foot-passengers pushing on past the seats -packed with those who had come earlier, and sat sweltering under the -leafless trees. The grass was already green; some of the forwarder -shrubs were olive-gray with buds. - -Ray walked deep into the Park. He came in sight of a bench near a shelf -of rock in a by-path, with a man sitting alone on it. There was room for -two, and Ray made for the place. - -The man sat leaning forward with his heavy blonde head hanging down as -if he might have been drunk. He suddenly lifted himself, and Ray saw -that it was Denton. His face was red from the blood that had run into -it, but as it grew paler it showed pathetically thin. He stared at Ray -confusedly, and did not know him till he spoke. - -Then he said, “Oh!” and put out his hand. A sudden kindness in Ray, more -than he commonly felt for the man whom he sometimes pitied, but never -liked, responded to the overture. - -“May I have part of your bench?” he asked. - -“Yes,” said Denton. “Sit down,” and he made way for him. “It isn’t mine; -it’s one of the few things in this cursed town that belongs to every -one.” - -“Well,” said Ray, cheerfully, “I suppose we’re all proprietors of the -Park, even if we’re not allowed to walk on our own grass.” - -“Yes; but don’t get me thinking about that. There’s been too much of -that in my life. I want to get away--away from it all. We are going into -the country. Do you know about those abandoned farms in New England? -Could we go and take up one of them?” - -“I’m sure I don’t know. But what could you do with it, if you did? The -owners left those farms because they couldn’t live on them. You would -have to fight a battle you’re not strong enough for. Better wait till -you get fairly on your feet.” - -“Yes, I’m sick; I’m no good. But it would be expiation.” - -Ray did not speak at once. Then, partly because he thought he might be -of use to the man by helping him to an objective vision of what was -haunting him, and partly from an æsthetic desire to pry into the -confusion of his turbid soul, he asked: “Do you mean for that invention -of yours?” - -“No; that’s nothing; that was a common crime.” - -“Well, I have no right to ask you anything further. But in any given -case of expiation, the trouble is that a man can’t expiate alone; he -makes a lot of other people expiate with him.” - -“Yes; you can’t even sin alone. That is the curse of it, and then the -innocent have to suffer with the sinners. But I meant--the children.” - -“The children?” - -“Yes; I let them die.” - -Ray understood now that it was remorse for his exposure of the little -ones to contagion which was preying on him. “I don’t think you were to -blame for that. It was something that might have happened to any one. -For the sake of your family you ought to look at it in the true light. -You are no more responsible for your children’s death than I am.” Ray -stopped, and Denton stared as if listening. - -“What? What? What?” he said, in the tone of a man who tries to catch -something partly heard. “Did you hear?” he asked. “They are both talking -at once--with the same voice; it’s the twin nature.” He shook his head -vehemently, and said, with an air of relief: “Well, now it’s stopped. -What did you say?” - -“I didn’t say anything,” Ray answered. - -“Oh! It was the Voice, then. You see it was a mistake not to do it -sooner; I ought to have _given_ them; not waited for them to be _taken_. -I couldn’t understand, because in the flesh they couldn’t speak. They -had to speak in the spirit. That was it--why they died. I thought that -if I took some rich man who had made his millions selfishly, -cruelly--you see?--it would satisfy justice; then the reign of peace and -plenty could begin. But that was wrong. That would have made the guilty -suffer for the innocent; and the innocent must suffer for the guilty. -Always! There is no other atonement. Now I see that. Oh, my soul, my -soul! What? No! Yes, yes! The best, the purest, the meekest! Always -that! Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission--Who do you -think is the best person in New York--the purest, the meekest?” - -“Who?” Ray echoed. - -“Yes,” said Denton. Then he broke off. “She said, No! No! No!” He -started up from the seat. “For their life, their life, their life! That -was where the wrong was. I knew it was all wrong, always. Oh, my soul, -my soul! What shall the atonement be?” He moved away, and at a few -paces’ distance he began to run. - -Ray watched him running, running, till he was out of sight. - -He passed a restless, anxious day, and in the evening he could not keep -from going to the Hugheses’. He found them all together, and gayer than -he had seen them since the children’s death. He tried to join in the -light-hearted fun that Mrs. Denton was making with her husband; she was -unusually fond, and she flattered him with praises of his talent and -good looks; she said his pallor became him. - -“Do you know,” she asked Ray, “that we’re all going to New Hampshire to -live on an abandoned farm?” - -She made Denton get his violin, and he played a long time. Suddenly he -stopped, and waited in the attitude of listening. He called out, “Yes!” -and struck the instrument over a chair-top, breaking it to splinters. He -jumped up as if in amaze at what had happened; then he said to Peace, -“I’ve made you some kindling.” - -His wife said with a smile, “A man must do _something_ for a living.” - -Denton merely looked at her with a kind of vague surprise. After a -moment’s suspense he wheeled about and caught his hat from the wall, and -rushed down the stairs into the street. - -Hughes came in from the front room, with his pen in his hand, and -hoarsely gasping. “What is the matter?” he weakly whispered. No one -spoke, but the ruin of the violin answered for itself. “Some more of -that fool’s work, I suppose. It is getting past all endurance. He was -always the most unpractical creature, and of late, he’s become utterly -worthless.” He kept on moving his lips as if he were speaking, but no -sound came from them. - -Mrs. Denton burst into a crowing laugh: “It’s too bad Ansel should have -_two_ voices and father none at all!” - -The old man’s lips still moved, and now there came from them, “A fool, a -perfect fool!” - -“Oh, no, father,” said Peace, and she went up to the old man. “You know -Ansel isn’t a fool. You know he has been tried; and he is good, you know -he is! He has worked hard for us all; and I can’t bear to have you call -him names.” - -“Let him show some common-sense, then,” said her father. “I have no wish -to censure him. But his continual folly wears me out. He owes it to the -cause, if not to his family, to be sensible and--and--practical. Tell -him I wish to see him when he comes in,” he added, with an air of -authority, like the relic of former headship. “It’s high time I had a -talk with him. These disturbances in the family are becoming very -harassing. I cannot fix my mind on anything.” - -He went back into his own room, where they heard him coughing. It was a -moment of pain without that dignity which we like to associate with the -thought of suffering, but which is seldom present in it; Ray did not -dare to go; he sat keenly sensible of the squalor of it, unable to stir. -He glanced toward Peace for strength; she had her face hidden in her -hands. He would not look at Mrs. Denton, who was saying: “I think father -is right, and if Ansel can’t control himself any better than he has of -late, he’d better leave us. It’s wearing father out. Don’t you think he -looks worse, Mr. Ray?” - -He did not answer, but remained wondering what he had better do. - -Peace took down her hands and looked at him, and he saw that she wished -him to go. He went, but in the dark below he lingered, trying to think -whom he should turn to for help. He ran over Mr. Chapley, Brandreth, -Kane in his mind with successive rejection, and then he thought of -Kane’s doctor; he had never really seen him, but he feigned him the -wisest and most efficient of the doctors known to fiction. Of course it -must be a doctor whom Ray should speak to; but he must put the affair -hypothetically, so that if the doctor thought it nothing, no one would -be compromised. It must be a physician of the greatest judgment, a man -of sympathy as well as sagacity; no, it could be any sort of doctor, and -he ought to go to him at once. - -He was fumbling in the dark for the wire that pulled the bolt of the -street door when a night-latch was thrust into the key-hole outside, and -the door was burst open with a violence that flung him back against the -wall behind it. Before it could swing to again he saw Denton’s figure -bent in its upward rush on the stairs; he leaped after him. - -“Now, then!” Denton shouted, as they burst into the apartment together. -“The time has come! The time has come! They are calling you, Peace! You -wouldn’t let me give them, and the Lord had to take them, but they have -reconciled Him to you; He will accept you for their sake!” - -Old Hughes had entered from his room, and stood looking on with a -frowning brows, but with more vexation than apprehension. “Be done with -that arrant nonsense!” he commanded. “What stuff are you talking?” - -Denton’s wife shrank into the farthest corner, with the cat still in her -arms. Peace stood in the middle of the room staring at him. He did not -heed Hughes except to thrust him aside as he launched himself towards -the girl. - -Ray slipped between them, and Denton regarded him with dull wavering -eyes like a drunken man’s. “Oh, you’re here still, are you?” he said; a -cunning gleam came into his eyes, and he dropped his voice from its -impassioned pitch. He kept his right hand in his coat pocket, and Ray -watched that hand too solely. Denton flashed past him, and with his left -swept away the hands which Peace mechanically lifted to her face, and -held them in his grip. Ray sprang upon him, and pinioned his right -wrist. - -“Hold him fast!” Hughes added his grip to Ray’s. “He’s got something in -his pocket, there! Run to the window, Jenny, and call for help!” - -“No, no, Jenny, don’t!” Peace entreated. “Don’t call out. Ansel won’t -hurt me! I know he’ll listen to me; won’t you Ansel? Oh, what is it you -want to do?” - -“Here!” cried Denton. “Take it! In an instant you will be with them! The -sin will be remitted.” He struggled to reach her lips with the hand -which he had got out of his pocket. Old Hughes panted out: - -“Open his fist! Tear it open. If I had a knife”-- - -“Oh, don’t hurt him!” Peace implored. “He isn’t hurting me.” - -Denton suddenly released her wrists, and she sank senseless. Ray threw -himself on his knees beside her, and stretched his arms out over her. - -Denton did not look at them; he stood a moment listening; then with a -formless cry he whirled into the next room. The door shut crashing -behind him, and then there came the noise of a heavy fall within. The -rush of a train made itself loudly heard in the silence. - -A keen bitter odor in the air rapt Ray far away to an hour of childhood -when a storm had stripped the blossoms from a peach-tree by the house, -and he noted with a child’s accidental observance the acrid scent which -rose from them. - -“That is prussic acid,” Hughes whispered, and he moved feebly towards -the door and pushed it open. Denton lay on the floor with his head -toward the threshold, and the old man stood looking down into his dead -face. - -“It must have been that which he had in his hand.” - - - - -XXXIV. - - -“Well, old fellow, I’ve got some good news for you,” said Mr. Brandreth, -when Ray showed himself at the door of the publisher’s little den the -next morning. Ray thought that he carried the record of the event he had -witnessed in every lineament, but Mr. Brandreth could have seen nothing -unusual in his face. “The editor of _Every Evening_ has just been here, -and he wants to see you about taking hold of his literary department.” -Ray stared blankly. Mr. Brandreth went on with generous pleasure: “He’s -had some trouble with the man who’s been doing it, and it’s come to a -complete break at last, and now he wants you to try. He’s got some new -ideas about it. He wants to make something specially literary of the -Saturday issue; he has a notion of restoring the old-fashioned serial. -If you take charge, you could work in the _Modern Romeo_ on him; and -then, if it succeeds as a serial, we can republish it in book form! -Better see him at once! Isn’t it funny how things turn out? He said he -was coming down town in a Broadway car, and happened to catch sight of -Coquelin’s name on a poster at the theatre, and it made him think of -you. He’d always liked that thing you did for him, and when he got down -here, he jumped out and came in to ask about you. I talked you into him -good and strong, and he wants to see you.” - -Ray listened in nerveless passivity to news that would have transported -him with hope a few hours before. Mr. Brandreth might well have mistaken -his absent stare for the effect of such a rapture. He said, as a man -does when tempted a little beyond prudence by the pleasure he is giving: - -“The fact is, I’ve been thinking about that work of yours, myself. I -want to try _some_ novel for the summer trade; and I want you to let me -see it again. I want to read it myself this time. They say a publisher -oughtn’t to know anything about the inside of a book, but I think we -might make an exception of yours.” Ray’s face remained unchanged, and -Mr. Brandreth now asked, with a sudden perception of its strangeness: -“Hello! What’s the matter? Anything gone wrong with you?” - -“No, no,” Ray struggled out, “not with me. But”-- - -“Nothing new with the Hugheses, I hope?” said Mr. Brandreth, with -mounting alarm. “Miss Hughes was to have come back to work this morning, -but she hasn’t yet. No more diphtheria, I hope? By Jove, my dear fellow, -I don’t think you ought to come here if there is! I don’t think it’s -quite fair to me.” - -“It isn’t diphtheria,” Ray gasped. “But they’re in great trouble. I -hardly know how to tell you. That wretched creature, Denton, has killed -himself. He’s been off his base for some time, and I’ve been -dreading--I’ve been there all night with them. He took prussic acid and -died instantly. Mr. Hughes and I had a struggle with him to -prevent--prevent him; and the old man got a wrench, and then he had a -hemorrhage. He is very weak from it, but the doctor’s brought him round -for the present. Miss Hughes wanted me to come and tell you.” - -“Has it got out yet?” Mr. Brandreth asked. “Are the reporters on to it?” - -“The fact has to come out officially through the doctor, but it isn’t -known yet.” - -“I wish it hadn’t happened,” said Mr. Brandreth. “It will be an awful -scandal.” - -There had been a moment with Ray too when the scandal of the fact was -all he felt. “Yes,” he said, mechanically. - -“You see,” Mr. Brandreth explained, “those fellows will rummage round in -every direction, for every bit of collateral information, relevant and -irrelevant, and they will make as much as they can of the fact that Miss -Hughes was employed here.” - -“I see,” said Ray. - -Mr. Brandreth fell into a rueful muse, but he plucked himself out of it -with self-reproachful decency. “It’s awful for them, poor things!” - -“It’s the best thing that could have happened, under the circumstances,” -said Ray, with a coldness that surprised himself, and a lingering -resentment toward Denton that the physical struggle had left in his -nerves. “It was a question whether he should kill himself, or kill some -one else. He had a mania of sacrifice, of atonement. Somebody had to be -offered up. He was a crank.” Ray pronounced the word with a strong -disgust, as if there were nothing worse to be said of a man. He paused, -and then he went on. “I shall have to tell you all about it, Brandreth;” -and he went over the event again, and spared nothing. - -Mr. Brandreth listened with starting eyes. As if the additional details -greatly discouraged him, he said, “I don’t think those things can be -kept from coming out. It will be a terrible scandal. Of course, I pity -the family; and Miss Hughes. It’s strange that they could keep living on -with such a danger hanging over them for weeks and months, and not try -to do anything about it--not have him shut up.” - -“The doctor says we’ve no idea what sort of things people keep living on -with,” said Ray, gloomily. “The danger isn’t always there, and the hope -is. The trouble keeps on, and in most cases nothing happens. The doctor -says nothing would have happened in this case, probably, if the man had -staid quietly in the country, in the routine he was used to. But when he -had the stress of new circumstances put on him, with the anxieties and -the chances, and all the miseries around him, his mind gave way; I don’t -suppose it was ever a very strong one.” - -“Oh, I don’t see how the strongest stands it, in this infernal -hurly-burly,” said Mr. Brandreth, with an introspective air. He added, -with no effect of relief from his reflection, “I don’t know what I’m -going to say to my wife when all this comes out. I’ve got to prepare -her, somehow--her and her mother. Look here! Why couldn’t you go up to -Mr. Chapley’s with me, and see him? He wasn’t very well, yesterday, and -said he wouldn’t be down till this afternoon. My wife’s going there to -lunch, and we can get them all together before the evening papers are -out. Then I think we could make them see it in the right light. What do -you say?” - -“I don’t see why I shouldn’t go with you. If I can be of any use,” said -Ray, with an inward regret that he could think of no excuse for not -going. - -“I think you can be of the greatest use,” said Mr. Brandreth. He called -a clerk, and left word with him that he should not be in again till -after lunch. “You see,” he explained, as they walked out together, “if -we can get the story to Mrs. Brandreth and her mother before it comes to -them in print it won’t seem half as bad. Some fellow is going to get -hold of the case and work it for all it is worth. He is going to unearth -Mr. Hughes’s whole history, and exploit him as a reformer and a -philosopher. He’s going to find out everybody who knows him, or has ever -had anything to do with him, and interview people right and left.” - -Ray had to acknowledge that this was but too probable. He quailed to -think of the publicity which he must achieve in the newspapers, and how -he must figure before the people of Midland, who had expected such a -different celebrity for him. - -“You must look out for yourself. I’m going to put Mr. Chapley on his -guard, and warn the ladies not to see any reporters or answer any -questions. By-the-way, does Mr. Kane know about this yet?” - -“I’ve just come from his place; he wasn’t at home; I left a note for -him.” - -“I wonder if we hadn’t better go round that way and tell him?” Mr. -Brandreth faltered a moment, and then pushed on. “Or, no! He’s a wary -old bird, and I don’t think he’ll say anything that will commit -anybody.” They walked on in silence for awhile before Mr. Brandreth -said, with an air of relevance, “Of course, I shouldn’t want you to -count too much upon our being able to do anything with your book this -year, after all.” - -“Of course,” said Ray. “If I’m mixed up with this business in the -papers, my name won’t be a very good one for a respectable house to -conjure with for some years to come. Perhaps never.” - -At that moment he was mere egoist, feeling nothing but the mockery and -the malice of fortune; all his compassion for the hapless creatures -whose misery had involved him died within him. - -“Oh, I don’t mean that, exactly,” said Mr. Brandreth. “But isn’t it -curious how we’re all bound together here? It’s enough to make one -forswear all intercourse with his fellow-beings. Here we are in same -boat with people whom I didn’t know the existence of six months ago; and -because Mr. Chapley has stood by his old friend and tried to help him -along, he will probably be pilloried with him before the public as a -fellow-Tolstoïan, and people all over the country that used to order -their books through us will think we’re in sympathy with the anarchists, -and won’t have any more to do with us than if we had published the -_Kreuzer Sonata_.” - -Ray thought how he had never asked to know the Hugheses at all, and was -not justly responsible for them, even through a tie of ancient -friendship. But in the presence of Mr. Brandreth’s shameless anxieties, -he was ashamed to air his own. He only said, cynically: “Yes, it appears -that a homicidal lunatic can’t take himself harmlessly out of the world. -His fate reaches out in every direction, and covers everybody that knew -him with confusion. And they talk of a moral government of the -universe!” - -“Yes!” said Mr. Brandreth, with as much satisfaction in Ray’s scorn of -the order of things as his mild nature could probably feel. - -At Mr. Chapley’s house they learned that Mrs. Brandreth had brought the -baby to spend the day with her mother. Her sister, whom Ray knew, met -the two men at the door on her way out to a young ladies’ lunch, and -told them they would find her father in his library. She said Mr. Kane -was there with him; and Mr. Brandreth, with a glance at Ray, said, -“Well, that’s first-rate!” and explained, as they pushed on upstairs, -“He may be able to suggest something.” - -Kane did not suggest anything at once. He listened in silence and -without apparent feeling to Ray’s story. - -“Dear me!” Mr. Chapley lamented. “Dreadful, dreadful! Poor David must be -in a sad state about it! And I’m not fit to go to him!” - -“He wouldn’t expect you, sir,” Mr. Brandreth began. - -“I don’t know; he would certainly come to me if I were in trouble. Dear, -dear! Was the hemorrhage very exhausting, Mr.--er--Ray?” - -Ray gave the doctor’s word that there was no immediate danger from it, -and Mr. Brandreth made haste to say that he had come to tell the ladies -about the affair before they saw it in the papers, and to caution them -against saying anything if reporters called. - -“Yes, that’s very well,” said Mr. Chapley. “But I see nothing -detrimental to us in the facts.” - -“No, sir. Not unless they’re distorted, and--in connection with your -peculiar views, sir. When those fellows get on to your old friendship -with Mr. Hughes, and _his_ peculiar views, there’s no telling what they -won’t make of them.” Kane glanced round at Ray with arched eyes and -pursed mouth. Mr. Brandreth turned toward Ray, and asked sweetly, -“Should you mind my lighting one of those after-dinner pastilles?” He -indicated the slender stem in the little silver-holder on the mantel. -“Of course there’s no danger of infection now; but it would be a little -more reassuring to my wife, especially as she’s got the boy here with -her.” - -“By all means,” said Ray, and the pastille began sending up a delicate -thread of pungent blue smoke, while Mr. Brandreth went for his wife and -mother-in-law. - -“It seems to me you’re in a parlous state, Henry,” said Kane. “I don’t -see but you’ll have to renounce Tolstoï and all his works if you ever -get out of this trouble. I’m sorry for you. It takes away half the -satisfaction I feel at the lifting of that incubus from poor David’s -life. I think I’d better go.” He rose, and went over to give his hand to -Mr. Chapley, where he sat in a reclining-chair. - -Mr. Chapley clung to him, and said feebly: “No, no! Don’t go, Kane. We -shall need your advice, and--and--counsel,” and while Kane hesitated, -Mr. Brandreth came in with the ladies, who wore a look of mystified -impatience. - -“I thought they had better hear it from you, Mr. Ray,” he said, and for -the third time Ray detailed the tragical incidents. He felt as if he had -been inculpating himself. - -Then Mrs. Chapley said: “It is what we might have expected from the -beginning. But if it will be a warning to Mr. Chapley”-- - -Mrs. Brandreth turned upon her mother with a tone that startled Mr. -Chapley from the attitude of gentle sufferance in which he sat resting -his chin upon his hand. “I don’t see what warning there can be for papa -in such a dreadful thing. Do you think he’s likely to take prussic -acid?” - -“I don’t say that, you know well enough, child. But I shall be quite -satisfied if it is the last of Tolstoïsm in _this_ family.” - -“It has nothing to do with Tolstoï,” Mrs. Brandreth returned, with -surprising energy. “If we’d all been living simply in the country, that -wretched creature’s mind wouldn’t have been preyed upon by the misery of -the city.” - -“There’s more insanity in proportion to the population in the country -than there is in the city,” Mrs. Chapley began. - -Mrs. Brandreth ignored her statistical contribution. “There’s no more -danger of father’s going out to live on a farm, or in a community, than -there is of his taking poison; and at any rate he hasn’t got anything to -do with what’s happened. He’s just been faithful to his old friend, and -he’s given his daughter work. I don’t care how much the newspapers bring -that in. We haven’t done anything wrong.” - -Mr. Brandreth looked at his wife in evident surprise; her mother said, -“Well, my dear!” - -Her father gently urged: “I don’t think you’ve quite understood your -mother. She doesn’t look at life from my point of view.” - -“No, Henry, I’m thankful to say I don’t,” Mrs. Chapley broke in; “and I -don’t know anybody who does. If I had followed you and your prophet, we -shouldn’t have had a roof over our heads.” - -“A good many people have no roofs over their heads,” Mr. Chapley meekly -suggested. - -“That’s no reason why we shouldn’t,” said his wife. - -“No; you’re right there, my dear. That’s the hopeless part of it. -Perhaps poor David is right, and the man who attempts to solve the -problem of altruism singly and in his own life”-- - -Mrs. Brandreth would not let him finish. “The question is, what are we -going to do for these poor things in their trouble?” She looked at Ray, -who had sat by trying in his sense of intrusion and superfluity to -shrink into as small a space as possible. He now blushed to find himself -appealed to. He had not seen Mrs. Brandreth often, and he had not -reversed his first impression of a narrow, anxious, housewifely spirit -in her, sufficient to the demands of young motherhood, but of few and -scanty general sympathies. - -“When did you see them last?” she asked. - -He told her, and she said, “Well, I am going right up there with Percy.” - -“And bring back the scarlet fever to your child!” cried her mother. “You -shall neither of you go, as long as I have anything to say about it. Or, -if you do, you shall not come back to this house, and I shall keep the -baby here till there isn’t the least fear of danger; and I don’t know -how long that will be.” - -All the grandmother rose in Mrs. Chapley; she lifted her voice, and in -the transport of her alarm and indignation she suddenly appealed to Mr. -Kane from the wilfulness she evidently feared in her daughter: “What do -you think, Mr. Kane?” - -“I wouldn’t presume to decide such a question finally; it’s too -important,” Kane said, in his mellow murmur. “But I wish that for the -moment Mrs. Brandreth would let me be the bearer of her kind messages -and inquiries. If you haven’t been in the habit of calling there”-- - -“I have never been there at all, I’m sorry to say,” Mrs. Brandreth -frankly declared. - -“Ah! Well, I don’t see what good could come of it, just at present; and -there might be some lingering infection.” - -“It has been carried in clothes across the ocean months afterwards, and -in letters,” Mrs. Chapley triumphed. - -Kane abandoned the point to her. “The situation might be very much worse -for the Hugheses, as I was saying to Henry before you came in. The -Powers are not commonly so considerate. It seems to me distinctly the -best thing that could have happened, at least as far as Denton is -concerned.” - -“Surely,” said Mrs. Chapley, “you don’t approve of suicide?” - -“Not in the case of sane and happy people,” Kane blandly replied. “The -suicide of such persons should be punished with the utmost rigor of the -law. But there seem to be extenuating circumstances in the present -instance; I hope the coroner’s jury will deal leniently with the -culprit. I must go and see if I can do anything for David. Probably I -can’t. It’s always a question in these cases whether you are not adding -to the sufferings of the mourners by your efforts to alleviate them; but -you can only solve it at their expense by trying.” - -“And you will let us know,” said Mrs. Chapley, “whether _we_ can do -anything, Mr. Kane.” - -Mrs. Brandreth did not openly persist in her determination to go to the -Hugheses. She said, “Yes, be sure you let us know,” and when Kane had -gone on an errand of mercy which he owned was distasteful to him, her -husband followed Ray down to the door. - -“You see what splendid courage she has,” he whispered, with a backward -glance up the stairs. “I must confess that it surprised me, after all -I’ve seen her go through, that stand she took with her mother. But I -don’t altogether wonder at it; they were disagreeing about keeping up -the belladonna when I found them, upstairs, and I guess Mrs. Brandreth’s -opposition naturally carried over into this question about the Hugheses. -Of course Mrs. Chapley means well, but if Mrs. Brandreth could once be -got from under her influence she would be twice the woman she is. I -think she’s right about the effect of our connection with the family -before the public. They can’t make anything wrong out of it, no matter -how they twist it or turn it. I’m not afraid. After all, it isn’t as if -Mr. Hughes was one of those howling socialists. An old-time Brook -Farmer--it’s a kind of literary tradition; it’s like being an original -abolitionist. I’m going to see if I can’t get a glimpse of that book of -his without committing myself. Well, let me know how you get on. I -wouldn’t let that chance on _Every Evening_ slip. Better see the man. -Confound the papers! I hope they won’t drag us in!” - - - - -XXXV. - - -A few lines, with some misspelling of names, told the story of the -suicide and inquest in the afternoon papers, and it dwindled into still -smaller space and finer print the next morning. The publicity which -those least concerned had most dreaded was spared them. Ray himself -appeared in print as a witness named Bray; there was no search into the -past of Hughes and his family, or their present relations; none of the -rich sensations of the case were exploited; it was treated as one of -those every-day tragedies without significance or importance, which -abound in the history of great cities, and are forgotten as rapidly as -they occur. The earth closed over the hapless wretch for whom the dream -of duty tormenting us all, more or less, had turned to such a hideous -nightmare, and those whom his death threatened even more than his life -drew consciously or unconsciously a long breath of freedom. - -Mr. Brandreth’s courage rose with his escape; there came a moment when -he was ready to face the worst; the moment did not come till the danger -of the worst was past. Then he showed himself even eager to retrieve the -effect of anxieties not compatible with a scrupulous self-respect. - -“Why should we laugh at him?” Kane philosophized, in talking the matter -over with Ray. “The ideals of generosity and self-devotion are -preposterous in our circumstances. He was quite right to be cautious, to -be prudent, to protect his business and his bosom from the invasion of -others’ misfortunes, and to look anxiously out for the main chance. Who -would do it for him, if he neglected this first and most obvious duty? -He has behaved most thoughtfully and kindly toward Peace through it all, -and I can’t blame him for not thrusting himself forward to offer help -when nothing could really be done.” - -Kane had himself remained discreetly in the background, and had not -cumbered his old acquaintance with offers of service. He kept away from -the funeral, but he afterwards visited Hughes frequently, though he -recognized nothing more than the obligation of the early kindness -between them. This had been affected by many years of separation and -wide divergence of opinion, and it was doubtful whether his visits were -altogether a pleasure to the invalid. They disputed a good deal, and -sometimes when Hughes lost his voice from excitement and exhaustion, -Kane’s deep pipe kept on in a cool smooth assumption of positions which -Hughes was physically unable to assail. - -Mr. Chapley went out of town to his country place in Massachusetts, to -try and get back his strength after a touch of the grippe. The Sunday -conventicles had to be given up because Hughes could no longer lead -them, and could not suffer the leadership of others. He was left mainly -for society and consolation to the young fellow who did not let him feel -that he differed from him, and was always gently patient with him. - -Ray had outlived the grudge he felt at Kane for delivering him over to -bonds which he shirked so lightly himself; but this was perhaps because -they were no longer a burden. It was not possible for him to refuse his -presence to the old man when he saw that it was his sole pleasure; he -had come to share the pleasure of these meetings himself. As the days -which must be fewer and fewer went by he tried to come every day, and -Peace usually found him sitting with her father when she reached home at -the end of the afternoon. Ray could get there first because his work on -the newspaper was of a more flexible and desultory sort; and he often -brought a bundle of books for review with him, and talked them over with -Hughes, for whom he was a perspective of the literary world, with its -affairs and events. Hughes took a vivid interest in the management of -Ray’s department of _Every Evening_, and gave him advice about it, -charging him not to allow it to be merely æsthetic, but to imbue it with -an ethical quality; he maintained that literature should be the handmaid -of reform; he regretted that he had not cast the material of _The World -Revisited_ in the form of fiction, which would have given it a charm -impossible to a merely polemical treatise. - -“I’m convinced that if I had it in that shape it would readily find a -publisher, and I’m going to see what I can do to work it over as soon as -I’m about again.” - -“I hope you’ll be luckier than I’ve been with fiction,” said Ray. “I -don’t know but it might be a good plan to turn _A Modern Romeo_ into a -polemical treatise. We might change about, Mr. Hughes.” - -Hughes said, “Why don’t you bring your story up here and read it to me?” - -“Wouldn’t that be taking an unfair advantage of you?” Ray asked. “Just -at present my chief’s looking over it, to see if it won’t do for the -_feuilleton_ we’re going to try. He won’t want it; but it affords a -little respite for you, Mr. Hughes, as long as he thinks he may.” - -He knew that Peace must share his constraint in speaking of his book. -When they were alone for a little while before he went away that evening -he said to her, “You have never told me yet that you forgave me for my -bad behavior about my book the last time we talked about it.” - -“Did you wish me to tell you?” she asked, gently. “I thought I needn’t.” - -“Yes, do,” he urged. “You thought I was wrong?” - -“Yes,” she assented. - -“Then you ought to say, in so many words, ‘I forgive you.’” - -He waited, but she would not speak. - -“Why can’t you say that?” - -She did not answer, but after a while she said, “I think what I did was -a good reason for”-- - -“My being in the wrong? Then why did you do it? Can’t you tell me -that?” - -“Not--now.” - -“Some time?” - -“Perhaps,” she murmured. - -“Then I may ask you again?” - -She was silent, sitting by the window in the little back room, where her -head was dimly outlined against the late twilight. Between the rushing -trains at the front they could hear Mrs. Denton talking to her father, -joking and laughing. Our common notion of tragedy is that it alters the -nature of those involved, as if it were some spiritual chemistry -combining the elements of character anew. But it is merely an incident -of our being, and, for all we can perceive, is of no more vital effect -than many storms in the material world. What it does not destroy, it -leaves essentially unchanged. The light creature whom its forces had -beaten to the earth, rose again with the elasticity of light things, -when it had passed. She was meant to be what she was made, and even Ray, -with the severity of his young morality, and the paucity of his -experience, perceived that the frivolity which shocked him was comfort -and cheer to the sick old man. She sat with him, and babbled and jested; -and Ray saw with a generous resentment that she must always have been -his favorite. There was probably a responsive lightness in Hughes’s own -soul to which hers brought the balm of kinship and of perfect sympathy. -There was no apparent consciousness of his preference in the sisters; -each in her way accepted it as something just and fit. Peace looked -after the small housekeeping, and her sister had more and more the care -of their father. - -Mrs. Denton’s buoyant temperament served a better purpose in the economy -of sorrow than a farther-sighted seriousness. In virtue of all that Ray -had ever read or fancied of such experiences, the deaths that had -bereaved her ought to have chastened and sobered her, and he could not -forgive her because she could not wear the black of a hushed and -spiritless behavior. It even shocked him that Peace did nothing to -restrain her, but took her from moment to moment as she showed herself, -and encouraged her cheerful talk, and smiled at her jokes. He could not -yet understand how the girl’s love was a solvent of all questions that -harass the helpless reason, and embitter us with the faults of others; -but from time to time he had a sense of quality in her that awed him -from all other sense of her. There is something in the heart of man that -puts a woman’s charm before all else, and that enables evil and foolish -women to find husbands, while good and wise women die unwed. But in the -soul of incontaminate youth there is often a passionate refusal to -accept this instinct as the highest. The ideal of womanhood is then -something too pure and hallowed even for the dreams of love. It was -something like this, a mystical reverence or a fantastic exaltation, -which removed Ray further from Peace, in what might have joined their -lives, than he was the first day they met, when he began to weave about -her the reveries which she had no more part in than if they had been the -dreams of his sleep. They were of the stuff of his literature, and like -the innumerably trooping, insubstantial fancies that followed each -other through his brain from nothing in his experience. When they ceased -to play, as they must after the little romance of that first meeting had -yielded to acquaintance, what had taken their place? At the end of the -half-year which had united them in the intimacy of those strange events -and experiences, he could not have made sure of anything but a sort of -indignant compassion that drew him near her, and the fantastic sentiment -that held him aloof. The resentment in his pity was toward himself as -much as her father; when he saw her in the isolation where the old man’s -preference for her sister left her, he blamed himself as much as them. - -Peace blamed no one by word or look. He doubted if she saw it, till he -ventured one day to speak of her father’s fondness for her sister, and -then she answered that he would always rather have Jenny with him than -any one else. Ray returned some commonplaces, not too sincere, about the -compensation the care of her father must be to Mrs. Denton in her -bereavement, and Peace answered as frankly as before that they had got -each other back again. “Father didn’t want her to marry Ansel, and he -didn’t care for the children. He couldn’t help that; he was too old; and -after we were all shut up here together they fretted him.” - -She sighed gently, in the way she had, and Ray said, with the fatuity of -comforters, “I suppose they are better off out of this world.” - -“They were born into this world,” she answered. - -“Yes,” he had to own. - -He saw how truly and deeply she grieved for the little ones, and he -realized without umbrage that she mourned their wretched father too, -with an affection as simple and pure. There were times when he thought -how tragical it would be for her to have cared for Denton, in the way -his wife cared so little; and then his fancy created a situation in -whose unreality it ran riot. But all the time he knew that he was -feigning these things, and that there was no more truth in them than in -the supposition which he indulged at other times that he was himself in -love with Mrs. Denton, and always had been, and this was the reason why -he could not care for Peace. It was the effect in both cases of the -æsthetic temperament, which is as often the slave as the master of its -reveries. - -It was in Mrs. Denton’s favor that she did not let the drift of their -father’s affections away from Peace carry her with them. The earthward -bodily decline of the invalid implied a lapse from the higher sympathies -to the lower, and she seemed to have some vague perception of this, -which she formulated in her own way, once, when she wished to account -for the sick man’s refusal of some service from Peace which he accepted -from herself. - -“He has more use for me here, Peace, because I’m of the earth, earthy, -but he’ll want you somewhere else.” - -The old man clung to the world with a hope that admitted at least no -open question of his living. He said that as soon as the spring fairly -opened, and the weather would allow him to go out without taking more -cold, he should carry his manuscript about to the different publishers, -and offer it personally. He thought his plan carefully out, and talked -it over with Ray, whom he showed that his own failure with his novel was -from a want of address in these interviews. He proposed to do something -for Ray’s novel as soon as he secured a publisher for himself, and again -he bade him bring it and read it to him. Ray afterwards realized with -shame that he would have consented to this if Hughes had persisted. But -the invitation was probably a mere grace of civility with him, an effect -of the exuberant faith he had in his own success. - -As the season advanced, and the heat within-doors increased, they had to -open the windows, and then the infernal uproar of the avenue filled the -room, so that they could not hear one another speak till the windows -were closed again. But the rush and clank of the elevated trains, the -perpetual passage of the surface cars, with the clatter of their horses’ -hoofs, and the clash of the air-slitting bells, the grind and jolt of -the heavy trucks, the wild clatter of express carts across the rails or -up and down the tracks, the sound of feet and voices, the cries of the -fruit-venders, and the whiffs of laughter and blasphemy that floated up -from the turmoil below like filthy odors, seemed not so keenly to -afflict the sick man, or to rend his nerves with the anguish that forced -the others to shut it all out, and rather stifle in the heat. Yet, in -some sort, he felt it too, for once when Ray spoke of it, he said yes, -it was atrocious. “But,” he added, “I am glad I came and placed myself -where I could fully realize the hideousness of a competitive metropolis. -All these abominations of sight and sound, these horrible discords, that -offend every sense, physically express the spiritual principle -underlying the whole social framework. It has been immensely instructive -to me, and I have got some color of it into my book: not enough, of -course, but infinitely more than I could possibly have imagined. No one -can imagine the horror, the squalor, the cruel and senseless turpitude -which these things typify, except in their presence. I have merely -represented the facts in regard to them, and have left the imagination -free to deal with the ideal city as a contrast, with its peaceful -streets, cleanly and quiet, its stately ranks of beautiful dwellings, -its noble piles of civic and religious architecture, its shaded and -colonnaded avenues, its parks and gardens, and all planned and built, -not from the greed and the fraud of competition, but from the generous -and unselfish spirit of emulation, wherein men join to achieve the best -instead of separating to get the most. Think of a city operated by -science, as every city might be now, without one of the wretched animals -tamed by the savage man, and still perpetuated by the savage man for the -awkward and imperfect uses of a barbarous society! A city without a -horse, where electricity brought every man and everything silently to -the door. Jenny! Get me that manuscript, will you? The part I was -writing on to-day--in the desk--the middle drawer--I should like to -read”-- - -Mrs. Denton dropped her cat from her lap and ran to get the manuscript. -But when she brought it to her father, and he arranged the leaves with -fluttering fingers, he could not read. He gasped out a few syllables, -and in the paroxysm of coughing which began, he thrust the manuscript -toward Ray. - -“He wants you to take it,” said Peace. “You can take it home with you. -You can give it to me in the morning.” - -Ray took it, and stood by, looking on, not knowing how to come to their -help for the sick man’s relief, and anxious not to cumber them. When -they had got him quiet again, and Ray had once more thrown up the -window, and let in the mild night air which came laden with that -delirium of the frenzied city, Peace followed him into the little back -room, where they stood a moment. - -“For Heaven’s sake,” he said, “why don’t you get him away from here, -where he could be a little more out of the noise? It’s enough to drive a -well man mad.” - -“He doesn’t feel it as if he were well,” she answered. “We have tried to -get him to let us bring his bed out here. But he won’t. I think,” she -added, “that he believes it would be a bad omen to change.” - -“Surely,” said Ray, “a man like your father couldn’t care for that -ridiculous superstition. What possible connection could his changing to -a quieter place have with his living or”-- - -“It isn’t a matter of reason with him. I can see how he’s gone back to -his early life in a great many things in these few days. He hasn’t been -so much like himself for a long time as he has to-night.” - -“What does the doctor say?” - -“He says to let him have his own way about it. He says that--the noise -can’t make any difference--now.” - -They were in the dark; but he knew from her voice that tears were in her -eyes. He felt for her hand to say good-night. When he had found it, he -held it a moment, and then he kissed it. But no thrill or glow of the -heart justified him in what he had done. At the best he could excuse it -as an impulse of pity. - - - - -XXXVI. - - -The editor of _Every Evening_ gave Ray his manuscript back. He had -evidently no expectation that Ray could have any personal feeling about -it, or could view it apart from the interests of the paper. He himself -betrayed no personal feeling where the paper was concerned, and he -probably could have conceived of none in Ray. - -“I don’t think it will do for us,” he said. “It is a good story, and I -read it all through, but I don’t believe it would succeed as a serial. -What do you think, yourself?” - -“I?” said Ray. “How could I have an unprejudiced opinion?” - -“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You know what we want; we’ve talked it -over enough; and you ought to know whether this is the kind of thing. -Anyhow, it’s within your province to decide. I don’t think it will do, -but if you think it will, I’m satisfied. You must take the -responsibility. I leave it to you, and I mean business.” - -Ray thought how old Kane would be amused if he could know of the -situation, how he would inspect and comment it from every side, and try -to get novel phrases for it. He believed himself that no author had -ever been quite in his place before; it was like something in Gilbert’s -operas; it was as if a prisoner were invited to try himself and -pronounce his own penalty. His chief seemed to see no joke in the -affair; he remained soberly and somewhat severely waiting for Ray’s -decision. - -“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Ray. “I don’t think it would do for -_Every Evening_. Even if it would, I should doubt the taste of working -in something of my own on the reader at the beginning.” - -“I shouldn’t care for that,” said the chief, “if it were the thing.” - -Ray winced, but the chief did not see it. Now, as always, it was merely -and simply a question of the paper. He added carelessly: - -“I should think such a story as that would succeed as a book.” - -“I wish you would get some publisher to think so.” - -The chief had nothing to say to that. He opened his desk and began to -write. - -In spite of the rejected manuscript lying on the table before him, Ray -made out a very fair day’s work himself, and then he took it up town -with him. He did not go at once to his hotel, but pushed on as far as -Chapley’s, where he hoped to see Peace before she went home, and ask how -her father was getting on; he had not visited Hughes for several weeks; -he made himself this excuse. What he really wished was to confront the -girl and divine her thoughts concerning himself. He must do that, now; -but if it were not for the cruelty of forsaking the old man, it might -be the kindest and best thing never to go near any of them again. - -He had the temporary relief of finding her gone home when he reached -Chapley’s. Mr. Brandreth was there, and he welcomed Ray with something -more than his usual cordiality. - -“Look here,” he said, shutting the door of his little room. “Have you -got that story of yours where you could put your hand on it easily?” - -“I can put my hand on it instantly,” said Ray, and he touched it. - -“Oh!” Mr. Brandreth returned, a little daunted. “I didn’t know you -carried it around with you.” - -“I don’t usually--or only when I’ve got it from some publisher who -doesn’t want it.” - -“I thought it had been the rounds,” said Mr. Brandreth, still uneasily. - -“Oh, it’s an editor, this time. It’s just been offered to me for serial -use in _Every Evening_, and I’ve declined it.” - -“What do you mean?” Mr. Brandreth smiled in mystification. - -“Exactly what I say.” Ray explained the affair as it had occurred. “It -makes me feel like Brutus and the son of Brutus rolled into one. I’m -going round to old Kane, to give the facts away to him. I think he’ll -enjoy them.” - -“Well! Hold on! What did the chief say about it?” - -“Oh, he liked it. Everybody likes it, but nobody wants it. He said he -thought it would succeed as a book. The editors all think that. The -publishers think it would succeed as a serial.” - -Ray carried it off buoyantly, and enjoyed the sort of daze Mr. Brandreth -was in. - -“See here,” said the publisher, “I want you to leave that manuscript -with me.” - -“Again?” - -“Yes. I’ve never read it myself yet, you know.” - -“Take it and be happy!” Ray bestowed it upon him with dramatic effusion. - -“No, seriously!” said Mr. Brandreth. “I want to talk with you. Sit down, -won’t you? You know the first time you were in here, I told you I was -anxious to get Chapley & Co. in line as a publishing house again; I -didn’t like the way we were dropping out and turning into mere jobbers. -You remember.” - -Ray nodded. - -“Well, sir, I’ve never lost sight of that idea, and I’ve been keeping -one eye out for a good novel, to start with, ever since. I haven’t found -it, I don’t mind telling you. You see, all the established reputations -are in the hands of other publishers, and you can’t get them away -without paying ridiculous money, and violating the comity of the trade -at the same time. If we are to start new, we must start with a new man.” - -“I don’t know whether I’m a new man or not,” said Ray, “if you’re -working up to me. Sometimes I feel like a pretty old one. I think I -came to New York about the beginning of the Christian era. But _A Modern -Romeo_ is as fresh as ever. It has the dew of the morning on it -still--rubbed off in spots by the nose of the professional smeller.” - -“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, “it’s new enough for all practical purposes. -I want you to let me take it home with me.” - -“Which of the leading orchestras would you like to have accompany you to -your door?” asked Ray. - -“No, no! Don’t expect too much!” Mr. Brandreth entreated. - -“I don’t expect anything,” Ray protested. - -“Well, that’s right--that’s the only business basis. But if it _should_ -happen to be the thing, I don’t believe you’d be personally any happier -about it than I should.” - -“Oh, thank you!” - -“I’m not a fatalist”-- - -“But it would look a good deal like fatalism.” - -“Yes, it would. It would look as if it were really intended to be, if it -came back to us now, after it had been round to everybody else.” - -“Yes; but if it was fated from the beginning, I don’t see why you didn’t -take it in the beginning. I should rather wonder what all the bother had -been for.” - -“You might say that,” Mr. Brandreth admitted. - -Ray went off on the wave of potential prosperity, and got Kane to come -out and dine with him. They decided upon Martin’s, where the dinner -cost twice as much as at Ray’s hotel, and had more the air of being a -fine dinner; and they got a table in the corner, and Ray ordered a -bottle of champagne. - -“Yes,” said Kane, “that is the right drink for a man who wishes to spend -his money before he has got it. It’s the true gambler’s beverage.” - -“You needn’t drink it,” said Ray. “You shall have the _vin ordinaire_ -that’s included in the price of the dinner.” - -“Oh, I don’t mind a glass of champagne now and then, after I’ve brought -my host under condemnation for ordering it,” said Kane. - -“And I want to let my heart out to-night,” Ray pursued. “I may not have -the chance to-morrow. Besides, as to the gambling, it isn’t I betting on -my book; it’s Brandreth. I don’t understand yet why he wants to do it. -To be sure, it isn’t a great risk he’s taking.” - -“I rather think he _has_ to take some risks just now,” said Kane, -significantly. He lowered his soft voice an octave as he went on. “I’m -afraid that poor Henry, in his pursuit of personal perfectability, has -let things get rather behindhand in his business. I don’t blame him--you -know I never blame people--for there is always a question as to which is -the cause and which is the effect in such matters. My dear old friend -may have begun to let his business go to the bad because he had got -interested in his soul, or he may have turned to his soul for refuge -because he knew his business had begun to go to the bad. At any rate, -he seems to have found the usual difficulty in serving God and Mammon; -only, in this case Mammon has got the worst of it, for once: I suppose -one ought to be glad of that. But the fact is that Henry has lost heart -in business; he doesn’t respect business; he has a bad conscience; he -wants to be out of it. I had a long talk with him before he went into -the country, and I couldn’t help pitying him. I don’t think his wife and -daughter even will ever get him back to New York. He knows it’s rather -selfish to condemn them to the dulness of a country life, and that it’s -rather selfish to leave young Brandreth to take the brunt of affairs -here alone. But what are you to do in a world like this, where a man -can’t get rid of one bad conscience without laying in another?” - -In his pleasure with his paradox Kane suffered Ray to fill up his glass -a second time. Then he looked dissatisfied, and Ray divined the cause. -“Did you word that quite to your mind?” - -“No, I didn’t. It’s too diffuse. Suppose we say that in our conditions -no man can do right without doing harm?” - -“That’s more succinct,” said Ray. “Is it known at all that they’re in -difficulties?” - -Kane smoothly ignored the question. “I fancy that the wrong is in -Henry’s desire to cut himself loose from the ties that bind us all -together here. Poor David has the right of that. We must stand or fall -together in the pass we’ve come to; and we cannot helpfully eschew the -world except by remaining in it.” He took up Ray’s question after a -moment’s pause. “No, it isn’t known that they’re in difficulties, and I -don’t say that it’s so. Their affairs have simply been allowed to run -down, and Henry has left Brandreth to gather them up single-handed. I -don’t know that Brandreth will complain. It leaves him unhampered, even -if he can do nothing with his hands but clutch at straws.” - -“Such straws as the _Modern Romeo_?” Ray asked. “It seems to me that _I_ -have a case of conscience here. Is it right for me to let Mr. Brandreth -bet his money on my book when there are so many chances of his losing?” - -“Let us hope he won’t finally bet,” Kane suggested, and he smiled at the -refusal which instantly came into Ray’s eyes. “But if he does, we must -leave the end with God. People,” he mused on, “used to leave the end -with God a great deal oftener than they do now. I remember that I did, -myself, once. It was easier. I think I will go back to it. There is -something very curious in our relation to the divine. God is where we -believe He is, and He is a daily Providence or not, as we choose. People -used to see His hand in a corner, or a deal, which prospered them, -though it ruined others. They may be ashamed to do that now. But we -might get back to faith by taking a wider sweep and seeing God in our -personal disadvantages--finding Him not only in luck but in bad luck. -Chance may be a larger law, with an orbit far transcending the range of -the little statutes by which fire always burns, and water always finds -its level.” - -“That is a better Hard Saying than the other,” Ray mocked. “‘I’ faith an -excellent song.’ Have some more champagne. Now go on; but let us talk of -_A Modern Romeo_.” - -“We will drink to it,” said Kane, with an air of piety. - - - - -XXXVII. - - -“Well, sir,” said Mr. Brandreth when he found Ray waiting for him in his -little room the next morning, “I haven’t slept a wink all night.” - -Ray had not slept a wink himself, and he had not been able to keep away -from Chapley’s in his fear and his hope concerning his book. He hoped -Mr. Brandreth might have looked at it; he feared he had not. His heart -began to go down, but he paused in his despair at the smiles that Mr. -Brandreth broke into. - -“It was that book of yours. I thought I would just dip into it after -dinner, and try a chapter or two on Mrs. Brandreth; but I read on till -eleven o’clock, and then she went to bed, and I kept at it till I -finished it, about three this morning. Then the baby took up the strain -for about half an hour and finished _me_.” - -Ray did not know what to say. He gasped out, “I’m proud to have been -associated with young Mr. Brandreth in destroying his father’s rest.” - -The publisher did not heed this poor attempt at nonchalance. “I left the -manuscript for Mrs. Brandreth--she called me back to make sure, before I -got out of doors--and if she likes it as well to the end--But I know she -will! She likes you, Ray.” - -“Does she?” Ray faintly questioned back. - -“Yes; she thinks you’re all kinds of a nice fellow, and that you’ve been -rather sacrificed in some ways. She thinks you behaved splendidly in -that Denton business.” - -Ray remained mutely astonished at the flattering opinions of Mrs. -Brandreth; he had suspected them so little. Her husband went on, -smiling: - -“She wasn’t long making out the original of your hero.” Ray blushed -consciously, but made no attempt to disown the self-portraiture. “Of -course,” said Mr. Brandreth, “we’re all in the dark about the heroine. -But Mrs. Brandreth doesn’t care so much for her.” - -Now that he was launched upon the characters of the story, Mr. Brandreth -discussed them all, and went over the incidents with the author, whose -brain reeled with the ecstacy of beholding them objectively in the -flattering light of another’s appreciation. - -“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, at last, when Ray found strength to rise -from this debauch of praise, “you’ll hear from me, now, very soon. I’ve -made up my mind about the story, and unless Mrs. Brandreth should hate -it very much before she gets through with it--Curious about women, isn’t -it, how they always take the personal view? I believe the main reason -why my wife dislikes your heroine is because she got her mixed up with -the girl that took the part of Juliet away from her in our out-door -theatricals. I tell her that you and I are not only the two Percys, -we’re the two Romeos, too. She thinks your heroine is rather weak; of -course you meant her to be so.” - -Ray had not, but he said that he had, and he made a noisy pretence of -thinking the two Romeos a prodigious joke. His complaisance brought its -punishment. - -“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth, “I must tell you a singular thing that -happened. Just as I got to that place where he shoots himself, you know, -and she starts up out of her hypnotic trance, our baby gave a frightful -scream, and Mrs. Brandreth woke and thought the house was on fire. I -suppose the little fellow had a bad dream; it’s strange what dreams -babies _do_ have! But wasn’t it odd, happening when I was wrought up so? -Looks like telepathy, doesn’t it? Of course my mind’s always on the -child. By-the-way, if this thing goes, you must try a telepathic story. -It hasn’t been done yet.” - -“Magnificent!” said Ray. “I’ll do it!” - -They got away from each other, and Ray went down to his work at the -_Every Evening_ office. He enslaved himself to it by an effort twice as -costly as that of writing when he was in the deepest and darkest of his -despair; his hope danced before him, and there was a tumult in his -pulses which he could quiet a little only by convincing himself that as -yet he had no promise from Mr. Brandreth, and that if the baby had given -Mrs. Brandreth a bad day, it was quite within the range of possibility -that the publisher might, after all, have perfectly good reasons for -rejecting his book. He insisted with himself upon this view of the -case; it was the only one that he could steady his nerves with; and -besides, he somehow felt that if he could feign it strenuously enough, -the fates would be propitiated, and the reverse would happen. - -It is uncertain whether it was his pretence that produced the result -intended, but in the evening Mr. Brandreth came down to Ray’s hotel to -say that he had made up his mind to take the book. - -“We talked it over at dinner, and my wife made me come right down and -tell you. She said you had been kept in suspense long enough, and she -wasn’t going to let you go overnight. It’s the first book _we’ve_ ever -taken, and I guess she feels a little romantic about the new departure. -By-the-way, we found out what ailed the baby. It was a pin that had got -loose, and stuck up through the sheet in his crib. You can’t trust those -nurses a moment. But I believe that telepathic idea is a good one.” - -“Yes, yes; it is,” said Ray. Now that the certainty of acceptance had -come, he was sobered by it, and he could not rejoice openly, though he -was afraid he was disappointing Mr. Brandreth. He could only say, “It’s -awfully kind of Mrs. Brandreth to think of me.” - -“That’s her way,” said Mr. Brandreth, and he added briskly, “Well, now, -let’s come down to business. How do you want to publish? Want to make -your own plates?” - -“No,” Ray faltered; “I can’t afford to do that; I had one such offer”-- - -“I supposed you wouldn’t,” Mr. Brandreth cut in, “but I thought I’d -ask. Well, then, we’ll make the plates ourselves, and we’ll pay you ten -per cent. on the retail price of the book. That is the classic -arrangement with authors, and I think it’s fair.” When he said this he -swallowed, as if there were something in his throat, and added, “Up to a -certain point. And as we take all the risk, I think we ought to -have--You see, on one side it’s a perfect lottery, and on the other side -it’s a dead certainty. You can’t count on the public, but you can count -on the landlord, the salesman, the bookkeeper, the printer, and the -paper-maker. We’re at all the expense--rent, clerk-hire, plates, -printing, binding, and advertising, and the author takes no risk -whatever.” - -It occurred to Ray afterwards that an author took the risk of losing his -labor if his book failed; but the public estimates the artist’s time at -the same pecuniary value as the sitting hen’s, and the artist insensibly -accepts the estimate. Ray did not think of his point in season to urge -it, but it would hardly have availed if he had. He was tremulously eager -to close with Mr. Brandreth on any terms, and after they had agreed, he -was afraid he had taken advantage of him. - -When the thing was done it was like everything else. He had dwelt so -long and intensely upon it in a thousand reveries that he had perhaps -exhausted his possibilities of emotion concerning it. At any rate he -found himself curiously cold; he wrote to his father about it, and he -wrote to Sanderson, who would be sure to make a paragraph for the -_Echo_, and unless Hanks Brothers killed his paragraph, would electrify -Midland with the news. Ray forecast the matter and the manner of the -paragraph, but it did not excite him. - -“What is the trouble with me?” he asked Kane, whom he hastened to tell -his news. “I ought to be in a transport; I’m not in anything of the -kind.” - -“Ah! That is very interesting. No doubt you’ll come to it. I had a -friend once who was accepted in marriage by the object of his -affections. His first state was apathy, mixed, as nearly as I could -understand, with dismay. He became more enthusiastic later on, and lived -ever after in the belief that he was one of the most fortunate of men. -But I think we are the victims of conventional acceptations in regard to -most of the great affairs of life. We are taught that we shall feel so -and so about such and such things: about success in love or in -literature; about the birth of our first-born; about death. But probably -no man feels as he expected to feel about these things. He finds them of -exactly the same quality as all other experiences; there may be a little -more or a little less about them, but there isn’t any essential -difference. Perhaps when we come to die ourselves, it will be as simply -and naturally as--as”-- - -“As having a book accepted by a publisher,” Ray suggested. - -“Exactly!” said Kane, and he breathed out his deep, soft laugh. - -“Well, you needn’t go on. I’m sufficiently accounted for.” Ray rose, -and Kane asked him what his hurry was, and where he was going. - -“I’m going up to tell the Hugheses.” - -“Ah! then I won’t offer to go with you,” said Kane. “I approve of your -constancy, but I have my own philosophy of such things. I think David -would have done much better to stay where he was; I do not wish to -punish him for coming to meet the world, and reform it on its own -ground; but I could have told him he would get beaten. He is a thinker, -or a dreamer, if you please, and in his community he had just the right -sort of distance. He could pose the world just as he wished, and turn it -in this light and in that. But here he sees the exceptions to his rules, -and when I am with him I find myself the prey of a desire to dwell on -the exceptions, and I know that I afflict him. I always did, and I feel -it the part of humanity to keep away from him. I am glad that I do, for -I dislike very much being with sick people. Of course I shall go as -often as decency requires. For Decency,” Kane concluded, with the effect -of producing a Hard Saying, “transcends Humanity. So many reformers -forget that,” he added. - -The days were now getting so long that they had just lighted the lamps -in Hughes’s room when Ray came in, a little after seven. He had a few -words with Peace in the family room first, and she told him that her -father had passed a bad day, and she did not know whether he was asleep -or not. - -“Then I’ll go away again,” said Ray. - -“No, no; if he is awake, he will like to see you. He always does. And -now he can’t see you much oftener.” - -“Oh, Peace! Do you really think so?” - -“The doctor says so. There is no hope any more.” There was no faltering -in her voice, and its steadiness strengthened Ray, standing so close to -one who stood so close to death. - -“Does he--your father--know?” - -“I can’t tell. He is always so hopeful. And Jenny won’t hear of giving -up. She is with him more than I am, and she says he has a great deal of -strength yet. He can still work at his book a little. He has every part -of it in mind so clearly that he can tell her what to do when he has the -strength to speak. The worst is, when his voice fails him--he gets -impatient. That was what brought on his hemorrhage to-day.” - -“Peace! I am ashamed to think why I came to-night. But I hoped it might -interest him.” - -“About your book? Oh yes. Mr. Brandreth spoke to me about it. I thought -you would like to tell him.” - -“Thank you,” said Ray. He was silent for a moment. She stood against the -pale light of one of the windows, a shadowy outline, and he felt as if -they were two translated spirits meeting there exterior to the world and -all its interests; he made a mental note of his impression for use some -time. But now he said: “I thought I should like to tell him, too. But -after all, I’m not so sure. I’m not like you, Peace. And I suppose I’m -punished for my egotism in the very hour of my triumph. It isn’t like a -triumph; it’s like--nothing. I’ve looked forward to this so long--I’ve -counted on it so much--I’ve expected it to be like having the world in -my hand. But if I shut my hand, it’s empty.” - -He knew that he was appealing to her for comfort, and he expected her to -respond as she did. - -“That’s because you don’t realize it yet. When you do, it will seem the -great thing that it is.” - -“Do you think it’s a great thing?” - -“As great as any success can be.” - -“Do you think it will succeed?” - -“Mr. Brandreth thinks it will. He’s very hopeful about it.” - -“Sometimes I wish it would fail. I don’t believe it deserves to succeed. -I’m ashamed of it in places. Have I any right to let him foist it on the -public if I don’t perfectly respect it? You wouldn’t if it were yours.” - -He wished her to deny that it was bad in any part, but she did not. She -merely said: “I suppose that’s the way our work always seems to us when -it’s done. There must be a time when we ought to leave what we’ve done -to others; it’s for them, not for ourselves; why shouldn’t they judge -it?” - -“Yes; that is true! How generous you are! How can you endure to talk to -me of my book? But I suppose you think that if I can stand it, you can.” - -“I will go in, now,” said Peace, ignoring the drift of his words, “and -see if father is awake.” She returned in a moment, and murmured softly, -“Come!” - -“Here is Mr. Ray, father,” said Mrs. Denton. She had to lift her voice -to make the sick man hear, for the window was open, and the maniacal -clamor of the street flooded the chamber. Hughes lay at his thin -full-length in his bed, like one already dead. - -He stirred a little at the sound of his daughter’s voice; and when he -had taken in the fact of Ray’s presence, he signed to her to shut the -window. The smells of the street, and the sick, hot whiffs from the -passing trains were excluded; the powerful odors of the useless drugs -burdened the air; by the light of the lamp shaded from Hughes’s eyes Ray -could see the red blotches on his sheet and pillow. - -He no longer spoke, but he could write with a pencil on the little -memorandum-block which lay on the stand by his bed. When Peace said, -“Father, Mr. Ray has come to tell you that his book has been accepted; -Chapley & Co. are going to publish it,” the old man’s face lighted up. -He waved his hand toward the stand, and Mrs. Denton put the block and -pencil in it, and held the lamp for him to see. - -Ray took the block, and read, faintly scribbled on it: “Good! You must -get them to take my _World Revisited_.” - -The sick man smiled as Ray turned his eyes toward him from the paper. - -“What is it?” demanded Mrs. Denton, after a moment. “Some secret? What -is it, father?” she pursued, with the lightness that evidently pleased -him, for he smiled again, and an inner light shone through his glassy -eyes. “Tell us, Mr. Ray!” - -Hughes shook his head weakly, still smiling, and Ray put the leaf in his -pocket. Then he took up the old man’s long hand where it lay inert on -the bed. - -“I will do my very best, Mr. Hughes. I will do everything that I -possibly can.” - - - - -XXXVIII. - - -A purpose had instantly formed itself in Ray’s mind which he instantly -set himself to carry out. It was none the less a burden because he tried -to think it heroic and knew it to be fantastic; and it was in a mood of -equally blended devotion and resentment that he disciplined himself to -fulfil it. It was shocking to criticise the dying man’s prayer from any -such point of view, but he could not help doing so, and censuring it for -a want of taste, for a want of consideration. He did not account for the -hope of good to the world which Hughes must have had in urging him to -befriend his book; he could only regard it as a piece of literature, and -judge the author’s motives by his own, which he was fully aware were -primarily selfish. - -But he went direct to Mr. Brandreth and laid the matter before him. - -“Now I’m going to suggest something,” he hurried on, “which may strike -you as ridiculous, but I’m thoroughly in earnest about it. I’ve read Mr. -Hughes’s book, first and last, all through, and it’s good literature, I -can assure you of that. I don’t know about the principles in it, but I -know it’s very original and from a perfectly new stand-point, and I -believe it would make a great hit.” - -Mr. Brandreth listened, evidently shaken. “I couldn’t do it, now. I’m -making a venture with your book.” - -“That’s just what I’m coming to. Don’t make your venture with my book; -make it with his! I solemnly believe that his would be the safest -venture of the two; I believe it would stand two chances to one of -mine.” - -“Well, I’ll look at it for the fall.” - -“It will be too late, then, as far as Hughes is concerned. It’s now or -never, with him! You want to come out with a book that will draw -attention to your house, as well as succeed. I believe that Hughes’s -book will be an immense success. It has a taking name, and it’s a novel -and taking conception. It’ll make no end of talk.” - -“It’s too late,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I couldn’t take such a book as -that without passing it round among all our readers, and you know what -that means. Besides, I’ve begun to make my plans for getting out your -book at once. There isn’t any time to lose. I’ve sent out a lot of -literary notes, and you’ll see them in every leading paper to-morrow -morning. I’ll have Mr. Hughes’s book faithfully examined, and if I can -see my way to it--I tell you, I believe I shall make a success of the -_Modern Romeo_. I like the title better and better. I think you’ll be -pleased with the way I’ve primed the press. I’ve tried to avoid all -vulgar claptrap, and yet I believe I’ve contrived to pique the public -curiosity.” - -He went on to tell Ray some of the things he had said in his paragraphs, -and Ray listened with that mingled shame and pleasure which the artist -must feel whenever the commercial side of his life presents itself. - -“I kept Miss Hughes pretty late this afternoon, working the things into -shape, so as to get them to the papers at once. I just give her the main -points, and she has such a neat touch.” - -Ray left his publisher with a light heart, and a pious sense of the -divine favor. He had conceived of a difficult duty, and he had -discharged it with unflinching courage. He had kept his word to Hughes; -he had done all that he could for him, even to offering his own chance -of fame and fortune a sacrifice to him. Now he could do no more, and if -he could not help being glad that the sacrifice had not been accepted of -him, he was not to be blamed. He was very much to be praised, and he -rewarded himself with a full recognition of his virtue; he imagined some -words, few but rare, from Peace, expressing her sense of his -magnanimity, when she came to know of it. He hoped that a fact so -creditable to him, and so characteristic, would not escape the notice of -his biographer. He wished that Hughes could know what he had done, and -in his revery he contrived that his generous endeavor should be brought -to the old man’s knowledge; he had Hughes say that such an action was -more to him than the publication of his book. - -Throughout his transport of self-satisfaction there ran a nether torment -of question whether Peace Hughes could possibly suppose that he was -privy to that paragraphing about his book, and this finally worked to -the surface, and become his whole mood. After his joyful riot it was -this that kept him awake till morning, that poisoned all his pleasure in -his escape from self-sacrifice. He could only pacify himself and get -some sleep at last by promising to stop at the publisher’s on his way -down to the _Every Evening_ office in the morning, and beseech her to -believe that he had nothing to do with priming the press, and that he -wished Mr. Brandreth had not told him of it. Nothing less than this was -due him in the character that he desired to appear in hereafter. - -He reached the publisher’s office before Mr. Brandreth came down, and -when he said he would like to see Miss Hughes, the clerk answered that -Miss Hughes had sent word that her father was not so well, and she would -not be down that day. - -“He’s pretty low, I believe,” the clerk volunteered. - -“I’m afraid so,” said Ray. - -He asked if the clerk would call a messenger to take a note from him to -his office, and when he had despatched it he went up to see Hughes. - -“Did you get our message?” Peace asked him the first thing. - -“No,” said Ray. “What message?” - -“That we sent to your office. He has been wanting to see you ever since -he woke this morning. I knew you would come!” - -“O yes. I went to inquire of you about him at Chapley’s, and when I -heard that he was worse, of course I came. Is he much worse?” - -“He can’t live at all. The doctor says it’s no use. He wants to see you. -Will you come in?” - -“Peace!” Ray hesitated. “Tell me! Is it about his book?” - -“Yes, something about that. He wishes to speak with you.” - -“Oh, Peace! I’ve done all I could about that. I went straight to Mr. -Brandreth and tried to get him to take it. But I couldn’t. What shall I -tell your father, if he asks me?” - -“You must tell him the truth,” said the girl, sadly. - -“Is that Mr. Ray?” Mrs. Denton called from the sick-room. “Come in, Mr. -Ray. Father wants you.” - -“In a moment. Come here, Mrs. Denton,” Ray called back. - -She came out, and he told her what he had told Peace. She did not seem -to see its bearing at once. When she realized it all, and had spent her -quick wrath in denunciation of Mr. Brandreth’s heartlessness, she said -desperately: “Well, you must come now. Perhaps it isn’t his book; -perhaps it’s something else. But he wants you.” - -She had to rouse her father from the kind of torpor in which he lay like -one dead. She made him understand who was there, and then he smiled, and -turned his eyes appealingly toward Ray. “Put your ear as close to his -lips as you can. He can’t write any more. He wants to say something to -you.” - -Ray stooped over and put his ear to the drawn lips. A few whiffs of -inarticulate breath mocked the dying man’s endeavor to speak. “I’m -sorry; I can’t catch a syllable,” said Ray. - -A mute despair showed itself in the old man’s eyes. - -“Look at me father!” cried Mrs. Denton. “Is it about your book?” - -The faintest smile came over his face. - -“Did you wish to ask Mr. Ray if he would speak to Mr. Brandreth about -it?” - -The smile dimly dawned again. - -“Well, he has spoken to him. He went to see him last night, and he’s -come to tell you”--Ray shuddered and held his breath--“to tell you that -Mr. Brandreth will take your book, and he’s going to publish it right -away!” - -A beatific joy lit up Hughes’s face; and Ray drew a long breath. - -Peace looked at her sister. - -“I don’t care!” said Mrs. Denton, passionately, dropping her voice. “You -have your light, and I have mine.” - - - - -XXXIX. - - -Ray followed Hughes to his grave in the place where Denton and his -children were already laid. It did not seem as if the old man were more -related to them in death than he had been in life by their propinquity; -but it satisfied a belated maternal and conjugal sentiment in Mrs. -Denton. She did not relinquish the leading place in the family affairs -which she had taken in her father’s last days. She decided against -staying in their present apartment after their month was out, and found -a tiny flat of three rooms in a better neighborhood down-town, where she -had their scanty possessions established, including the cat. - -Kane did not go to the funeral because of a prejudice which he said he -had against such events; David Hughes, he said, would have been the -first to applaud his sincerity in staying away. But he divined that -there might be need of help of another kind in the emergency, and he -gave it generously and delicately. He would not suffer Mr. Brandreth to -render any part of this relief; he insisted that it was his exclusive -privilege as Hughes’s old friend. Now that David was gone, he professed -a singularly vivid sense of his presence; and he owned that he had -something like the pleasure of carrying a point against him in -defraying his funeral expenses. - -Hughes’s daughters accepted his help frankly, each after her kind: Mrs. -Denton as a gift which it must long continue to be; Peace as a loan -which must some day be repaid. The girl went back to her work in due -time, and whenever Ray visited his publisher he saw her at her desk. - -He did not always go to speak to her, for he had a shamefaced fear that -she was more or less always engaged in working up hints from Mr. -Brandreth into paragraphs about a _A Modern Romeo_. His consciousness -exaggerated the publisher’s activity in this sort; and at first he -shunned all these specious evidences of public interest in the -forthcoming novel. Then he began jealously to look for them, and in his -mind he arraigned the journals where they did not appear for envy and -personal spite. It would have been difficult for him to prove why there -should have been either in his case, unless it was because their -literary notes were controlled by people whose books had been ignored or -censured by _Every Evening_, and this theory could not hold with all. -Most of the papers, however, published the paragraphs, with that -munificence which journalism shows towards literature. The author found -the inspired announcements everywhere; sometimes they were varied by the -office touch, but generally they were printed exactly as Mr. Brandreth -framed them; however he found them, they gave Ray an insensate joy. Even -the paragraphs in the trade journals, purely perfunctory as they were, -had a flavor of sincere appreciation; the very advertisements which -accompanied them there affected him like favorable expressions of -opinion. His hunger for them was inappeasable; in his heart he accused -Mr. Brandreth of a stinted proclamation. - -The publisher was hurrying the book forward for the summer trade, and -was aiming it especially at the reader going into the country, or -already there. He had an idea that the summer resorts had never been -fully worked in behalf of the better sort of light literature, and he -intended to make any sacrifice to get the book pushed by the news -companies. He offered them rates ruinously special, and he persuaded Ray -to take five per cent. on such sales if they could be made. He pressed -forward the printing, and the author got his proofs in huge batches, -with a demand for their prompt return. The nice revision which he had -fancied himself giving the work in type was impossible; it went from his -hand with crudities that glared in his tormented sense, till a new -instalment eclipsed the last. He balanced the merits and defects against -one another, and tried to believe that the merits would distract the -attention of criticism from the defects. He always knew that the story -was very weak in places; he conceived how it could be attacked in these; -he attacked it himself with pitiless ridicule in a helpless -impersonation of different reviewers; and he gasped in his -self-inflicted anguish. When the last proof left his hands the feeblest -links were the strength of the whole chain, which fell to pieces from -his grasp like a rope of sand. - -There was some question at different times whether the book had not -better be published under a pseudonym, and Ray faithfully submitted it -to the editor of _Every Evening_, as something he was concerned in. It -was to be considered whether it was advisable for a critic to appear as -an author, and whether the possible failure of the book would not react -unfavorably upon the criticisms of the journal. The chief decided that -it would make no difference to him, and at the worst it could do no more -than range Ray with the other critics who had failed as authors. With -the publisher it was a more serious matter, and he debated much whether -the book, as a stroke of business, had not better go to the public -anonymously. They agreed that P. B. S. Ray on the title-page would be -rather formidable from the number of the initials which the reader would -have to master in speaking of the author. Shelley Ray, on the other -hand, would be taken for a sentimental pseudonym. They decided that -anonymity was the only thing for it. - -“But then, it will be losing the interest of your money, if the book -goes,” Mr. Brandreth mused. “You have a right to the cumulative -reputation from it, so that if you should write another”-- - -“Oh, don’t be afraid of there ever being another!” said Ray, with his -distracted head between his hands. He suddenly lifted it. “What is the -matter with the Spartan severity of S. Ray?” - -“S. Ray might do,” Mr. Brandreth assented, thoughtfully. “Should you -mind my asking Mrs. Brandreth how it strikes her?” - -“Not at all. Very glad to have you. It’s short, and unpretentious, and -non-committal. I think it might do.” - -Mrs. Brandreth thought so too, and in that form the author’s name -appeared on the title-page. Even in that form it did not escape question -and censure. One reviewer devoted his criticism of the story to inquiry -into the meaning of the author’s initial; another surmised it a mask. -But, upon the whole, its simplicity piqued curiosity, and probably -promoted the fortune of the book, as far as that went. - -There was no immediate clamor over it. In fact, it was received so -passively by the public and the press that the author might well have -doubted whether there was any sort of expectation of it, in spite of the -publisher’s careful preparation of the critic’s or the reader’s mind. -There came back at once from obscure quarters a few echoes, more or less -imperfect, of the synopsis of the book’s attractions sent out with the -editorial copies, but the influential journals remained -heart-sickeningly silent concerning _A Modern Romeo_. There was a -boisterous and fatuous eulogy of the book in the Midland _Echo_, which -Ray knew for the expression of Sanderson’s friendship; but eager as he -was for recognition, he could not let this count; and it was followed by -some brief depreciatory paragraphs in which he perceived the willingness -of Hanks Brothers to compensate themselves for having so handsomely let -Sanderson have his swing. He got some letters of acknowledgment from -people whom he had sent the book; he read them with hungry zest, but he -could not make himself believe that they constituted impartial opinion; -not even the letter of the young lady who had detected him in the -panoply of his hero, and who now wrote to congratulate him on a success -which she too readily took for granted. One of his sisters replied on -behalf of his father and mother, and said they had all been sitting up -reading the story aloud together, and that their father liked it as much -as any of them; now they were anxious to see what the papers would say; -had he read the long review in the _Echo_, and did not he think it -rather cool and grudging for a paper that he had been connected with? He -hardly knew whether this outburst of family pride gave him more or less -pain than an anonymous letter which he got from his native village, and -which betrayed the touch of the local apothecary; his correspondent, who -also dealt in books, and was a man of literary opinions, heaped the -novel with ridicule and abuse, and promised the author a coat of tar and -feathers on the part of his betters whom he had caricatured, if ever he -should return to the place. Ray ventured to offer a copy to the lady who -had made herself his social sponsor in New York, and he hoped for some -intelligent praise from her. She asked him where in the world he had got -together such a lot of queer people, like nothing on earth but those one -used to meet in the old days when one took country board; she mocked at -the sufferings of his hero, and said what a vulgar little piece his -heroine was; but she supposed he meant them to be what they were, and -she complimented him on his success in handling them. She confessed, -though, that she never read American novels, or indeed any but French -ones, and that she did not know exactly where to rank his work; she -burlesqued a profound impression of the honor she ought to feel in -knowing a distinguished novelist. “You’ll be putting us all into your -next book, I suppose. Mind you give me golden hair, not yet streaked -with silver.” - -In the absence of any other tokens of public acceptance, Ray kept an -eager eye out for such signs of it as might be detected in the -booksellers’ windows and on their sign-boards. The placards of other -novels flamed from their door-jambs, but they seemed to know nothing of -_A Modern Romeo_. He sought his book in vain among those which formed -the attractions of their casements; he found it with difficulty on their -counters, two or three rows back, and in remote corners. It was like a -conspiracy to keep it out of sight; it was not to be seen on the -news-stands of the great hotels or the elevated stations, and Ray -visited the principal railway depots without detecting a copy. - -He blamed Mr. Brandreth for a lack of business energy in all this; he -would like to see him fulfil some of those boasts of push which, when he -first heard them, made him creep with shame. Mr. Brandreth had once -proposed a file of sandwich men appealing with successive bill-boards: - - I. - HAVE YOU READ - - II. - “A MODERN ROMEO?” - - III. - EVERY ONE IS READING - - IV. - “A MODERN ROMEO.” - - V. - WHY? - - VI. - BECAUSE - - VII. - “A MODERN ROMEO” IS - - VIII. - THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. - -Ray had absolutely forbidden this procession, but now he would have -taken off his hat to it, and stood uncovered, if he could have met it in -Union Square or in Twenty-third Street. - - - - -XL. - - -In this time of suspense Ray kept away from old Kane, whose peculiar -touch he could not bear. But he knew perfectly well what his own -feelings were, and he did not care to have them analyzed. He could not -help sending Kane the book, and for a while he dreaded his -acknowledgments; then he resented his failure to make any. - -In the frequent visits he paid to his publisher, he fancied that his -welcome from Mr. Brandreth was growing cooler, and he did not go so -often. He kept doggedly at his work in the _Every Evening_ office; but -here the absolute silence of his chief concerning his book was as hard -to bear as Mr. Brandreth’s fancied coolness; he could not make out -whether it meant compassion or dissatisfaction, or how it was to effect -his relation to the paper. The worst of it was that his adversity, or -his delayed prosperity, which ever it was, began to corrupt him. In his -self-pity he wrote so leniently of some rather worthless books that he -had no defence to make when his chief called his attention to the wide -divergence between his opinions and those of some other critics. At -times when he resented the hardship of his fate he scored the books -before him with a severity that was as unjust as the weak commiseration -in his praises. He felt sure that if the situation prolonged itself his -failure as an author must involve his failure as a critic. - -It was not only the coolness in Mr. Brandreth’s welcome which kept him -aloof; he had a sense of responsibility, which was almost a sense of -guilt, in the publisher’s presence, for he was the author of a book -which had been published contrary to the counsel of all his literary -advisers. It was true that he had not finally asked Mr. Brandreth to -publish it, but he had been eagerly ready to have him do it; he had kept -his absurd faith in it, and his steadfastness must have imparted a -favorable conviction to Mr. Brandreth; he knew that there had certainly -been ever so much personal kindness for him mixed up with its -acceptance. The publisher, however civil outwardly--and Mr. Brandreth, -with all his foibles, was never less than a gentleman--must inwardly -blame him for his unlucky venture. The thought of this became -intolerable, and at the end of a Saturday morning, when the book was -three or four weeks old, he dropped in at Chapley’s to have it out with -Mr. Brandreth. The work on the Saturday edition of the paper was always -very heavy, and Ray’s nerves were fretted from the anxieties of getting -it together, as well as from the intense labor of writing. He was going -to humble himself to the publisher, and declare their failure to be all -his own fault; but he had in reserve the potentiality of a bitter -quarrel with him if he did not take it in the right way. - -He pushed on to Mr. Brandreth’s room, tense with his purpose, and stood -scowling and silent when he found Kane there with him. Perhaps the old -fellow divined the danger in Ray’s mood; perhaps he pitied him; perhaps -he was really interested in the thing which he was talking of with the -publisher, and which he referred to Ray without any preliminary ironies. - -“It’s about the career of a book; how it begins to go, and why, and -when.” - -“Apropos of _A Modern Romeo_?” Ray asked, harshly. - -“If you please, _A Modern Romeo_.” Ray took the chair which Mr. -Brandreth signed a clerk to bring him from without. Kane went on: “It’s -very curious, the history of these things, and I’ve looked into it -somewhat. Ordinarily a book makes its fortune, or it doesn’t, at once. I -should say this was always the case with a story that had already been -published serially; but with a book that first appears as a book, the -chances seem to be rather more capricious. The first great success with -us was _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, and that was assured before the story was -finished in the old _National Era_, where it was printed. But that had -an immense motive power behind it--a vital question that affected the -whole nation.” - -“I seem to have come too late for the vital questions,” said Ray. - -“Oh no! oh no! There are always plenty of them left. There is the -industrial slavery, which exists on a much more universal scale than the -chattel slavery; that is still waiting its novelist.” - -“Or its Trust of novelists,” Ray scornfully suggested. - -“Very good; very excellent good; nothing less than a syndicate perhaps -could grapple with a theme of such vast dimensions.” - -“It would antagonize a large part of the reading public,” Mr. Brandreth -said; but he had the air of making a mental memorandum to keep an eye -out for MSS. dealing with industrial slavery. - -“So much the better! So much the better!” said Kane. “_Robert Elsmere_ -antagonized much more than half its readers by its religious positions. -But that wasn’t what I was trying to get at. I was thinking about how -some of the phenomenally successful books hung fire at first.” - -“Ah, that interests me as the author of a phenomenally successful book -that is still hanging fire,” sighed Ray. - -Kane smiled approval of his attempt to play with his pain, and went on: -“You know that _Gates Ajar_, which sold up into the hundred thousands, -was three months selling the first fifteen hundred.” - -“Is that so?” Ray asked. “_A Modern Romeo_ has been three weeks selling -the first fifteen.” He laughed, and Mr. Brandreth with him; but the fact -encouraged him, and he could see that it encouraged the publisher. - -“We won’t speak of _Mr. Barnes of New York_”-- - -“Oh no! Don’t!” cried Ray. - -“You might be very glad to have written it on some accounts, my dear -boy,” said Kane. - -“Have you read it?” - -“That’s neither here nor there. I haven’t seen _Little Lord Fauntleroy_. -But I wanted to speak of _Looking Backward_. Four months after that was -published, the first modest edition was still unsold.” - -Kane rose. “I just dropped in to impart these facts to your publisher, -in case you and he might be getting a little impatient of the triumph -which seems to be rather behind time. I suppose you’ve noticed it? These -little disappointments are not suffered in a corner.” - -“Then your inference is that at the end of three or four months _A -Modern Romeo_ will be selling at the rate of five hundred a day? I’m -glad for Brandreth here, but I shall be dead by that time.” - -“Oh no! Oh no!” Kane softly entreated, while he took Ray’s hand between -his two hands. “One doesn’t really die of disappointed literature any -more than one dies of disappointed love. That is one of the pathetic -superstitions which we like to cherish in a world where we get well of -nearly all our hurts, and live on to a hale old imbecility. Depend upon -it, my dear boy, you will survive your book at least fifty years.” Kane -wrung Ray’s hand, and got himself quickly away. - -“There is a good deal of truth in what he says”--Mr. Brandreth began -cheerfully. - -“About my outliving my book?” Ray asked. “Thank you. There’s all the -truth in the world in it.” - -“I don’t mean that, of course. I mean the chances that it will pick up -any time within three months, and make its fortune.” - -“You’re counting on a lucky accident.” - -“Yes, I am. I’ve done everything I can to push the book, and now we must -trust to luck. You have to trust to luck in the book business, in every -business. Business is buying on the chance of selling at a profit. The -political economists talk about the laws of business; but there are no -laws of business. There is nothing but chances, and no amount of wisdom -can forecast them or control them. You had better be prudent, but if you -are always prudent you will die poor. ‘Be bold; be bold; be not too -bold.’ That’s about all there is of it. And I’m going to be cheerful -too. I’m still betting on _A Modern Romeo_.” The young publisher leaned -forward and put his hand on Ray’s shoulder, in a kindly way, and shook -him a little. “Come! What will you bet that it doesn’t begin to go -within the next fortnight? I don’t ask you to put up any money. Will you -risk the copyright on the first thousand?” - -“No, I won’t bet,” said Ray, more spiritlessly than he felt, for the -proposition to relinquish a part of his copyright realized it to him. -Still he found it safest not to allow himself any revival of his hopes; -if he did it would be tempting fate to dash them again. In that way he -had often got the better of fate; there was no other way to do it, at -least for him. - - - - -XLI. - - -After a silent and solitary dinner, Ray went to see Mrs. Denton and -Peace in their new lodging. It was the upper floor of a little house in -Greenwich Village, which was sublet to them by a machinist occupying the -lower floors; Ray vaguely recalled something in his face at his first -visit, and then recognized one of the attendants at Hughes’s Sunday -ministrations. He was disposed to fellowship Ray in Hughes’s doctrine, -and in the supposition of a community of interest in Hughes’s daughters. -They could not have been in better or kindlier keeping than that of the -machinist’s friendly wife, who must have fully shared his notion of -Ray’s relation to them. She always received him like one of the family, -and with an increasing intimacy and cordiality. - -That evening when she opened the street door to him she said, “Go right -along up; I guess you’ll find them there all right,” and Ray mounted -obediently. Half-way up he met Mrs. Denton coming down, with her cat in -her arms. “Oh, well!” she said. “You’ll find Peace at home; I’ll be back -in a moment.” - -He suspected that Mrs. Denton fostered the belief of the machinist and -his wife that there was a tacit if not an explicit understanding between -himself and Peace, and he thought that she would now very probably talk -the matter over with them. But he kept on up to the little apartment at -the top of the house, and tapped on the door standing wide open. The -girl was sitting at one of the windows, with her head and bust sharply -defined against the glassy clear evening light of the early summer. She -had her face turned toward the street, and remained as if she did not -hear him at first, so that there was a moment when it went through his -mind that he would go away. Then she looked round, and greeted him; and -he advanced into the room, and took the seat fronting her on the other -side of the window. There was a small, irregular square below, and above -the tops of its trees the swallows were weaving their swift flight and -twittering song; the street noises came up slightly muted through the -foliage; it was almost like a sylvan withdrawal from the city’s worst; -and they talked of the country, and how lovely it must be looking now. - -He said: “Yes, I wonder we can ever leave it. This is the first -spring-time that I have ever been where I couldn’t feel my way with -Nature at every step she took. It’s like a great loss out of my life. I -think sometimes I am a fool to have staid here; I can never get it back. -I could have gone home, and been the richer by the experience of another -spring. Why didn’t I do it?” - -“Perhaps you couldn’t have done your work there,” she suggested. - -“Oh, my work! That is what people are always sacrificing the good of -life to--their work! Is it worth so much? If I couldn’t do my -newspaper-work there, I could do something else. I could write another -unsuccessful novel.” - -“Is your novel a failure?” she asked. - -“Don’t you know it is? It’s been out three weeks, and nobody seems to -know it. That’s my grief, now; it may one day be my consolation. I don’t -complain. Mr. Brandreth still keeps his heroic faith in it, and even old -Kane was trying to rise on the wings of favorable prophecy when I saw -him just before dinner. But I haven’t the least hope any more. I think I -could stand it better if I respected the book itself more. But to fail -in a bad cause--that’s bitter.” He stopped, knowing as well as if he had -put his prayer in words, that he had asked her to encourage him, and if -possible, flatter him. - -“I’ve been reading it all through again, since it came out,” she said. - -“Oh, have you?” he palpitated. - -“And I have lent it to the people in the house here, and they have read -it. They are very intelligent in a kind of way”-- - -“Yes?” - -“And they have been talking to me about it; they have been discussing -the characters in it. They like it because they say they can understand -just how every one felt. They like the hero, and Mrs. Simpson cried over -the last scene. She thinks you have managed the heroine’s character -beautifully. Mr. Simpson wondered whether you really believe in -hypnotism. They both said they felt as if they were living it.” - -Ray listened with a curious mixture of pleasure and of pain. He knew -very well that it was not possible for such people as the Simpsons to -judge his story with as fine artistic perception as that old society -woman who thought he meant to make his characters cheap and ridiculous, -and in the light of this knowledge their praise galled him. But then -came the question whether they could not judge better of its truth and -reality. If he had made a book which appealed to the feeling and -knowledge of the great, simply-conditioned, sound-hearted, -common-schooled American mass whom the Simpsons represented, he had made -his fortune. He put aside that other question, which from time to time -presses upon every artist, whether he would rather please the few who -despise the judgment of the many, or the many who have no taste, but -somehow have in their keeping the touchstone by which a work of art -proves itself a human interest, and not merely a polite pleasure. Ray -could not make this choice. He said dreamily: “If Mr. Brandreth could -only find out how to reach all the Simpsons with it! I believe a -twenty-five-cent paper edition would be the thing after all. I wish you -could tell me just what Mr. and Mrs. Simpson said of the book; and if -you can remember what they disliked as well as what they liked in it.” - -Peace laughed a little. “Oh, they disliked the wicked people. They -thought the hard old father of the heroine was terrible, and was justly -punished by his daughter’s death. At the same time they thought you -ought to have had her revive in time to seize the hero’s hand, when he -is going to shoot himself, and keep him from giving himself a mortal -wound. The cousin ought to get well, too; or else confess before he dies -that he intended to throw the hero over the cliff, so that it could be -made out a case of self-defence. Mr. Simpson says that could be done to -the satisfaction of any jury.” - -Ray laughed too. “Yes. It would have been more popular if it had ended -well.” - -“Perhaps not,” Peace suggested. “Isn’t it the great thing to make people -talk about a book? If it ended well they wouldn’t have half so much to -say as they will now about it.” - -“Perhaps,” Ray assented with meek hopefulness. “But, Peace, what do -_you_ say about it? You’ve never told me that yet. Do you really despise -it so much?” - -“I’ve never said that I despised it.” - -“You’ve never said you didn’t, and by everything that you’ve done, -you’ve left me to think that you do. I know,” said the young man, “that -I’m bringing up associations and recollections that must be painful to -you; they’re painful and humiliating to me. But it seems to me that you -owe me that much.” - -“I owe you much more than that,” said the girl. “Do you think that I -forget--can forget--anything--all that you’ve been to us?” - -“Oh, don’t speak of it!” said Ray. “I didn’t mean that. And you needn’t -tell me now what you think of my book. But sometime you will, won’t -you?” He drew forward a little nearer to her, where they sat in the -light which had begun to wane. “Until then--until then--I want you to -let me be the best friend you have in the world--the best friend I can -be to any one.” - -He stopped for some answer from her, and she said: “No one could be a -truer friend to us than you have been, from the very first. And we have -mixed you up so in our trouble!” - -“Oh, no! But if it’s given me any sort of right to keep on coming to see -Mrs. Denton and you, just as I used?” - -“Why not?” she returned. - - - - -XLII. - - -Ray went home ill at ease with himself. He spent a bad night, and he -seemed to have sunk away only a moment from his troubles, when a knock -at his door brought him up again into the midst of them. He realized -them before he realized the knock sufficiently to call out, “Who’s -there?” - -“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth’s voice without; “you’re not up yet! Can I come -in?” - -“Certainly,” said Ray, and he leaned forward and slid back the bolt of -his door: it was one advantage of a room so small that he could do this -without getting out of bed. - -Mr. Brandreth seemed to beam with one radiance from his silk hat, his -collar, his boots, his scarf, his shining eyes and smooth-shaven -friendly face, as he entered. - -“Of course,” he said, “you haven’t seen the _Metropolis_ yet?” - -“No; what is the matter with the _Metropolis_?” - -Mr. Brandreth, with his perfectly fitted gloves on, and his natty cane -dangling from his wrist, unfolded the supplement of the newspaper, and -accurately folded it again to the lines of the first three columns of -the page. Then he handed it to Ray, and delicately turned away and -looked out of the window. - -Ray glanced at the space defined, and saw that it was occupied by a -review of _A Modern Romeo_. There were lengths of large open type for -the reviewer’s introduction and comments and conclusion, and embedded -among these, in closer and finer print, extracts from the novel, where -Ray saw his own language transfigured and glorified. - -The critic struck in the beginning a note which he sounded throughout; a -cry of relief, of exultation, at what was apparently the beginning of a -new order of things in fiction. He hailed the unknown writer of _A -Modern Romeo_ as the champion of the imaginative and the ideal against -the photographic and the commonplace, and he expressed a pious joy in -the novel as a bold advance in the path that was to lead forever away -from the slough of realism. But he put on a philosophic air in making -the reader observe that it was not absolutely a new departure, a break, -a schism; it was a natural and scientific evolution, it was a -development of the spiritual from the material; the essential part of -realism was there, but freed from the grossness, the dulness of realism -as we had hitherto known it, and imbued with a fresh life. He called -attention to the firmness and fineness with which the situation was -portrayed and the characters studied before the imagination began to -deal with them; and then he asked the reader to notice how, when this -foundation had once been laid, it was made to serve as a -“star-ypointing pyramid” from which the author’s fancy took its bold -flight through realms untravelled by the photographic and the -commonplace. He praised the style of the book, which he said -corresponded to the dual nature of the conception, and recalled -Thackeray in the treatment of persons and things, and Hawthorne in the -handling of motives and ideas. There was, in fact, so much subtlety in -the author’s dealing with these, that one might almost suspect a -feminine touch, but for the free and virile strength shown in the -passages of passion and action. - -The reviewer quoted several of such passages, and Ray followed with a -novel intensity of interest the words he already knew by heart. The -whole episode of throwing the cousin over the cliff was reprinted; but -the parts which the reviewer gave the largest room and the loudest -praise were those embodying the incidents of the hypnotic trance and the -tragical close of the story. Here, he said, was a piece of the most -palpitant actuality, and he applauded it as an instance of how the -imagination might deal with actuality. Nothing in the whole range of -commonplace, photographic, realistic fiction was of such striking effect -as this employment of a scientific discovery in the region of the ideal. -He contended that whatever lingering doubt people might have of the -usefulness of hypnotism as a remedial agent, there could be no question -of the splendid success with which the writer of this remarkable novel -had turned it to account in poetic fiction of a very high grade. He did -not say the highest grade; the book had many obvious faults. It was -evidently the first book of a young writer, whose experience of life had -apparently been limited to a narrow and comparatively obscure field. It -was in a certain sense provincial, even parochial; but perhaps the very -want of an extended horizon had concentrated the author’s thoughts the -more penetratingly on the life immediately at hand. What was important -was that he had seen this life with the vision of an idealist, and had -discerned its poetic uses with the sense of the born artist, and had set -it in - - “The light that never was on sea or land.” - -Much more followed to like effect, and the reviewer closed with a -promise to look with interest for the future performance of a writer who -had already given much more than the promise of mastery; who had given -proofs of it. His novel might not be the great American novel which we -had so long been expecting, but it was a most notable achievement in the -right direction. The author was the prophet of better things; he was a -Moses, who, if we followed him, would lead us up from the flesh-pots of -Realism toward the promised land of the Ideal. - -From time to time Ray made a little apologetic show of not meaning to do -more than glance the review over, but Mr. Brandreth insisted upon his -taking his time and reading it all; he wanted to talk to him about it. -He began to talk before Ray finished; in fact he agonized him with -question and comment, all through; and when Ray laid the paper down at -last, he came and sat on the edge of his bed. - -“Now, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I don’t believe in working on -Sunday, and that sort of thing; but I believe this is providential. My -wife does, too; she says it’s a reward for the faith we’ve had in the -book; and that it would be a sin to lose a moment’s time. If there is to -be any catch-on at all, it must be instantaneous; we mustn’t let the -effect of this review get cold, and I’m going to strike while it’s -red-hot.” The word seem to suggest the magnitude of the purpose which -Mr. Brandreth expressed with seriousness that befitted the day. “I’m -simply going to paint the universe red. You’ll see.” - -“Well, well,” said Ray, “you’d better not tell me how. I guess I’ve got -as much as I can stand, now.” - -“If that book doesn’t succeed,” said Mr. Brandreth, as solemnly as if -registering a vow, “it won’t be my fault.” - -He went away, and Ray passed into a trance such as wraps a fortunate -lover from the outer world. But nothing was further from his thoughts -than love. The passion that possessed him was egotism flattered to an -intensity in which he had no life but in the sense of himself. No -experience could be more unwholesome while it lasted, but a condition so -intense could not endure. His first impulse was to keep away from every -one who could keep him from the voluptuous sense of his own success. He -knew very well that the review in the _Metropolis_ overrated his book, -but he liked it to be overrated; he wilfully renewed his delirium from -it by reading it again and again, over his breakfast, on the train to -the Park, and in the lonely places which he sought out there apart from -all who could know him or distract him from himself. At first it seemed -impossible; at last it became unintelligible. He threw the paper into -some bushes; then after he had got a long way off, he went back and -recovered it, and read the review once more. The sense had returned, the -praises had relumed their fires; again he bathed his spirit in their -splendor. It was he, he, he, of whom those things were said. He tried to -realize it. Who was he? The question scared him; perhaps he was going -out of his mind. At any rate he must get away from himself now; that was -his only safety. He thought whom he should turn to for refuge. There -were still people of his society acquaintance in town, and he could have -had a cup of tea poured for him by a charming girl at any one of a dozen -friendly houses. There were young men, more than enough of them, who -would have welcomed him to their bachelor quarters. There was old Kane. -But they would have all begun to talk to him about that review; Peace -herself would have done so. He ended by going home, and setting to work -on some notices for the next day’s _Every Evening_. The performance was -a play of double consciousness in which he struggled with himself as if -with some alien personality. But the next day he could take the time to -pay Mr. Brandreth a visit without wronging the work he had carried so -far. - -On the way he bought the leading morning papers, and saw that the -publisher had reprinted long extracts from the _Metropolis_ review as -advertisements in the type of the editorial page; in the _Metropolis_ -itself he reprinted the whole review. “This sort of thing will be in the -principal Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis -papers just as soon as the mail can carry them my copy. I _had_ thought -of telegraphing the advertisement, but it will cost money enough as it -is,” said Mr. Brandreth. - -“Are you sure you’re not throwing your money away?” Ray asked, somewhat -aghast. - -“I’m sure I’m not throwing my chance away,” the publisher retorted with -gay courage. He developed the plan of campaign as he had conceived it, -and Ray listened with a kind of nerveless avidity. He looked over at Mr. -Chapley’s room, where he knew that Peace was busily writing, and he -hoped that she did not know that he was there. His last talk with her -had mixed itself up with the intense experience that had followed, and -seemed of one frantic quality with it. He walked out to the street door -with Mr. Brandreth beside him, and did not turn for a glimpse of her. - -“Oh by-the-way,” said the publisher at parting, “if you’d been here a -little sooner, I could have made you acquainted with your reviewer. He -dropped in a little while ago to ask who S. Ray was, and I did my best -to make him believe it was a real name. I don’t think he was more than -half convinced.” - -“I don’t more than half believe in him,” said Ray, lightly, to cover his -disappointment. “Who is he?” - -“Well, their regular man is off on sick leave, and this young -fellow--Worrell is his name--is a sort of under study. He was telling me -how he happened to go in for your book--those things are always -interesting. He meant to take another book up to his house with him, and -he found he had yours when he got home, and some things about hypnotism. -He went through them, and then he thought he would just glance at yours, -anyway, and he opened on the hypnotic trance scene, just when his mind -was full of the subject, and he couldn’t let go. He went back to the -beginning and read it all through, and then he gave you the benefit of -the other fellow’s chance. He wanted to see you, when I told him about -you. Curious how these things fall out, half the time?” - -“Very,” said Ray, rather blankly. - -“I knew you’d enjoy it.” - -“Oh, I do.” - - - - -XLIII. - - -Whether the boom for _A Modern Romeo_ which began with the appearance of -the _Metropolis_ review was an effect of that review or not, no one -acquainted with the caprices of the book trade would undertake to say. -There had been enthusiastic reviews of other books in the _Metropolis_ -which had resulted in no boom whatever, as Kane pointed out in -ironically inviting the author to believe that the success of the book -was due wholly to its merit. - -“And what was its long failure due to?” Ray asked, tasting the bitter of -the suggestion, but feigning unconsciousness. - -“To its demerit.” - -Mr. Brandreth was at first inclined to ascribe the boom to the review; -afterwards he held that it was owing to his own wise and bold use of the -review in advertising. There, he contended, was the true chance, which, -in moments of grateful piety, he claimed that he was inspired to seize. -What is certain is that other friendly reviews began to appear in other -influential journals, in New York and throughout the country. Ray began -to see the book on the news-stands now; he found it in the booksellers’ -windows; once he heard people in an elevated car talking of it; somehow -it was in the air. But how it got in the air, no one could exactly say; -he, least of all. He could put his hand on certain causes, gross, -palpable, like the advertising activities of Mr. Brandreth; but these -had been in effectless operation long before. He could not define the -peculiar attraction that the novel seemed to have, even when frankly -invited to do so by a vivid young girl who wrote New York letters for a -Southern paper, and who came to interview him about it. The most that he -could say was that it had struck a popular mood. She was very grateful -for that idea, and she made much of it in her next letter; but she did -not succeed in analyzing this mood, except as a general readiness for -psychological fiction on the part of a reading public wearied and -disgusted with the realism of the photographic, commonplace school. She -was much more precise in her personal account of Ray; the young novelist -appeared there as a type of manly beauty, as to his face and head, but -of a regrettably low stature, which, however, you did not observe while -he remained seated. It was specially confided to lady readers that his -slightly wavy dark hair was parted in the middle over a forehead as -smooth and pure as a girl’s. The processed reproduction of Ray’s -photograph did not perfectly bear out her encomium; but it was as much -like him as it was like her account of him. His picture began to appear -in many places, with romanced biographies, which made much of the -obscurity of his origin and the struggles of his early life. When it -came to be said that he sprang from the lower classes, it brought him a -letter of indignant protest from his mother, who reminded him that his -father was a physician, and his people had always been educated and -respectable on both sides. She thought that he ought to write to the -papers and stop the injurious paragraph; and he did not wholly convince -her that this was impossible. He could not have made her understand how -in the sudden invasion of publicity his personality had quite passed out -of his own keeping. The interviewers were upon him everywhere: at his -hotel, whose quaintness and foreign picturesqueness they made go far in -their studies of him; at the _Every Evening_ office, where their visits -subjected him to the mockery of his associates on the paper. His chief -was too simple and serious of purpose to take the comic view of Ray’s -celebrity; when he realized it through the frequency of the interviews, -he took occasion to say: “I like your work and I want to keep you. As it -is only a question of time when you will ask an increase of salary, I -prefer to anticipate, and you’ll find it put up in your next check to -the figure which I think the paper ought to stand.” He did not otherwise -recognize the fact of the book’s success, or speak of it; as compared -with his paper, Ray’s book was of no importance to him whatever. - -The interviews were always flattering to Ray’s vanity, in a certain way, -but it was rather wounding to find that most of the interviewers had not -read his book; though they had just got it, or they were going to get it -and read it. In some cases they came to him with poetic preoccupations -from previous interviews with Mr. Brandreth, and he could not disabuse -them of the notion that his literary career had been full of facts much -stranger than fiction. - -“Mr. Brandreth says that if the truth could be told about that book,” -one young lady journalist stated, keeping her blue eyes fixed winningly -upon the author’s, “it would form one of the most dramatic chapters in -the whole history of literature. _Won’t_ you tell _me_ the truth about -it, Mr. Ray?” - -“Why, I don’t know the truth about it myself,” Ray said. - -“Oh, how delightful!” cried the young lady. “I’m going to put _that_ in, -at any rate;” and she continued to work the young author with her -appealing eyes and her unusually intelligent flatteries, until she had -got a great deal more out of him concerning the periculations of his -novel in manuscript than he could have believed himself capable of -telling. - -He went to Mr. Brandreth smarting with a sense of having made a fool of -himself, and, “See here, Brandreth,” he said, “what is so very -remarkably dramatic in the history of a novel kicking about for six -months among the trade?” - -Mr. Brandreth stared at him, and then said, with a flash of -recollection, “Oh! _That_ girl! Well, she was determined to have -_something_ exclusive about the book, and I just threw out the remark. I -wasn’t thinking of your side of the business entirely. Ray, you’re a -good fellow, and I don’t mind telling you that when I chanced it on -this book of yours, it had got to a point with us where we had to chance -it on something. Mr. Chapley had let the publishing interests of the -house go till there was hardly anything of them left; and when he went -up into the country, this spring, he was strongly opposed to my trying -anything in the publishing line. But my wife and I talked it over, and -she saw as well as I did that I should either have to go actively into -the business, or else go out of it. As it stood, it wouldn’t support two -families. So I made up my mind to risk your book. If it had failed it -would have embarrassed me awfully; I don’t say but what I could have -pulled through, but it would have been rough sledding.” - -“That _is_ interesting,” said Ray. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t begin to -pose as your preserver.” - -“Well, it wasn’t quite so bad as that,” Mr. Brandreth gayly protested. -“And at the last moment it might have been some one else. There’s no -reason why I shouldn’t tell you that the night you came and wanted me to -take old Hughes’s book, I talked it very seriously over with my wife, -and we determined that we would look at it in the morning, and perhaps -postpone your novel. We woke the baby up with our talk, and then he woke -us up the rest of the night, and in the morning we were not fit to -grapple with the question, and I took that for a sign and let them go on -with your book. I suppose these things were in my mind when I told that -girl what she repeated to you.” - -“Well, the incidents are dramatic enough,” said Ray, musingly. “Even -tragical.” - -“Yes,” sighed Mr. Brandreth. “I always dreaded to ask you how you made -it right with Mr. Hughes.” - -“Oh, Mrs. Denton made it right with _him_,” Ray scoffed. “I told her how -I failed with you, and she went right to him and said that you had taken -his book and would bring it out at once.” - -Mr. Brandreth looked pained. “Well, I don’t know what to say about that. -But I’m satisfied now that I acted for the best in keeping on with your -book. I’m going to have Mr. Hughes’s carefully examined, though. I -believe there’s the making of another hit in it. By-the-way,” he ended, -cheerily, “you’ll be glad to know that _A Modern Romeo_ has come of age; -we’ve just printed the twenty-first thousand of him.” - -“Is it possible!” said Ray, with well-simulated rapture. With all the -talk there had been about the book, he supposed it had certainly gone to -fifty thousand by this time. - -The sale never really reached that figure. It went to forty two or three -thousand, and there it stopped, and nothing could carry it farther. The -author talked the strange arrest over with the publisher, but they could -arrive at no solution of the mystery. There was no reason why a book -which had been so widely talked about and written about should not keep -on selling indefinitely; there was every reason why it should; but it -did not. Had it, by some process of natural selection, reached exactly -those people who cared for a psychological novel of its peculiar make, -and were there really no more of them than had given it just that vogue? -He sought a law for the fact in vain, in the more philosophical -discussions he held with old Kane, as well as in his inquiries with Mr. -Brandreth. - -Finally, Kane said: “Why do we always seek a law for things? Is there a -law for ourselves? We think so, but it’s out of sight for the most part, -and generally we act from mere caprice, from impulse. I’ve lived a good -many years, but I couldn’t honestly say that I’ve seen the cause -overtaken by the consequence more than two or three times; then it -struck me as rather theatrical. Consequences I’ve seen a plenty, but not -causes. Perhaps this is merely a sphere of ultimations. We used to -flatter ourselves, in the simple old days, when we thought we were all -miserable sinners, that we were preparing tremendous effects, to follow -elsewhere, by what we said and did here. But what if the things that -happen here are effects initiated elsewhere?” - -“It’s a very pretty conjecture,” said Ray, “but it doesn’t seem to have -a very direct bearing on the falling off in the sale of _A Modern -Romeo_.” - -“Everything in the universe is related to that book, if you could only -see it properly. If it has stopped selling, it is probably because the -influence of some favorable star, extinguished thousands of years ago, -has just ceased to reach this planet.” - -Kane had the air of making a mental note after he said this, and Ray -began to laugh. “There ought to be money in that,” he said. - -“No, there is no money in Hard Sayings,” Kane returned, sadly; “there is -only--wisdom.” - -Ray was by no means discouraged with his failures to divine the reason -for the arrested sale of his book. At heart he was richly satisfied with -its success, and he left the public without grudging, to their belief -that it had sold a hundred and fifty thousand. Mr. Brandreth was -satisfied, too. He believed that the sale would pick up again in the -fall after people got back from the country; he had discovered that the -book had enduring qualities; but now the question was, what was Ray -going to write next? “You ought to strike while the iron’s hot, you -know.” - -“Of course, I’ve been thinking about that,” the young fellow admitted, -“and I believe I’ve got a pretty good scheme for a novel.” - -“Could you give me some notion of it?” - -“No, I couldn’t. It hasn’t quite crystallized in my mind yet. And I -don’t believe it will, somehow, till I get a name for it.” - -“Have you thought of a name?” - -“Yes--half-a-dozen that won’t do.” - -“There’s everything in a name,” said the publisher. “I believe it made -the _Modern Romeo’s_ fortune.” - -Ray mused a moment. “How would _A Rose by any other Name_ do?” - -“That’s rather attractive,” said Mr. Brandreth. “Well, anyway, remember -that we are to have the book.” - -Ray hesitated. “Well--not on those old ten-percent. terms, Brandreth.” - -“Oh, I think we can arrange the terms all right,” said Mr. Brandreth. - -“Because I can do much better, you know.” - -“Oh, they’ve been after you, have they?” - -The young fellow held up the fingers of one hand. - -“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, “your next book belongs to Chapley & Co. You -want to keep your books together. One will help sell the other. _A Rose -by any other Name_ will wake up _A Modern Romeo_ when it comes out.” - - - - -XLIV. - - -For Peace Hughes and her sister, the summer passed uneventfully. The -girl made up for the time she had lost earlier in the year by doing -double duty at the increased business of the publishing house. The -prosperity of _A Modern Romeo_ had itself added to her work, and the new -enterprises which its success had inspired Mr. Brandreth to consider -meant more letter-writing and more formulation of the ideas which he -struck shapelessly if boldly out. He trusted her advice as well as her -skill, and she had now become one of the regular readers for Chapley & -Co. - -Ray inferred this from the number of manuscripts which he saw on her -table at home, and he could not help knowing the other things through -his own acquaintance, which was almost an intimacy, with Mr. Brandreth’s -affairs. The publisher was always praising her. “Talk about men!” he -broke out one day. “That girl has a better business head than half the -business men in New York. If she were not a woman, it would be only a -question of time when we should have to offer her a partnership, or run -the risk of losing her. But there’s only one kind of partnership you can -offer a woman.” Ray flushed, but he did not say anything, and Mr. -Brandreth asked, apparently from some association in his mind, “Do you -see much of them at their new place?” - -“Yes; I go there every week or so.” - -“How are they getting on?” - -“Very well, I believe.” Ray mused a moment, and then he said: “If it -were not contrary to all our preconceptions of a sort of duty in people -who have been through what they have been through, I should say they -were both happier than I ever saw them before. I don’t think Mrs. Denton -cared a great deal for her children or husband, but in her father’s last -days he wouldn’t have anybody else about him. She strikes one like a -person who would get married again.” - -Mr. Brandreth listened with the air of one trying to feel shocked; but -he smiled. - -“I don’t blame her,” Ray continued. “Perhaps old Kane’s habit of not -blaming people is infectious. She once accounted for herself on the -ground that she didn’t make herself; I suppose it might be rather -dangerous ground if people began to take it generally. But Miss Hughes -did care for those poor little souls and for that wretched creature, and -now the care’s gone, and the relief has come. They both miss their -father; but he was doomed; he _had_ to die; and besides, his fatherhood -struck me as being rather thin, at times, from having been spread out -over a community so long. I can’t express it exactly, but it seems to me -that the children of a man who is trying to bring about a millennium of -any kind do not have a good time. Still, I suppose we must have the -millenniums.” - -“You said that just like old Kane,” Mr. Brandreth observed. - -“Did I? I just owned he was infectious. If I’ve caught his habit of -mind, I dare say I’ve caught his accent. I don’t particularly admire -either. But what I mean is that Miss Hughes and her sister are getting -on very comfortably and sweetly. Their place is as homelike as any I -know in New York.” - -“As soon as we get back in the fall, Mrs. Brandreth is going to call on -them. Now that Mr. Chapley and Mr. Hughes are out of the way, there’s no -reason why we shouldn’t show them some attention. Miss Hughes, at least, -is a perfect lady. I’m going to see that she doesn’t overwork; the -success of _A Modern Romeo_ has killed us nearly all; I’m going to give -her a three weeks’ vacation toward the end of August.” - -Ray called upon Peace one evening in the beginning of her vacation, and -found her with the manuscript of a book before her; Mrs. Denton was -sitting with the Simpsons on their front steps, and sent him on up to -Peace when he declined to join her there. - -He said, “I supposed I should find you reading up the Adirondack -guide-books, or trying to decide between Newport and Saratoga. I don’t -see how your outing differs very much from your inning.” - -“This was only a book I brought home because I had got interested in -it,” the girl explained in self-defence. “We’re not going away -anywhere.” - -“I think I would stay myself,” said Ray, “if it were not for wanting to -see my family. My vacation begins to-morrow.” - -“Does it?” - -“Yes; and I should be very willing to spend my fortnight excursioning -around New York. But I’m off at once to-night; I came in to say good-by. -I hope you’ll miss me.” - -“We shall miss you very much,” she said; and she added, “I suppose most -of our fashionable friends have gone out of town.” - -“Have they?” - -“I should think you would know. We had them at second-hand from you.” - -“Oh! Those?” said Ray. “Yes. They’re gone, and I’m going. I hate to -leave you behind. Have you any message for the country?” - -“Only my love.” She faced the manuscript down on the table before her, -and rocked softly to and fro a moment. “It does make me a little -homesick to think of it,” she said, with touching patience. - -He felt the forlornness in her accent, and a sense of her isolation -possessed him. When Mrs. Denton should marry again, Peace would be alone -in the world. He looked at her, and she seemed very little and slight, -to make her way single-handed. - -“Peace!” he said, and the intensity of his voice startled him. “There is -something I wanted to say to you--to ask you,” and he was aware of her -listening as intensely as he spoke, though no change of attitude or -demeanor betrayed the fact; he had to go on in a lighter strain if he -went on at all. “You know, I suppose, what a rich man I am going to be -when I get the copyright on my book. It’s almost incredible, but I’m -going to be worth five or six thousand dollars; to be as rich as most -millionaires. Well--I asked you to let me be your friend once, because I -didn’t think a man who was turning out a failure had the right to ask to -be more. Or, no! That _isn’t_ it!” he broke off, shocked by the false -ring of his words. “I don’t know how to say it. I was in love once--very -much in love; the kind of love that I’ve put into my book; and -this--this worship that I have for you, for I do worship you!--it isn’t -the same, Peace. It’s everything that honors you, and once it _was_ like -that; but now I’m not sure. But I couldn’t go away without offering you -my worship, for you to accept for all our lives; or reject, if it wasn’t -enough. Do you understand?” - -“I do understand,” the girl returned, and she nervously pressed the hand -which she allowed to gather hers into it. - -“I couldn’t leave you,” he went on, “without telling you that there is -no one in the world that I honor so much as you. I had it in my heart to -say this long ago; but it seems such a strange thing to stop with. If I -didn’t think you so wise and so good, I don’t believe I could say it to -you. I know that now whatever you decide will be right, and the best for -us both. I couldn’t bear to have you suppose I would keep coming to see -you without--I would have told you this long ago, but I always expected -to tell you more. But I’m twenty-six now, and perhaps I shall never -feel in that old way again. I _know_ our lives would be united in the -highest things; and you would save me from living for myself alone. What -do you say, Peace?” - -He waited for her to break the silence which he did not know how to -interpret. At last she said “No!” and she drew back from him and took -her hand away. “It wouldn’t be right. I shouldn’t be afraid to trust -you”---- - -“Then why”---- - -“For I know how faithful you are. But I’m afraid--I _know_--I don’t love -you! And without that it would be a sacrilege. That isn’t enough of -itself, but everything else would be nothing without it.” As if she felt -the wound her words must have dealt to his self-love, she hurried on: “I -did love you once. Yes! I did. And when Mr. Brandreth wanted me to read -your book that time, I wouldn’t, because I was afraid of myself. But -afterwards it--went.” - -“Was it my fault?” Ray asked. - -“It wasn’t any one’s fault,” said the girl. “If I had not been so -unhappy, it might have been different.” - -“Oh, Peace!” - -“But I had no heart for it. And now my life must go on just as it is. I -have thought it all out. I thought that some time you might tell -me--what you have--or different--and I tried to think what I ought to -do. I shall never care for any one else; I shall never get married. -Don’t think I shall be unhappy! I can take good care of myself, and -Jenny and I will not be lonesome together. Even if we don’t always live -together--still, I can always make myself a home. I’m not afraid to be -an old maid. There is work in the world for me to do, and I can do it. -Is it so strange I should be saying this?” - -“No, no. It’s right.” - -“I suppose that most of the girls you know wouldn’t do it. But I have -been brought up differently. In the Family they did not think that -marriage was always the best thing; and when I saw how Jenny and -Ansel--I don’t mean that it would ever have been like that! But I don’t -wish you to think that life will be hard or unhappy for me. And you--you -will find somebody that you can feel towards as you did towards that -first girl.” - -“Never! I shall never care for any one again!” he cried. At the bottom -of his heart there was a relief which he tried to ignore, though he -could not deny himself a sense of the unique literary value of the -situation. It was from a consciousness of this relief that he asked, -“And what do you think of me, Peace? Do you blame me?” - -“Blame you? How? For my having changed?” - -“I feel to blame,” said the young man. “How shall we do, now? Shall I -come to see you when I return?” - -“Yes. But we won’t speak of this again.” - -“Shall you tell Mrs. Denton?” - -“Of course.” - -“She will blame me.” - -“She will blame _me_,” said Peace. “But--I shall not be troubled, and -you mustn’t,” she said, and she lightly touched him. “This is just as I -wish it to be. I’ve been afraid that if this ever happened, I shouldn’t -have the courage to tell you what I have. But you helped me, and I am so -glad you did! I was afraid you would say something that would blind me, -and keep me from going on in the right way; but now--Good-night.” - -“Good-night,” said Ray, vaguely. “May I--dream of you, Peace?” - -“If you’ll stop at daybreak.” - -“Ah, then I shall begin to think of you.” - - - - -XLV. - - -They had certainly come to an understanding, and for Ray at least there -was release from the obscure sense of culpability which had so long -harassed him. He knew that unless he was sure of his love for Peace, he -was to blame for letting her trust it; but now that he had spoken, and -spoken frankly, it had freed them both to go on and be friends without -fear for each other. Her confession that there had been a time when she -loved him flattered his vanity out of the pain of knowing that she did -not love him now; it consoled him, it justified him; for the offence -which he had accused himself of was of no other kind than hers. How -wisely, how generously she had taken the whole matter! - -The question whether she had not taken it more generously than he -merited began to ask itself. She might have chosen to feign a parity -with him in this. He had read of women who sacrificed their love to -their love; and consented to a life-long silence, or practised a -life-long deceit, that the men they loved might never know they loved -them. He had never personally known of such a case, but the books were -full of such cases. This might be one of them. Or it might much more -simply and probably be that she had received his strange declaration as -she did in order to spare his feelings. If that were true she had -already told her sister, and Mrs. Denton had turned the absurd side of -it to the light, and had made Peace laugh it over with her. - -A cold perspiration broke out over him at the notion, which he rejected -upon a moment’s reflection as unworthy of Peace. He got back to his -compassionate admiration of her, as he walked down to the ferry and -began his homeward journey. He looked about the boat, and fancied it the -same he had crossed to New York in, when he came to the city nearly a -year before. The old negro who whistled, limped silently through the -long saloon; he glanced from right to left on the passengers, but he -must have thought them too few, or not in the mood for his music. Ray -wondered if he whistled only for the incoming passengers. He recalled -every circumstance of his acquaintance with Peace, from the moment she -caught his notice when Mrs. Denton made her outcry about the -pocket-book. He saw how once it had seemed to deepen to love, and then -had ceased to do so, but he did not see how. There had been everything -in it to make them more to each other, but after a certain time they had -grown less. It was not so strange to him that he had changed; he had -often changed; but we suppose a constancy in others as to all passions -which we cannot exact of ourselves. He tried to think what he had done -to alienate the love which she confessed she once had for him, and he -could not remember anything unless it was his cruelty to her when he -found that she was the friend who would not look at his story a second -time. She said she had forgiven him that; but perhaps she had not; -perhaps she had divined a potential brutality in him, which made her -afraid to trust him. But after that their lives had been united in the -most intimate anxieties, and she had shown absolute trust in him. He -reviewed his conduct toward her throughout, and he could find no blame -in it except for that one thing. He could truly feel that he had been -her faithful friend, and the friend of her whole uncomfortable family, -in spite of all his prejudices and principles against people of that -kind. In the recognition of this fact he enjoyed a moment’s sense of -injury, which was heightened when he reflected that he had even been -willing to sacrifice his pride, after his brilliant literary success, so -far as to offer himself to a girl who worked for her living; it had -always galled him that she held a place little better than a -type-writer’s. No, he had nothing to accuse himself of, after a scrutiny -of his behavior repeated in every detail, and applied in complex, again -and again, with helpless iteration. Still he had a remote feeling of -self-reproach, which he tried to verify, but which forever eluded him. -It was mixed up with that sense of escape, which made him ashamed. - -He lay awake in the sleeping-car the greater part of the night, and -turned from side to side, seeking for the reason of a thing that can -never have any reason, and trying to find some parity between his -expectations and experiences of himself in such an affair. It went -through his mind that it would be a good thing to write a story with -some such situation in it; only the reader would not stand it. People -expected love to begin mysteriously, but they did not like it to end so; -though life itself began mysteriously and ended so. He believed that he -should really try it; a story that opened with an engagement ought to be -as interesting as one that closed with an engagement; and it would be -very original. He must study his own affair very closely when he got a -little further away from it. There was no doubt but that when the -chances that favored love were so many and so recognizable, the chance -that undid it could at last be recognized. It was merely a chance, and -that ought to be shown. - -He began to wonder if life had not all been a chance with him. Nothing, -not even the success of his book, in the light he now looked at it in, -was the result of reasoned cause. That success had happened; it had not -followed; and he didn’t deserve any praise for what had merely happened. -If this apparent fatality were confined to the economic world alone, he -would have been willing to censure civilization, and take his chance -dumbly, blindly, with the rest. He had not found it so. On the contrary, -he had found the same caprice, the same rule of mere casualty, in the -world which we suppose to be ordered by law--the world of thinking, the -world of feeling. Who knew why or how this or that thought came, this or -that feeling? Then, in that world where we lived in the spirit, was -wrong always punished, was right always rewarded? We must own that we -often saw the good unhappy, and the wicked enjoying themselves. This was -not just; yet somehow we felt, we knew, that justice ruled the universe. -Nothing, then, that seemed chance was really chance. It was the -operation of a law so large that we caught a glimpse of its vast orbit -once or twice in a lifetime. It was Providence. - -The car rushed on through the night with its succession of smooth -impulses. The thought of the old friends he should soon meet began to -dispossess the cares and questions that had ridden him; the notion of -certain girls at Midland haunted him sweetly, warmly. He told that one -who first read his story all about Peace Hughes, and she said they had -never really been in love, for love was eternal. After a while he -drowsed, and then he heard her saying that he had got that notion of the -larger law from old Kane. Then it was not he, and not she. It was -nothing. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD OF CHANCE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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D. Howells</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The World of Chance</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: W. D. Howells</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 21, 2021 [eBook #66584]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD OF CHANCE ***</div> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="c"> -<a href="images/cover.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="500" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<h1>THE WORLD OF CHANCE</h1> - -<p class="c"><span class="eng"><b>A Novel</b></span> -<br /><br /> - -BY<br /><br /> - -W. D. H O W E L L S<br /> -<small> -AUTHOR OF “A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES”<br /> -“THE QUALITY OF MERCY” ETC.</small><br /><br /> - -<img src="images/colophon.png" -width="80" -alt="" /> -<br /><br /> - -NEW YORK<br /> -HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> -1893</p> - -<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="deprecated"> - -<tr><td class="c" colspan="2">WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS’S NOVELS.<br /> -<i>UNIFORM LIBRARY EDITION.</i><br /> -Post 8vo, Cloth.</td></tr> - -<tr valign="top" style="text-align:left; -font-size:80%;"><td> -THE WORLD OF CHANCE. $1 50.<br /> -THE QUALITY OF MERCY. $1 50.<br /> -AN IMPERATIVE DUTY. $1 00.<br /> -THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. $1 00.</td> -<td style="border-left:1px solid black;"> -A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 2 Vols., $2 00.<br /> -ANNIE KILBURN. $1 50.<br /> -APRIL HOPES. $1 50.</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="c" colspan="2"> -<span class="smcap">Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.</span> -</td></tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c"><small>Copyright, 1893, by <span class="smcap">William Dean Howells</span>.<br /> -———<br /> -Electrotyped by <span class="smcap">S. J. Parkhill & Co.</span>, -Boston.</small></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p> - -<h1>THE WORLD OF CHANCE.</h1> - -<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="deprecated"> -<tr><td> -<a href="#I">CHAPTER I., </a> -<a href="#II">II., </a> -<a href="#III">III., </a> -<a href="#IV">IV., </a> -<a href="#V">V., </a> -<a href="#VI">VI., </a> -<a href="#VII">VII., </a> -<a href="#VIII">VIII., </a> -<a href="#IX">IX., </a> -<a href="#X">X., </a> -<a href="#XI">XI., </a> -<a href="#XII">XII., </a> -<a href="#XIII">XIII., </a> -<a href="#XIV">XIV., </a> -<a href="#XV">XV., </a> -<a href="#XVI">XVI., </a> -<a href="#XVII">XVII., </a> -<a href="#XVIII">XVIII., </a> -<a href="#XIX">XIX., </a> -<a href="#XX">XX., </a> -<a href="#XXI">XXI., </a> -<a href="#XXII">XXII., </a> -<a href="#XXIII">XXIII., </a> -<a href="#XXIV">XXIV., </a> -<a href="#XXV">XXV., </a> -<a href="#XXVI">XXVI., </a> -<a href="#XXVII">XXVII., </a> -<a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII., </a> -<a href="#XXIX">XXIX., </a> -<a href="#XXX">XXX., </a> -<a href="#XXXI">XXXI., </a> -<a href="#XXXII">XXXII., </a> -<a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII., </a> -<a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV., </a> -<a href="#XXXV">XXXV., </a> -<a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI., </a> -<a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII., </a> -<a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII., </a> -<a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX., </a> -<a href="#XL">XL., </a> -<a href="#XLI">XLI., </a> -<a href="#XLII">XLII., </a> -<a href="#XLIII">XLIII., </a> -<a href="#XLIV">XLIV., </a> -<a href="#XLV">XLV., </a> -</td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">From</span> the club where the farewell dinner was given him, Ray went to the -depot of the East & West Railroad with a friend of his own age, and they -walked up and down the platform talking of their lives and their loves, -as young men do, till they both at once found themselves suddenly very -drowsy. They each pretended not to be so; his friend made a show of not -meaning to leave him till the through express should come along at two -o’clock and pick up the sleeping-car waiting for it on the side track; -and Ray feigned that he had no desire to turn in, but would much rather -keep walking and talking.</p> - -<p>They got rid of each other at last, and Ray hurried aboard his sleeper, -and plunged into his berth as soon as he could get his coat and boots -off. Then he found himself very wakeful. The soporific first effect of -the champagne had passed, but it still sent the blood thumping in his -neck and pounding in his ears as he lay smiling and thinking of the -honor that had been done him, and the affection that had been shown him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span> -by his fellow-townsmen. In the reflected light of these the future -stretched brightly before him. He scarcely felt it a hardship any more -that he should be forced to leave Midland by the business change which -had thrown him out of his place on the Midland <i>Echo</i>, and he certainly -did not envy the friend who had just parted from him, and who was going -to remain with the new owners. His mind kept, in spite of him, a sort of -grudge toward the Hanks Brothers who had bought the paper, and who had -thought they must reduce the editorial force as a first step towards -making the property pay. He could not say that they had treated him -unfairly or unkindly; they had been very frank and very considerate with -him; but he could not conceal from himself the probability that if they -had really appreciated him they would have seen that it would be a -measure of the highest wisdom to keep him. He had given the paper -standing and authority in certain matters; he knew that; and he smiled -to think of Joe Hanks conducting his department. He hoped the estimation -in which the dinner showed that his fellow-citizens held him, had done -something to open the eyes of the brothers to the mistake they had made; -they were all three at the dinner, and Martin Hanks had made a speech -expressive of regard and regret which did not reconcile Ray to them. He -now tried to see them as benefactors in disguise, and when he recalled -the words of people who said that they always thought he was thrown away -on a daily paper, he was willing to acknowledge that the Hankses had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> -probably, at least, not done him an injury. He had often been sensible -himself of a sort of incongruity in using up in ephemeral paragraphs, -and even leading articles, the mind-stuff of a man who had published -poems in the <i>Century</i> Bric-à-brac and <i>Harper’s</i> Drawer, and had for -several years had a story accepted by the <i>Atlantic</i>, though not yet -printed. With the manuscript of the novel which he was carrying to New -York, and the four or five hundred dollars he had saved from his salary, -he felt that he need not undertake newspaper work at once again. He -meant to make a thorough failure of literature first. There would be -time enough then to fall back upon journalism, as he could always do.</p> - -<p>He counted a good deal upon his novel in certain moods. He knew it had -weak points which he was not able to strengthen because he was too -ignorant of life, though he hated to own it; but he thought it had some -strong ones too; and he believed it would succeed if he could get a -publisher for it.</p> - -<p>He had read passages of it to his friend, and Sanderson had praised -them. Ray knew he had not entered fully into the spirit of the thing, -because he was merely and helplessly a newspaper mind, though since Ray -had left the <i>Echo</i>, Sanderson had talked of leaving it too, and going -on to devote himself to literature in New York. Ray knew he would fail, -but he encouraged him because he was so fond of him; he thought now what -a good, faithful fellow Sanderson was. Sanderson not only praised the -novel to its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span> author, but he celebrated it to the young ladies. They all -knew that Ray had written it, and several of them spoke to him about it; -they said they were just dying to see it. One of them had seen it, and -when he asked her what she thought of his novel, in the pretence that he -did not imagine she had looked at the manuscript, it galled him a little -to have her say that it was like Thackeray; he knew he had imitated -Thackeray, but he feigned that he did not know; and he hoped no one else -would see it. She recognized traits that he had drawn from himself, and -he did not like that, either; in the same way that he feigned not to -know that he had imitated Thackeray, he feigned not to know that he had -drawn his own likeness. But the sum of what she said gave him great -faith in himself, and in his novel. He theorized that if its subtleties -of thought and its flavors of style pleased a girl like her, and at the -same time a fellow like Sanderson was taken with the plot, he had got -the two essentials of success in it. He thought how delicately charming -that girl was; still he knew that he was not in love with her. He -thought how nice girls were, anyway; there were lots of perfectly -delightful girls in Midland, and he should probably have fallen in love -with some of them if it had not been for that long passion of his early -youth, which seemed to have vastated him before he came there. He was -rather proud of his vastation, and he found it not only fine, but upon -the whole very convenient, to be going away heart-free.</p> - -<p>He had no embarrassing ties, no hindering obliga<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span>tions of any kind. He -had no one but himself to look out for in seeking his fortune. His -father, after long years of struggle, was very well placed in the little -country town which Ray had come from to Midland; his brothers had struck -out for themselves farther west; one of his sisters was going to be -married; the other was at school. None of them needed his help, or was -in anywise dependent upon him. He realized, in thinking of it all, that -he was a very lucky fellow; and he was not afraid but he should get on -if he kept trying, and if he did his best, the chances were that it -would be found out. He lay in his berth, with a hopeful and flattered -smile on his lips, and listened to the noises of the station: the feet -on the platforms; the voices, as from some disembodied life; the clang -of engine bells; the jar and clash and rumble of the trains that came -and went, with a creaking and squealing of their slowing or starting -wheels, while his sleeper was quietly side-tracked, waiting for the -express to arrive and pick it up. He felt a sort of slight for the town -he was to leave behind; a sort of contemptuous fondness; for though it -was not New York, it had used him well; it had appreciated him, and Ray -was not ungrateful. Upon the whole, he was glad that he had agreed to -write those letters from New York which the Hanks Brothers had finally -asked him to do for the <i>Echo</i>. He knew that they had asked him under a -pressure of public sentiment, and because they had got it through them -at last that other people thought he would be a loss to the paper. He -liked well enough the notion of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span> keeping the readers of the <i>Echo</i> in -mind of him; if he failed to capture New York, Midland would always be a -good point to fall back upon. He expected his novel to succeed, and then -he should be independent. But till then, the five dollars a week which -the Hanks Brothers proposed to pay him for his letters would be very -convenient, though the sum was despicable in itself. Besides, he could -give up the letters whenever he liked. He had his dreams of fame and -wealth, but he knew very well that they were dreams, and he was not -going to kick over his basket of glass till they had become realities.</p> - -<p>A keen ray from one of the electric moons depending from the black roof -of the depot suddenly pierced his window at the side of his drawn -curtain; and he felt the car jolted backward. He must have been -drowsing, for the express had come in unknown to him, and was picking up -his sleeper. With a faint thrill of homesickness for the kindly town he -was leaving, he felt the train pull forward and so out of its winking -lamps into the night. He held his curtain aside to see the last of these -lights. Then, with a luxurious sense of helplessness against fate, he -let it fall; and Midland slipped back into the irrevocable past.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next evening, under a rich, mild October sky, the train drew in -towards New York over a long stretch of trestle-work spanning a New -Jersey estuary. Ray had thriftily left his sleeper at the station where -he breakfasted, and saved the expense of it for the day’s journey by -taking an ordinary car. He could be free with his dollars when he did -not suppose he might need them; but he thought he should be a fool to -throw one of them away on the mere self-indulgence of a sleeper through -to New York, when he had no use for it more than half way. He -experienced the reward of virtue in the satisfaction he felt at having -that dollar still in his pocket; and he amused himself very well in -making romances about the people who got on and off at different points -throughout the day. He read a good deal in a book he had brought with -him, and imagined a review of it. He talked with passengers who shared -his seat with him, from time to time. He ate ravenously at the station -where the train stopped twenty minutes for dinner, and he took little -supernumerary naps during the course of the afternoon, and pieced out -the broken and abbreviated slumbers of the night. From the last of these -naps he woke with a sort of formless alarm, which he identified<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> -presently as the anxiety he must naturally feel at drawing so near the -great, strange city which had his future in keeping. He was not so -hopeful as he was when he left Midland; but he knew he had really no -more cause now than he had then for being less so.</p> - -<p>The train was at a station. Before it started, a brakeman came in and -called out in a voice of formal warning: “This train express to Jersey -City. Passengers for way stations change cars. This train does not stop -between here and Jersey City.”</p> - -<p>He went out and shut the door behind him, and at the same time a young -woman with a baby in her arms jumped from her seat and called out, “Oh, -dear, what did he say?”</p> - -<p>Another young woman, with another baby in her arms, rose and looked -round, but she did not say anything. She had the place in front of the -first, and their two seats were faced, as if the two young women were -travelling together. Ray noted, with the interest that he felt in all -young women as the elements both of love and of literature, that they -looked a good deal alike, as to complexion and feature. The distraction -of the one who rose first seemed to communicate itself to her dull, -golden-brown hair, and make a wisp of it come loose from the knot at the -back of her head, and stick out at one side. The child in her arms was -fretful, and she did not cease to move it to and fro and up and down, -even in the panic which brought her to her feet. Her demand was launched -at the whole carful of passengers, but one old man answered for all:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> -“He said, this train doesn’t stop till it gets to Jersey City.”</p> - -<p>The young woman said, “Oh!” and she and the other sat down again, and -she stretched across the fretful child which clung to her, and tried to -open her window. She could not raise it, and the old man who had -answered her question lifted it for her. Then she sank back in her seat, -and her sister, if it was her sister, leaned forward, and seemed to -whisper to her. She put up her hand and thrust the loosened wisp of her -hair back into the knot. To do this she gave the child the pocket-book -which she seemed to have been holding, and she did not take it away -again. The child stopped fretting, and began to pull at its play-thing -to get it open; then it made aimless dabs with it at the back of the car -seat and at its mother’s face. She moved her head patiently from side to -side to escape the blows; and the child entered with more zest into the -sport, and began to laugh and strike harder. Suddenly, mid-way of the -long trestle-work, the child turned towards the window and made a dab at -the sail of a passing sloop. The pocket-book flew from its hand, and the -mother sprang to her feet again with a wail that filled the car. “Oh, -what shall I do! He’s thrown my pocket-book out of the window, and it’s -got every cent of my money in it. Oh, couldn’t they stop the train?”</p> - -<p>The child began to cry. The passengers all looked out of the windows on -that side of the aisle; and Ray could see the pocket-book drifting by in -the water. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span> brakeman whom the young woman’s lamentation had called to -the rescue, passed through the car with a face of sarcastic compassion, -and spoke to the conductor entering from the other end. The conductor -shook his head; the train kept moving slowly on. Of course it was -impossible and useless to stop. The young women leaned forward and -talked anxiously together, as Ray could see from his distant seat; they -gave the conductor their tickets, and explained to him what had -happened; he only shook his head again.</p> - -<p>When he came to get Ray’s ticket, the young fellow tried to find out -something about them from him.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I guess she told the truth. She had all her money, ten dollars and -some change, in that pocket-book, and of course she gave it to her baby -to play with right by an open window. Just like a woman! They’re just -about as <i>fit</i> as babies to handle money. If they had to earn it, they’d -be different. Some poor fellow’s week’s work was in that pocket-book, -like as not. They don’t look like the sort that would have a great deal -of money to throw out of the window, if they was men.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know where they’re going?” Ray asked. “Are they going on any -further?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no. They live in New York. ’Way up on the East Side somewhere.”</p> - -<p>“But how will they get there with those two babies? They can’t walk.”</p> - -<p>The conductor shrugged. “Guess they’ll have to try it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Look here!” said Ray. He took a dollar note out of his pocket, and gave -it to the conductor. “Find out whether they’ve got any change, and if -they haven’t, tell them one of the passengers wanted them to take this -for car fares. Don’t tell them which one.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said the conductor.</p> - -<p>He passed into the next car. When he came back Ray saw him stop and -parley with the young women. He went through the whole train again -before he stopped for a final word with Ray, who felt that he had -entered into the poetry of his intentions towards the women, and had -made these delays and detours of purpose. He bent over Ray with a -detached and casual air, and said:</p> - -<p>“Every cent they had was in that pocket-book. Only wonder is they hadn’t -their tickets there, too. They didn’t want to take the dollar, but I -guess they had to. They live ’way up on Third Avenue about Hundred and -First Street; and the one that gave her baby her money to hold looks all -played out. They <i>couldn’t</i> have walked it. I told ’em the dollar was -from a lady passenger. Seemed as if it would make it kind of easier for -’em.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that was, right,” said Ray.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> they stopped in Jersey City, Ray made haste out of the car to see -what became of his beneficiaries, and he followed closely after them, -and got near them on the ferry-boat. They went forward out of the cabin -and stood among the people at the bow who were eager to get ashore -first. They each held her heavy baby, and silently watched the New York -shore, and scarcely spoke.</p> - -<p>Ray looked at it too, with a sense of the beauty struggling through the -grotesqueness of the huge panorama, and evoking itself somehow from the -grossest details. The ferry-boats coming and going; the great barges -with freight trains in sections on them; the canal-boats in tow of the -river steamers; the shabby sloops slouching by with their sails -half-filled by the flagging breeze; the ships lying at anchor in the -stream, and wooding the shore with their masts, which the coastwise -steamboats stared out of like fantastic villas, all window-shutters and -wheel-houses; the mean, ugly fronts and roofs of the buildings beyond, -and hulking high overhead in the further distance in vast bulks and -clumsy towers, the masses of those ten-storied edifices which are the -necessity of commerce and the despair of art, all helped to compose the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> -brutal and stupid body of the thing, whose soul was collectively -expressed in an incredible picturesqueness. Ray saw nothing amiss in it. -This agglomeration of warring forms, feebly typifying the ugliness of -the warring interests within them, did not repulse him. He was not -afraid. He took a new grip of the travelling-bag where he had his -manuscript, so that he should not be parted from it for a moment till it -went into some publisher’s keeping. He would not trust it to the trunk -which he had checked at Midland, and which he now recognized among the -baggage piled on a truck near him. He fingered the outside of his bag to -make sure by feeling its shape that his manuscript was all right within. -All the time he was aware of those two young women, each with her baby -in her arms, which they amused with various devices, telling them to -look at the water, the craft going by, and the horses in the wagon-way -of the ferry-boat. The children fretted, and pulled the women’s hair, -and clawed their hats; and the passengers now and then looked -censoriously at them. From time to time the young women spoke to each -other spiritlessly. The one whose child had thrown her pocket-book away -never lost a look of hopeless gloom, as she swayed her body half round -and back, to give some diversion to the baby. Both were pretty, but she -had the paleness and thinness of young motherhood; the other, though she -was thin too, had the fresh color and firm texture of a young girl; she -was at once less tragic and more serious than her sister, if it was her -sister.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> When she found Ray gazing fixedly at her, she turned discreetly -away, after a glance that no doubt took in the facts of his neat, -slight, rather undersized person; his regular face, with its dark eyes -and marked brows; his straight fine nose and pleasant mouth; his -sprouting black moustache, and his brown tint, flecked with a few -browner freckles.</p> - -<p>He was one of those men who have no vanity concerning their persons; he -knew he was rather handsome, but he did not care; his mind was on other -things. When he found those soft woman-eyes lingering a moment on him he -had the wish to please their owner, of course, but he did not think of -his looks, or the effect they might have with her. He fancied knowing -her well enough to repeat poetry to her, or of reading some favorite -author aloud with her, and making her sympathize in his admiration of -the book. He permitted his fancy this liberty because, although he -supposed her married, his fancy safely operated their intellectual -intimacy in a region as remote from experience as the dreamland of -sleep. She and her sister had both a sort of refinement; they were -ladies, he felt, although they were poorly dressed, and they somehow did -not seem as if they had ever been richly dressed. They had not the New -Yorkeress air; they had nothing of the stylishness which Ray saw in the -other women about him, shabby or splendid; their hats looked as if they -had been trimmed at home, and their simple gowns as if their wearers had -invented and made them up themselves, after no decided fashion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span> but -after a taste of their own, which he thought good. He began to make -phrases about them to himself, and he said there was something -pathetically idyllic about them. The phrase was indefinite, but it was -sufficiently clear for his purpose. The baby which had thrown away the -pocket-book began to express its final dissatisfaction with the -prospect, and its mother turned distractedly about for some new -diversion, when there came from the ladies’ cabin a soft whistle, like -the warbling of a bird, low and rich and full, which possessed itself of -the sense to the exclusion of all other sounds. Some of the people -pressed into the cabin; others stood smiling in the benediction of the -artless strain. Ray followed his idyllic sisters within, and saw an old -negro, in the middle of the cabin floor, lounging in an easy pose, with -his hat in one hand and the other hand on his hip, while his thick lips -poured out those mellow notes, which might have come from the heart of -some thrush-haunted wild wood. When the sylvan music ceased, and the old -negro, with a roll of his large head, and a twist of his burly shape, -began to limp round the circle, every one put something in his hat. Ray -threw in a nickel, and he saw the sisters, who faced him from the other -side of the circle, conferring together. The younger had the bill in her -hand which Ray had sent them by the conductor to pay their car fares -home. She parleyed a moment with the negro when he reached them, and he -took some of the silver from his hat and changed the bill for her. She -gave him a quarter back. He ducked his head, and said, “Thank yeh, -miss,” and passed on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span></p> - -<p>The transaction seemed to amuse some of the bystanders, and Ray heard -one of them, who stood near him, say: “Well, that’s the coolest thing -I’ve seen yet. I should have about as soon thought of asking the deacon -to change a bill for me when he came round with the plate in church. -Well, it takes all kinds to make a world!”</p> - -<p>He looked like a country merchant, on a first business visit to the -city; his companion, who had an air of smart ease, as of a man who had -been there often, said:</p> - -<p>“It takes all kinds to make a town like New York. You’ll see queerer -things than that before you get home. If that old darkey makes much on -that transaction, I’m no judge of human nature.”</p> - -<p>“Pshaw! You don’t mean it wasn’t a good bill?”</p> - -<p>The two men lost themselves in the crowd now pressing out of the cabin -door. The boat was pushing into her slip. She bumped from one elastic -side to the other, and settled with her nose at the wharf. The snarl of -the heavy chains that held her fast was heard; the people poured off and -the hollow thunder of the hoofs and wheels of the disembarking teams -began. Ray looked about for a last glimpse of the two young women and -their babies; but he could not see them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> carried his bag himself when he left the elevated road, and resisted -the offer of the small Italian dodging about his elbow, and proposing to -take it, after he had failed to get Ray to let him black his boots. The -young man rather prided himself on his thrift in denying the boy, whose -naked foot came half through one of his shoes; he saw his tatters and -nakedness with the indifference of inexperience, and with his country -breeding he considered his frugality a virtue. His senses were not -offended by the foulness of the streets he passed through, or hurt by -their sordid uproar; his strong young nerves were equal to all the -assaults that the city could make; and his heart was lifted in a dream -of hope. He was going to a hotel that Sanderson had told him of, where -you could get a room, on the European plan, for seventy-five cents, and -then eat wherever you pleased; he had gone to an American hotel when he -was in New York before, and he thought he could make a saving by trying -Sanderson’s. It had a certain gayety of lamps before it, but the -splendor diminished within, and Ray’s pride was further hurt by the -clerk’s exacting advance payment for his room from him. The clerk said -he could not give him an outside room that night, but he would try<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> to -change him in the morning; and Ray had either to take the one assigned -him or go somewhere else. But he had ordered his trunk sent to this -hotel by the express, and he did not know how he should manage about -that if he left; so he staid, and had himself shown to his room. It -seemed to be a large cupboard in the wall of the corridor; but it had a -window near the bed, and the usual equipment of stand and bureau, and -Ray did not see why he should not sleep very well there. Still, he was -glad that his friends at Midland could none of them see him in that -room, and he resolved to leave the hotel as soon as he could the next -day. It did not seem the place for a person who had left Midland with -the highest social honors that could be paid a young man. He hurried -through the hotel office when he came out, so as not to be seen by any -other Midlander that might happen to be there, and he went down to the -basement, where the clerk said the restaurant was, and got his supper. -When he had finished his oyster stew he started towards the street-door, -but was overtaken at the threshold by a young man who seemed to have run -after him, and who said, “You didn’t pay for your supper.”</p> - -<p>Ray said, “Oh, I forgot it,” and he went back to his table and got his -check, and paid at the counter, where he tried in vain to impress the -man who took his money with a sense of his probity by his profuse -apologies. Apparently they were too used to such tricks at that -restaurant. The man said nothing, but he looked as if he did not believe -him, and Ray was so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> abashed that he stole back to his room, and tried -to forget what had happened in revising the manuscript of his story. He -was always polishing it; he had written it several times over, and at -every moment he got he reconstructed sentences in it, and tried to bring -the style up to his ideal of style; he wavered a little between the -style of Thackeray and the style of Hawthorne, as an ideal. It made him -homesick, now, to go over the familiar pages: they put him so strongly -in mind of Midland, and the people of the kindly city. The pages smelt a -little of Sanderson’s cigar smoke; he wished that Sanderson would come -to New York; he perceived that they had also a fainter reminiscence of -the perfume he associated with that girl who had found him out in his -story; and then he thought how he had been in the best society at -Midland, and it seemed a great descent from the drawing-rooms where he -used to call on all those nice girls to this closet in a fourth-rate New -York hotel. His story appeared to share his downfall; he thought it -cheap and poor; he did not believe now that he should ever get a -publisher for it. He cowered to think how scornfully he had thought the -night before of his engagement with the Hanks Brothers to write letters -for the Midland <i>Echo</i>; he was very glad he had so good a basis; he -wondered how far he could make five dollars a week go toward supporting -him in New York; he could not bear to encroach upon his savings, and yet -he probably must. In Midland, you could get very good board for five -dollars a week.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span></p> - -<p>He determined to begin a letter to the <i>Echo</i> at once; and he went to -open the window to give himself some air in the close room; but he found -that it would not open. He pulled down the transom over his door to keep -from stifling in the heat of his gas-burner, and some voices that had -been merely a dull rumbling before now made themselves heard in talk -which Ray could not help listening to.</p> - -<p>Two men were talking together, one very hopelessly, and the other in a -vain attempt to cheer him from time to time. The comforter had a deep -base voice, and was often unintelligible; but the disheartened man spoke -nervously, in a high key of plangent quality, like that of an unhappy -bell.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said; “I’d better fail, Bill. It’s no use trying to keep along. -I can get pretty good terms from the folks at home, there; they all know -me, and they know I done my best. I can pay about fifty cents on the -dollar, I guess, and that’s more than most business men could, if they -stopped; and if I ever get goin’ again, I’ll pay dollar for dollar; they -know that.”</p> - -<p>The man with the deep voice said something that Ray did not catch. The -disheartened man seemed not to have caught it either; he said, “What -say?” and when the other repeated his words, he said: “Oh yes! I know. -But I been dancing round in a quart cup all my life there; and now it’s -turning into a pint cup, and I guess I better get out. The place did -grow for a while, and we got all ready to be a city as soon as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span> the -railroad come along. But when the road come, it didn’t do all we -expected of it. We could get out into the world a good deal easier than -we could before, and we had all the facilities of transportation that we -could ask for. But we could get away so easy that most of our people -went to the big towns to do their trading, and the facilities for -transportation carried off most of our local industries. The luck was -against us. We bet high on what the road would do for us, and we lost. -We paid out nearly our last dollar to get the road to come our way, and -it came, and killed us. We subscribed to the stock, and we’ve got it -yet; there ain’t any fight for it anywhere else; we’d let it go without -a fight. We tried one while for the car shops, but they located them -further up the line, and since that we ha’n’t even wiggled. What say? -Yes; but, you see, I’m part of the place. I’ve worked hard all my life, -and I’ve held out a good many times when ruin stared me in the face, but -I guess I sha’n’t hold out this time. What’s the use? Most every -business man I know has failed some time or other; some of ’em three or -four times over, and scrambled up and gone on again, and I guess I got -to do the same. Had a kind of pride about it, m’ wife and me; but I -guess we got to come to it. It does seem, sometimes, as if the very -mischief was in it. I lost pretty heavy, for a small dealer, on -Fashion’s Pansy, alone—got left with a big lot of ’em. What say? It was -a bustle. Women kept askin’ for Fashion’s Pansy, till you’d ’a’ thought -every last one of ’em was going to live and be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span> buried in it. Then all -at once none of ’em wanted it—wouldn’t touch it. That and butter begun -it. You know how a country merchant’s got to take all the butter the -women bring him, and he’s got to pay for sweet butter, and sell it for -grease half the time. You can tell a woman she’d better keep an eye on -her daughter, but if you say she don’t make good butter, that’s the last -of that woman’s custom. But what’s finally knocked me out is this drop -in bric-à-brac. If it hadn’t been for that, I guess I could have pulled -through. Then there was such a rush for Japanese goods, and it lasted so -long, that I loaded up all I could with ’em last time I was in New York, -and now nobody wants ’em; couldn’t give ’em away. Well, it’s all a game, -and you don’t know any more how it’s comin’ out—you can’t bet on it -with any more certainty—than you can on a trottin’ match. My! I wish I -was dead.”</p> - -<p>The deep-voiced man murmured something again, and the high-voiced man -again retorted:</p> - -<p>“What say? Oh, it’s all well enough to preach; and I’ve heard about the -law of demand and supply before. There’s about as much of a law to it as -there is to three-card monte. If it wasn’t for my poor wife, I’d let ’em -take me back on ice. I would that.”</p> - -<p>The deep-voiced man now seemed to have risen; there was a shuffling of -feet, and presently a parley at the open door about commonplace matters; -and then the two men exchanged adieux, and the door shut again, and all -was silent in the room opposite Ray’s.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span> He felt sorry for the unhappy -man shut in there; but he perceived no special significance in what he -had overheard. He had no great curiosity about the matter; it was one of -those things that happened every day, and for tragedy was in no wise -comparable to a disappointment in first love, such as he had carefully -studied for his novel from his own dark experience. Still it did suggest -something to Ray; it suggested a picturesque opening for his first New -York letter for the Midland <i>Echo</i>, and he used it in illustration of -the immensity of New York, and the strange associations and -juxtapositions of life there. He treated the impending failure of the -country storekeeper from an overstock of Japanese goods rather -humorously: it was not like a real trouble, a trouble of the heart; and -the cause seemed to him rather grotesquely disproportionate to the -effect. In describing the incident as something he had overheard in a -hotel, he threw in some touches that were intended to give the notion of -a greater splendor than belonged to the place.</p> - -<p>He made a very good start on his letter, and when he went to bed the -broken hairs that pierced his sheet from the thin mattress did not keep -him from falling asleep, and they did prove that it was a horse-hair -mattress.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the morning, Ray determined that he would not breakfast at the -restaurant under the hotel, partly because he was ashamed to meet the -people who, he knew, suspected him of trying to beat them out of the -price of his supper, and partly because he had decided that it was -patronized chiefly by the country merchants who frequented the hotel, -and he wanted something that was more like New York. He had heard of -those foreign eating-houses where you got a meal served in courses at a -fixed price, and he wandered about looking for one. He meant to venture -into the first he found, and on a side street he came on a hotel with a -French name, and over the door in an arch of gilt letters the -inscription, Restaurant Français. There was a large tub on each side of -the door, with a small evergreen tree in it; some strings or wires ran -from these tubs to the door-posts and sustained a trailing vine that -formed a little bower on either hand; a Maltese cat in the attitude of a -sphinx dozed in the thicket of foliage, and Ray’s heart glowed with a -sense of the foreignness of the whole effect. He had never been abroad, -but he had read of such things, and he found himself at home in an -environment long familiar to his fancy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span></p> - -<p>The difference of things was the source of his romance, as it is with -all of us, and he looked in at the window of this French restaurant with -the feelings he would have had in the presence of such a restaurant in -Paris, and he began to imagine gay, light-minded pictures about it. At -the same time, while he was figuring inside at one of the small tables, -<i>vis-à-vis</i> with a pretty actress whom he invented for the purpose, he -was halting on the sidewalk outside, wondering whether he could get -breakfast there so early as eight o’clock, and doubtful whether he -should not betray his strangeness to New York hours if he tried. When he -went in there was nobody there but one white-aproned waiter, who was -taking down some chairs from the middle table where they had been -stacked with their legs in the air while he was sweeping. But he did not -disdain to come directly to Ray, where he had sat down, with a plate and -napkin and knife and fork, and exchange a good-morning with him in -arranging them before him. Then he brought half a yard of French bread -and a tenuous, translucent pat of American butter; and asked Ray whether -he would have chops or beefsteak with his coffee. The steak came with a -sprig of water-cress on it, and the coffee in a pot; and the waiter, who -had one eye that looked at Ray, and another of uncertain focus, poured -out the coffee for him, and stood near, with a friendly countenance, and -a cordial interest in the young fellow’s appetite. By this time a neat -<i>dame de comptoir</i>, whom Ray knew for a <i>dame de comptoir</i> at once, -though he had never<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span> seen one before, took her place behind a little -desk in the corner, and the day had begun for the Restaurant Français.</p> - -<p>Ray felt that it was life, and he prolonged his meal to the last drop of -the second cup of coffee that his pot held, and he wished that he could -have Sanderson with him to show him what life really was in New York. -Sanderson had taken all his meals in the basement of that seventy-five -cent hotel, which Ray meant to leave at once. Where he was he would not -have been ashamed to have any of the men who had given him that farewell -dinner see him. He was properly placed, as a young New York literary -man; he was already a citizen of that great Bohemia which he had heard -and read so much of. He was sure that artists must come there, and -actors, but of course much later in the day. His only misgiving was lest -the taxes of Bohemia might be heavier than he could pay, and he asked -the waiter for his account somewhat anxiously. It was forty cents, and -his ambition leaped at the possibility of taking all his meals at that -place. He made the occasion of telling the cross-eyed waiter to keep the -change out of the half-dollar he gave him, serve for asking whether one -could take board there by the week, and the waiter said one could for -six dollars: a luncheon like the breakfast, but with soup and wine, and -a dinner of fish, two meats, salad, sweets, and coffee. “On Sundays,” -said the waiter, “the dinner is something splendid. And there are rooms; -oh, yes, it is a hotel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I knew it was a hotel,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>The six dollars did not seem to him too much; but he had decided that he -must live on ten dollars a week in order to make his money last for a -full experiment of New York, or till he had placed himself in some -permanent position of profit. The two strains of prudence and of poetry -were strongly blended in him; he could not bear to think of wasting -money, even upon himself, whom he liked so well, and whom he wished so -much to have a good time. He meant to make his savings go far; with -those five hundred dollars he could live a year in New York if he helped -himself out on dress and incidental expenses with the pay for his -Midland <i>Echo</i> letters. He would have asked to see some of the rooms in -the hotel, but he was afraid it was too early, and he decided to come to -dinner and ask about them. On his way back to the place where he had -lodged he rapidly counted the cost, and he decided, at any rate, to try -it for awhile; and he shut himself into his cupboard at the hotel, and -began to go over some pages of his manuscript for the last time, with a -lightness of heart which decision, even a wrong decision, often brings.</p> - -<p>It was still too soon to go with the story to a publisher; he could not -hope to find any one in before ten o’clock, and he had a whole hour yet -to work on it. He was always putting the last touches on it; but he -almost wished he had not looked at it, now, when the touches must really -be the last. It seemed to suffer a sort of disintegration in his mind. -It fell into witless<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span> and repellent fragments; it lost all beauty and -coherence, so that he felt ashamed and frightened with it, and he could -not think what the meaning of it had once so clearly been. He knew that -no publisher would touch it in the way of business, and he doubted if -any would really have it read or looked at. It seemed to him quite -insane to offer it, and he had to summon an impudently cynical courage -in nerving himself to the point. The best way, of course, would have -been to get the story published first as a serial, in one of the -magazines that had shown favor to his minor attempts; and Ray had tried -this pretty fully. The manuscript had gone the rounds of a good many -offices; and returned, after a longer or shorter sojourn, bearing on -some marginal corner the hieroglyphic or numerical evidence that it had -passed through the reader’s hand in each. Ray innocently fancied that he -suppressed the fact by clipping this mark away with the scissors; but -probably no one was deceived. In looking at it now he was not even -deceived himself; the thing had a desperately worn and battered air; it -was actually dog’s-eared; but he had still clung to the hope of getting -it taken somewhere, because in all the refusals there was proof that the -magazine reader had really read it through; and Ray argued that if this -were so, there must be some interest or property in it that would -attract the general reader if it could ever be got to his eye in print.</p> - -<p>He was not wrong; for the story was fresh and new, in spite of its -simple-hearted, unconscious imitations of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> the style and plot of other -stories, because it was the soul if not the body of his first love. He -thought that he had wrapped this fact impenetrably up in so many -travesties and disguises that the girl herself would not have known it -if she had read it; but very probably she would have known it. Any one -who could read between the lines could penetrate through the innocent -psychical posing and literary affectation to the truth of conditions -strictly and peculiarly American, and it was this which Ray had tried to -conceal with all sorts of alien splendors of make and manner. It seemed -to him now, at the last moment, that if he could only uproot what was -native and indigenous in it, he should make it a strong and perfect -thing. He thought of writing it over again, and recoloring the heroine’s -hair and the hero’s character, and putting the scene in a new place; but -he had already rewritten it so many times that he was sick of it; and -with all his changing he had not been able to change it much. He decided -to write a New York novel, and derive the hero from Midland, as soon as -he could collect the material; the notion for it had already occurred to -him; the hero should come on with a play; but first of all it would be -necessary for Ray to get this old novel behind him, and the only way to -do that was to get it before the public.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> put his manuscript back into its covering, and took it under his -arm. He meant to make a thorough trial of the publishers, and not to be -discouraged by his failures as long as a publisher was left untried. He -knew from his experience with the magazine editors that it would be a -slow affair, and he must have patience. Some of the publishers, even if -they did not look at his story, would keep it for days or weeks with the -intention or the appearance of reading it, and if they did read it they -would of course want time for it. He expected this, and he calculated -that it might very well take his manuscript six months to go the rounds -of all the houses in New York. Yet he meant, if he could, to get it -through sooner, and he was going to use his journalistic connection to -make interest for it. He would have given everything but honor to have -it known that he had written some things for <i>Harper’s</i> and the -<i>Century</i>; he did not wish, or he said to himself and stood to it that -he did not wish, any favor shown his novel because he had written those -things. At the same time he was willing the fact that he was the -correspondent of the Midland <i>Echo</i> should help him to a prompt -examination of his manuscript if it could; and he meant to let it be -known that he was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> journalist before he let it be known that he was an -author.</p> - -<p>He formulated some phrases introducing himself in his newspaper -character, as he walked up Broadway with his manuscript held tight under -his arm, and with that lifting and glowing of the heart which a young -man cannot help feeling if he walks up Broadway on a bright October -morning. The sun was gay on the senseless facades of the edifices, -littered with signs of the traffic within, and hung with effigies and -emblems of every conceit and color, from the cornice to the threshold, -where the show-cases crowded the passengers toward the curbstones, and -to the cellarways that overflowed the sidewalks with their wares. The -frantic struggle and jumble of these appeals to curiosity and interest -jarred themselves to an effect of kaleidoscopic harmony, just as the -multitudinous noises of the hoofs and wheels and feet and tongues broke -and bruised themselves to one roar on the ear; and the adventurer among -them found no offence in their confusion. He had his stake, too, in the -tremendous game that all were playing, some fair and some foul, and -shrieking out their bets in these strident notes; and he believed so -much he should win that he was ready to take the chances of losing. From -the stainless blue sky overhead the morning sun glared down on the -thronged and noisy street, and brought out all its details with keen -distinctness; but Ray did not feel its anarchy. The irregularity of the -buildings, high and low, as if they were parts of a wall wantonly -hacked<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> and notched, here more and here less, was of the same moral -effect to him as the beautiful spire of Grace Church thrilling -heavenward like a hymn.</p> - -<p>He went along, wondering if he should happen to meet either of those -young women whom he had befriended the evening before. He had heard that -you were sure to meet somebody you knew whenever you stepped out on -Broadway, and he figured meeting them, in fancy. He had decided to put -them into his story of New York life, and he tried to imagine the -character he should assign them, or rather one of them; the one who had -given the old darkey a quarter out of his dollar. He did not quite know -what to do with the child; something could be made of the child if it -were older, but a mere baby like that would be difficult to manage in -such a story as Ray meant to write. He wondered if it would do to have -her deserted by her husband, and have the hero, a young literary -adventurer, not at all like himself, fall in love with her, and then -have them both die when the husband, a worthless, drunken brute, came -back in time to prevent their marriage. Such a scheme would give scope -for great suffering; Ray imagined a scene of renunciation between the -lovers, who refused each other even a last kiss; and he felt a lump rise -in his throat. It could be made very powerful.</p> - -<p>He evolved a character of reckless generosity for her from her -beneficence to the old negro in the ferry-boat. Under that still, almost -cold exterior, he made her conceal a nature of passionate impulse, -because<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span> the story required a nature of that sort. He did not know -whether to have the husband finally die, and the lovers marry, or -whether to have the lovers killed in an accident. It would be more -powerful to have them killed; it would be so conventional and expected -to have them happily married; but he knew the reader liked a novel that -ended well. It would be at once powerful and popular to have them elope -together. Perhaps the best thing he could do would be to have them -elope; there was a fascination in the guilty thought; he could make such -a <i>dénoument</i> very attractive; but upon the whole he felt that he must -not, for very much the same reason that he must not himself run off with -his neighbor’s wife.</p> - -<p>All the time that this went on in his mind, Ray was walking up Broadway, -and holding fast to the novel under his arm, which the novel in his -brain was eclipsing. His inner eye was fixed on the remembered face of -that strange girl, or woman, whom he was fashioning into a fictitious -heroine, but his outward vision roved over the women faces it -encountered, and his taste made its swift selection among them, and his -ambidextrous fancy wove romances around such, as he found pretty or -interesting enough to give his heart to. They were mostly the silly or -sordid faces that women wear when they are shopping, and they expressed -such emotions as are roused by the chase of a certain shade of ribbon, -or the hope of getting something rich and fashionable for less than its -worth. But youth is not nice, or else its eyes are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span> keener than those of -after-life; and Ray found many beautiful and stylish girls where the -middle-aged witness would have seen a long procession of average -second-rate young women. He admired their New-Yorky dash; he saw their -difference in look and carriage from the Midland girls; and he wondered -what they would be like, if he knew them. He reflected that he did not -know any one in New York; but he expected soon to be acquainted. If he -got his novel taken he would very soon be known, and then his -acquaintance would be sought. He saw himself launched upon a brilliant -social career, and he suddenly had a difficulty presented to him which -he had not foreseen a moment before; he had to choose between a -brilliant marriage with a rich and well-born girl and fealty to the -weird heroine of his story. The unexpected contingency suggested a new -ending to his original story. The husband could die and the lovers be -about to marry, when they could become aware that the rich girl was in -love with the hero. They could renounce each other, and the hero could -marry the rich girl; and shortly after the heroine could die. An ending -like that could be made very powerful; and it would be popular, too.</p> - -<p>Ray found himself in a jam of people who had begun suddenly to gather at -the corner he was approaching. They were looking across at something on -the other corner, and Ray looked too. Trunks and travelling-bags had -overflowed from a store in the basement there, and piled themselves on -the sidewalk and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span> up the house wall; and against the background they -formed stood two figures. One was a decent-looking young man in a Derby -hat, and wearing spectacles, which gave him a sort of scholarly air; he -remained passive in the grip of another, probably the shopman, who was -quite colorless with excitement, and who clung fast to the shoulder of -the first, as if his prisoner were making violent efforts to escape. A -tall young policeman parted the crowd, and listened a moment to the -complaint the shopman made, with many gestures toward his wares. Then he -turned to the passive captive, and Ray heard the click of the handcuffs -as they snapped on the wrists of this scholarly-looking man; and the -policeman took him by the arm and led him away.</p> - -<p>The intrusion of such a brutal fact of life into the tragic atmosphere -of his revery made the young poet a little sick, but the young -journalist avidly seized upon it. The poet would not have dreamed of -using such an incident, but the journalist saw how well it would work -into the scheme of that first letter he was writing home to the <i>Echo</i>, -where he treated of the surface contrasts of life in New York as they -present themselves to the stranger. A glad astonishment at the profusion -of the material for his letters possessed him; at this rate he should -have no trouble in writing them; he could make them an indispensable -feature; they would be quoted and copied, and he could get a rise out of -Hanks Brothers on the price.</p> - -<p>He crossed to the next corner, where the shopman<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> was the centre of a -lessening number of spectators, and found him willing to prolong the -interest he had created in the public mind. He said the thief had priced -a number of bags in the place below, and on coming up had made a grab at -one and tried to get off with it; but he was onto him like lightning. He -showed Ray which bag it was, and turned it round and upside down as if -with a fresh sense of its moral value. He said he should have to take -that bag into court, and he set it aside so that he should not forget -it.</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” said a tall, elderly gentleman, who seemed to have been -listening to Ray’s dialogue with the shopman, “you wouldn’t be willing -to sell me that bag?” He spoke slowly with a thick, mellow voice, deep -in his throat.</p> - -<p>“Money wouldn’t buy that bag; no sir,” said the shopman; but he seemed -uneasy.</p> - -<p>“You know,” urged the soft-voiced stranger, “you could show some other -bag in court that was just like it.”</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t swear to no other bag,” said the shopman, daunted, and -visibly relenting.</p> - -<p>“That is true,” said the stranger. “But you could swear that it was -exactly like this. Still, I dare say you’re quite right, and it’s better -to produce the <i>corpus delicti</i>, if possible.”</p> - -<p>He glanced at Ray with a whimsical demand for sympathy; Ray smiled, and -they walked off together, leaving the shopman in dubious study of his -eventful bag. He was opening it, and scrutinizing the inside.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> stranger skipped into step with Ray more lightly than would have -been expected from one of his years. He wore a soft felt hat over locks -of silken silver that were long enough to touch his beautiful white -beard. He wore it with an effect of intention, as if he knew it was out -of character with the city, but was so much in character with himself -that the city must be left to reconcile itself to the incongruity or -not, as it chose. For the same reason, apparently, his well-fitting -frock-coat was of broadcloth, instead of modern diagonal; a black silk -handkerchief tied in an easy knot at his throat strayed from under his -beard, which had the same waviness as his hair; he had black trousers, -and drab gaiters showing themselves above wide, low shoes. In his hands, -which he held behind him, he dangled a stick with an effect of leisure -and ease, enhanced somehow by the stoop he made towards the young -fellow’s lower stature, and by his refusal to lift his voice above a -certain pitch, whatever the uproar of the street about them. Ray -screamed out his words, but the stranger spoke in what seemed his wonted -tone, and left Ray to catch the words as he could.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t think,” he said, after a moment, and with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span> some misgiving, -that this stranger who had got into step with him might be some kind of -confidence man—“I didn’t think that fellow looked like a thief much.”</p> - -<p>“You are a believer in physiognomy?” asked the stranger, with a -philosophic poise. He had himself a regular face, with gay eyes, and a -fine pearly tint; lips that must have been beautiful shaped his -branching mustache to a whimsical smile.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Ray. “I wasn’t near enough to see his face. But he looked so -decent and quiet, and he behaved with so much dignity. Perhaps it was -his spectacles.”</p> - -<p>“Glasses can do much,” said the stranger, “to redeem the human -countenance, even when worn as a protest against the presence of one’s -portrait in the rogues’ gallery. I don’t say you’re wrong; I’m only -afraid the chances are that you’ll never be proved right. I should -prefer to make a speculative approach to the facts on another plane. As -you suggest, he had a sage and dignified appearance; I observed it -myself; he had the effect—how shall I express it?—of some sort of -studious rustic. Say he was a belated farm youth, working his way -through a fresh-water college, who had great latent gifts of peculation, -such as might have won him a wide newspaper celebrity as a defaulter -later in life, and under more favorable conditions. He finds himself -alone in a great city for the first time, and is attracted by the -display of the trunk-dealer’s cellarway. The opportunity seems favorable -to the acquisition of a neat travelling-bag; perhaps he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span> has never owned -one, or he wishes to present it to the object of his affections, or to a -sick mother; he may have had any respectable motive; but his outlook has -been so restricted that he cannot realize the difference between -stealing a travelling-bag and stealing, say, a street; though I believe -Mr. Sharp only bought Broadway of those who did not own it, and who sold -it low; but never mind, it may stand for an illustration. If this young -man had stolen a street, he would not have been arrested and handcuffed -in that disgraceful way and led off to the dungeon-keep of the Jefferson -Market Police Court—I presume that is the nearest prison, though I -won’t be quite positive—but he would have had to be attacked and -exposed a long time in the newspapers; and he would have had counsel, -and the case would have been fought from one tribunal to another, till -at last he wouldn’t have known whether he was a common criminal or a -public benefactor. The difficulty in his case is simply an inadequate -outlook.”</p> - -<p>The philosophic stranger lifted his face and gazed round over Ray’s -head, but he came to a halt at the same time with the young fellow. -“Well, sir,” he said, with bland ceremony, “I must bid you good-morning. -As we go our several ways let us remember the day’s lesson, and when we -steal, always steal enough.”</p> - -<p>He held out his hand, and Ray took it with a pleasure in his discourse -which he was wondering how he should express to him. He felt it due -himself to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> say something clever in return, but he could not think of -anything. “I’m sure I shall remember your interpretation of it,” was all -he could get out.</p> - -<p>“Ah, well, don’t act upon that without due reflection,” the stranger -said; and he gave Ray’s hand a final and impressive downward shake. -“Dear me!” he added, for Ray made no sign of going on. “Are we both -stopping here—two spiders at the parlor of the same unsuspecting fly? -But perhaps you are merely a buyer, not a writer, of books? After you, -sir!”</p> - -<p>The stranger promoted a little polite rivalry that ensued between them; -he ended it by passing one hand through the young man’s arm, and with -the other pressing open the door which they had both halted at, and -which bore on either jamb a rounded metallic plate with the sign, “H. C. -Chapley & Co., Publishers.” Within, he released Ray with a courteous -bow, as if willing to leave him now to his own devices. He went off to a -distant counter in the wide, low room, and occupied himself with the -books on it; Ray advanced and spoke to a clerk, who met him half-way. He -asked for Mr. Chapley, and the clerk said he was not down yet—he seldom -got down so early; but Mr. Brandreth would be in almost any minute now. -When Ray said he had a letter for the firm, and would wait if the clerk -pleased, the clerk asked if he would not take a chair in Mr. Brandreth’s -room.</p> - -<p>Ray could not help thinking the civility shown him was for an imaginable -customer rather than a concealed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span> author, but he accepted it all the -same, and sat looking out into the salesroom, with its counters of -books, and its shelves full of them around its walls, while he waited. -Chapley & Co. were of the few old-fashioned publishers who had remained -booksellers too, in a day when most publishers have ceased to be so. -They were jobbers as well as booksellers; they took orders and made -terms for public and private libraries; they had customers all over the -country who depended on them for advice and suggestion about -forth-coming books, and there were many booksellers in the smaller -cities who bought through them. The bookseller in Midland, who united -bookselling with a stationery and music business, was one of these, and -he had offered Ray a letter to them.</p> - -<p>“If you ever want to get a book published,” he said, with a touch on the -quick that made the conscious author wince, “they’re your men.”</p> - -<p>Ray knew their imprint and its relative value better than the Midland -bookseller, stationer, and music-dealer; and now, as he sat in the -junior partner’s neat little den, with the letter of introduction in his -hand, it seemed to him such a crazy thing to think of having his book -brought out by them that he decided not to say anything about it, but to -keep to that character of literary newspaper man which his friend gave -him in his rather florid letter. He had leisure enough to make this -decision and unmake it several times while he was waiting for Mr. -Brandreth to come. It was so early that, with all the delays Ray had -forced, it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span> still only a little after nine, and no one came in for a -quarter of an hour. The clerks stood about and chatted together. The -bookkeepers, in their high-railed enclosure, were opening their ledgers -under the shaded gas-burners that helped out the twilight there. Ray -could see his unknown street friend scanning the books on the upper -shelf and moving his person from side to side, and letting his cane rise -and fall behind him as if he were humming to himself and keeping time to -the tune.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> distant street door opened at last, and a gentleman came in. His -entrance caused an indefinite sensation in the clerks, such as we all -feel in the presence of the man who pays our wages. At the sound of his -step, Ray’s street friend turned about from his shelf, but without -offering to leave it.</p> - -<p>“Ah, good-morning, good-morning!” he called out; and the other called -back, “Ah, good-morning, Mr. Kane!” and pushed on up towards a door near -that of Ray’s retreat. A clerk stopped him, and after a moment’s parley -he came in upon the young fellow. He was a man of fifty-five or sixty, -with whiskers slightly frosted, and some puckers and wrinkles about his -temples and at the corners of his mouth, and a sort of withered bloom in -his cheeks, something like the hardy self-preservation of the -late-hanging apple that people call a frozen-thaw. He was a thin man, -who seemed once to have been stouter; he had a gentle presence and a -somewhat careworn look.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Brandreth?” Ray said, rising.</p> - -<p>“No,” said the other; “Mr. Chapley.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Ray. “They showed me into Mr. Brandreth’s -room, and I thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span>”—</p> - -<p>“It’s quite right, quite right,” said Mr. Chapley. “Mr. Brandreth will -be in almost any moment if you wish to see him personally.” Mr. Chapley -glanced at the parcel in Ray’s hand.</p> - -<p>“Oh no; I have a letter for the firm,” and Ray gave it to Mr. Chapley, -who read it through and then offered his hand, and said he was glad to -meet Mr. Ray. He asked some questions of commonplace friendliness about -his correspondent, and he said, with the kind of melancholy which seemed -characteristic of him: “So you have come to take a hand in the great -game here. Well, if there is anything I can do to serve you, I shall be -very glad.”</p> - -<p>Ray answered promptly, in pursuance of his plan: “You are very kind, Mr. -Chapley. I’m going to write letters to the paper I’ve been connected -with in Midland, and I wish to give them largely a literary character. I -shall be obliged to you for any literary news you have.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Chapley seemed relieved of a latent dread. A little knot of anxiety -between his eyes came untied; he did not yet go to the length of laying -off his light overcoat, but he set his hat down on Mr. Brandreth’s desk, -and he loosed the grip he had kept of his cane.</p> - -<p>“Why, Mr. Brandreth rather looks after that side of the business. He’s -more in touch with the younger men—with what’s going on, in fact, than -I am. He can tell you all there is about our own small affairs, and put -you in relations with other publishers, if you wish.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Thank you—” Ray began.</p> - -<p>“Not at all; it will be to our advantage, I’m sure. We should be glad to -do much more for any friend of our old friends”—Mr. Chapley had to -refer to the letter-head of the introduction before he could make sure -of his old friends’ style—“Schmucker & Wills. I hope they are -prospering in these uncertain times?”</p> - -<p>Ray said they were doing very well, he believed, and Mr. Chapley went -on.</p> - -<p>“So many of the local booksellers are feeling the competition of the -large stores which have begun to deal in books as well as everything -else under the sun, nowadays. I understand they have completely -disorganized the book trade in some of our minor cities; completely! -They take hold of a book like <i>Robert Elsmere</i>, for instance, as if it -were a piece of silk that they control the pattern of, and run it at a -price that is simply ruinous; besides doing a large miscellaneous -business in books at rates that defy all competition on the part of the -regular dealers. But perhaps you haven’t suffered from these commercial -monstrosities yet in Midland?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Ray; “We have our local Stewart’s or Macy’s, whichever -it is; and I imagine Schmucker & Wills feel it, especially at the -holidays.” He had never had to buy any books himself, because he got the -copies sent to the <i>Echo</i> for review; and now, in deference to Mr. -Chapley, he was glad that he had not shared in the demoralization of the -book trade. “But I think,” he added, cheerfully, “that they are holding -their own very well.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I am very glad to hear it, very glad, indeed,” said Mr. Chapley. “If we -can only get this international copyright measure through and dam up the -disorganizing tide of cheap publications at its source, we may hope to -restore the tone of the trade. As it is, we are ourselves constantly -restricting our enterprise as publishers. We scarcely think now of -looking at the manuscript of an unknown author.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Chapley looked at the manuscript of the unknown author before him, -as if he divined it through its wrappings of stiff manilla paper. Ray -had no reason to think that he meant to prevent a possible offer of -manuscript, but he could not help thinking so, and it cut him short in -the inquiries he was going to make as to the extent of the -demoralization the book trade had suffered through the competition of -the large variety stores. He had seen a whole letter for the <i>Echo</i> in -the subject, but now he could not go on. He sat blankly staring at Mr. -Chapley’s friendly, pensive face, and trying to decide whether he had -better get himself away without seeing Mr. Brandreth, or whether he had -better stay and meet him, and after a cold, formal exchange of -civilities, shake the dust of Chapley & Co.’s publishing house from his -feet forever. The distant street door opened again, and a small light -figure, much like his own, entered briskly. Mr. Kane turned about at the -new-comer’s step as he had turned at Mr. Chapley’s, and sent his -cheerful hail across the book counters as before. “Ah, good-morning, -good-morning!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Good-morning, Mr. Kane; magnificent day,” said the gentleman, who -advanced rapidly towards Ray and Mr. Chapley, with a lustrous silk hat -on his head, and a brilliant smile on his face. His overcoat hung on his -arm, and he looked fresh and warm as if from a long walk. “Ah, -good-morning,” he said to Mr. Chapley; “how are you this morning, sir?” -He bent his head inquiringly towards Ray, who stood a moment while Mr. -Chapley got himself together and said:</p> - -<p>“This is Mr.—ah—Ray, who brings a letter from our old friends”—he had -to glance at the letter-head—“Schmucker & Wills, of—Midland.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Midland! yes,” said Mr. Brandreth, for Ray felt it was he, although -his name had not been mentioned yet. “Very glad to see you, Mr. Ray. -When did you leave Midland? Won’t you sit down? And you, Mr. Chapley?”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” said Mr. Chapley, nervously. “I was going to my own room. How -is poor Bella this morning?”</p> - -<p>“Wonderfully well, wonderfully! I waited for the doctor’s visit before I -left home, so as to report reliably, and he says he never saw a better -convalescence. He promises to let her go out in a fortnight or so, if -the weather’s good.”</p> - -<p>“You must be careful! Don’t go too fast!” said Mr. Chapley. “And -the—child?”</p> - -<p>“Perfectly splendid! He slept like a top last night, and we could hardly -get him awake for breakfast.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Poor thing!” said Mr. Chapley. He offered Ray his hand, and said that -he hoped they should see him often; he must drop in whenever he was -passing. “Mr. Ray,” he explained, “has come on to take up his residence -in New York. He remains connected with one of the papers in—Midland; -and I have been referring him to you for literary gossip, and that kind -of thing.”</p> - -<p>“All right, sir, all right!” said Mr. Brandreth. He laughed out after -Mr. Chapley had left them, and then said: “Excuse me, Mr. Ray. You -mustn’t mind my smiling rather irrelevantly. We’ve had a great event at -my house this week—in fact, we’ve had a boy.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed!” said Ray. He had the sort of contempt a young man feels for -such domestic events; but he easily concealed it from the happy father, -who looked scarcely older than himself.</p> - -<p>“An eight-pounder,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I have been pretty anxious for -the last few weeks, and—I don’t know whether you married or not, Mr. -Ray?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then you wouldn’t understand.” Mr. Brandreth arrested himself -reluctantly, Ray thought, in his confidences. “But you will, some day; -you will, some day,” he added, gayly; “and then you’ll know what it is -to have an experience like that go off well. It throws a new light on -everything.” A clerk came in with a pile of opened letters and put them -on Mr. Brandreth’s desk, with some which were still sealed;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span> Ray rose -again. “No, don’t go. But you won’t mind my glancing these over while we -talk. I don’t know how much talk you’ve been having with Mr. -Chapley—he’s my father-in-law, you know?”</p> - -<p>Ray owned that he did not.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I came into the firm and into the family a little over a year ago. -But if there are any points I can give you, I’m quite at your service.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” said Ray. “Mr. Chapley was speaking of the effect of the -competition of the big variety stores on the regular booksellers.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth slitted the envelope of one of the letters with a slim -paper-knife, and glanced the letter over. “Well, that’s a little matter -I differ with Mr. Chapley about. Of course, I know just how he feels, -brought up the way he was, in the old traditions of the trade. It seems -to him we must be going to the bad because our books are sold over a -counter next to a tin-ware counter, or a perfume and essence counter, or -a bric-à-brac counter. I don’t think so. I think the great thing is to -sell the books, and I wish we could get a book into the hands of one of -those big dealers; I should be glad of the chance. We should have to -make him a heavy discount; but look at the discounts we have to make to -the trade, now! Forty per cent., and ten cents off for cash; so that a -dollar and a half book, that it costs twenty-five cents or thirty cents -to make, brings you in about seventy cents. Then, when you pay the -author his ten per cent. copyright, how far will the balance go towards<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> -advertising, rent, clerk hire and sundries? If you want to get a book -into the news companies, you have got to make them a discount of sixty -per cent. out of hand.”</p> - -<p>“Is it possible?” asked Ray. “I’d no idea it was anything like that!”</p> - -<p>“No; people haven’t. They think publishers are rolling in riches at the -expense of the author and the reader. And some publishers themselves -believe that if we could only keep up the old system of letting the -regular trade have the lion’s share on long credit, their prosperity -would be assured. I don’t, myself. If we could get hold of a good, -breezy, taking story, I’d like to try my chance with it in the hands of -some large dry-goods man.”</p> - -<p>Ray’s heart thrilled. His own story had often seemed to him good and -taking; whether it was breezy or not, he had never thought. He wished he -knew just what Mr. Brandreth meant by breezy; but he did not like to ask -him. His hand twitched nervelessly on the manuscript in his lap, and he -said, timidly: “Would it be out of the way for me to refer to some of -these facts—they’re not generally known—in my letters? Of course not -using your name.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all! I should be very glad to have them understood,” said Mr. -Brandreth.</p> - -<p>“And what do you think is the outlook for the winter trade, Mr. -Brandreth?”</p> - -<p>“Never better. I think we’re going to have a <i>good</i> trade. We’ve got a -larger list than we’ve had for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> great many years. The fact is,” said -Mr. Brandreth, and he gave a glance at Ray, as if he felt the trust the -youthful gravity of his face inspired in most people—“the fact is, -Chapley & Co. have been dropping too much out of sight, as publishers; -and I’ve felt, ever since I’ve been in the firm, that we ought to give -the public a sharp reminder that we’re not merely booksellers and -jobbers. I want the house to take its old place again. I don’t mean it’s -ever really lost caste, or that its imprint doesn’t stand for as much as -it did twenty years ago. I’ll just show you our list if you can wait a -moment.” Mr. Brandreth closed a pair of wooden mandibles lying on his -desk; an electric bell sounded in the distance, and a boy appeared. “You -go and ask Miss Hughes if she’s got that list of announcements ready -yet.” The boy went, and Mr. Brandreth took up one of the cards of the -firm. “If you would like to visit some of the other houses, Mr. Ray, -I’ll give you our card,” and he wrote on the card, “Introducing Mr. Ray, -of the Midland <i>Echo</i>. P. Brandreth,” and handed it to him. “Not Peter, -but Percy,” he said, with a friendly smile for his own pleasantry. “But -for business purposes it’s better to let them suppose it’s Peter.”</p> - -<p>Ray laughed, and said he imagined so. He said he had always felt it a -disadvantage to have been named Shelley; but he could not write himself -P. B. S. Ray, and he usually signed simply S. Ray.</p> - -<p>“Why, then, we really have the same first name,” said Mr. Brandreth. -“It’s rather an uncommon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> name, too. I’m very glad to share it with you, -Mr. Ray.” It seemed to add another tie to those that already bound them -in the sympathy of youth, and the publisher said, “I wish I could ask -you up to my house; but just now, you know, it’s really a nursery.”</p> - -<p>“You are very kind,” said Ray. “I couldn’t think of intruding on you, of -course.”</p> - -<p>Their exchange of civilities was checked by the return of the boy, who -said Miss Hughes would have the list ready in a few minutes.</p> - -<p>“Well, just ask her to bring it here, will you?” said Mr. Brandreth. “I -want to speak to her about some of these letters.”</p> - -<p>“I’m taking a great deal of your time, Mr. Brandreth,” Ray said.</p> - -<p>“Not at all, not at all. I’m making a kind of holiday week of it, -anyway. I’m a good deal excited,” and Mr. Brandreth smiled so -benevolently that Ray could not help taking advantage of him.</p> - -<p>The purpose possessed him almost before he was aware of its activity; he -thought he had quelled it, but now he heard himself saying in a stiff -unnatural voice, “I have a novel of my own, Mr. Brandreth, that I should -like to submit to you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX.</h2> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Oh</span>, indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a change in his voice, too, which -Ray might well have interpreted as a tone of disappointment and injury. -“Just at present, Mr. Ray, trade is rather quiet, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know,” said Ray, though he thought he had been told the -contrary. He felt very mean and guilty; the blood went to his head, and -his face burned.</p> - -<p>“Our list for the fall trade is full, as I was saying, and we couldn’t -really touch anything till next spring.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I didn’t suppose it would be in time for the fall trade,” said Ray, -and in the sudden loss of the easy terms which he had been on with the -publisher, he could not urge anything further.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth must have felt their estrangement too, for he said, -apologetically: “Of course it’s our business to examine manuscripts for -publication, and I hope it’s going to be our business to publish more -and more of them, but an American novel by an unknown author, as long as -we have the competition of these pirated English novels—If we can only -get the copyright bill through, we shall be all right.”</p> - -<p>Ray said nothing aloud, for he was busy reproaching himself under his -breath for abusing Mr. Brandreth’s hospitality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What is the—character of your novel?” asked Mr. Brandreth, to break -the painful silence, apparently, rather than to inform himself.</p> - -<p>“The usual character,” Ray answered, with a listlessness which perhaps -passed for careless confidence with the young publisher, and piqued his -interest. “It’s a love-story.”</p> - -<p>“Of course. Does it end well? A great deal depends upon the ending with -the public, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose it ends badly. It ends as badly as it can,” said the author, -feeling that he had taken the bit in his teeth. “It’s unrelieved -tragedy.”</p> - -<p>“That isn’t so bad, sometimes,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is, if the -tragedy is intense enough. Sometimes a thing of that kind takes with the -public, if the love part is good and strong. Have you the manuscript -here in New York with you?”</p> - -<p>“I have it here in my lap with me,” said Ray, with a desperate laugh.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth cast his eye over the package. “What do you call it? So -much depends upon a title with the public.”</p> - -<p>“I had thought of several titles: the hero’s name for one; the heroine’s -for another. Then I didn’t know but <i>A Modern Romeo</i> would do. It’s very -much on the lines of the play.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed!” said Mr. Brandreth, with a sudden interest that flattered Ray -with fresh hopes. “That’s very curious. I once took part in an amateur -performance of <i>Romeo</i> myself. We gave it in the open air. The effect -was very novel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I should think it might be,” said Ray. He hastened to add, “My story -deals, of course, with American life, and the scene is laid in the -little village where I grew up.”</p> - -<p>“Our play,” said Mr. Brandreth, “was in a little summer place in -Massachusetts. One of the ladies gave us her tennis-ground, and we made -our exits and our entrances through the surrounding shrubbery. You’ve no -idea how beautiful the mediæval dresses looked in the electric light. It -was at night.”</p> - -<p>“It must have been beautiful,” Ray hastily admitted. “My Juliet is the -daughter of the village doctor, and my Romeo is a young lawyer, who half -kills a cousin of hers for trying to interfere with them.”</p> - -<p>“That’s good,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I took the part of Romeo myself, and -Mrs. Brandreth—she was Miss Chapley, then—was cast for Juliet; but -another girl who had refused the part suddenly changed her mind and -claimed it, and we had the greatest time to keep the whole affair from -going to pieces. I beg your pardon; I interrupted you.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” said Ray. “It must have been rather difficult. In my story -there has been a feud between the families of the lovers about a land -boundary; and both families try to break off the engagement.”</p> - -<p>“That’s very odd,” said Mr. Brandreth. “The play nearly broke off my -acquaintance with Mrs. Brandreth. Of course she was vexed—as anybody -would be—at having to give up the part at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span> eleventh hour, when -she’d taken so much trouble with it; but when she saw my suffering with -the other girl, who didn’t know half her lines, and walked through it -all like a mechanical doll, she forgave me. <i>Romeo</i> is my favorite play. -Did you ever see Julia Marlowe in it?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Then you never <i>saw</i> Juliet! I used to think Margaret Mather was about -the loveliest Juliet, and in fact she has a great deal of passion”—</p> - -<p>“My Juliet,” Ray broke in, “is one of those impassioned natures. When -she finds that the old people are inexorable, she jumps at the -suggestion of a secret marriage, and the lovers run off and are married, -and come back and live separately. They meet at a picnic soon after, -where Juliet goes with her cousin, who makes himself offensive to the -husband, and finally insults him. They happen to be alone together near -the high bank of a river, and the husband, who is a quiet fellow of the -deadly sort, suddenly throws the cousin over the cliff. The rest are -dancing”—</p> - -<p>“We introduced a minuet in our theatricals,” Mr. Brandreth interposed, -“and people said it was the best thing in it. I <i>beg</i> your pardon!”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. It must have been very picturesque. The cousin is taken up -for dead, and the husband goes into hiding until the result of the -cousin’s injuries can be ascertained. They are searching for the husband -everywhere, and the girl’s father, who has dabbled in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span> hypnotism, and -has hypnotized his daughter now and then, takes the notion of trying to -discover the husband’s whereabouts by throwing her into a hypnotic -trance and questioning her: he believes that she knows. The trance is -incomplete, and with what is left of her consciousness the girl suffers -tremendously from the conflict that takes place in her. In the midst of -it all, word comes from the room where the cousin is lying insensible -that he is dying. The father leaves his daughter to go to him, and she -lapses into the cataleptic state. The husband has been lurking about, -intending to give himself up if it comes to the worst. He steals up to -the open window—I forgot to say that the hypnotization scene takes -place in her father’s office, a little building that stands apart from -the house, and of course it’s a ground floor—and he sees her stretched -out on the lounge, all pale and stiff, and he thinks she is dead.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth burst into a laugh. “I <i>must</i> tell you what our Mercutio -said—he was an awfully clever fellow, a lawyer up there, one of the -natives, and he made simply a <i>perfect</i> Mercutio. He said that our -Juliet was magnificent in the sepulchre scene; and if she could have -played the part as a dead Juliet throughout, she would have beat us -all!”</p> - -<p>“Capital!” said Ray. “Ha, ha, ha!”</p> - -<p>“Well, go on,” said Mr. Brandreth.</p> - -<p>“Oh! Well, the husband gets in at the window and throws himself on her -breast, and tries to revive her. She shows no signs of life, though all -the time<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span> she is perfectly aware of what is going on, and is struggling -to speak and reassure him. She recovers herself just at the moment he -draws a pistol and shoots himself through the heart. The shot brings the -father from the house, and as he enters the little office, his daughter -lifts herself, gives him one ghastly stare, and falls dead on her -husband’s body.”</p> - -<p>“That is strong,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is a very powerful scene.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” Ray asked. He looked flushed and flattered, but he -said: “Sometimes I’ve been afraid it was overwrought, and -improbable—weak. It’s not, properly speaking, a novel, you see. It’s -more in the region of romance.”</p> - -<p>“Well, so much the better. I think people are getting tired of those -commonplace, photographic things. They want something with a little more -imagination,” said Mr. Brandreth.</p> - -<p>“The motive of my story might be called psychological,” said the author. -“Of course I’ve only given you the crudest outline of it, that doesn’t -do it justice”—</p> - -<p>“Well, they say that <i>roman psychologique</i> is superseding the realistic -novel in France. Will you allow me?”</p> - -<p>He offered to take the manuscript, and Ray eagerly undid it, and placed -it in his hands. He turned over some pages of it, and dipped into it -here and there.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said. “Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Mr. Ray. You leave -this with us, and we’ll have our<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span> readers go over it, and report to us, -and then we’ll communicate with you about it. What did you say your New -York address was?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t any yet,” said Ray; “but I’ll call and leave it as soon as -I’ve got one.” He rose, and the young publisher said:</p> - -<p>“Well, drop in any time. We shall always be glad to see you. Of course I -can’t promise you an immediate decision.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; I don’t expect that. I can wait. And I can’t tell you how -much—how much I appreciate your kindness.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not at all. Ah!” The boy came back with a type-written sheet in his -hand; Mr. Brandreth took it and gave it to Ray. “There! You can get some -idea from that of what we’re going to do. Take it with you. It’s -manifolded, and you can keep this copy. Drop in again when you’re -passing.”</p> - -<p>They shook hands, but they did not part there. Mr. Brandreth followed -Ray out into the store, and asked him if he would not like some advance -copies of their new books; he guessed some of them were ready. He -directed a clerk to put them up, and then he said, “I’d like to -introduce you to one of our authors. Mr. Kane!” he called out to what -Ray felt to be the gentleman’s expectant back, and Mr. Kane promptly -turned about from his bookshelf and met their advance half-way. “I want -to make you acquainted with Mr. Ray.”</p> - -<p>“Fortune,” said Mr. Kane, with evident relish of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span> his own voice and -diction, “had already made us friends, in the common interest we took in -a mistaken fellow-man whom we saw stealing a bag to travel with instead -of a road to travel on. Before you came in, we were street intimates of -five minutes’ standing, and we entered your temple of the Muses -together. But I am very glad to know my dear friend by name.” He gave -Ray the pressure of a soft, cool hand. “My name is doubtless familiar to -you, Mr. Ray. We spell it a little differently since that unfortunate -affair with Abel; but it is unquestionably the same name, and we are of -that ancient family. Am I right,” he said, continuing to press the young -man’s hand, but glancing at Mr. Brandreth for correction, with ironical -deference, “in supposing that Mr. Ray is <i>one</i> of us? I was sure,” he -said, letting Ray’s hand go, with a final pressure, “that it must be so -from the first moment! The signs of the high freemasonry of letters are -unmistakable!”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Ray,” said Mr. Brandreth, “is going to cast his lot with us here in -New York. He is from Midland, and he is still connected with one of the -papers there.”</p> - -<p>“Then he is a man to be cherished and avoided,” said Mr. Kane. “But -don’t tell me that he has no tenderer, no more sacred tie to literature -than a meretricious newspaper connection!”</p> - -<p>Ray laughed, and said from his pleased vanity, “Mr. Brandreth has kindly -consented to look at a manuscript of mine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Poems?” Mr. Kane suggested.</p> - -<p>“No, a novel,” the author answered, bashfully.</p> - -<p>“The great American one, of course?”</p> - -<p>“We are going to see,” said the young publisher, gaily.</p> - -<p>“Well, that is good. It is pleasant to have the old literary tradition -renewed in all the freshness of its prime, and to have young Genius -coming up to New York from the provinces with a manuscript under its -arm, just as it used to come up to London, and I’ve no doubt to Memphis -and to Nineveh, for that matter; the indented tiles must have been a -little more cumbrous than the papyrus, and were probably conveyed in an -ox-cart. And when you offered him your novel, Mr. Ray, did Mr. Brandreth -say that the book trade was rather dull, just now?”</p> - -<p>“Something of that kind,” Ray admitted, with a laugh; and Mr. Brandreth -laughed too.</p> - -<p>“I’m glad of that,” said Mr. Kane. “It would not have been perfect -without that. They always say that. I’ve no doubt the publishers of -Memphis and Nineveh said it in their day. It is the publishers’ way with -authors. It makes the author realize the immense advantage of getting a -publisher on any terms at such a disastrous moment, and he leaves the -publisher to fix the terms. It is quite right. You are launched, my dear -friend, and all you have to do is to let yourself go. You will probably -turn out an ocean greyhound; we expect no less when we are launched. In -that case, allow an old water-logged derelict to hail you, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> wish you -a prosperous voyage to the Happy Isles.” Mr. Kane smiled blandly, and -gave Ray a bow that had the quality of a blessing.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that book of yours is going to do well yet, Mr. Kane,” said Mr. -Brandreth, consolingly. “I believe there’s going to be a change in the -public taste, and good literature is going to have its turn again.”</p> - -<p>“Let us hope so,” said Mr. Kane, devoutly. “We will pray that the -general reader may be turned from the error of his ways, and eschew -fiction and cleave to moral reflections. But not till our dear friend’s -novel has made its success!” He inclined himself again towards Ray. -“Though, perhaps,” he suggested, “it is a novel with a purpose?”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid hardly”—Ray began; but Mr. Brandreth interposed.</p> - -<p>“It is a psychological romance—the next thing on the cards, <i>I</i> -believe!”</p> - -<p>“Indeed!” said Mr. Kane. “Do you speak by the card, now, as a confidant -of fate; or is this the exuberant optimism of a fond young father? Mr. -Ray, I am afraid you have taken our friend when he is all molten and -fluid with happiness, and have abused his kindness for the whole race to -your single advantage!”</p> - -<p>“No, no! Nothing of the kind, I assure you!” said Mr. Brandreth, -joyously. “Everything is on a strict business basis with me, always. But -I wish you could see that little fellow, Mr. Kane. Of course it sounds -preposterous to say it of a child only eight days old, but I believe he -begins to notice already.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You must get him to notice your books. Do get him to notice mine! He is -beginning young, but perhaps not <i>too</i> young for a critic,” said Mr. -Kane, and he abruptly took his leave, as one does when he thinks he has -made a good point, and Mr. Brandreth laughed the laugh of a man who -magnanimously joins in the mirth made at his expense.</p> - -<p>Ray stayed a moment after Mr. Kane went out, and Brandreth said, “There -is one of the most puzzling characters in New York. If he could put -himself into a book, it would make his fortune. He’s a queer genius. -Nobody knows how he lives; but I fancy he has a little money of his own; -his book doesn’t sell fifty copies in a year. What did he mean by that -about the travelling-bag?”</p> - -<p>Ray explained, and Mr. Brandreth said: “Just like him! He must have -spotted you in an instant. He has nothing to do, and he spends most of -his time wandering about. He says New York is his book, and he reads it -over and over. If he could only work up that idea, he could make a book -that everybody would want. But he never will. He’s one of those men -whose talk makes you think he could write anything; but his book is -awfully dry—perfectly crumby. Ever see it? <i>Hard Sayings</i>? Well, -good-by! I <i>wish</i> I could ask you up to my house; but you see how it -is!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes! I see,” said Ray. “You’re only too good as it is, Mr. -Brandreth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray’s</span> voice broke a little as he said this; but he hoped Mr. Brandreth -did not notice, and he made haste to get out into the crowded street, -and be alone with his emotions. He was quite giddy with the turn that -Fortune’s wheel had taken, and he walked a long way up town before he -recovered his balance. He had never dreamt of such prompt consideration -as Mr. Brandreth had promised to give his novel. He had expected to -carry it round from publisher to publisher, and to wait weeks, and -perhaps whole months, for their decision. Most of them he imagined -refusing to look at it at all; and he had prepared himself for rebuffs. -He could not help thinking that Mr. Brandreth’s different behavior was -an effect of his goodness of heart, and of his present happiness. Of -course he was a little ridiculous about that baby of his; Ray supposed -that was natural, but he decided that if he should ever be a father he -would not gush about it to the first person he met. He did not like Mr. -Brandreth’s interrupting him with the account of those amateur -theatricals when he was outlining the plot of his story; but that was -excusable, and it showed that he was really interested. If it had not -been for the accidental fact that Mr. Brandreth had taken the part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span> -Romeo in those theatricals, he might not have caught on to the notion of -<i>A Modern Romeo</i> at all. The question whether he was not rather silly -himself to enter so fully into his plot, helped him to condone Mr. -Brandreth’s weakness, which was not incompatible with shrewd business -sense. All that Mr. Brandreth had said of the state of the trade and its -new conditions was sound; he was probably no fool where his interest was -concerned. Ray resented for him the cruelty of Mr. Kane in turning the -baby’s precocity into the sort of joke he had made of it; but he admired -his manner of saying things, too. He would work up very well in a story; -but he ought to be made pathetic as well as ironical; he must be made to -have had an early unhappy love-affair; the girl either to have died, or -to have heartlessly jilted him. He could be the hero’s friend at some -important moment; Ray did not determine just at what moment; but the -hero should be about to wreck his happiness, somehow, and Mr. Kane -should save him from the rash act, and then should tell him the story of -his own life. Ray recurred to the manuscript he had left with Mr. -Brandreth, and wondered if Mr. Brandreth would read it himself, and if -he did, whether he would see any resemblance between the hero and the -author. He had sometimes been a little ashamed of that mesmerization -business in the story, but if it struck a mood of the reading public, it -would be a great piece of luck; and he prepared himself to respect it. -If Chapley & Co. accepted the book, he was going to write all that -passage over, and strengthen it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span></p> - -<p>He was very happy; and he said to himself that he must try to be very -good and to merit the fortune that had befallen him. He must not let it -turn his head, or seem more than it really was; after all it was merely -a chance to be heard that he was given. He instinctively strove to -arrest the wheel which was bringing him up, and must carry him down if -it kept on moving. With an impulse of the old heathen superstition -lingering in us all, he promised his god, whom he imagined to be God, -that he would be very grateful and humble if He would work a little -miracle for him, and let the wheel carry him up without carrying him -over and down. In the unconscious selfishness which he had always -supposed morality, he believed that the thing most pleasing to his god -would be some immediate effort in his own behalf, of prudent industry or -frugality; and he made haste to escape from the bliss of his high hopes -as if it were something that was wrong in itself, and that he would -perhaps be punished for.</p> - -<p>He went to the restaurant where he had breakfasted, and bargained for -board and lodging by the week. It was not so cheap as he had expected to -get it; with an apparent flexibility, the landlord was rigorous on the -point of a dollar a day for the room; and Ray found that he must pay -twelve dollars a week for his board and lodging instead of the ten he -had set as a limit. But he said to himself that he must take the risk, -and must make up the two dollars, somehow. His room was at the top of -the house, and it had a view of the fourth story of a ten-story -apartment-house opposite;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> but it had a southerly exposure, and there -was one golden hour of the day when the sun shone into it, over the -shoulder of a lower edifice next to the apartment-house, and round the -side of a clock tower beyond the avenue. He could see a bit of the -châlet-roof of an elevated railroad station; he could see the tops of -people’s heads in the street below if he leaned out of his window far -enough, and he had the same bird’s-eye view of the passing carts and -carriages. He shared it with the sparrows that bickered in the -window-casing, and with the cats that crouched behind the chimneys and -watched the progress of the sparrows’ dissensions with furtive and -ironical eyes.</p> - -<p>Within, the slope of the roof gave a picturesque slant to the ceiling. -The room was furnished with an American painted set; there was a clock -on the little shelf against the wall that looked as if it were French; -but it was not going, and there was no telling what accent it might tick -with if it were wound up. There was a little mahogany table in one -corner near the window to write on, and he put his books up on the shelf -on each side of the clock.</p> - -<p>It was all very different from the dignified housing of his life at -Midland, where less than the money he paid here got him a stately -parlor, with a little chamber out of it, at the first boarding-house in -the place. But still he would not have been ashamed to have any one from -Midland see him in his present quarters. They were proper to New York in -that cosmopolitan phase which he had most desired to see. He tried -writing at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> the little table, and found it very convenient. He forced -himself, just for moral effect, and to show himself that he was master -of all his moods, to finish his letter to the <i>Echo</i>, and he pleased -himself very well with it. He made it light and lively, and yet -contrived to give it certain touches of poetry and to throw in bits of -description which he fancied had caught something of the thrill and -sparkle of the air, and imparted some sense of such a day as he felt it -to be. He fancied different friends turning to the letter the first -thing in the paper; and in the fond remembrance of the kindness he had -left behind there, he became a little homesick.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> would have liked to go again that day, and give Mr. Brandreth his -new address in person; but he was afraid it would seem too eager, and -would have a bad effect on the fortunes of his book. He mastered himself -so far that even the next day he did not go, but sent it in a note. Then -he was sorry he had done this, for it might look a little too -indifferent; that is, he feigned that it might have this effect; but -what he really regretted was that it cut him off from going to see Mr. -Brandreth as soon as he would have liked. It would be absurd to run to -him directly after writing. He languished several days in the heroic -resolution not to go near Chapley & Co. until a proper time had passed; -then he took to walking up and down Broadway, remote from their place at -first, and afterwards nearer, till it came to his pacing slowly past -their door, and stopping at their window, in the hope that one or other -of the partners would happen upon him in some of their comings or -goings. But they never did, and he had a faint, heart-sick feeling of -disappointment, such as he used to have when he hung about the premises -of his first love in much the same fashion and to much the same effect.</p> - -<p>He cajoled himself by feigning interviews, now with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span> Mr. Chapley and now -with Mr. Brandreth; the publishers accepted his manuscript with -transport, and offered him incredible terms. The good old man’s voice -shook with emotion in hailing Ray as the heir of Hawthorne; Mr. -Brandreth had him up to dinner, and presented him to his wife and baby; -he named the baby for them jointly. As nothing of this kind really -happened, Ray’s time passed rather forlornly. Without being the richer -for it, he won the bets he made himself, every morning, that he should -not get a letter that day from Chapley & Co., asking to see him at once, -or from Mr. Brandreth hoping for the pleasure of his company upon this -social occasion or that. He found that he had built some hopes upon Mr. -Brandreth’s hospitable regrets; and as he did not know how long it must -be after a happiness of the kind Mrs. Brandreth had conferred upon her -husband before her house could be set in order for company, he was -perhaps too impatient. But he did not suffer himself to be censorious; -he was duly grateful to Mr. Brandreth for his regrets; he had not -expected them; but for them he would not have expected anything.</p> - -<p>He did what he could to pass the time by visiting other publishers with -Mr. Brandreth’s card. He perceived sometimes, or fancied that he -perceived, a shadow of anxiety in the gentlemen who received him so -kindly, but it vanished, if it ever existed, when he put himself frankly -on the journalistic ground, and satisfied them that he had no manuscript -lurking about him. Then he found some of them willing to drop<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span> into chat -about the trade, and try to forecast its nearer future, if not to -philosophize its conditions. They appeared to think these were all -right; and it did not strike Ray as amiss that a work of literary art -should be regarded simply as a merchantable or unmerchantable commodity, -or as a pawn in a game, a counter that stood for a certain money value, -a risk which the player took, a wager that he made.</p> - -<p>“You know it’s really that,” one publisher explained to Ray. “<i>No</i> one -can tell whether a book will succeed or not; no one knows what makes a -book succeed. We have published things that I’ve liked and respected -thoroughly, and that I’ve taken a personal pride and pleasure in -pushing. They’ve been well received and intelligently praised by the -best critics from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and cultivated people -have talked about them everywhere; and they haven’t sold fifteen hundred -copies. Then we’ve tried trash—decent trash, of course; we always -remember the cheek of the Young Person—and we’ve all believed that we -had something that would hit the popular mood, and would leap into the -tens of thousands; and it’s dropped dead from the press. Other works of -art and other pieces of trash succeed for no better reason than some -fail. You can’t tell anything about it. If I were to trust my own -observation, I should say it was <i>luck</i>, pure and simple, and mostly bad -luck. Ten books fail, and twenty books barely pay, where one succeeds. -Nobody can say why. Can’t I send you some of our new books?” He had a -number of them on a table near<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span> him, and he talked them over with Ray, -while a clerk did them up; and he would not let Ray trouble himself to -carry them away with him. They were everywhere lavish of their -publications with him, and he had so many new books and advance sheets -given him that if he had been going to write his letters for the <i>Echo</i> -about literature alone, he would have had material for many weeks ahead.</p> - -<p>The letters he got at this time were some from home: a very sweet one -from his mother, fondly conjecturing and questioning about his comfort -in New York, and cautioning him not to take cold; a serious one from his -father, advising him to try each week to put by something for a rainy -day. There was also a letter from Sanderson, gay with news of all the -goings on in Midland, and hilariously regretful of his absence. -Sanderson did not say anything about coming to New York to seek his -fortune, and the effect of his news was to leave Ray pining for the -society of women, which had always been the sweetest thing in life to -him, and next to literature the dearest. If he could have had immediate -literary success, the excitement of it might have made him forget the -privilege he had enjoyed at Midland of going every evening to call on -some lovely young girl, and of staying as long as he liked. What made -him feel still more lonesome and dropped out was Sanderson’s telling of -several engagements among the girls they knew in Midland; it appeared to -him that he only was destined to go loveless and mateless through life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span></p> - -<p>There were women enough in his hotel, but after the first interest of -their strangeness, and the romantic effect of hearing them speak in -their foreign tongues as if they were at home in them, he could not -imagine a farther interest in those opaque Southern blondes, who spoke -French, or the brunettes with purple-ringed vast eyes, who coughed out -their Spanish gutturals like squirrels. He was appointed a table for his -meals in a dining-room that seemed to be reserved for its inmates, as -distinguished from the frequenters of the restaurant, who looked as if -they were all Americans; and he was served by a shining black waiter -weirdly ignorant of English. He gazed wistfully across into the -restaurant at times, and had half a mind to ask if he might not eat -there; but he liked the glances of curiosity and perhaps envy which its -frequenters now and then cast at him in the hotel dining-room. There -were no young ladies among them, that he ever saw, but sometimes there -were young men whom he thought he would have liked to talk with. Some of -them came in company, and at dinner they sat long, discussing matters -which he could overhear by snatches were literary and artistic matters. -They always came late, and rarely sat down before seven, when Ray was -finishing his coffee. One night these comrades came later than usual and -in unusual force, and took a large table set somewhat apart from the -rest in the bay of a deep window which had once looked out into the -little garden of the dwelling that the hotel had once been. They sat -down, with a babble of questions and an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span>swers, as of people who had not -all met for some time, and devoured the little radishes and olives and -anchovies, with which the table had been prefatorily furnished, in -apparent patience till all the places but the head of the table had been -taken; then they began to complain and to threaten at the delay of the -dinner. Ray was not aware just how a furious controversy suddenly began -to rage between two of them. As nearly as he could make out, amidst the -rapid thrust and parry of the principals, and the irregular lunges of -this one or that of the company which gave it the character of a free -fight, it turned upon a point of æsthetics, where the question was -whether the moral aspect ought or ought not to be sought in it. In the -heat of the debate the chiefs of the discussion talked both at once, -interrupted each other, tried which should clamor loudest and fastest, -and then suddenly the whole uproar fell to silence. The two parties -casually discovered that they were of exactly the same mind, but each -had supposed the other thought differently. Some one came in during the -lull that followed, and took the seat at the head of the table.</p> - -<p>It was Mr. Kane, and Ray’s heart leaped with the hope that he would see -him and recognize him, but out of self-respect he tried to look as if it -were not he, but perhaps some one who closely resembled him. He -perceived that it was a club dinner of some literary sort; but because -he could not help wishing that he were one of the company, he snubbed -his desires with unsparing cruelty. He looked down at his plate, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span> -shunned the roving glance which he felt sure Mr. Kane was sending into -the room where he now sat almost alone; and he did his best to be -ashamed of overhearing the talk now and then. He grew very bitter in his -solitude, and he imagined himself using Mr. Kane with great hauteur, -after <i>A Modern Romeo</i> had succeeded. He was not obliged to go out that -way, when he left the dining-room, but he feigned that he must, and in -spite of the lofty stand he had taken with Mr. Kane in fancy, he meanly -passed quite near him. Kane looked up, and called out, “Ah, -good-evening, good-evening!” and rose and shook hands with him, and -asked him how in the world he happened to have found out that -restaurant, and he was astonished to hear that Ray was staying in the -hotel; he said that was very <i>chic</i>. He introduced him to the company -generally, as his young friend Mr. Ray, of Midland, who had come on to -cast in his literary lot with them in New York; and then he presented -him personally to the nearest on either hand. They were young fellows, -but their names were known to Ray with the planetary distinctness that -the names of young authors have for literary aspirants, though they are -all so nebulous to older eyes.</p> - -<p>Mr. Kane asked Ray to sit down and take his coffee with them; Ray said -he had taken his coffee; they all urged that this was no reason why he -should not take some more; he stood out against them, like a fool—as he -later called himself with gnashing teeth. He pretended he had an -engagement, and he left the pleas<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span>ant company he was hungering so to -join, and went out and walked the streets, trying to stay himself with -the hope that he had made a better impression than if he had remained -and enjoyed himself. He was so lonesome when he came back, and caught -the sound of their jolly voices on his way up stairs, that he could -hardly keep from going in upon them, and asking if they would let him -sit with them. In his room he could not work; he wanted to shed tears in -his social isolation. He determined to go back to Midland, at any cost -to his feelings or fortunes, or even to the little village where his -family lived, and where he had been so restless and unhappy till he -could get away from it. Now, any place seemed better than this waste of -unknown hundreds of thousands of human beings, where he had not a -friend, or even an enemy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the morning Ray woke resolved to brace up against the nerveless -suspense he had been in ever since he had left his manuscript with Mr. -Brandreth, and go and present the letters that some people in Midland -had given him to their friends in New York. At least he need not suffer -from solitude unless he chose; he wondered if it would do to present his -letters on Sunday.</p> - -<p>He breakfasted in this question. Shortly after he went back to his room, -there was a knock at his door, and when he shouted “Come in!” it was set -softly ajar, and Mr. Kane showed his face at the edge of it.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you know,” he said, ignoring Ray’s welcome, “or if you -haven’t been out, you don’t know, that this is one of those Sunday -mornings which make you feel that it has been blessed and hallowed above -all the other days of the week. But I dare say,” he added, coming -inside, “that the Mohammedans feel exactly so about a particularly fine -Friday.”</p> - -<p>He glanced round the little room with an air of delicate impartiality, -and asked leave to look from Ray’s window. As he put his head out, he -said to the birds in the eaves, “Ah, sparrows!” as if he knew them -personally, before he began to make com<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span>pliments to the picturesque -facts of the prospect. Then he stood with his back to Ray, looking down -into the street, and praising the fashion of the shadow and sunshine in -meeting so solidly there, at all sorts of irregular points and angles. -Once he looked round and asked, with the sun making his hair all a -shining silver:</p> - -<p>“Has any one else been shown this view? No? Then let me be the first to -utter the stock imbecility that it ought to inspire you if anything -could.” He put out his head again, and gave a glance upward at the -speckless heaven, and then drew it in. “Yes,” he said, thoughtfully, “a -partially clouded sky is better for us, no doubt. Why didn’t you sit -down with us last night? I saw that you wished to do so.” He faced Ray -benignly, with a remote glimmer of mocking in his eye.</p> - -<p>Ray felt it safest to answer frankly. “Yes, I did want to join you -awfully. I overheard a good deal you were saying where I was sitting, -but I couldn’t accept your invitation. I knew it was a great chance, but -I couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know,” Mr. Kane asked, “that the chances have a polite horror -of iteration? Those men and those moods may never be got together again. -You oughtn’t to have thrown such a chance away!”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said Ray. “But I had to.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Kane leaned back in the chair he had taken, and murmured as if to -himself: “Ah, youth, youth! Yes, it has to throw chances away. Waste is -a condi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span>tion of survival. Otherwise we should perish of mere fruition. -But could you,” he asked, addressing Ray more directly, “without too -much loss to the intimacies that every man ought to keep sacred, could -you tell me just <i>why</i> you had to refuse us your company?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Ray, with the self-scorn which Mr. Kane’s attitude -enabled him to show. “I was so low-spirited that I couldn’t rise to the -hands that offered to pull me out of my Slough of Despond. I felt that -the slightest exertion would sink me over head and ears. I had better -stay as I was.”</p> - -<p>“I understand,” said Mr. Kane. “But why should a man of your age be in -low spirits?”</p> - -<p>“Why? Nobody can tell why he’s in low spirits exactly. I suppose I got -to thinking the prospect for my book wasn’t very gay. It’s hard to -wait.”</p> - -<p>“Was that all?”</p> - -<p>“I was a little homesick, too. But wasn’t the other enough?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t say. It’s a long time since I was your age. But shall I tell -you what I first thought your unhappiness was, when you confessed it -just now?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, by all means.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder if I’d better! I supposed it was not such as any <i>man</i> could -inflict. Excuse me!” He kept his eyes smilingly on the young fellow’s -face, as if to prevent his taking the audacity in bad part. “I don’t -know why I should say this to you, except that it really went through my -mind, and I did you the wrong to wonder why you should mention it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I can forgive the wrong; it’s so very far from the fact”—Ray began.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you’ve already noticed <i>that</i>!” Mr Kane interrupted.</p> - -<p>“Noticed what?”</p> - -<p>“That we can forgive people their injurious conjectures when they’re -wrong rather than when they’re right?”</p> - -<p>“No, I hadn’t noticed,” Ray confessed; and he added, “I was only -thinking how impossible that was for me in a place where I haven’t -spoken to a woman yet.”</p> - -<p>If Mr. Kane tasted the bitterness in a speech which Ray tried to carry -off with a laugh, his words did not confess it. “It wasn’t a reasoned -conjecture, and I don’t defend it; I’m only too glad to escape from it -without offence. When I was of your age, a slight from a woman was the -only thing that could have kept me from any pleasure that offered -itself. But I understand that now youth is made differently.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why,” said Ray, and he quelled a desire he had to boast of -his wounds; he permitted himself merely to put on an air of gloom.</p> - -<p>“Why, I’ve been taught that modern society and civilization generally -has so many consolations for unrequited affection that young men don’t -suffer from that sort of trouble any more, or not deeply.”</p> - -<p>Ray was sensible that Mr. Kane’s intrusiveness was justifiable upon the -ground of friendly interest; and he was not able to repel what seemed -like friendly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span> interest. “It may be as you say, in New York; I’ve not -been here long enough to judge.”</p> - -<p>“But in Midland things go on in the old way? Tell me something about -Midland, and why any one should ever leave Midland for New York?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t say, generally speaking,” answered Ray, with pleasure in Kane’s -pursuit, “but I think that in my case Midland began it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>Ray was willing enough to impart as much of his autobiography as related -to the business change that had thrown him out of his place on the -<i>Echo</i>. Then he sketched with objective airiness the sort of life one -led in Midland, if one was a young man in society; and he found it no -more than fair to himself to give some notion of his own local value in -a graphic little account of the farewell dinner.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mr. Kane, “I can imagine how you should miss all that, and I -don’t know that New York has anything so pleasant to offer. I fancy the -conditions of society are incomparably different in Midland and in New -York. You seem to me a race of shepherds and shepherdesses out there; -your pretty world is like a dream of my own youth, when Boston was still -only a large town, and was not so distinctly an aoristic Athens as it is -now.”</p> - -<p>“I had half a mind to go to Boston with my book first,” said Ray. “But -somehow I thought there were more chances in New York.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“There are certainly more publishers,” Kane admitted. “Whether there -are more chances depends upon how much independent judgment there is -among the publishers. Have you found them very judicial?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t quite understand what you mean.”</p> - -<p>“Did any one of them seem to be a man who would give your novel an -unprejudiced reading if you took it to him and told him honestly that it -had been rejected by all the others?”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t say any of them did. But I don’t know that I could give my -manuscript an unprejudiced reading myself under the same circumstances. -I certainly shouldn’t blame any publisher who couldn’t. Should you?”</p> - -<p>“I? I blame nobody, my dear friend,” said Kane. “That is the way I keep -my temper. I should not blame you if Chapley & Co. declined your book, -and you went to the rest of the trade carefully concealing from each -publisher, the fact that he was not the first you had approached with -it.”</p> - -<p>Ray laughed, but he winced, too. “I suppose that’s what I should have to -do. But Chapley & Co. haven’t declined it yet.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I’m glad of that. Not that you could really impose upon any one. -There would be certain infallible signs in your manuscript that would -betray you: an air of use; little private marks and memoranda of earlier -readers; the smell of their different brands of tobacco and sachet -powder.”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t try to impose upon any one,” Ray began, with a flush of -indignation, which ended in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span> shame. “What would <i>you</i> do under the same -circumstances?” he demanded, with desperation.</p> - -<p>“My dear friend! My dear boy,” Mr. Kane protested. “I am not censuring -you. It’s said that Bismarck found it an advantage to introduce truth -even into diplomacy. He discovered there was nothing deceived <i>like</i> it; -<i>nobody</i> believed him. Some successful advertisers have made it work in -commercial affairs. You mustn’t expect me to say what I should do under -the same circumstances; the circumstances couldn’t be the same. I am not -the author of a manuscript novel with a potential public of tens of -thousands. But you can imagine that as the proprietor of a volume of -essays which has a certain sale—Mr. Brandreth used that fatal term in -speaking of my book, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t remember that he did,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“He was kinder than I could have expected. It is the death-knell of hope -to the devoted author when his publisher tells him that his book will -always have a certain sale; he is expressing in a pitying euphemism of -the trade that there is no longer any chance for it, no happy accident -in the future, no fortuity; it is dead. As the author of a book with a -certain sale, I feel myself exempt from saying what I should do in your -place. But I’m very glad it hasn’t come to the ordeal with you. Let us -hope you won’t be tempted. Let us hope that Messrs. Chapley & Co. will -be equal to the golden opportunity offered them, and gradually—snatch -it.”</p> - -<p>Kane smiled, and Ray laughed out. He knew that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> he was being played -upon, but he believed the touch was kindly, and even what he felt an -occasional cold cynicism in it had the fascination that cynicism always -has for the young when it does not pass from theory to conduct; when it -does that, it shocks. He thought that Mr. Kane was something like -Warrington in <i>Pendennis</i>, and again something like Coverdale in -<i>Blithedale Romance</i>. He valued him for that; he was sure he had a -history; and when he now rose, Ray said: “Oh, must you go?” with eager -regret.</p> - -<p>“Why, I had thought of asking you to come with me. I’m going for a walk -in the Park, and I want to stop on the way for a moment to see an old -friend of mine”—he hesitated, and then added—“a man whom I was once -intimately associated with in some joint hopes we had for reconstructing -the world. I think you will be interested in him, as a type, even if you -don’t like him.”</p> - -<p>Ray professed that he should be very much interested, and they went out -together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> streets had that Sunday sense which is as unmistakable as their -week-day effect. Their noises were subdued almost to a country quiet; as -he crossed with his friend to the elevated station, Ray noted with a -lifting heart the sparrows that chirped from the knots and streamers of -red Virginia-creeper hanging here and there from a porch roof or over a -bit of garden wall; overhead the blue air was full of the jargoning of -the blended church bells.</p> - -<p>He tried to fit these facts with phrases in the intervals of his -desultory talk with Kane, and he had got two or three very good epithets -by the time they found seats together in an up-town train. It was not -easy to find them, for the cars were thronged with work-people going to -the Park for one of the last Sundays that could be fine there.</p> - -<p>Kane said: “The man we are going to see belongs to an order of thinking -and feeling that one would have said a few years ago had passed away -forever, but of late its turn seems to be coming again; it’s curious how -these things recur. Do you happen to hate altruism in any of its protean -forms?”</p> - -<p>Ray smiled with the relish for the question which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span> Kane probably meant -him to feel. “I can’t say that I have any violent feeling against it.”</p> - -<p>“It is usually repulsive to young people,” Kane went on, “and I could -very well conceive your loathing it. My friend has been an altruist of -one kind or another all his life. He’s a man whom it would be perfectly -useless to tell that the world is quite good enough for the sort of -people there are in it; he would want to set about making the people -worthy of a better world, and he would probably begin on <i>you</i>. You have -heard of Brook Farm, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” Ray answered, with a show of resentment for such a -question. “<i>Blithedale Romance</i>—I think it’s the best of Hawthorne’s -books.”</p> - -<p>“Blithedale,” said Mr. Kane, ignoring the literary interest, “is no more -Brook Farm than—But we needn’t enter upon that! My friend’s career as -an altruist began there; and since then there’s hardly been a -communistic experiment in behalf of Man with a capital and without -capital that he hasn’t been into and out of.”</p> - -<p>“I should like immensely to see him,” said Ray. “Any man who was at -Brook Farm—Did he know Hollingsworth and Zenobia, and Priscilla and -Coverdale? Was it at Brook Farm that you met?”</p> - -<p>Kane shook his head. “I think no one knew them but Hawthorne. I don’t -speak positively; Brook Farm was a little before my day, or else I -should have been there too, I dare say. But I’ve been told those -characters never were.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Then it was doubly impossible that Hawthorne should have studied Miles -Coverdale from Kane; Ray had to relinquish a theory he had instantly -formed upon no ground except Kane’s sort of authority in speaking of -Brook Farm; what was worse he had to abandon an instant purpose of -carrying forward the romance and doing <i>The Last Days of Miles -Coverdale</i>; it would have been an attractive title.</p> - -<p>“I met David Hughes,” Kane continued, “after the final break-up of the -community, when I was beginning to transcendentalize around Boston, and -he wanted me to go into another with him, out West. He came out of his -last community within the year; he founded it himself, upon a perfectly -infallible principle. It was so impregnable to the logic either of -metaphysics or events, that Hughes had to break it up himself, I -understand. At sixty-nine he has discovered that his efforts to oblige -his fellow-beings ever since he was twenty have been misdirected. It -isn’t long for an error of that kind in the life of the race, but it -hasn’t exactly left my old friend in the vigor of youth. However, his -hope and good-will are as athletic as ever.”</p> - -<p>“It’s rather pathetic,” Ray suggested.</p> - -<p>“Why, I don’t know—I don’t know! Is it so? He hasn’t found out the -wrong way without finding the right way at the same time, and he’s -buoyantly hopeful in it, though he’s not only an old man; he’s a sick -man, too. Of course, he’s poor. He never was a fellow to do things by -halves, and when he dispersed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> his little following he divided nearly -all his substance among his disciples. He sees now that the right way to -universal prosperity and peace is the political way; and if he could -live long enough, we should see him in Congress—if <i>we</i> lived long -enough. Naturally, he is paving the way with a book he’s writing.” Kane -went on to speak of his friend at length; he suddenly glanced out of the -car window, and said: “Ah, we’re just there. This is our station.”</p> - -<p>The avenue had been changing its character as they rushed along. It had -ceased to be a street of three or four story houses, where for the most -part the people lived over their shops, and where there was an effect of -excessive use on everything, a worn-out and shabby look, rather than a -squalid look. The cross-streets of towering tenement-houses, had come -and gone, and now the buildings were low again, with greater or less -gaps between them, while the railroad had climbed higher, and was like a -line drawn through the air without reference to the localities which the -train left swiftly behind. The houses had begun to be of wood here and -there, and it was at a frame of two stories that Mr. Kane stopped with -Ray, when they clambered down the long iron staircase of the station to -the footway below. They pulled a bell that sounded faintly somewhere -within, and the catch of the lock clicked as if it were trying to -release itself; but when they tried the door it was still fast, and Mr. -Kane rang again. Then a clatter of quick, impatient feet sounded on the -stairs; the door was pulled sharply open, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> they confronted a tall -young man, with a handsome pale face, who bent on them a look of -impartial gloom from clouded blue eyes under frowning brows. A heavy -fringe of dull yellow hair almost touched their level with its straight -line, which the lower lip of the impassioned mouth repeated.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Denton!” said Mr. Kane. “Good-morning, good-morning! This is my -friend, Mr. Ray.” The young men shook hands with a provisional civility, -and Mr. Kane asked, “Are you all at home?”</p> - -<p>“We are, at the moment,” said the other. “I’m just going out with the -babies; but father will be glad to see you. Come in.”</p> - -<p>He had a thick voice that came from his throat by nervous impulses; he -set the door open and twisted his head in the direction of the stairs, -as if to invite them to go up. They found he had a perambulator in the -narrow hall behind the door, and two children facing each other in it. -He got it out on the sidewalk without further attention to them, and -shut the door after him. But in the light which his struggles to get out -had let into the entry they made their way up the stairs, where a -woman’s figure stood silhouetted against an open door-way behind her.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Mrs. Denton, how do you do?” said Kane, gaily.</p> - -<p>The figure answered gaily back, “Oh, Mr. Kane!” and after Kane’s -presentation of Ray, set open a door that opened from the landing into -the apartment. “Father will be so glad to see you. Please walk in.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Ray found himself in what must be the principal room of the apartment; -its two windows commanded an immediate prospect of the elevated road, -with an effect of having their sills against its trestle work. Between -them stood a tall, gaunt old man, whose blue eyes flamed under the heavy -brows of age, from a face set in a wilding growth of iron-gray hair and -beard. He was talking down upon a gentleman whom Ray had black against -the light, and he was saying: “No, Henry, no! Tolstoï is mistaken. I -don’t object to his theories of non-resistance; the Quakers have found -them perfectly practicable for more than two centuries; but I say that -in quitting the scene of the moral struggle, and in simplifying himself -into a mere peasant, he begs the question as completely as if he had -gone into a monastery. He has struck out some tremendous truths, I don’t -deny that, and his examination of the conditions of civilization is one -of the most terrifically searching studies of the facts that have ever -been contributed to the science of sociology; but his conclusions are as -wrong as his premises are right. If I had back the years that I have -wasted in a perfectly futile effort to deal with the problem of the race -at a distance where I couldn’t touch it, I would have nothing to do with -eremitism in any of its forms, either collectively as we have had it in -our various communistic experiments, or individually on the terms which -Tolstoï apparently advises.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t understand him to advise eremitism,” the gentleman began.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span></p> - -<p>“It amounts to the same thing,” said the other, cutting himself short in -hollow cough, so as not to give up the word. “He would have us withdraw -from the world, as if, where any man was, the world was not there in the -midst of him!”</p> - -<p>“Poor Tolstoï,” said Mr. Kane, going up and shaking hands with the -others, “as I understand it, is at present able only to rehearse his -rôle, because his family won’t consent to anything else. He’s sold all -he has in order to give to the poor, but his wife manages the proceeds.”</p> - -<p>“It’s easy enough to throw ridicule on him,” said the gentleman against -the window, who now stood up.</p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> throw no ridicule upon him,” said the tall, gaunt man. “He has -taught me at least this, that contempt is of the devil—I beg your -pardon, Kane—and I appreciate to the utmost the spiritual grandeur of -the man’s nature. But practically, I don’t follow him. We shall never -redeem the world by eschewing it. Society is not to be saved by -self-outlawry. The body politic is to be healed politically. The way to -have the golden age is to elect it by the Australian ballot. The people -must vote themselves into possession of their own business, and intrust -their economic affairs to the same faculty that makes war and peace, -that frames laws, and that does justice. What I object to in Tolstoï is -his utter unpracticality. I cannot forgive any man, however good and -great, who does not measure the means to the end. If there is anything -in my own life that I can regard with entire<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span> satisfaction it is that at -every step of my career I have invoked the light of common-sense. -Whatever my enemies may say against me, they cannot say that I have not -instantly abandoned any project when I found it unpractical. I abhor -dreamers; they have no place in a world of thinking and acting.” Ray saw -Kane arching his eyebrows, while the other began again: “I tell you”—</p> - -<p>“I want to introduce my young friend Mr. Ray,” Mr. Kane broke in.</p> - -<p>The old man took Ray’s hand between two hot palms, and said, “Ah!” with -a look at him that was benign, if somewhat bewildered.</p> - -<p>“You know Mr. Ray, Chapley,” Kane pursued, transferring him to the -other, who took his hand in turn.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Ray?” he queried, with the distress of the elderly man who tries to -remember.</p> - -<p>“If you forget your authors in the green wood so easily, how shall it be -with them in the dry?” Kane sighed; and now the publisher woke up to -Ray’s identity.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, yes, yes! Of course! Mr. Ray, of—of—Mr. Ray, of”—</p> - -<p>“Midland,” Ray suggested, perspiring.</p> - -<p>“Why, certainly!” Mr. Chapley pressed his hand with as much apologetic -entreaty as he could intimate in that way, and assured him that he was -glad to see him; and then he said to the old man, whose name Kane had -not mentioned to Ray in presenting him, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span> whom Ray knew to be Hughes, -“Well, I must be going now. I’m glad to find you looking so much better -this morning.”</p> - -<p>“Oh; I’m quite a new man—quite a new man!”</p> - -<p>“You were always that!” said Mr. Chapley, with a certain fondness. He -sighed, “I wish I knew your secret.”</p> - -<p>“Stay, and let him expound it to us all!” Kane suggested. “I’ve no doubt -he would.”</p> - -<p>“No; I must be going,” said Mr. Chapley. “Good-by.” He shook hands with -the old man. “Good-by, Kane. Er—good-morning, Mr.—er—Ray. You must -drop in and see us, when you can find time.”</p> - -<p>Ray bubbled after him some incoherencies about being afraid he could -find only too much time. Apparently Mr. Chapley did not hear. He -pottered out on the landing, and Ray heard him feeling his way carefully -down stairs. It was an immense relief for him to have met Mr. Chapley -there. It stamped his own presence in the place with propriety; he was -fond of adventure and hungry for experience, but he wished all his -adventures and experiences to be respectable. He had a young dread of -queerness and irregularity; and he could not conceal from himself that -but for Mr. Chapley his present environment was not in keeping with his -smooth Philistine traditions. He had never been in an apartment before, -much less a mere tenement; at Midland every one he knew lived in his own -house; most of the people he knew lived in handsome<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span> houses of their -own, with large grass-plots and shade-trees about them. But if Mr. -Chapley were here, with this old man who called him by his first name, -and with whom he and Mr. Kane seemed to have the past if not the present -in common, it must be all right.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> woke from his rapid mental formulation of this comforting -reassurance to find the old man saying to him, “What is the nature of -the work that Chapley has published for you? I hope something by which -you intend to advance others, as well as yourself: something that is to -be not merely the means of your personal aggrandizement in fame and -fortune. Nothing, in my getting back to the world, strikes me as more -shamelessly selfish than the ordinary literary career. I don’t wonder -the art has sunk so low; its aims are on the business level.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Kane listened with an air of being greatly amused, and even -gratified, and Ray thought he had purposely let the old man go on as if -he were an author who had already broken the shell. Before he could -think of some answer that should at once explain and justify him, Kane -interposed:</p> - -<p>“I hope Mr. Ray is no better than the rest of us; but he may be; you -must make your arraignment and condemnation conditional, at any rate. -He’s an author <i>in petto</i>, as yet; Chapley may never publish him.”</p> - -<p>“Then why,” said the old man, irascibly, “did you speak of him as you -did to Chapley? It was misleading.”</p> - -<p>“In the world you’ve come back to, my dear friend,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span>” said Kane, “you’ll -find that we have no time to refine upon the facts. We can only sketch -the situation in large, bold outlines. Perhaps I wished to give Mr. Ray -a hold upon Chapley by my premature recognition of him as an author, and -make the wicked publisher feel that there was already a wide general -impatience to see Mr. Ray’s book.”</p> - -<p>“That would have been very corrupt, Kane,” said the other. “But I owe -Mr. Ray an apology.”</p> - -<p>Ray found his tongue. “Perhaps you won’t think so when you see my -novel.”</p> - -<p>“A novel! Oh, I have no time to read novels!” the old man burst out. “A -practical man”—</p> - -<p>“Nor volumes of essays,” said Kane, picking up a book from the table at -his elbow. “Really, as a measure of self-defence, I must have the leaves -of my presentation copies cut, at any rate. I must sacrifice my taste to -my vanity. Then I sha’n’t know when the grateful recipients haven’t -opened them.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve no time to read books of any kind”—the old man began again.</p> - -<p>“You ought to set up reviewer,” Kane interposed again.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve looked into your essays, Kane, here and there. The literature -is of a piece with the affectation of the uncut edges: something utterly -outdated and superseded. It’s all as impertinent as the demand you make -that the reader should do the work of a bookbinder, and cut your -leaves.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know that I’m really hurt—not for my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span>self, but for you!—by -what you say of my uncut edges? You descend to the level of a -Brandreth,” said Kane.</p> - -<p>“A Brandreth? What is a Brandreth?”</p> - -<p>“It is a publisher: Chapley’s son-in-law and partner.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, yes,” said Hughes.</p> - -<p>“I spent many hours,” said Kane, plaintively, “pleading with him for an -edition with uncut edges. He contended that the public would not buy it -if the edges were not cut; and I told him that I wished to have that -fact to fall back upon, in case they didn’t buy it for some other -reason. And I was right. The edition hasn’t sold, and the uncut edges -have saved me great suffering until now. Why not have confined your own -remarks, my dear friend, to the uncut edges? I might have agreed with -you.”</p> - -<p>“Because,” said the old man, “I cannot have patience with a man of your -age who takes the mere dilettante view of life—who regards the world as -something to be curiously inspected and neatly commented, instead of -toiled for, sweated for, suffered for!”</p> - -<p>“It appears to me that there is toiling and sweating and suffering -enough for the world already,” said Kane, with a perverse levity. “Look -at the poor millionnaires, struggling to keep their employés in work! If -you’ve come back to the world for no better purpose than to add to its -perseverance and perspiration, I could wish for your own sake that you -had remained in some of your communities—or all of them, for that -matter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The other turned half round in his chair, and looked hard into Kane’s -smiling face. “You are a most unserious spirit, Kane, and you always -were! When will you begin to be different? Do you expect to continue a -mere frivolous maker of phrases to the last? Your whole book there is -just a bundle of phrases—labels for things. Do you ever intend to <i>be</i> -anything?”</p> - -<p>“I intend to be an angel, some time—or some eternity,” said Kane. “But, -in the meanwhile, have you ever considered that perhaps you are -demanding, in your hopes of what you call the redemption of the race -from selfishness, as sheer and mere an impossibility as a change of the -physical basis of the soul?”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I mean—or, I won’t put it affirmatively; I will put it -interrogatively.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that was always your way!”</p> - -<p>“I will merely ask you,” Kane went on, without heeding the interruption, -“what reason you have to suppose the altruistic is not eternally -conditioned in the egoistic, just as the spiritual is conditioned in the -animal?”</p> - -<p>“What jargon is that?” demanded the old man, throwing one leg over the -other, and smoothing the upper one down with his hand, as he bent -forward to glower at Kane.</p> - -<p>“It is the harmony of the spheres, my dear David; it is a metaphysical -variation of the pleasing air that the morning stars sang together; it -is the very truth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span> The altruistic can no more shake off the egoistic in -this world than the spiritual can shake off the animal. As soon as man -ceases to get hungry three times a day, just so soon will he cease to -eat his fellow-man.”</p> - -<p>“There is the usual trivial truth in what you say,” Hughes replied, “and -the usual serious impiety. You probably are not aware that your -miserable paradox accuses the Creative Intelligence.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but use another word! Say Nature, and then where is the impiety?”</p> - -<p>“But I decline to use the other word,” Hughes retorted.</p> - -<p>“And I insist upon it; I must. It is Nature that I accuse; not the -divine nature, or even human nature, but brute nature, that commits a -million blunders, and destroys myriads of types, in order to arrive at -such an imperfect creature as man still physically is, after untold ages -of her blind empiricism. If the human intelligence could be put in -possession of the human body, we should have altruism at once. We should -not get hungry three times a day; instead of the crude digestive -apparatus which we have inherited with apparently no change whatever -from the cave-dweller, we should have an organ delicately adjusted to -the exigencies of modern life, and responsive to all the emotions of -philanthropy. But no! The stomach of the nineteenth century remains -helplessly in the keeping of primeval nature, who is a mere Bourbon; who -learns nothing and forgets nothing. She obliges us to struggle on with a -rude arrangement developed from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span> the mollusk, and adapted at best to the -conditions of the savage; imperative and imperfect; liable to get out of -order with the carefulest management, and to give way altogether with -the use of half a lifetime. No, David! You will have to wait until man -has come into control of his stomach, and is able to bring his ingenuity -to bear upon its deficiencies. Then, and not till then, you will have -the Altruistic Man. Until then the egoistic man will continue to eat his -brother, and more or less indigest him—if there is such a verb.”</p> - -<p>Ray listened with one ear to them. The other was filled with the soft -murmur of women’s voices from the further end of the little apartment; -they broke now and then from a steady flow of talk, and rippled into -laughter, and then smoothed themselves to talk again. He longed to know -what they were talking about, laughing about.</p> - -<p>“No, David,” Kane went on, “when you take man out of the clutches of -Nature, and put Nature in the keeping of man, we shall have the -millennium. I have nothing to say against the millennium, <i>per se</i>, -except that it never seems to have been on time. I am willing to excuse -its want of punctuality; there may have always been unavoidable delays; -but you can’t expect me to have as much faith in it as if it had never -disappointed people. Now with you I admit it’s different. You’ve seen it -come a great many times, and go even oftener.”</p> - -<p>“Young man!” the other called so abruptly to Ray<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span> that it made him start -in his chair, “I wish you would step out into the room yonder, and ask -one of my daughters to bring me my whiskey and milk. It’s time for it,” -and he put down a watch which he had taken from the table beside him.</p> - -<p>He nodded toward a sort of curtained corridor at one side of the room, -and after a glance of question at Kane, who answered with a reassuring -smile, Ray went out through this passage. The voices had suddently -fallen silent, but he found their owners in the little room beyond; they -were standing before their chairs as if they had jumped to their feet in -a feminine dismay which they had quelled. In one he made out the young -Mrs. Denton, whose silhouette had received him and Kane; the other -looked like her, but younger, and in the two Ray recognized the heroines -of the pocket-book affair on the train.</p> - -<p>He trembled a little inwardly, but he said, with a bow for both: “I beg -your pardon. Your father wished me to ask you for his”—</p> - -<p>He faltered at the queerness of it all, but the younger said, simply and -gravely: “Oh, yes, I’ll take it in. I’ve got it ready here,” and she -took up a tumbler from the hearth of the cooking-stove keeping itself -comfortable at one side of a little kitchen beyond the room where they -were, and went out with it.</p> - -<p>Ray did not know exactly what to do, or rather how he should do what he -wished. He hesitated, and looked at Mrs. Denton, who said, “Won’t you -sit down—if it isn’t too hot here?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV.</h2> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Oh</span>, it isn’t at all hot,” said Ray, and in fact the air was blowing -freely in through the plants at the open window. Then he sat down, as if -to prove that it was not too hot; there was no other reason that he -could have given for staying, instead of going back to Kane and her -father.</p> - -<p>“We can keep the windows open on this side,” said Mrs. Denton, “but the -elevated makes too much noise in front. When we came here first, it was -warm weather; it was stifling when we shut the windows, and when we -opened them, it seemed as if the trains would drive us wild. It was like -having them in the same room with us. But now it’s a little cooler, and -we don’t need the front windows open; so it’s very pleasant.”</p> - -<p>Ray said it was delightful, and he asked, “Then you haven’t been in New -York long?”</p> - -<p>“No; only since the beginning of September. We thought we would settle -in New Jersey first, and we did take a house there, in the country; but -it was too far from my husband’s work, and so we moved in. Father wants -to meet people; he’s more in the current here.”</p> - -<p>As she talked, Mrs. Denton had a way of looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span> down at her apron, and -smoothing it across her knees with one hand, and now and then glancing -at Ray out of the corner of her eye, as if she were smiling on the -further side of her face.</p> - -<p>“We went out there a little while ago to sell off the things we didn’t -want to keep. The neighbors took them.” She began to laugh, and Ray -laughed, too, when she said, “We found they had taken <i>some</i> of them -before we got there. They might as well have taken all, they paid us so -little for the rest. I didn’t suppose there would be such a difference -between first-hand and second-hand things. But it was the first time we -had ever set up housekeeping for ourselves, and we had to make mistakes. -We had always lived in a community.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him for the impression of this fact, and Ray merely said, -“Yes; Mr. Kane told me something of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“It’s all very different in the world. I don’t know whether you’ve ever -been in a community?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she went on, “we’ve had to get used to all sorts of things since -we came out into the world. The very day we left the community, I heard -some people in the seat just in front of me, in the car, planning how -they should do something to get a living; it seemed ridiculous and -dreadful. It fairly frightened me.”</p> - -<p>Ray was struck with the literary value of the fact. He said: “I suppose -it would be startling if we could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span> any of us realize it for the first -time. But for most of us there never is any first time.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton said: “No, but in the community we never had to think how we -should get things to eat and wear, any more than how we should get air -to breathe. You know father believes that the world can be made like the -Family, in that, and everybody be sure of a living, if he is willing to -work.”</p> - -<p>She glanced at Ray with another of her demure looks, which seemed -inquiries both as to his knowledge of the facts and his opinion of them.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know just what your father’s ideas were,” he said; and she -went on:</p> - -<p>“Yes; he thinks all you’ve got to do is to have patience. But it seems -to me you’ve got to have money too, or you’ll starve to death before -your patience gives out.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton laughed, and Ray sat looking at her with a curious mixture -of liking and misgiving: he would have liked to laugh with her from the -poet in him, but his civic man could not approve of her -irresponsibility. In her quality of married woman, she was more -reprehensible than she would have been as a girl; as a girl, she might -well have been merely funny. Still, she was a woman, and her voice, if -it expressed an irresponsible nature, was sweet to hear. She seemed not -to dislike hearing it herself, and she let it run lightly on. “The -hardest thing for us, though, has been getting used to money, and the -care of it. It seems to be just as bad with a little as a great -deal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span>—the care does; and you have to be thinking about it all the time; -we never had to think of it at all in the Family. Most of us never saw -it, or touched it; only the few that went out and sold and bought -things.”</p> - -<p>“That’s very odd,” said Ray, trying the notion if it would not work -somewhere into literature; at the same time he felt the charm of this -pretty young woman, and wondered why her sister did not come back. He -heard her talking with Kane in the other room; now and then her voice, -gentle and clear and somewhat high, was lost in Kane’s laugh, or the -hoarse plunge of her father’s bass.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Mrs. Denton went on, “I think I feel it more than my husband or -my sister does; they just have to earn the money, but I have to take -care of it, and see how far I can make it go. It’s perfectly -distracting; and sometimes when I forget, and do something careless!” -She let an impressive silence follow, and Ray laughed.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s an anxious time for us, even if we’re brought up with the -advantages of worldly experience.”</p> - -<p>“Anxious!” Mrs. Denton repeated; and her tongue ran on. “Why, the day I -went out to New Jersey with my sister to settle up our ‘estate’ out -there, we each of us had a baby to carry—my children are twins, and we -couldn’t leave them here with father; it was bad enough to leave him! -and my husband was at work; and on the train coming home I forgot and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span> -gave the twins my pocket-book to play with; and just then a kind old -gentleman put up the car window for me, and the first thing I knew they -threw it out into the water—we were crossing that piece of water before -you get to Jersey City. It had every cent of my money in it; and I was -so scared when they threw my pocket-book away—we always say <i>they</i>, -because they’re so much alike we never can remember which did a thing—I -was so scared that I didn’t know what I was doing, and I just screamed -out all about it.” Ray listened restively; he felt as if he were -eavesdropping; but he did not know quite how, or when, or whether, after -all, to tell her that he had witnessed the whole affair; he decided that -he had better not; and she went on: “My sister said it was just as if I -had begged of the whole carful; and I suppose it was. I don’t suppose -that a person who was more used to money would have given it to a baby -to play with.”</p> - -<p>She stopped, and Ray suddenly changed his mind; he thought he ought not -to let her go on as if he knew nothing about it; that was hardly fair.</p> - -<p>“The conductor,” he said, “appeared to think <i>any</i> woman would have done -it.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton laughed out her delight. “It <i>was</i> you, then. My sister was -sure it was, as soon as she saw you at Mr. Chapley’s.”</p> - -<p>“At Mr. Chapley’s?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; his store. That is where she works. You didn’t see her, but she -saw you,” said Mrs. Denton; and then Ray recalled that Mr. Brandreth had -sent to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span> a Miss Hughes for the list of announcements she had given him.</p> - -<p>“We saw you noticing us in the car, and we saw you talking with the -conductor. Did he say anything else about us?” she asked, significantly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know exactly what you mean,” Ray answered, a little -consciously, and coloring slightly.</p> - -<p>“Why,” Mrs. Denton began; but she stopped at sight of her sister, who -came in with the empty tumbler in her hand, and set it down in the room -beyond. “Peace!” she called to her, and the girl came back reluctantly, -Ray fancied. He had remained standing since her reappearance, and Mrs. -Denton said, introducing them, “This is my sister, Mr. Ray;” and then -she cried out joyfully, “It <i>was</i> Mr. Ray!” while he bowed ceremoniously -to the girl, who showed an embarrassment that Mrs. Denton did not share. -“The conductor told him that any woman would have given her baby her -pocket-book to play with; and so you see I wasn’t so very bad, after -all. But when one of these things happens to me, it seems as if the -world had come to an end; I can’t get over it. Then we had another -experience! One of the passengers that heard me say all our money was in -that pocket-book, gave the conductor a dollar for us, to pay our -car-fares home. We had to take it; we <i>couldn’t</i> have carried the -children from the ferry all the way up here; but I never knew before -that charity hurt so. It was dreadful!”</p> - -<p>A certain note made itself evident in her voice which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> Ray felt as an -appeal. “Why, I don’t think you need have considered it as charity. It -was what might have happened to any lady who had lost her purse.”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t like that,” Miss Hughes broke in. “It would have been offered -then so that it could be returned. We were to blame for not making the -conductor say who gave it. But we were so confused!”</p> - -<p>“I think the giver was to blame for not sending his address with it. But -perhaps he was confused too,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“The conductor told us it was a lady,” said Mrs. Denton, with a sudden -glance upward at Ray.</p> - -<p>They all broke into a laugh together, and the girl sprang up and went -into another room. She came back with a bank-note in her hand, which she -held out toward Ray.</p> - -<p>He did not offer to take it. “I haven’t pleaded guilty yet.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Mrs. Denton; “but we know you did it. Peace always thought -you did; and now we’ve got you in our power, and you <i>must</i> take it -back.”</p> - -<p>“But you didn’t use it all. You gave a quarter to the old darkey who -whistled. You’re as bad as I am. You do charity, too.”</p> - -<p>“No; he earned his quarter. You paid him something yourself,” said the -girl.</p> - -<p>“He did whistle divinely,” Ray admitted. “How came you to think of -asking him to change your bill? I should have thought you’d have given -it all to him.”</p> - -<p>They had a childlike joy in his railery, which they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span> laughed simply out. -“We did want to,” Mrs. Denton said; “but we didn’t know how we could get -home.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see but that convicts me.” Ray put out his hand as if to take -the note, and then withdrew it. “I suppose I ought to take it,” he -began. “But if I did, I should just spend it on myself. And the fact is, -I had saved it on myself, or else, perhaps, I shouldn’t have given it to -the conductor for you.” He told them how he had economized on his -journey, and they laughed together at the picture he gave of his -satisfaction in his self-denial.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know that <i>good</i> feeling!” said Mrs. Denton.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but you can’t imagine how <i>superior</i> I felt when I handed my -dollar over to the conductor. <i>Good</i> is no name for it; and I’ve simply -gloated over my own merit ever since. Miss Hughes, you must keep that -dollar, and give it to somebody who needs it!”</p> - -<p>This was not so novel as it seemed to Ray; but the sisters glanced at -each other as if struck with its originality.</p> - -<p>Then the girl looked at him steadily out of her serene eyes a moment, as -if thinking what she had better do, while Mrs. Denton cooed her pleasure -in the situation.</p> - -<p>“I knew just as <i>well</i>, when the conductor said it was a lady passenger -sent it! He said it like a sort of after-thought, you know; he turned -back to say it just after he left us.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I will do that,” said the girl to Ray; and she carried the money -back to her room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do sit down!” said Mrs. Denton to Ray when she came back. The community -of experience, and the wonder of the whole adventure, launched them -indefinitely forward towards intimacy in their acquaintance. “We were -awfully excited when my sister came home and said she had seen you at -Mr. Chapley’s.” Her sister did not deny it; but when Mrs. Denton added -the question, “Are you an author?” she protested—“Jenny!”</p> - -<p>“I wish I were,” said Ray; “but I can’t say I am, yet. That depends upon -whether Mr. Chapley takes my book.”</p> - -<p>He ventured to be so frank because he thought Miss Hughes probably knew -already that he had offered a manuscript; but if she knew, she made no -sign of knowing, and Mrs. Denton said:</p> - -<p>“Mr. Chapley gives my sister all the books he publishes. Isn’t it -splendid? And he lets her bring home any of the books she wants to, out -of the store. Are you acquainted in his family?”</p> - -<p>“No; I only know Mr. Brandreth, his son-in-law.”</p> - -<p>“My sister says he’s very nice. Everybody likes Mr. Brandreth. Mr. -Chapley is an old friend of father’s. I should think his family would -come to see us, some of them. But they haven’t. Mr. Chapley comes ever -so much.”</p> - -<p>Ray did not know what to say of a fact which Mrs. Denton did not suffer -to remain last in his mind. She went on, as if it immediately followed.</p> - -<p>“We are reading Browning now. But my husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span> likes Shelley the best of -all. Which is your favorite poet?”</p> - -<p>Ray smiled. “I suppose Shelley ought to be. I was named after him.” When -he had said this he thought it rather silly, and certainly superfluous. -So he added, “My father was a great reader of him when he was a young -man, and I got the benefit of his taste, if it’s a benefit.”</p> - -<p>“Why, do you hate to be named Shelley?” Mrs. Denton asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; except as I should hate to be named Shakespeare; it suggests -comparisons.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but it’s a very pretty name.” As if it recalled him, she said, “My -husband was just going out with the twins when you came in with Mr. -Kane. He was taking them over to the Park. Do you like cats?” She leaned -over and lugged up into her lap a huge Maltese from the further side of -her. “My sister doesn’t because they eat sparrows.” She passed her hand -slowly down the cat’s smooth flank, which snapped electrically, while -the cat shut its eyes to a line of gray light.</p> - -<p>“If your cat’s fond of sparrows, he ought to come and live with me,” -said Ray. “I’ve got a whole colony of them outside of my dormer-window.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton lifted the cat’s head and rubbed her cheek on it. “Oh, we’ve -got plenty of sparrows here, too. Where do you live? Down town? Mr. Kane -does.”</p> - -<p>Ray gave a picturesque account of his foreign hotel;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span> but he had an -impression that its strangeness was thrown away upon his hearers, who -seemed like children in their contact with the world; it was all so -strange that nothing was stranger than another to them. They thought -what he told them of life in Midland as queer as life in New York.</p> - -<p>The talk went on without sequence or direction, broken with abrupt -questions and droll comments; and they laughed a good deal. They spoke -of poems and of dreams. Ray told of a fragment of a poem he had made in -a dream, and repeated it; they thought it was fine, or at least Mrs. -Denton said she did. Her sister did not talk much, but she listened, and -now and then she threw in a word. She sat against the light, and her -face was in shadow to Ray, and this deepened his sense of mystery in -her; her little head, so distinctly outlined, was beautiful. Her voice, -which was so delicate and thin, had a note of childish innocence in it. -Mrs. Denton cooed deep and low. She tried to make her sister talk more, -and tell this and that. The girl did not seem afraid or shy, but only -serious. Several times they got back to books, and at one of these times -it appeared that she knew of Ray’s manuscript, and that it was going -through the hands of the readers.</p> - -<p>“And what is the name of your story?” Mrs. Denton asked, and before he -could tell her she said, “Oh, yes; I forgot,” and he knew that they must -have talked of it together. He wondered if Miss Hughes had read it. -“Talking of names,” Mrs. Denton went<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span> on, “I think my sister’s got the -queerest one: Peace. Isn’t it a curious name?”</p> - -<p>“It’s a beautiful name,” said Ray. “The Spanish give it a great deal, I -believe.”</p> - -<p>“Do they? It was a name that mother liked; but she had never heard of -it, although there were so many Faiths, Hopes, and Charities. She died -just a little while after Peace was born, and father gave her the name.”</p> - -<p>Ray was too young to feel the latent pathos of the lightly treated fact. -“It’s a beautiful name,” he said again.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Denton, “and it’s so short you can’t <i>nick</i> it. There -can’t be anything shorter than Peace, can there?”</p> - -<p>“Truce,” Ray suggested, and this made them laugh.</p> - -<p>The young girl rose and went to the window, and began looking over the -plants in the pots there. Ray made bold to go and join her.</p> - -<p>“Are you fond of flowers?” she asked gently, and with a seriousness as -if she really expected him to say truly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I’ve never thought,” he answered, thinking how pretty she -was, now he had her face where he could see it fully. Her hair was of -the indefinite blonde tending to brown, which most people’s hair is of; -her sensitive face was cast in the American mould that gives us such a -high average of good looks in our women; her eyes were angelically -innocent. When she laughed, her lip caught on her upper teeth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span> and -clung there; one of the teeth was slightly broken; and both these little -facts fascinated Ray. She did not laugh so much as Mrs. Denton, whose -talk she let run on with a sufferance like that of an older person, -though she was the younger. She and Ray stood awhile there playing the -game of words in which youth hides itself from its kind, and which bears -no relation to what it is feeling. The charm of being in the presence of -a lovely and intelligent girl enfolded Ray like a caressing atmosphere, -and healed him of all the hurts of homesickness, of solitude. Their talk -was intensely personal, because youth is personal, and they were young; -they thought that it dealt with the different matters of taste they -touched on, but it really dealt with themselves, and not their -preferences in literature, in flowers, in cats, in dress, in country and -city. Ray was aware that they were discussing these things in a place -very different from the parlors where he used to enjoy young ladies’ -society in Midland; it was all far from the Midland expectation of his -career in New York society. He recalled how, before the days of his -social splendor in Midland, he had often sat and watched his own mother -and sisters about their household work, which they did for themselves, -while they debated the hopes and projects of his future, or let their -hearts out in jest and laughter. Afterwards, he would not have liked to -have this known among the fashionable people in Midland, with whom he -wished to be so perfectly <i>comme il faut</i>.</p> - -<p>From time to time Mrs. Denton dropped the cat out<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span> of her lap, and ran -out to pull the wire which operated the latch of the street door; and -then Ray heard her greeting some comer and showing him into the front -room, where presently he heard him greeting her father. At last there -was a sound below as of some one letting himself in with a latch-key, -and then came the noises of the perambulator wheels bumping from step to -step as it was pulled up. Mrs. Denton sat still, and kept on talking to -Ray, but her sister went out to help her husband; and reappeared with a -sleeping twin in her arms, and carried it into the room adjoining. The -husband, with his pale face flushed from his struggle with the -perambulator, came in with the other, and when he emerged from the next -room again, Mrs. Denton introduced him to Ray.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” he said; “I saw you with Mr. Kane.” He sat down a moment at -the other window, and put his bare head out for the air. “It has grown -warm,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Was the Park very full?” his wife asked.</p> - -<p>“Crowded. It’s one of their last chances for the year.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose it made you homesick.”</p> - -<p>“Horribly,” said the husband, with his head still half out of the -window. He took it in, and listened with the tolerance of a husband -while she explained him to Ray.</p> - -<p>“My husband’s so homesick for the old Family place—it <i>was</i> a pretty -place!—that he almost dies when he goes into the Park; it brings it all -back so. Are you homesick, too, Mr. Ray?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Well, not exactly for the country,” said Ray. “I’ve been homesick for -the place I came from—for Midland, that is.”</p> - -<p>“Midland?” Denton repeated. “I’ve been there. I think those small cities -are more deadly than New York. They’re still trying to get rid of the -country, and New York is trying to get some of it back. If I had my way, -there wouldn’t be a city, big or little, on the whole continent.” He did -not wait for any reply from Ray, but he asked his wife, “Who’s come?”</p> - -<p>She mentioned a number of names, ten or twelve, and he said, “We’d -better go in,” and without further parley he turned toward the curtained -avenue to the front room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the front room the little assemblage had the effect of some small -religious sect. The people were plainly dressed in a sort of keeping -with their serious faces; there was one girl who had no sign of a ribbon -or lace about her, and looked like a rather athletic boy in her short -hair and black felt hat, and her jacket buttoned to her throat. She sat -with her hands in the side pockets of her coat, and her feet pushed out -beyond the hem of her skirt. There were several men of a foreign type, -with beards pointed and parted; an American, who looked like a -school-master, and whose mouth worked up into his cheek at one side with -a sort of mechanical smile when he talked, sat near a man who was so -bald as not to have even a spear of hair anywhere on his head. The rest -were people who took a color of oddity from these types; a second glance -showed them to be of the average humanity; and their dress and its -fashion showed them to be of simple condition. They were attired with a -Sunday consciousness and cleanliness, though one gentleman, whose coat -sleeves and seams were brilliant with long use, looked as if he would be -the better for a little benzining, where his moustache had dropped soup -and coffee on his waistcoat; he had prominent eyes, with a straining, -near-sighted look.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span></p> - -<p>Kane sat among them with an air at once alert and aloof; his arms were -folded, and he glanced around from one to another with grave interest. -They were all listening, when Ray came in, to a young man who was -upholding the single-tax theory, with confidence and with eagerness, as -something which, in its operation, would release the individual energies -to free play and to real competition. Hughes broke in upon him:</p> - -<p>“That is precisely what I object to in your theory. I don’t <i>want</i> that -devil released. Competition is the Afreet that the forces of -civilization have bottled up after a desperate struggle, and he is -always making fine promises of what he will do for you if you will let -him out. The fact is he will do nothing but mischief, because that is -his nature. He is Beelzebub, he is Satan; in the Miltonic fable he -attempted to compete with the Almighty for the rule of heaven; and the -fallen angels have been taking the consequence ever since. Monopoly is -the only prosperity. Where competition is there can be finally nothing -but disaster and defeat for one side or another. That is self-evident. -Nothing succeeds till it begins to be a monopoly. This holds good from -the lowest to the highest endeavor—from the commercial to the æsthetic, -from the huckster to the artist. As long, for instance, as an author is -young and poor”—Ray felt, looking down, that the speaker’s eye turned -on him—“he must compete, and his work must be deformed by the struggle; -when it becomes known that he alone can do his kind<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span> of work, he -monopolizes and prospers in the full measure of his powers; and he -realizes his ideal unrestrictedly. Competition enslaves, monopoly -liberates. We must, therefore, have the greatest possible monopoly; one -that includes the whole people economically as they are now included -politically. Try to think of competition in the political administration -as we now have it in the industrial. It isn’t thinkable! Or, yes! They -do have it in those Eastern countries where the taxes are farmed to the -highest bidder, and the taxpayer’s life is ground out of him.”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said the school-masterly-looking man, “we all feel this -instinctively. The trusts and the syndicates are doing our work for us -as rapidly as we could ask.”</p> - -<p>A voice, with a German heaviness of accent, came from one of the -foreigners. “But they are not doing it for our sake, and they mean to -stop distinctly short of the whole-people trust. As far back as Louis -Napoleon’s rise we were expecting the growth of the corporate industries -to accomplish our purposes for us. But between the corporation and the -collectivity there is a gulf—a chasm that has never yet been passed.”</p> - -<p>“We must bridge it!” cried Hughes.</p> - -<p>A young man, with a clean-cut, English intonation, asked, “Why not fill -it up with capitalists?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Hughes, “our cause should recognize no class as enemies.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it matters much to them whether we recognize them or not, -if we let them have their own<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span> w’y,” said the young man, whose cockney -origin betrayed itself in an occasional vowel and aspirate.</p> - -<p>“We shall not let them have their own way unless it is the way of the -majority, too,” Hughes returned. “From my point of view they are simply -and purely a part of the movement, as entirely so as the proletariat.”</p> - -<p>“The difficulty will be to get them to take your point of view,” the -young man suggested.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t necessary they should,” Hughes answered, “though some of them -do already. Several of the best friends of our cause are capitalists; -and there are numbers of moneyed people who believe in the -nationalization of the telegraphs, railroads, and expresses.”</p> - -<p>“Those are merely the first steps,” urged the young man, “which may lead -now’ere.”</p> - -<p>“They are the first steps,” said Hughes, “and they are not to be taken -over the bodies of men. We must advance together as brothers, marching -abreast, to the music of our own heart-beats.”</p> - -<p>“Good!” said Kane. Ray did not know whether he said it ironically or -not. It made the short-haired girl turn round and look at him where he -sat behind her.</p> - -<p>“We, in Russia,” said another of the foreign-looking people, “have seen -the futility of violence. The only force that finally prevails is love; -and we must employ it with those that can feel it best—with the little -children. The adult world is hopeless; but with the next generation we -may do something—everything. The highest office is the teacher’s, but -we must<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span> become as little children if we would teach them, who are of -the kingdom of heaven. We must begin by learning of them.”</p> - -<p>“It appears rather complicated,” said the young Englishman, gayly; and -Ray heard Kane choke off a laugh into a kind of snort.</p> - -<p>“Christ said He came to call sinners to repentance,” said the man who -would have been the better for benzining. “He evidently thought there -was some hope of grown-up people if they would cease to do evil.”</p> - -<p>“And several of the disciples were elderly men,” the short-haired girl -put in.</p> - -<p>“Our Russian friend’s idea seems to be a version of our Indian policy,” -said Kane. “Good adults, dead adults.”</p> - -<p>“No, no. You don’t understand, all of you,” the Russian began, but -Hughes interrupted him.</p> - -<p>“How would you deal with the children?”</p> - -<p>“In communities here, at the heart of the trouble, and also in the West, -where they could be easily made self-supporting.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe in communities,” said Hughes. “If anything in the world -has thoroughly failed, it is communities. They have failed all the more -lamentably when they have succeeded financially, because that sort of -success comes from competition with the world outside. A community is an -aggrandized individual; it is the extension, of the egoistic motive to a -large family, which looks out for its own good against other families, -just as a small family does. I have had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span> enough of communities. The -family we hope to found must include all men who are willing to work; it -must recognize no aliens except the drones, and the drones must not be -suffered to continue. They must either cease to exist by going to work, -or by starving to death. But this great family—the real human -family—must be no agglutinated structure, no mere federation of -trades-unions; it must be a natural growth from indigenous stocks, which -will gradually displace individual and corporate enterprises by pushing -its roots and its branches out wider and over them, till they have no -longer earth or air to live in. It will then slowly possess itself of -the whole field of production and distribution.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Very</i> slowly,” said the young Englishman; and he laughed.</p> - -<p>The debate went on, and it seemed as if there were almost as many -opinions as there were people present. At times it interested Ray, at -times it bored him; but at all times he kept thinking that if he could -get those queer zealots into a book, they would be amusing material, -though he shuddered to find himself personally among them. Hughes -coughed painfully in the air thickened with many breaths, and the -windows had to be opened for him; then the rush of the elevated trains -filled the room, and the windows were shut again. After one of these -interludes, Ray was aware of Hughes appealing to some one in the same -tone in which he had asked him to go and send in his whiskey and milk; -he looked up, and saw that Hughes was appealing to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Young man, have you nothing to say on all these questions? Is it -possible that you have not thought of them?”</p> - -<p>Ray was so startled that for a moment he could not speak. Then he said, -hardily, but in the frank spirit of the discussion, “No, I have never -thought of them at all.”</p> - -<p>“It is time you did,” said Hughes. “All other interests must yield to -them. We can have no true art, no real literature, no science worthy the -name, till the money-stamp of egoism is effaced from success, and it is -honored, not paid.”</p> - -<p>The others turned and stared at Ray; old Kane arched his eyebrows at -him, and made rings of white round his eyes; he pursed his mouth as if -he would like to laugh. Ray saw Mrs. Denton put her hand on her mouth; -her husband glowered silently; her sister sat with downcast eyes.</p> - -<p>Hughes went on: “I find it easier to forgive enmity than indifference; -he who is not for us is against us in the worst sense. Our cause has a -sacred claim upon all generous and enlightened spirits; they are -recreant if they neglect it. But we must be patient, even with -indifference; it is hard to bear, but we cannot fight it, and we must -bear it. Nothing has astonished me more, since my return to the world, -than to find the great mass of men living on, as when I left it, in -besotted indifference to the vital interests of the hour. I find the -politicians still talking of the tariff, just as they used to talk; low -tariff and cheap clothes for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span> working-man; high tariff and large -wages for the working-man. Whether we have high tariff or low, the -working-man always wins. But he does not seem to prosper. He is poor; he -is badly fed and housed; when he is out of work he starves in his den -till he is evicted with a ruthlessness unknown in the history of Irish -oppression. Neither party means to do anything for the working-man, and -he hasn’t risen himself yet to the conception of anything more -philosophical than more pay and fewer hours.”</p> - -<p>A sad-faced man spoke from a corner of the room. “We must have time to -think, and something to eat to-day. We can’t wait till to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“That is true,” Hughes answered. “Many must perish by the way. But we -must have patience.”</p> - -<p>His son-in-law spoke up, and his gloomy face darkened. “I have no heart -for patience. When I see people perishing by the way, I ask myself how -they shall be saved, not some other time, but now. Some one is guilty of -the wrong they suffer. How shall the sin be remitted?” His voice shook -with fanatical passion.</p> - -<p>“We must have patience,” Hughes repeated. “We are all guilty.”</p> - -<p>“It would be a good thing,” said the man with a German accent, “if the -low-tariff men would really cut off the duties. The high-tariff men -don’t put wages up because they have protection, but they would surely -put them down if they didn’t have it. Then you would see labor troubles -everywhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Hughes; “but such hopes as that would make me hate the -cause, if anything could. Evil that good may come? Never! Always good, -and good for evil, that the good may come more and more! We must have -the true America in the true American way, by reasons, by votes, by -laws, and not otherwise.”</p> - -<p>The spirit which he rebuked had unlocked the passions of those around -him. Ray had a vision of them in the stormy dispute which followed, as -waves beating and dashing upon the old man; the head of the bald man was -like a buoy among the breakers, as it turned and bobbed about, in his -eagerness to follow all that was said.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the impulses spent themselves, and a calm succeeded. One of the -men looked at his watch; they all rose one after another to go.</p> - -<p>Hughes held them a little longer. “I don’t believe the good time is so -far off as we are apt to think in our indignation at wrong. It is coming -soon, and its mere approach will bring sensible relief. We must have -courage and patience.”</p> - -<p>Ray and Kane went away together. Mrs. Denton looked at him with demure -question in her eyes when they parted; Peace imparted no feeling in her -still glance. Hughes took Ray’s little hand in his large, loose grasp, -and said:</p> - -<p>“Come again, young man; come again!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII.</h2> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">If</span> ever I come again,” Ray vowed to himself, when he got into the -street, “I think I shall know it!” He abhorred all sorts of social -outlandishness; he had always wished to be conformed, without and -within, to the great world of smooth respectabilities. If for the -present he was willing to Bohemianize a little, it was in his quality of -author, and as part of a world-old tradition. To have been mixed up with -a lot of howling dervishes like those people was intolerable. He tingled -with a sense of personal injury from Hughes’s asking him to take part in -their discussion; and he was all the angrier because he could not resent -it, even to Kane, on account of that young girl, who could not let him -see that it distressed her, too; he felt bound to her by the tie of -favor done which he must not allow to become painful.</p> - -<p>He knew, as they walked rapidly down the avenue, crazy with the trains -hurtling by over the jingling horse-cars and the clattering holiday -crowds, that old Kane was seeking out his with eyes brimming with -laughter, but he would not look at him, and he would not see any fun in -the affair. He would not speak, and he held his tongue the more -resolutely because he believed Kane meant to make him speak first.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span></p> - -<p>He had his way; it was Kane who broke the silence, after they left the -avenue and struck into one of the cross-streets leading to the Park. -Piles of lumber and barrels of cement blocked two-thirds of its space, -in front of half-built houses, which yawned upon it from cavernous -depths. Boys were playing over the boards and barrels, and on the rocky -hill-side behind the houses, where a portable engine stood at Sunday -rest, and tall derricks rose and stretched their idle arms abroad. At -the top of the hill a row of brown-stone fronts looked serenely down -upon the havoc thrown up by the blasting, as if it were a quiet -pleasance.</p> - -<p>“Amiable prospect, isn’t it?” said Kane. “It looks as if Hughes’s Afreet -has got out of his bottle, and had a good time here, holding on for a -rise, and then building on spec. But perhaps we oughtn’t to judge of it -at this stage, when everything is in transition. Think how beautiful it -will be when it is all solidly built up here as it is down-town!” He -passed his hand through Ray’s lax arm, and leaned affectionately toward -him as they walked on, after a little pause he made for this remark on -the scenery. “Well, my dear young friend, what do you think of my dear -old friend?”</p> - -<p>“Of Mr. Hughes?” Ray asked; and he restrained himself in a pretended -question.</p> - -<p>“Of Mr. Hughes, and of Mr. Hughes’s friends.”</p> - -<p>Ray flashed out upon this. “I think his friends are a lot of cranks.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; very good; very excellent good! They <i>are</i> a lot of cranks. Are -they the first you have met in New York?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“No; the place seems to be full of them.”</p> - -<p>“Beginning with the elderly gentleman whom you met the first morning?”</p> - -<p>“Beginning with the young man who met the elderly gentleman.”</p> - -<p>Kane smiled with appreciation. “Well, we won’t be harsh on those two. We -won’t call <i>them</i> cranks. They are philosophical observers, or inspired -dreamers, if you like. As I understand it, we are all dreamers. If we -like a man’s dream, we call him a prophet; if we don’t like his dream, -we call him a crank. Now, what is the matter with the dreams, severally -and collectively, of my dear old friend and his friends? Can you deny -that any one of their remedies, if taken faithfully according to the -directions blown on the bottle, would cure the world of all its woes -inside of six months?”</p> - -<p>The question gave Ray a chance to vent his vexation impersonally. “What -is the matter with the world?” he burst out. “I don’t see that the world -is so very sick. Why isn’t it going on very well? I don’t understand -what this talk is all about. I don’t see what those people have got to -complain of. All any one can ask is a fair chance to show how much his -work is worth, and let the best man win. What’s the trouble? Where’s the -wrong?”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said Kane, “what a pity you didn’t set forth those ideas when -Hughes called upon you!”</p> - -<p>“And have all that crew jump on me? Thank you!” said Ray.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You would call them a crew, then? Perhaps they were a crew,” said Kane. -“I don’t know why a reformer should be so grotesque; but he is, and he -is always the easy prey of caricature. I couldn’t help feeling to-day -how very like the burlesque reformers the real reformers are. And they -are always the same, from generation to generation. For all outward -difference, those men and brethren of both sexes at poor David’s were -very like a group of old-time abolitionists conscientiously qualifying -themselves for tar and feathers. Perhaps you don’t like being spoken to -in meeting?”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t,” said Ray, bluntly.</p> - -<p>“I fancied a certain reluctance in you at the time, but I don’t think -poor David meant any harm. He preaches patience, but I think he secretly -feels that he’s got to hurry, if he’s going to have the kingdom of -heaven on earth in his time; and he wants every one to lend a hand.”</p> - -<p>For the reason, or from the instinct, that forbade Ray to let out his -wrath directly against Hughes, he now concealed his pity. He asked -stiffly: “Couldn’t he be got into some better place? Where he wouldn’t -be stunned when he tried to keep from suffocating?”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t know that he could,” said Kane, with a pensive singleness -rare in him. “Any help of that kind would mean dependence, and David -Hughes is proud.”</p> - -<p>They had passed through lofty ranks of flats, and they now came to the -viaduct carrying the northern<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span> railways; one of its noble arches opened -before them like a city gate, and the viaduct in its massy extent was -like a wall that had stood a hundred sieges. Beyond they found open -fields, with the old farm fences of stone still enclosing them, but with -the cellars of city blocks dug out of the lots. In one place there was a -spread of low sheds, neighbored by towering apartment-houses; some old -cart-horses were cropping the belated grass; and comfortable companies -of hens and groups of turkeys were picking about the stableyard; a -shambling cottage fronted on the avenue next the park, and drooped -behind its dusty, leafless vines.</p> - -<p>“He might be got into that,” said Kane, whimsically, “at no increase of -rent, and at much increase of comfort and quiet—at least till the -Afreet began to get in his work.”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t it be rather too much like that eremitism which he’s so down -on?” asked Ray, with a persistence in his effect of indifference.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it would, perhaps it would,” Kane consented, as they struck -across into the Park. The grass was still very green, though here and -there a little sallow; the leaves, which had dropped from the trees in -the October rains, had lost their fire, and lay dull and brown in the -little hollows and at the edges of the paths and the bases of the rocks; -the oaks kept theirs, but in death; on some of the ash-trees and lindens -the leaves hung in a pale reminiscence of their summer green.</p> - -<p>“I understood the son-in-law to want a hermitage<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> somewhere—a -co-operative hermitage, I suppose,” Ray went on. He did not feel bound -to spare the son-in-law, and he put contempt into his tone.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes,” said Kane. “What did you make of the son-in-law?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. He’s a gloomy sprite. What is he, anyway? His wife spoke -of his work.”</p> - -<p>“Why, it’s rather a romantic story, I believe,” said Kane. “He was a -young fellow who stopped at the community on his way to a place where he -was going to find work; he’s a wood-engraver. I believe he’s always had -the notion that the world was out of kilter, and it seems that he wasn’t -very well himself when he looked in on the Family to see what they were -doing to help it. He fell sick on their hands, and the Hugheses took -care of him. Naturally, he married one of them when he got well enough, -and naturally he married the wrong one.”</p> - -<p>“Why the wrong one?” demanded Ray, with an obscure discomfort.</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t know! But if it isn’t evident to you that Mrs. Denton is -hardly fitted to be the guide, philosopher, and friend of such a man”—</p> - -<p>Ray would not pursue this branch of the inquiry. “<i>His</i> notion of what -the world wanted was to have its cities eliminated. Then he thought it -would be all serene.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, that wouldn’t do,” said Kane. “Cities are a vice, but they are -essential to us now. We could not live without them; perhaps we are to -be saved by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> them. But it is well to return to Nature from time to -time.”</p> - -<p>“I thought I heard you saying some rather disparaging things of Nature a -little while ago,” said Ray, with a remaining grudge against Kane, and -with a young man’s willingness to convict his elder of any -inconsistency, serious or unserious.</p> - -<p>“Oh, primeval Nature, yes. But I have nothing but praise for this -kind—the kind that man controls and guides. It is outlaw Nature that I -object to, the savage survival from chaos, the mother of earthquakes and -cyclones, blizzards and untimely frosts, inundations and indigestions. -But ordered Nature—the Nature of the rolling year; night and day, and -seedtime and harvest”—</p> - -<p>“The seasons,” Ray broke in scornfully, from the resentment still -souring in his soul, “turn themselves upside down and wrong end to, -about as often as financial panics occur, and the farmer that has to -rely on them is as apt to get left as the husbandman that sows and reaps -in Wall Street.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” sighed Kane. “That was well said. I wish I had thought of it for -my second series of <i>Hard Sayings</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re welcome to it!”</p> - -<p>“Are you so rich in paradoxes? But I will contrive to credit it somehow -to the gifted author of <i>A New Romeo</i>. Is that what you call it?”</p> - -<p>Ray blushed and laughed, and Kane continued:</p> - -<p>“It’s a little beyond the fact, but it’s on the lines of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span> truth. I don’t -justify Nature altogether. She is not free from certain little foibles, -caprices; perhaps that’s why we call her <i>she</i>. But I don’t think that, -with all her faults, she’s quite so bad as Business. In that we seem to -have gone to Nature for her defects. Why copy her weakness and bad -faith? Why not study her steadfastness, her orderliness, her obedience, -in laying the bases of civilization? We don’t go to her for the -justification of murder, incest, robbery, gluttony, though you can find -them all in her. We have our little prejudice against these things, and -we seem to derive it from somewhere outside of what we call Nature. Why -not go to that Somewhere for the law of economic life? But come,” Kane -broke off, gayly, “let us babble of green fields; as for God, God, I -hope we have no need to think of such things yet. Please Heaven, our -noses are not as sharp as pens, by a long way. I don’t wonder you find -it a beautiful and beneficent world, in spite of our friends yonder, who -want to make it prettier and better, in their way.” Kane put his arm -across Ray’s shoulder, and pulled him affectionately towards him. “Are -you vexed with me for having introduced you to those people? I have been -imagining something of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no”—Ray began.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t really mean to stay for Hughes’s conventicle,” said Kane. -“Chapley was wise, and went in time, before he could feel the wild charm -of those visionaries; it was too much for me; when they began to come, I -<i>couldn’t</i> go. I forgot how repugnant the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span> golden age has always been to -the heart of youth, which likes the nineteenth century much better. The -fact is, I forgot that I had brought you till it was too late to take -you away.”</p> - -<p>He laughed, and Ray, more reluctantly, laughed with him.</p> - -<p>“I have often wondered,” he went on, “how it is we lose the youthful -point of view. We have it some night, and the next morning we haven’t -it; and we can hardly remember what it was. I don’t suppose you could -tell me what the youthful point of view of the present day is, though I -should recognize that of forty years ago. I”—</p> - -<p>He broke off to look at a party of horsemen pelting by on the stretch of -the smooth hard road, and dashing into a bridle-path beyond. They were -heavy young fellows, mounted on perfectly groomed trotters, whose round -haunches trembled and dimpled with their hard pace.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps <i>that</i> is the youthful point of view now: the healthy, the -wealthy, the physically strong, the materially rich. Well, I think ours -was better; pallid and poor in person and in purse as we imagined the -condition of the ideal man to be. There is something,” said Kane, “a -little more expressive of the insolence of money in one of those brutes -than in the most glittering carriage and pair. I think if I had in me -the material for really hating a fellow-man, I should apply it to the -detestation of the rider of one of those animals. But I haven’t. I am -not in pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span>spective need even, and I am at the moment no hungrier than a -gentleman ought to be who is going to lunch with a lady in the Mandan -Flats. By-the-way! Why shouldn’t you come with me? They would be -delighted to see you. A brilliant young widow, with a pretty -step-daughter, is not to be lunched with every day, and I can answer for -your welcome.”</p> - -<p>Ray freed himself. “I’m sorry I can’t go. But I can’t. You must excuse -me; I really couldn’t; I am very much obliged to you. But”—</p> - -<p>“You don’t trust me!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I do. But I don’t feel quite up to meeting people just now; -I’ll push on down town. I’m rather tired. Good-by.”</p> - -<p>Kane held his hand between both his palms. “I wonder what the real -reason is! Is it grudge, or pride, or youth?”</p> - -<p>“Neither,” said Ray. “It’s—clothes. My boots are muddy, and I’ve got on -my second-best trousers.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, now you are frank with me, and you give me a real reason. Perhaps -you are right. I dare say I should have thought so once.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> did not go to deliver any of his letters that afternoon; he decided -now that it would be out of taste to do so on Sunday, as he had already -doubted that it would be, in the morning. He passed the afternoon in his -room, trying from time to time to reduce the turmoil of his reveries to -intelligible terms in verse, and in poetic prose. He did nothing with -them; in the end, though, he was aware of a new ideal, and he resolved -that if he could get his story back from Chapley & Co., he would rewrite -the passages that characterized the heroine, and make it less like the -every-day, simple prettiness of his first love. He had always known that -this did not suit the character he had imagined; he now saw that it -required a more complex and mystical charm. But he did not allow himself -to formulate these volitions and perceptions, any more than his -conviction that he had now a double reason for keeping away from Mr. -Brandreth and from Miss Hughes. He spent the week in an ecstasy of -forbearance. On Saturday afternoon he feigned the necessity of going to -ask Mr. Brandreth how he thought a novel in verse, treating a strictly -American subject in a fantastic way, would succeed. He really wished to -learn something without<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span> seeming to wish it, about his manuscript, but -he called so late in the afternoon that he found Mr. Brandreth putting -his desk in order just before starting home. He professed a great -pleasure at sight of Ray, and said he wished he would come part of the -way home with him; he wanted to have a little talk.</p> - -<p>As if the word home had roused the latent forces of hospitality in him, -he added, “I want to have you up at my place, some day, as soon as we -can get turned round. Mrs. Brandreth is doing first-rate, now; and that -boy—well, sir, he’s a perfect Titan. I wish you could see him -undressed. He’s just like the figure of the infant Hercules strangling -the serpent when he grips the nurse’s finger. I know it sounds -ridiculous, but I believe that fellow recognizes me, and distinguishes -between me and his mother. I suppose it’s my hat—I come in with my hat -on, you know, just to try him; and when he catches sight of that hat, -you ought to see his arms go!”</p> - -<p>The paternal rhapsodies continued a long time after they were in the -street, and Ray got no chance to bring in either his real or pretended -business. He listened with mechanical smiles and hollow laughter, alert -at the same time for the slightest vantage which Mr. Brandreth should -give him. But the publisher said of his own motion:</p> - -<p>“Oh, by-the-way, you’ll be interested to know that our readers’ reports -on your story are in.”</p> - -<p>“Are they?” Ray gasped. He could not get out any more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth went on: “I didn’t examine the reports very attentively -myself, but I think they were favorable, on the whole. There were -several changes suggested: I don’t recall just what. But you can see -them all on Monday. We let Miss Hughes go after lunch on Saturdays, and -she generally takes some work home with her, and I gave them to her to -put in shape for you. I thought it would be rather instructive for you -to see the different opinions in the right form. I believe you can’t -have too much method in these things.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Ray, in an anguish of hope and fear. The street seemed -to go round; he hardly knew where he was. He bungled on inarticulately -before he could say: “I believe in method, too. But I’m sorry I couldn’t -have had the reports to-day, because I might have had Sunday to think -the suggestions over, and see what I could do with them.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m sorry, too. She hadn’t been gone half an hour when you came -in. If I’d thought of your happening in! Well, it isn’t very long till -Monday! She’ll have them ready by that time. I make it a rule myself to -put all business out of my mind from 2 <small>P.M.</small> on Saturday till Monday 9 -<small>A.M.</small>, and I think you’ll find it an advantage, too. I won’t do business, -and I won’t talk business, and I won’t think business after two o’clock -on Saturday. I believe in making Sunday a day of rest and family -enjoyment. We have an early dinner; and then I like to have my wife read -or play to me, and now we have in the baby, and that amuses us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Ray forced himself to say that as a rule he did not believe in working -on Sunday either; he usually wrote letters. He abruptly asked Mr. -Brandreth how he thought it would do for him to go and ask Miss Hughes -for a sight of the readers’ reports in the rough.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth laughed. “You <i>are</i> anxious! Do you know where she lives?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; I stopped there last Sunday with Mr. Kane on our way to the -Park. I saw Mr. Chapley there.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth, with the effect of being arrested by the last -fact in something he might otherwise have said. It seemed to make him -rather unhappy. “Then you saw Miss Hughes’s father?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; and all his friends,” Ray answered, in a way that evidently -encouraged Mr. Brandreth to go on.</p> - -<p>“Yes? What did you think of them?”</p> - -<p>“I thought they were mostly harmless; but one or two of them ought to -have been in the violent wards.”</p> - -<p>“Did Mr. Chapley meet them?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; he went away before any of them came in. As Mr. Kane took me, I -had to stay with him.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth got back a good deal of his smiling complacency, which had -left him at Ray’s mention of Mr. Chapley in connection with Hughes. “Mr. -Chapley and Mr. Hughes are old friends.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I understood something of that kind.”</p> - -<p>“They date back to the Brook Farm days together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Hughes is rather too much of the Hollingsworth type for my use,” -said Ray. He wished Mr. Brandreth to understand that he had no sympathy -with Hughes’s wild-cat philosophy, both because he had none, and because -he believed it would be to his interest with Mr. Brandreth to have none.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never seen him,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I like Mr. Chapley’s loyalty -to his friends—it’s one of his fine traits; but I don’t see any -necessity for my taking them up. He goes there every Sunday morning to -see Mr. Hughes, and they talk—political economy together. You knew Mr. -Chapley has been a good deal interested in this altruistic agitation.”</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“Yes. You can’t very well keep clear of it altogether. I was mixed up in -it myself at one time: our summer place is on the outskirts of a -manufacturing town in Massachusetts, and we had our <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> -for the benefit of a social union for the work-people; we made over two -hundred dollars for them. Mr. Chapley was a George man in ’86. Not that -he agreed with the George men exactly; but he thought there ought to be -some expression against the way things are going. You know a good many -of the nicest kind of people went the same way at that time. I don’t -object to that kind of thing as long as it isn’t carried too far. Mr. -Chapley used to see a good deal of an odd stick of a minister at our -summer place that had got some of the new ideas in a pretty crooked kind -of shape; and then he’s read Tolstoï a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span> good deal, and he’s been -influenced by him. I think Hughes is a sort of safety valve for Mr. -Chapley, and that’s what I tell the family. Mr. Chapley isn’t a fool, -and he’s always had as good an eye for the main chance as anybody. -That’s all.”</p> - -<p>Ray divined that Mr. Brandreth would not have entered into this -explanation of his senior partner and father-in-law, except to guard -against the injurious inferences which he might draw from having met Mr. -Chapley at Hughes’s, but he did not let his guess appear in his words. -“I don’t wonder he likes Mr. Hughes,” he said. “He’s fine, and he seems -a light of sanity and reason among the jack-a-lanterns he gathers round -him. He isn’t at all Tolstoïan.”</p> - -<p>“He’s a gentleman, born and bred,” said Mr. Brandreth, “and he was a -rich man for the days before he began his communistic career. And Miss -Hughes is a perfect lady. She’s a cultivated girl, too, and she reads a -great deal. I’d rather have her opinion about a new book than half the -critics’ I know of, because I know I could get it honest, and I know it -would be intelligent. Well, if you’re going up there, you’ll want to be -getting across to the avenue to take the elevated.” He added, “I don’t -mean to give you the impression that we’ve made up our minds about your -book, yet. We haven’t. A book is a commercial venture as well as a -literary venture, and we’ve got to have a pow-wow about that side of it -before we come to any sort of conclusion. You understand?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I understand that,” said Ray, “and I’ll<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span> try not to be -unreasonably hopeful,” but at the same moment his heart leaped with -hope.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s right,” said Mr. Brandreth, taking his hand for parting. -He held it, and then he said, with a sort of desperate impulse, -“By-the-way, why not come home with me, now, and take dinner with us?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray’s</span> heart sank. He was so anxious to get at those opinions; and yet he -did not like to refuse Mr. Brandreth; a little thing might prejudice the -case; he ought to make all the favor at court that he could for his -book. “I—I’m afraid it mightn’t be convenient—at such a time—for Mrs. -Brandreth”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes it would,” said Mr. Brandreth in the same desperate note. “Come -along. I don’t know that Mrs. Brandreth will be able to see you, but I -want you to see my boy; and we can have a bachelor bite together, -anyway.”</p> - -<p>Ray yielded, and the stories of the baby began again when he moved on -with Mr. Brandreth. It was agony for him to wrench his mind from his -story, which he kept turning over and over in it, trying to imagine what -the readers had differed about, and listen to Mr. Brandreth saying, -“Yes, sir, I believe that child knows his grandmother and his nurse -apart, as well as he knows his mother and me. He’s got his likes and his -dislikes already: he cries whenever his grandmother takes him. -By-the-way, you’ll see Mrs. Chapley at dinner, I hope. She’s spending -the day with us.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m very glad,” said Ray, wondering if the readers objected to his -introduction of hypnotism.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span></p> - -<p>“She’s a woman of the greatest character,” said Mr. Brandreth, “but she -has some old-fashioned notions about children. I want my boy to be -trained as a boy from the very start. I think there’s nothing like a -manly man, unless it’s a womanly woman. I hate anything masculine about -a girl; a girl ought to be yielding and gentle; but I want my boy to be -self-reliant from the word Go. I believe in a man’s being master in his -own house; his will ought to be law, and that’s the way I shall bring up -my boy. Mrs. Chapley thinks there ought always to be a light in the -nurse’s room, but I don’t. I want my boy to get used to the dark, and -not be afraid of it, and I shall begin just as soon as I can, without -seeming arbitrary. Mrs. Chapley is the best soul in the world, and of -course I don’t like to differ with her.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Ray. The mention of relationship made him think of the -cousin in his story; if he had not had the cousin killed, he thought it -would have been better; there was too much bloodshed in the story.</p> - -<p>They turned into a cross-street from Lexington Avenue, where they had -been walking, and stopped at a pretty little apartment-house, which had -its door painted black and a wide brass plate enclosing its key-hole, -and wore that air of standing aloof from its neighbors peculiar to -private houses with black doors and brass plates.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth let himself in with a key. “There are only three families -in our house, and it’s like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span> having a house of our own. It’s so much -easier living in a flat for your wife, that I put my foot down, and -wouldn’t hear of a separate house.”</p> - -<p>They mounted the carpeted stairs through the twilight that prevails in -such entries, and a sound of flying steps was heard within the door -where Mr. Brandreth applied his latch-key again, and as he flung it open -a long wail burst upon the ear.</p> - -<p>“Hear that?” he asked, with a rapturous smile, as he turned to Ray for -sympathy; and then he called gayly out in the direction that the wail -came from; “Oh, hello, hello, hello! What’s the matter, what’s the -matter? You sit down here,” he said to Ray, leading the way forward into -a pretty drawing-room. He caught something away from before the fire. -“Confound that nurse! She’s always coming in here in spite of -everything. I’ll be with you in a moment. Heigh! What ails the little -man?” he called out, and disappeared down the long narrow corridor, and -he was gone a good while.</p> - -<p>At moments Ray caught the sound of voices in hushed, but vehement -dispute; a door slammed violently; there were murmurs of expostulation. -At last Mr. Brandreth reappeared with his baby in his arms, and its -nurse at his heels, twitching the infant’s long robe into place.</p> - -<p>“What do you think of that?” demanded the father, and Ray got to his -feet and came near, so as to be able to see if he could think anything.</p> - -<p>By an inspiration he was able to say, “Well, he <i>is</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span> a great fellow!” -and this apparently gave Mr. Brandreth perfect satisfaction. His son’s -downy little oblong skull wagged feebly on his weak neck, his arms waved -vaguely before his face.</p> - -<p>“Now give him your finger, and see if he won’t do the infant Hercules -act.”</p> - -<p>Ray promptly assumed the part of the serpent, but the infant Hercules -would not open his tightly-clinched, wandering fist.</p> - -<p>“Try the other one,” said his father; and Ray tried the other one with -no more effect. “Well, he isn’t in the humor; he’ll do it for you some -time. All right, little man!” He gave the baby, which had acquitted -itself with so much distinction, back into the arms of its nurse, and it -was taken away.</p> - -<p>“Sit down, sit down!” he said, cheerily. “Mrs. Chapley will be in -directly. It’s astonishing,” he said, with a twist of his head in the -direction the baby had been taken, “but I believe those little things -have their moods just like any of us. That fellow knows as well as you -do, when he’s wanted to show off, and if he isn’t quite in the key for -it, he won’t do it. I wish I had tried him with my hat, and let you see -how he notices.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth went on with anecdotes, theories, and moral reflections -relating to the baby, and Ray answered with praiseful murmurs and -perfunctory cries of wonder. He was rescued from a situation which he -found more and more difficult by the advent of Mrs. Chapley, and not of -Mrs. Chapley alone, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span> of Mrs. Brandreth. She greeted Ray with a -certain severity, which he instinctively divined was not so much for him -as for her husband. A like quality imparted itself, but not so -authoritatively, from her mother; if Mr. Brandreth was not master in his -house, at least his mother-in-law was not. Mrs. Brandreth went about the -room and made some housekeeperly rearrangements of its furniture, which -had the result of reducing it, as it were, to discipline. Then she sat -down, and Ray, whom she waited to have speak first, had a feeling that -she was sitting in judgment on him, and the wish, if possible, to -justify himself. He began to praise the baby, its beauty, and great -size, and the likeness he professed to find in it to its father.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brandreth relented slightly. She said, with magnanimous -impartiality, “It’s a very <i>healthy</i> child.”</p> - -<p>Her mother made the reservation, “But even healthy children are a great -care,” and sighed.</p> - -<p>The daughter must have found this intrusive. “Oh, I don’t know that -Percy is any great care as yet, mamma.”</p> - -<p>“He pays his way,” Mr. Brandreth suggested, with a radiant smile. “At -least,” he corrected himself, “we shouldn’t know what to do without -him.”</p> - -<p>His wife said, drily, as if the remark were in bad taste, “It’s hardly a -question of that, I think. Have you been long in New York, Mr. Ray?” she -asked, with an abrupt turn to him.</p> - -<p>“Only a few weeks,” Ray answered, inwardly wondering how he could render -the fact propitiatory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Everything is very curious and interesting to me as a country person,” -he added, deciding to make this sacrifice of himself.</p> - -<p>It evidently availed somewhat. “But you don’t mean that you are really -from the country?” Mrs. Brandreth asked.</p> - -<p>“I’m from Midland; and I suppose that’s the country, compared with New -York.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chapley asked him if he knew the Mayquayts there. He tried to think -of some people of that name; in the meantime she recollected that the -Mayquayts were from Gitchigumee, Michigan. They talked some -irrelevancies, and then she said, “Mr. Brandreth tells me you have <i>met</i> -my husband,” as if they had been talking of him.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I had that pleasure even before I met Mr. Brandreth,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“And you know Mr. Kane?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. He was the first acquaintance I made in New York.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Brandreth told me.” Mrs. Chapley made a show of laughing at the -notion of Kane, as a harmless eccentric, and she had the effect of -extending her kindly derision to Hughes, in saying, “And you’ve been -taken to sit at the feet of his prophet already, Mr. Brandreth tells me; -that strange Mr. Hughes.”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t have said he was Mr. Kane’s prophet exactly,” said Ray with -a smile of sympathy. “Mr. Kane doesn’t seem to need a prophet; but I’ve -certainly seen Mr. Hughes. And heard him, for that matter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span>” He smiled, -recollecting his dismay when he heard Hughes calling upon him in -meeting. He had a notion to describe his experience, and she gave him -the chance.</p> - -<p>“Yes?” she said, with veiled anxiety. “Do tell me about him!”</p> - -<p>At the end of Ray’s willing compliance, she drew a deep breath, and -said, “Then he is <i>not</i> a follower of Tolstoï?”</p> - -<p>“Quite the contrary, I should say.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chapley laughed more easily. “I didn’t know but he made shoes that -nobody could wear. I couldn’t imagine what other attraction he could -have for my husband. I believe he would really like to go into the -country and work in the fields.” Mrs. Chapley laughed away a latent -anxiety, apparently, in making this joke about her husband, and seemed -to feel much better acquainted with Ray. “How are they living over -there? What sort of family has Mr. Hughes? I mean, besides the daughter -we know of?”</p> - -<p>Ray told, as well as he could, and he said they were living in an -apartment.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Mrs. Chapley, “I fancied a sort of tenement.”</p> - -<p>“By-the-way,” said Mr. Brandreth, “wouldn’t you like to see our -apartment, Mr. Ray”—his wife quelled him with a glance, and he -added,—“some time?”</p> - -<p>Ray said he should, very much.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brandreth, like her mother, had been growing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> more and more -clement, and now she said, “Won’t you stay and take a family dinner with -us, Mr. Ray?”</p> - -<p>Ray looked at her husband, and saw that he had not told her of the -invitation he had already given. He did not do so now, and Ray rose and -seized his opportunity. He thanked Mrs. Brandreth very earnestly, and -said he was so sorry he had an appointment to keep, and he got himself -away at once.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Chapley hospitably claimed him for her Thursdays, at parting; and -Mrs. Brandreth said he must let Mr. Brandreth bring him some other day; -they would always be glad to see him.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth went down to the outer door with him, to make sure that he -found the way, and said, “Then you <i>will</i> come some time?” and -gratefully wrung his hand. “I saw how anxious you were about those -opinions!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">With</span> an impatience whose intensity he began to feel as soon as he -permitted himself to indulge it, Ray hurried across to the line of the -elevated road. Now he perceived how intolerable it would be to have -staid to dinner with the Brandreths. He did not resent the failure of -Mr. Brandreth to tell his wife that he had already asked him when she -asked him again; he did not even care to know what his reasons or -exigencies were; the second invitation had been a chance to get away. -From time to time while Mr. Brandreth was showing him the baby, and then -while Mrs. Chapley was setting her mind at rest about her husband by her -researches into the philosophy and character of Hughes, he had -superficially forgotten that the readers’ opinions of his story were in, -while his nether thought writhed in anguish around the question of what -their opinions were. When at moments this fully penetrated his -consciousness, it was like a sort of vertigo, and he was light-headed -with it now as he walked, or almost ran, away from Mr. Brandreth’s door. -He meant to see Miss Hughes, and beg for a sight of the criticisms; -perhaps she might say something that would save him from the worst, if -they were very bad. He imagined a perfect interview, in which he met no -one but her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span></p> - -<p>It was Mrs. Denton who stood at the head of the stairs to receive him -when the door promptly opened to his ring; she explained that her -husband had put the lock in order since she last admitted him. Ray -managed to say that he wished merely to see her sister for a moment, and -why, and she said that Peace had gone out, but would be at home again -very soon. She said her father would be glad to have him sit down with -him till Peace came back.</p> - -<p>Ray submitted. He found the old man coughing beside the front window, -that looked out on the lines of the railroad, and the ugly avenue -beneath.</p> - -<p>Hughes knew him at once, and called to him: “Well, young man! I am glad -to see you! How do you do?” He held out his hand when he was seated, and -when Ray had shaken it, he motioned with it to the vacant chair on the -other side of the window.</p> - -<p>“I hope you are well, sir?” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“I’m getting the better of this nasty cough gradually, and I pick up a -little new strength every day. Yes, I’m doing very well. For the present -I have to keep housed, and that’s tiresome. But it gives me time for a -bit of writing that I have in hand; I’m putting together the impressions -that this civilization of yours makes on me, in a little book that I -call <i>The World Revisited</i>.”</p> - -<p>Ray did not see exactly why Hughes should say <i>his</i> civilization, as if -he had invented it; but he did not disclaim it; and Hughes went on -without interruption from him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I hope to get my old friend Chapley to bring it out for me, if I can -reconcile him to its radical opinions. He’s timid, Chapley is; and my -book’s rather bold.”</p> - -<p>Ray’s thought darted almost instantly to his own book, and ran it over -in every part, seeking whether there might be something in it that was -too bold for a timid publisher, or a timid publisher’s professional -readers. He was aware of old Hughes monologuing on with the satisfaction -of an author who speaks of his work to a listener he has at his mercy.</p> - -<p>“My book is a criticism of modern life in all its aspects, though -necessarily as the field is so vast, I can touch on some only in the -most cursory fashion. For instance, take this whole architectural -nightmare that we call a city. I hold that the average tasteless man has -no right to realize his ideas of a house in the presence of a great -multitude of his fellow-beings. It is an indecent exposure of his mind, -and should not be permitted. All these structural forms about us, which -with scarcely an exception are ugly and senseless, I regard as so many -immoralities, as deliriums, as imbecilities, which a civilized state -would not permit, and I say so in my book. The city should build the -city, and provide every denizen with a fit and beautiful habitation to -work in and rest in.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid,” said Ray, tearing his mind from his book to put it on this -proposition, “that such an idea might be found rather startling.”</p> - -<p>“How, startling? Why, startling?” Hughes demanded.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I don’t know. Wouldn’t it infringe upon private rights? Wouldn’t it be -a little tyrannical?”</p> - -<p>“What private rights has a man in the outside of his house,” Hughes -retorted. “The interior might be left to his ignorance and vulgarity. -But the outside of my house is not for <i>me</i>! It’s for others! The public -sees it ten times where I see it once. If I make it brutal and stupid, -<i>I</i> am the tyrant, <i>I</i> am the oppressor—I, the individual! Besides, -when the sovereign people is really lord of itself, it can and will do -no man wrong.”</p> - -<p>Ray had his misgivings, but he would not urge them, because it was a -gnawing misery to think of anything but his story, and he let Hughes -break the silence that he let follow.</p> - -<p>“And so,” the old man said presently, as if speaking of his own book had -reminded him of Ray’s, “you have written a novel, young man. And what is -your justification for writing a novel at a time like this, when we are -all trembling on the verge of a social cataclysm?”</p> - -<p>“Justification?” Ray faltered.</p> - -<p>“Yes. How does it justify itself? How does it serve God and help man? -Does it dabble with the passion of love between a girl and boy as if -that were the chief concern of men and women? Or does it touch some of -the real concerns of life—some of the problems pressing on to their -solution, and needing the prayerful attention of every human creature?”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t merely a love-story,” said Ray, glad to get<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span> to it on any -terms, “though it is a love-story. But I’ve ventured to employ a sort of -psychological motive.”</p> - -<p>“What sort?”</p> - -<p>“Well—hypnotism.”</p> - -<p>“A mere toy, that Poe and Hawthorne played with in the old mesmerist -days, and I don’t know how many others.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t play with it as they did, exactly,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve no doubt you employ it to as new effect as the scientifics who -are playing with it again. But how can you live in this camp of -embattled forces, where luxury and misery are armed against each other, -and every lover of his kind should give heart and brain to the solution -of the riddle that is maddening brother against brother,—how can you -live on here and be content with the artistic study of hysteria?”</p> - -<p>The strong words of the old man, which fell tingling with emotion, had -no meaning for the soul of youth in Ray; he valued them æsthetically, -but he could not make personal application of them. He had a kind of -amusement in answering: “Well, I’m not quite so bad as you think, Mr. -Hughes. I wrote my story several years ago. I don’t suppose I could do -anything of the kind, now.”</p> - -<p>Hughes’s mouth seemed stopped for the moment by this excuse. He sat -glaring at Ray’s bright, handsome face through his overhanging, shaggy -eyebrows, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span> seemed waiting to gather strength for another onset, when -his daughter Peace came silently into the room behind Ray.</p> - -<p>Her father did not give her time to greet their visitor. “Well,” he -called out with a voice of stormy pathos, “how did you leave that poor -woman?”</p> - -<p>“She is dead,” answered the girl.</p> - -<p>“Good!” said Hughes. “So far, so good. Who is living?”</p> - -<p>“There are several children. The people in the house are taking care of -them.”</p> - -<p>“Of course! There, young man,” said Hughes, “is a psychological problem -better worth your study than the phenomena of hypnotism: the ability of -poverty to provide for want out of its very destitution. The miracle of -the loaves and fishes is wrought here every day in the great -tenement-houses. Those who have nothing for themselves can still find -something for others. The direst want may be trusted to share its crust -with those who have not a crust; and still something remains, as if -Christ had blessed the bread and broken it among the famishing. Don’t -you think that an interesting and romantic fact, a mystery meriting the -attention of literary art?”</p> - -<p>It did strike Ray as a good notion; something might be done with it, say -in a Christmas story, if you could get hold of a tenement-house incident -of that kind, and keep it from becoming allegorical in the working out.</p> - -<p>This went through Ray’s mind as he stood thinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span> also how he should -ask the girl for his manuscript and the criticisms on it without seeming -foolishly eager. Her father’s formidable intervention had dispensed him -from the usual greetings, and he could only say, “Oh! Miss Hughes, Mr. -Brandreth told me I might come and get my story of you—<i>A Modern -Romeo</i>—and the readers’ opinions. I—I thought I should like to look -them over; and—and”—</p> - -<p>“I haven’t had time to copy them yet,” she answered. “Mr. Brandreth -wished you to see them; but we keep the readers anonymous, and he -thought I had better show them to you all in my handwriting.”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t know the writers. He said I could see them as they are.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I will go and get them for you,” she answered. She left him -a moment, and he remained with her father unmolested. The old man sat -staring out on the avenue, with his head black against its gathering -lights.</p> - -<p>She gave him the packet she brought back with her, and then she followed -him out of the apartment upon the landing, after he had made his -acknowledgments and adieux.</p> - -<p>“I thought,” she said, timidly, “you would like to know that I had given -your dollar for these poor children. Was that right?”</p> - -<p>Ray’s head was so full of his story that he answered vaguely, “My -dollar?” Then he remembered. “Oh! Oh yes! It was right—quite right! I’m -glad you did it. Miss Hughes! Excuse me; but would you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span> mind telling me -whether you have happened to look at the story yourself?”</p> - -<p>She hesitated, and then answered: “Yes, I’ve read it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then,” he bubbled out, knowing that he was wrong and foolish, but -helpless to refrain, “before I read those things, won’t you tell me—I -should care more—I should like so much to know what <i>you</i>—I suppose -I’ve no right to ask!”</p> - -<p>He tried to make some show of decency about the matter, but in fact he -had the heart to ask a dying man his opinion, in that literary passion -which spares nothing, and is as protean as love itself in its disguises.</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” she answered, “that I had no right to read it; I wasn’t -asked to do it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, you had. I’m very glad you did.”</p> - -<p>“The opinions about it were so different that I couldn’t help looking at -it, and then—I kept on,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Were they so <i>very</i> different?” he asked, trembling with his author’s -sensitiveness, while the implication of praise in her confession worked -like a frenzied hope in his brain. “And you kept on? Then it interested -you?”</p> - -<p>She did not answer this question, but said: “None of them thought just -alike about it. But you’ll see them”—</p> - -<p>“No, no! Tell me what you thought of it yourself! Was there some part -that seemed better than the rest?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>She hesitated. “No, I would rather not say. I oughtn’t to have told you -I had read it.”</p> - -<p>“You didn’t like it!”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I did like parts of it. But I musn’t say any more.”</p> - -<p>“But what parts?” he pleaded.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t ask me. The readers’ opinions”—</p> - -<p>“I don’t care for them. I care for your opinion,” said Ray, perversely. -“What did you mean by their being all different? Of course, I’m absurd! -But you don’t know how much depends upon this book. It isn’t that it’s -the only book I expect ever to write; but if it should be rejected! I’ve -had to wait a long while already; and then to have to go peddling it -around among the other publishers! Do you think that it’s hopelessly -bad, or could I make it over? What did you dislike in it? Didn’t you -approve of the hypnotism? That was the only thing I could think of to -bring about the climax. And did it seem too melodramatic? <i>Romeo and -Juliet</i> is melodramatic! I hope you won’t think I’m usually so nervous -about my work,” he went on, wondering that he should be giving himself -away so freely, when he was really so reserved. “I’ve been a long time -writing the story; and I’ve worked over it and worked over it, till I’ve -quite lost the sense of it. I don’t believe I can make head or tail of -those opinions. That’s the reason why I wanted you to tell me what you -thought of it yourself.”</p> - -<p>“But I have no right to do that. It would be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span>interfering with other -people’s work. It wouldn’t be fair towards Mr. Brandreth,” she pleaded.</p> - -<p>“I see. I didn’t see that before. And you’re quite right, and I beg your -pardon. Good-night!”</p> - -<p>He put his manuscript on the seat in the elevated train, and partly sat -upon it, that he might not forget it when he left the car. But as he -read the professional opinions of it he wished the thing could lose him, -and never find him again. No other novel, he thought, could ever have -had such a variety of certain faults, together with the vague merit -which each of its critics seemed to feel in greater measure or less. -Their work, he had to own, had been faithfully done; he had not even the -poor consolation of accusing them of a neglect of duty. They had each -read his story, and they spoke of it with intelligence in a way, if not -every way. Each condemned it on a different ground, but as it stood they -all joined in condemning it; and they did not so much contradict one -another as dwell on different defects; so that together they covered the -whole field with their censure. One of them reproached it for its crude -realism, and the sort of helpless fidelity to provincial conditions -which seemed to come from the author’s ignorance of anything different. -Another blamed the youthful romanticism of its dealings with passion. A -third pointed out the gross improbability of the plot in our modern -circumstance. A fourth objected to the employment of hypnotism as a -clumsy piece of machinery, and an attempt to reach the public interest -through a prevailing fad. A fifth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span> touched upon the obvious imitation of -Hawthorne in the psychical analyses. A sixth accused the author of -having adopted Thackeray’s manner without Thackeray’s material.</p> - -<p>Ray resented, with a keen sense of personal affront, these criticisms in -severalty, but their combined effect was utter humiliation, though they -were less true taken together than they were separately. At the bottom -of his sore and angry heart he could not deny their truth, and yet he -knew that there was something in his book which none of them had taken -account of, and that this was its life, which had come out of his own. -He was aware of all those crude and awkward and affected things, but he -believed there was something, too, that went with them, and that had not -been in fiction before.</p> - -<p>It was this something which he hoped that girl had felt in his story, -and which he was trying to get her to own to him before he looked at the -opinions. They confounded and distracted him beyond his foreboding even, -and it was an added anguish to keep wondering, as he did all night, -whether she had really found anything more in the novel than his critics -had. As he turned from side to side and beat his pillow into this shape -and that, he reconstructed the story after one critic’s suggestion, and -then after another’s; but the material only grew more defiant and -impossible; if it could not keep the shape it had, it would take no -other. That was plain; and the only thing to be done was to throw it -away, and write something else; for it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span> was not reasonable to suppose -that Mr. Brandreth would think of bringing the book out in the teeth of -all these adverse critics. But now he had no heart to think of anything -else, although he was always thinking of something else, while there was -hope of getting this published. His career as an author was at an end; -he must look about for some sort of newspaper work; he ought to be very -glad if he could get something to do as a space man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">He</span> rose, after a late nap following his night-long vigils, with despair -in his soul. He believed it was despair, and so it was to all intents -and purposes. But, when he had bathed, he seemed to have washed a little -of his despair away; when he had dressed, he felt hungry, and he ate his -breakfast with rather more than his usual appetite.</p> - -<p>The reaction was merely physical, and his gloom settled round him again -when he went back to his attic and saw his manuscript and those deadly -opinions. He had not the heart to go out anywhere, and he cowered alone -in his room. If he could only get the light of some other mind on the -facts he might grapple with them; but without this he was limp and -helpless. Now he knew, in spite of all his pretences to the contrary, in -spite of the warnings and cautions he had given himself, that he had not -only hoped, but had expected, that his story would be found good enough -to publish. Yet none of these readers—even those who found some -meritorious traits in it—had apparently dreamed of recommending it for -publication. It was no wonder that Miss Hughes had been so unwilling to -tell him what she thought of it; that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span> she had urged him so strongly to -read the opinions first. What a fool she must have thought him!</p> - -<p>There was no one else he could appeal to, unless it was old Kane. He did -not know where Kane lived, even if he could have gathered the courage to -go to him in his extremity; and he bet himself that Kane would not -repeat his last Sunday’s visit. The time for any reasonable hope of -losing passed, and then to his great joy he lost. There came a -hesitating step outside his door, as if some one were in doubt where to -knock, and then a tap at it.</p> - -<p>Ray flung it open, and at sight of Kane the tears came into his eyes, -and he could not speak.</p> - -<p>“Why, my dear friend!” cried Kane, “what is the matter?”</p> - -<p>Ray kept silent till he could say coldly, “Nothing. It’s all over.”</p> - -<p>Kane stepped into the room, and took off his hat. “If you haven’t been -rejected by the object of your affections, you have had the manuscript -of your novel declined. These are the only things that really bring -annihilation. I think the second is worse. A man is never so absolutely -and solely in love with one woman but he knows some other who is -potentially lovable; that is the wise provision of Nature. But while a -man has a manuscript at a publisher’s, it is the only manuscript in the -world. You can readily work out the comparison. I hope you have merely -been disappointed in love, my dear boy.”</p> - -<p>Ray smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid it’s worse.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Then Chapley & Co. have declined your novel definitely?”</p> - -<p>“Not in set terms; or not yet. But their readers have all reported -against it, and I’ve passed the night in reading their opinions. I’ve -got them by heart. Would you like to hear me repeat them?” he demanded, -with a fierce self-scorn.</p> - -<p>Kane looked at him compassionately. “Heaven forbid! I could repeat them, -I dare say, as accurately as you; the opinions of readers do not vary -much, and I have had many novels declined.”</p> - -<p>“Have you?” Ray faltered with compunction for his arrogation of all such -suffering to himself.</p> - -<p>“Yes. That was one reason why I began to write <i>Hard Sayings</i>. But if -you will let me offer you another leaf from my experience, I will -suggest that there are many chances for reprieve and even pardon after -the readers have condemned your novel. I once had a novel accepted—the -only novel I ever had accepted—after all the publisher’s readers had -pronounced against it.”</p> - -<p>“Had you?” Ray came tremulously back at him.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” sighed Kane. “That is why Chapley is so fond of me; he has -forgiven me a deadly injury.” He paused to let his words carry Ray down -again, and then he asked, with a nod toward the bed where the young -fellow had flung his manuscript and the readers’ opinions, “Might I?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, certainly,” said Ray from his depths; and Kane took up the opinions -and began to run them over.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, they have a strangely familiar effect; they are like echoes from -my own past.” He laid them down again. “Do you think they are right?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Perfectly! That is”—</p> - -<p>“Oh! <i>That is.</i> There is hope, I see.”</p> - -<p>“How, hope?” Ray retorted. “Does my differing with them make any -difference as to the outcome?”</p> - -<p>“For the book, no, perhaps; for you, yes, decidedly. It makes all the -difference between being stunned and being killed. It is not pleasant to -be stunned, but it is not for such a long time as being killed. What is -your story about?”</p> - -<p>It astonished Ray himself to find how much this question revived his -faith and courage. His undying interest in the thing, by and for itself, -as indestructible as a mother’s love, revived, and he gave Kane the -outline of his novel. Then he filled this in, and he did not stop till -he had read some of the best passages. He suddenly tossed his manuscript -from him. “What a fool I am!”</p> - -<p>Kane gave his soft, thick laugh, shutting his eyes, and showing his -small white teeth, still beautifully sound. “Oh, no! Oh, no! I have read -worse things than that! I have written worse than that. Come, come! Here -is nothing to beat the breast for. I doubt if Chapley’s will take it, in -defiance of their readers; their experience with me has rendered that -very improbable. But they are not the only publishers in New York, or -Philadelphia even; I’m told they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span> have very eager ones in Chicago. Why -shouldn’t the <i>roman psychologique</i>, if that’s the next thing, as Mr. -Brandreth believes, get on its legs at Chicago, and walk East?”</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” Ray said, rising aimlessly from his chair, “whether it would -do to call on Mr. Brandreth to-day? This suspense—Do you know whether -he is very religious?”</p> - -<p>“How should I know such a thing of my fellow-man in New York? I don’t -know it even of myself. At times I am very religious, and at times, not. -But Mr. Brandreth is rather a formal little man, and a business -interview on Sunday, with an agonized author, might not seem exactly -decorous to him.”</p> - -<p>“I got the impression he wasn’t very stiff. But it wouldn’t do,” said -Ray, before Kane had rounded his neat period. “What an ass I am!”</p> - -<p>“We are all asses,” Kane sighed. “It is the great bond of human -brotherhood. When did you get these verdicts?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Brandreth told me Miss Hughes had taken them home with her -yesterday, and I couldn’t rest till I had his leave to go and get them -of her.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. If we know there is possible unhappiness in store for us, we -don’t wait for it; we make haste and look it up, and embrace it. And how -did my dear old friend Hughes, if you saw him, impress you this time?”</p> - -<p>“I saw him, and I still prefer him to <i>his</i> friends,” said Ray.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Naturally. There are not many people, even in a planet so overpeopled -as this, who are the peers of David Hughes. He goes far to make me -respect my species. Of course he is ridiculous. A man so hopeful as -Hughes is the <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of the human proposition. How can -there reasonably be hope in a world where poverty and death are? To be -sure, Hughes proposes to eliminate poverty and explain death. You know -he thinks—he really believes, I suppose—that if he could once get his -millenium going, and everybody so blessed in this life that the absolute -knowledge of heavenly conditions in another would not tempt us to -suicide, then the terror and the mystery of death would be taken away, -and the race would be trusted with its benificent meaning. It’s rather a -pretty notion.”</p> - -<p>Ray, with his narrow experience, would not have been able to grasp it -fully. Now he broke out without the least relevancy to it, “I wonder how -it would do to remodel my story so far as to transfer the scene to New -York? It might be more popular.” The criticism that one of those readers -had made on the helplessness of his fidelity to simple rustic conditions -had suddenly begun to gall him afresh. “I beg your pardon. I <i>didn’t</i> -notice what you were saying! I can’t get my mind off that miserable -thing!”</p> - -<p>Kane laughed. “Oh, don’t apologize. I know how it is. Perhaps a change -of scene <i>would</i> be good; it’s often advised, you know.” He laughed -again, and Ray with him, ruefully, and now he rose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, must you go?” Ray entreated.</p> - -<p>“Yes. You are best alone; when we are in pain we <i>are</i>, alone, anyway. -If misery loves company, company certainly does not love misery. I can -stand my own troubles, but not other people’s. Good-by! We will meet -again when you are happier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Brandreth</span> tried hard to escape from the logic of his readers’ -opinions. In the light of his friendly optimism they took almost a -favorable cast. He argued that there was nothing absolutely damnatory in -those verdicts, that they all more or less tacitly embodied a -recommendation to mercy. So far his personal kindliness carried him, but -beyond this point business put up her barrier. He did not propose to -take the book in spite of his readers; he said he would see; and after -having seen for a week longer, he returned the MS. with a letter -assuring Ray of his regret, and saying that if he could modify the story -according to the suggestions of their readers, Chapley & Co. would be -pleased to examine it again.</p> - -<p>Ray had really expected some such answer as this, though he hoped -against reason for something different. In view of it he had spent the -week mentally recasting the story in this form and in that; sometimes it -yielded to his efforts in one way or another; when the manuscript came -into his hands again, he saw that it was immutably fixed in the terms he -had given it, and that it must remain essentially what it was, in spite -of any external travesty.</p> - -<p>He offered Mr. Brandreth his thanks and his excuses<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span> for not trying to -make any change in it until he had first offered it as it was to other -publishers. He asked if it would shut him out of Chapley & Co.’s grace -if he were refused elsewhere, and received an answer of the most -flattering cordiality to the effect that their desire to see the work in -another shape was quite unconditioned. Mr. Brandreth seemed to have put -a great deal of heart in this answer; it was most affectionately -expressed; it closed with the wish that he might soon see Ray at his -house again.</p> - -<p>Ray could not have believed, but for the experience which came to him, -that there could be so many reasons for declining to publish any one -book as the different publishers now gave him. For the most part they -deprecated the notion of even looking at it. The book-trade had never -been so prostrate before; events of the most unexpected nature had -conspired to reduce it to a really desperate condition. The unsettled -state of Europe had a good deal to do with it; the succession of bad -seasons at the West affected it most distinctly. The approach of a -Presidential year was unfavorable to this sensitive traffic. Above all, -the suspense created by the lingering and doubtful fate of the -international copyright bill was playing havoc with it; people did not -know what course to take; it was impossible to plan any kind of -enterprise, or to risk any sort of project. Men who had been quite -buoyant in regard to the bill seemed carried down to the lowest level of -doubt as to its fate by the fact that Ray had a <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span>novel to offer them; -they could see no hope for American fiction, if that English trash was -destined to flood the market indefinitely. They sympathized with him, -but they said they were all in the same boat, and that the only thing -was to bring all the pressure each could to bear upon Congress. The sum -of their counsel and condolence came to the effect in Ray’s mind that -his best hope was to get <i>A Modern Romeo</i> printed by Congress as a -Public Document and franked by the Senators and Representatives to their -constituents. He found a melancholy amusement in noting the change in -the mood of those who used to meet him cheerfully and carelessly as the -correspondent of a newspaper, and now found themselves confronted with -an author, and felt his manuscript at their throats. Some tried to joke; -some became helplessly serious; some sought to temporize.</p> - -<p>Those whose circumstances and engagements forbade them even to look at -his novel were the easiest to bear with. They did not question the -quality or character of his work; they had no doubt of its excellence, -and they had perfect faith in its success; but simply their hands were -so full they could not touch it. The other sort, when they consented to -examine the story, kept it so long that Ray could not help forming false -hopes of the outcome; or else they returned it with a precipitation that -mortified his pride, and made him sceptical of their having looked into -it at all. He did not experience unconditional rejection everywhere. In -some cases the readers proposed radical and impossible changes, as -Chapley & Co.’s readers had done. In one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span> instance they so far -recommended it that the publisher was willing to lend his imprint and -manage the book for the per cent usually paid to authors, if Ray would -meet all the expenses. There was an enthusiast who even went so far as -to propose that he would publish it if Ray would pay the cost of the -electrotype plates. He appeared to think this a handsome offer, and Ray -in fact found it so much better than nothing that he went into some -serious estimates upon it. He called in the help of old Kane, who was an -expert in the matter of electrotyping, and was able from his sad -experience to give him the exact figures. They found that <i>A New Romeo</i> -would make some four hundred and thirty or forty pages, and that at the -lowest price the plates would cost more than three hundred dollars. The -figure made Ray gasp; the mere thought of it impoverished him. His -expenses had already eaten a hundred dollars into his savings beyond the -five dollars a week he had from the <i>Midland Echo</i> for his letters. If -he paid out this sum for his plates, he should now have some ninety -dollars left.</p> - -<p>“But then,” said Kane, arching his eyebrows, “the trifling sum of three -hundred dollars, risked upon so safe a venture as <i>A New Romeo</i>, will -probably result in riches beyond the dreams of avarice.”</p> - -<p>“Yes: or it may result in total loss,” Ray returned.</p> - -<p>“It is a risk. But what was it you have been asking all these other -people to do? One of them turns and asks you to share the risk with him; -he asks you to risk less than half on a book that you have written<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> -yourself, and he will risk the other half. What just ground have you for -refusing his generous offer?”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t my business to publish books; it’s my business to write them,” -said Ray, coldly.</p> - -<p>“Ah-h-h! Very true! That is a solid position. Then all you have to do to -make it quite impregnable is to write such books that other men will be -eager to take all the risks of publishing them. It appears that in the -present case you omitted to do that.” Kane watched Ray’s face with -whimsical enjoyment. “I was afraid you were putting your reluctance upon -the moral ground, and that you were refusing to bet on your book because -you thought it wrong to bet.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid,” said Ray, dejectedly, “that the moral question didn’t -enter with me. If people thought it wrong to make bets of that kind, it -seems to me that all business would come to a standstill.”</p> - -<p>“‘Sh!” said Kane, putting his finger to his lip, and glancing round with -burlesque alarm. “This is open incivism. It is accusing the whole -framework of commercial civilization. Go on; it’s delightful to hear -you; but don’t let any one <i>over</i>hear you.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean,” said Ray, with sullen resentment, “about -incivism. I’m saying what everybody knows.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! But what everybody <i>knows</i> is just what nobody <i>says</i>. If people -said what they knew, society would tumble down like a house of cards.”</p> - -<p>Ray was silent, far withdrawn from these generalities into his personal -question.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span></p> - -<p>Kane asked compassionately, “Then you think you can’t -venture—risk—chance it? Excuse me! I was trying to find a euphemism -for the action, but there seems none!”</p> - -<p>“No; I daren’t do it! The risk is too great.”</p> - -<p>“That seems to be the consensus of the book trade concerning it. Perhaps -you are right. <i>Would</i> you mind,” asked Kane with all his sweet -politeness, “letting me take your manuscript home, and go over it -carefully?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Let</i> you!” Ray began in a rapture of gratitude, but Kane stopped him.</p> - -<p>“No, no! Don’t expect anything! <i>Don’t</i> form any hopes. Simply suppose -me to be reading it as a lover of high-class fiction, with no ulterior -view whatever. I am really the feeblest of conies, and I have not even -the poor advantage of having my habitation in the rocks. Good-by! -Good-day! Don’t try to stop me with civilities! Heaven knows how far my -noble purpose will hold if it is weakened by any manner of delay.”</p> - -<p>Ray lived a day longer in the flimsiest air-castles that ever the -vagrant winds blew through. In the evening Kane came back with his -story.</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear young friend, you have certainly produced the despair of -criticism in this extraordinary fiction of yours. I don’t wonder all the -readers have been of so many minds about it. I only wonder that any one -man could be of any one mind about it long <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span>enough to get himself down -on paper. In some respects it is the very worst thing I ever saw, and -yet—and yet—it interested me, it held me to the end. I will make a -confession; I will tell you the truth. I took the thing home, hoping to -find justification in it for approaching a poor friend of mine who is in -the publishing line, and making him believe that his interest lay in -publishing it. But I could not bring myself to so simple an act of bad -faith. I found I should have to say to my friend, ‘Here is a novel which -might make your everlasting fortune, but most of the chances are against -it. There are twenty chances that it will fail to one that it will -succeed; just the average of failure and success in business life. You -had better take it.’ Of course he would not take it, because he could -not afford to add a special risk to the general business risk. You see?”</p> - -<p>“I see,” said Ray, but without the delight that a case so beautifully -reasoned should bring to the logical mind. At the bottom of his heart, -though he made such an outward show of fairness and impersonality, he -was simply and selfishly emotional about his book. He could not enter -into the humor of Kane’s dramatization of the case; he tacitly accused -him of inconsistency, and possibly of envy and jealousy. It began to be -as if it were Kane alone who was keeping his book from its chance with -the public. This conception, which certainly appeared perverse to Ray at -times, was at others entirely in harmony with one of several theories of -the man. He had chilled Ray more than once by the cold cynicism of his -opinions<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span> concerning mankind at large; and now Ray asked himself why -Kane’s cynicism should not characterize his behavior towards him, too. -Such a man would find a delight in studying him in his defeat, and -turning his misery into phrases and aphorisms.</p> - -<p>He was confirmed in his notion of Kane’s heartlessness by the strange -behavior of Mr. Brandreth, who sent for his manuscript one morning, -asking if he might keep it a few days, and then returned it the same -day, with what Ray thought an insufficient explanation of the -transaction. He proudly suffered a week under its inadequacy, and then -he went to Mr. Brandreth, and asked him just what the affair meant; it -seemed to him that he had a right to know.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth laughed in rather a shame-faced way. “I may as well make a -clean breast of it. As I told you when we first met, I’ve been wanting -to publish a novel for some time; and although I haven’t read yours, the -plot attracted me, and I thought I would give it another chance—the -best chance I could. I wanted to show it to a friend of yours—I suppose -I may say friend, at least it was somebody that I thought would be -prejudiced more in favor of it than against it; and I had made up my -mind that if the person approved of it I would read it too, and if we -agreed about it, I would get Mr. Chapley to risk it. But—I found that -the person had read it.”</p> - -<p>“And didn’t like it.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t say that, exactly.”</p> - -<p>“If it comes to that,” said Ray, with a bitter smile,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span> “it doesn’t -matter about the precise terms.” He could not speak for a moment; then -he swallowed the choking lump in his throat, and offered Brandreth his -hand. “Thank <i>you</i>, Mr. Brandreth! I’m sure <i>you’re</i> my friend; and I -sha’n’t forget your kindness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> disappointment which Ray had to suffer would have been bad enough -simply as the refusal of his book; with the hope raised in him and then -crushed after the first great defeat, the trial was doubly bitter. It -was a necessity of his suffering and his temperament to translate it -into some sort of literary terms, and he now beguiled his enforced -leisure by beginning several stories and poems involving his experience. -One of the poems he carried so far that he felt the need of another eye -on it to admire it and confirm him in his good opinion of it; he -pretended that he wanted criticism, but he wanted praise. He would have -liked to submit the poem to Kane; but he could not do this now, though -the coldness between them was tacit, and they met as friends when they -met. He had a vulgar moment when he thought it would be a fine revenge -if he could make Kane listen to that passage of his poem which described -the poet’s betrayal by a false friend, by the man who held his fate in -his hand and coolly turned against him. Kane must feel the sting of -self-reproach from this through all the disguises of time and place -which wrapped it; but the vulgar moment passed, and Ray became disgusted -with that part of his poem, and cut it out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span></p> - -<p>As it remained then, it was the pathetic story of a poet who comes up to -some Oriental court with his song, but never gains a hearing, and dies -neglected and unknown; he does not even achieve fame after death. Ray -did not know why he chose an Oriental setting for his story, but perhaps -it was because it removed it farther from the fact, and made it less -recognizable. It would certainly lend itself more easily to illustration -in that shape, if he could get some magazine to take it.</p> - -<p>When he decided that he could not show it to Kane, and dismissed a -fleeting notion of Mr. Brandreth as impossible, he thought of Miss -Hughes. He had in fact thought of her first of all, but he had to feign -that he had not. There had lingered in his mind a discomfort concerning -her which he would have removed much sooner if it had been the only -discomfort there; mixed with his other troubles, his shame for having -indelicately urged her to speak of his story when he saw her last, did -not persist separately or incessantly. He had imagined scenes in which -he repaired his error, but he had never really tried to do so. It was -now available as a pretext for showing her his poem; he could make it -lead on to that; but he did not own any such purpose to himself when he -put the poem into his pocket and went to make his tardy excuses.</p> - -<p>The Hughes family were still at table when Denton let him into their -apartment, and old Hughes came himself into the front room where Ray was -provisionally shown, and asked him to join them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span></p> - -<p>“My children thought that I was wanting in the finer hospitalities when -you were here before, and I forced my superabundance of reasons upon -you. I forget, sometimes, that no man ever directly persuaded me, in my -eagerness to have people think as I do. Will you show that you have -forgiven me by eating salt with us?”</p> - -<p>“There is a little potato to eat it on, Mr. Ray,” Mrs. Denton called -gayly from the dining-room; and as Ray appeared there, Peace rose and -set a plate for him next the old man. In front were the twins in high -chairs, one on each side of their father, who from time to time put a -knife or fork or cup and saucer beyond their reach, and left them to -drub the table with nothing more offensive than their little soft fists.</p> - -<p>There were not only potatoes, but some hot biscuits too, and there was -tea. Ray had often sat down to no better meal at his father’s table, and -he thought it good enough, even after several years’ sophistication in -cities.</p> - -<p>“There was to have been steak,” Mrs. Denton went on, with a teasing look -at her husband, “but Ansel saw something on the way home which took away -his appetite so completely that he thought we wouldn’t want any steak.”</p> - -<p>Hughes began to fill himself with the tea and biscuit and potatoes, and -he asked vaguely, “What did he see?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, merely a family that had been put out on the sidewalk for their -rent. I think that after this, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span> Ansel won’t come home by the -Elevated, he ought to walk up on the west side, so that he can get some -good from the exercise. He won’t see families set out on the sidewalk in -Fifth Avenue.”</p> - -<p>Ray laughed with her at her joke, and Peace smiled with a deprecating -glance at Denton. Hughes paid no heed to what they were saying, and -Denton said: “The more we see and feel the misery around us, the better. -If we shut our eyes to it, and live in luxury ourselves”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t call salt and potatoes luxury,” exactly, said his wife.</p> - -<p>Denton remained darkly silent a moment, and then began to laugh with the -helplessness of a melancholy man when something breaks through his -sadness. “I should like to see a family set out on Fifth Avenue for back -rent,” he said, and he laughed on; and then he fell suddenly silent -again.</p> - -<p>Ray said, for whatever relief it could give the situation, that it was -some comfort to realize that the cases of distress which one saw were -not always genuine. He told of a man who had begged of him at a certain -point that morning, and then met him a few minutes later, and asked alms -again on the ground that he had never begged before in his life. “I -recalled myself to him, and he apologized handsomely, and gave me his -blessing.”</p> - -<p>“Did he look as if he had got rich begging?” Denton asked.</p> - -<p>“No; he looked as if he could have got a great deal richer working,” Ray -answered, neatly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton laughed, but her laugh did not give him the pleasure it -would have done if Peace had not remained looking seriously at him.</p> - -<p>“You think so,” Denton returned. “How much should you say the average -laboring-man with a family could save out of his chances of wages?”</p> - -<p>Hughes caught at the word save, and emerged with it from his revery. -“Frugality is one of the vices we must hope to abolish. It is one of the -lowest forms of selfishness, which can only be defended by reference to -the state of Ishmaelitism in which we live.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but surely, father,” Mrs. Denton mocked, “you want street beggars -to save, don’t you, so they can have something to retire on?”</p> - -<p>“No; let them take their chance with the rest,” said the old man, with -an imperfect hold of her irony.</p> - -<p>“There are so many of them,” Ray suggested, “they couldn’t all hope to -retire on a competency. I never go out without meeting one.”</p> - -<p>“I wish there were more,” said Denton, passionately. “I wish they would -swarm up from their cellars and garrets into all the comfortable streets -of the town, till every rich man’s door-step had a beggar on it, to show -him what his wealth was based on.”</p> - -<p>“It wouldn’t avail,” Hughes replied. “All that is mere sentimentality. -The rich man would give to the first two or three, and then he would -begin to realize that if he gave continually he would beggar himself. He -would harden his heart; he would know, as he does now, that he must not -take the chance of suffer<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span>ing for himself and his family by relieving -the suffering of others. He could put it on the highest moral ground.”</p> - -<p>“In the Family,” said Peace, speaking for the first time, “there was no -chance of suffering.”</p> - -<p>“No. But the community saved itself from chance by shutting out the rest -of the world. It was selfish, too. The Family must include the whole -world,” said her father. “There is a passage bearing upon that point in -what I have been writing to-day. I will just read a part of it.”</p> - -<p>He pushed back his chair, but Peace said, “I’ll get your manuscript, -father,” and brought it to him.</p> - -<p>The passage was a long one, and Hughes read it all with an author’s -unsparing zest. At that rate Ray saw no hope of being able to read his -poem, and he felt it out of taste for Hughes to take up the time. When -he ended at last and left the table, Peace began to clear it away, while -Mrs. Denton sat hearing herself talk and laugh. The twins had fallen -asleep in their chairs, and she let their father carry them off and -bestow them in the adjoining room. As he took them tenderly up from -their chairs, he pressed his face close upon their little slumbering -faces, and mumbled their fingers with his bearded lips. The sight of his -affection impressed Ray, even in the preoccupation of following the -movements of Peace, as she kept about her work.</p> - -<p>“Is he as homesick as ever?” Ray asked Mrs. Denton, when he was gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes; he’s worse,” she answered lightly. “He hasn’t got father’s faith -in the millennium to keep him up. He would like to go back to-morrow, if -there was anything to go back to.”</p> - -<p>Peace halted a moment in her passing to and fro, and said, as if in -deprecation of any slight or censure that her sister’s words might seem -to imply: “He sees a great many discouraging things. They’re doing so -much now by process, and unless an engraver has a great deal of talent, -and can do the best kind of work, there’s very little work for him. -Ansel has seen so many of them lose their work by the new inventions. -What seems so bad to him is that these processes really make better -pictures than the common engravers can, and yet they make life worse. He -never did believe that an artist ought to get a living by his art.”</p> - -<p>“Then I don’t see why he objects to the new processes,” said Ray, with -the heartlessness which so easily passes for wit. Peace looked at him -with grave surprise.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton laughed over the cat which had got up in her lap. “That’s -what I tell him. But it doesn’t satisfy him.”</p> - -<p>“You know,” said the younger sister, with a reproach in her tone, which -brought Ray sensibly under condemnation, too, “that he means that art -must be free before it can be true, and that there can be no freedom -where there is the fear of want.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mrs. Denton, turning her head for a new effect of the -sleeping cat, “there was no fear of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span> want in the Family; but there -wasn’t much art, either.”</p> - -<p>Ray was tempted to laugh, but he wanted above all to read his poem, and -to lead up to it without delay, and he denied himself the pleasure of a -giggle with Mrs. Denton. “I suppose,” he said, “the experiment of -emancipation is tried on too small a scale in a community.”</p> - -<p>“That is what father thinks,” said Peace. “That is why he wants the -whole world to be free.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Ray, aware of a relenting in her towards himself; and he -added, with apparent inconsequence: “Perhaps it would help forward the -time for it if every artist could express his feeling about it, or -represent it somehow.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see exactly how they could in a picture or a statue,” said Mrs. -Denton.</p> - -<p>“No,” Ray assented from the blind alley where he had unexpectedly -brought up. He broke desperately from it, and said, more toward Peace -than toward her sister, “I have been trying to turn my own little -disappointment into poetry. You know,” he added, “that Chapley & Co. -have declined my book?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she admitted, with a kind of shyness.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” and here Ray took the manuscript out of his pocket, “whether -you would let me read you some passages of my poem.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton assented eagerly, and Peace less eagerly, but with an -interest that was enough for him. Before he began to read, Mrs. Denton -said a number<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span> of things that seemed suddenly to have accumulated in her -mind, mostly irrelevant; she excused herself for leaving the room, and -begged Ray to wait till she came back. Several times during the reading -she escaped and returned; the poet finished in one of her absences.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV.</h2> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">You</span> see,” Ray said, “it’s merely a fragment.” He wiped the perspiration -from his forehead.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” the girl answered, with a sigh. “Isn’t disappointment -always fragmentary?” she asked, sadly.</p> - -<p>“How do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Why, happiness is like something complete; and disappointment like -something broken off, to me. A story that ends well seems rounded; and -one that ends badly leaves you waiting, as you do just after some one -dies.”</p> - -<p>“Is that why you didn’t like my story?” Ray asked, imprudently. He added -quickly, at an embarrassment which came into her face, “Oh, I didn’t -mean to add to my offence! I came here partly to excuse it. I was too -persistent the other night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I was. I had no right to an opinion from you. I knew it at the -time, but I couldn’t help it. You were right to refuse. But you can tell -me how my poem strikes you. It isn’t offered for publication!”</p> - -<p>He hoped that she would praise some passages that he thought fine; but -she began to speak of the motive, and he saw that she had not missed -anything, that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span> had perfectly seized his intention. She talked to -him of it as if it were the work of some one else, and he said -impulsively, “If I had you to criticise my actions beforehand, I should -not be so apt to make a fool of myself.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton came back. “I ran off toward the last. I didn’t want to be -here when Peace began to criticise. She’s so severe.”</p> - -<p>“She hasn’t been at all severe this time,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“I don’t see how she could be,” Mrs. Denton returned. “All that I heard -was splendid.”</p> - -<p>“It’s merely a fragment,” said Ray, with grave satisfaction in her -flattery.</p> - -<p>“You must finish it, and read us the rest of it.”</p> - -<p>Ray looked at Peace, and something in her face made him say, “I shall -never finish it; it isn’t worth it.”</p> - -<p>“Did Peace say that?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton laughed. “That’s just like Peace. She makes other people say -the disagreeable things she thinks about them.”</p> - -<p>“What a mysterious power!” said Ray. “Is it hypnotic suggestion?”</p> - -<p>He spoke lightly toward Peace, but her sister answered: “Oh, we’re full -of mysteries in this house. Did you know that my husband had a Voice?”</p> - -<p>“A voice! Is a voice mysterious?”</p> - -<p>“This one is. It’s an internal Voice. It tells him what to do.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, like the demon of Socrates.”</p> - -<p>“I <i>hope</i> it isn’t a demon!” said Mrs. Denton.</p> - -<p>“That depends upon what it tells him to do,” said Ray. “In Socrates’ day -a familiar spirit could be a demon without being at all bad. How proud -you must be to have a thing like that in the family!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. It has its inconveniences, sometimes. When it tells him -to do what we don’t want him to,” said Mrs. Denton.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but think of the compensations!” Ray urged. “Why, it’s equal to a -ghost.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose it is a kind of ghost,” said Mrs. Denton, and Ray fancied she -had the pride we all feel in any alliance, direct or indirect, with the -supernatural. “Do you believe in dreams?” she asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“Bad ones, I do,” said Ray. “We always expect bad dreams and dark -presentiments to come true, don’t we!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. My husband does. He has a Dream as well as a Voice.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, indeed!” said Ray; and he added: “I see. The Voice is the one he -talks with in his sleep.”</p> - -<p>The flippant suggestion amused Mrs. Denton; but a shadow of pain came -over Peace’s face, that made Ray wish to get away from the mystery he -had touched; she might be a believer in it, or ashamed of it.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” he added, “why we never expect our day-dreams to come true?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps because they’re never bad ones—because we know we’re just -making them,” said Mrs. Denton.</p> - -<p>“It must be that! But, do we always make them? Sometimes my day-dreams -seem to make themselves, and they keep on doing it so long that they -tire me to death. They’re perfect daymares.”</p> - -<p>“How awful! The only way would be to go to sleep, if you wanted to get -rid of them.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; and that isn’t so easy as waking up. Anybody can wake up; a man -can wake up to go to execution; but it takes a very happy man to go to -sleep.”</p> - -<p>The recognition of this fact reminded Ray that he was himself a very -unhappy man; he had forgotten it for the time.</p> - -<p>“He might go into society and get rid of them that way,” Mrs. Denton -suggested, with an obliquity which he was too simply masculine to -perceive. “I suppose you go into society a good deal, Mr. Ray?”</p> - -<p>Peace made a little movement as of remonstrance, but she did not speak, -and Ray answered willingly: “<i>I</i> go into society? I have been inside of -just one house—or flat—besides this, since I came to New York.”</p> - -<p>“Why!” said Mrs. Denton.</p> - -<p>She seemed to be going to say something more, but she stopped at a look -from her sister, and left Ray free to so on or not, as he chose. He told -them it was Mr. Brandreth’s flat he had been in; at some little hints of -curiosity from Mrs. Denton, he described it to her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I have some letters from people in Midland, but I haven’t presented -them yet,” he added at the end. “The Brandreths are all I know of -society.”</p> - -<p>“They’re much more than we know. Well, it seems like fairyland,” said -Mrs. Denton, in amiable self-derision. “I used to think that was the way -we should live when we left the Family. I suppose there are people in -New York that would think it was like fairyland to live like us, and not -all in one room. Ansel is always preaching that when I grumble.”</p> - -<p>The cat sprang up into her lap, and she began to smooth its long flank, -and turn her head from side to side, admiring its enjoyment.</p> - -<p>“Well,” Ray said, “whatever we do, we are pretty sure to be sorry we -didn’t do something else.”</p> - -<p>He was going to lead up to his own disappointments by this commonplace, -but Mrs. Denton interposed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m not sorry we left the Family, if that’s what you mean. There’s -some chance, here, and there everything went by rule; you had your share -of the work, and you knew just what you had to expect every day. I used -to say I wished something <i>wrong</i> would happen, just so as to have -<i>something</i> happen. I believe it was more than half that that got father -out, too,” she said, with a look at her sister.</p> - -<p>“I thought,” said Ray, “but perhaps I didn’t understand him, that your -father wanted to make the world over on the image of your community.”</p> - -<p>“I guess he wanted to have the fun of chancing it, too,” said Mrs. -Denton. “Of course he wants to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span> make the world over, but he has a pretty -good time as it is; and I’m glad of all I did and said to get him into -it. He had no chance to bring his ideas to bear on it in the Family.”</p> - -<p>“Then it was you who got him out of the community,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“I did my best,” said Mrs. Denton. “But I can’t say I did it, -altogether.”</p> - -<p>“Did you help?” he asked Peace.</p> - -<p>“I wished father to do what he thought was right. He had been doubtful -about the life there for a good while—whether it was really doing -anything for humanity.”</p> - -<p>She used the word with no sense of cant in it; Ray could perceive that.</p> - -<p>“And do you ever wish you were back in the Family?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton called out joyously: “Why, there is no Family to be back in, -I’m thankful to say! Didn’t you know that?”</p> - -<p>“I forgot.” Ray smiled, as he pursued, “Well, if there was one to be -back in, would you like to be there, Miss Hughes?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell,” she answered, with a trouble in her voice. “When I’m not -feeling very strong or well, I should. And when I see so many people -struggling so hard here, and failing after all they do, I wish they -could be where there was no failure, and no danger of it. In the Family -we were safe, and we hadn’t any care.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“We hadn’t any choice, either,” said her sister.</p> - -<p>“What choice has a man who doesn’t know where the next day’s work is -coming from?”</p> - -<p>Ray looked round to find that Denton had entered behind them from the -room where he had been, and was sitting beside the window apparently -listening to their talk. There was something uncanny in the fact of his -unknown presence, though neither of the sisters seemed to feel it.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re there,” said Mrs. Denton, without turning from her cat. -“Well, I suppose that’s a question that must come home to you more and -more. Did you ever hear of such a dreadful predicament as my husband’s -in, Mr. Ray? He’s just hit on an invention that’s going to make us rich, -and throw all the few remaining engravers out of work, when he gets it -finished.” Her husband’s face clouded, but she went on: “His only hope -is that the invention will turn out a failure. You don’t have any such -complications in your work, do you, Mr. Ray?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Ray, thinking what a good situation the predicament would be, -in a story. “If they had taken my novel, and published an edition of -fifty thousand, I don’t see how it could have reduced a single author to -penury. But I don’t believe I could resist the advances of a publisher, -even if I knew it might throw authors out of work right and left. I -could support their families till they got something to do.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you might do that, Ansel,” his wife suggested, with a slanting -smile at him. “I only hope<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> we may have the opportunity. But probably it -will be as hard to get a process accepted as a book.”</p> - -<p>“That hasn’t anything to do with the question,” Denton broke out. “The -question is whether a man ought not to kill his creative thought as he -would a snake, if he sees that there is any danger of its taking away -work another man lives by. That is what I look at.”</p> - -<p>“And father,” said Mrs. Denton, whimsically, “is so high-principled that -he won’t let us urge on the millenium by having pandemonium first. If we -were allowed to do that, Ansel might quiet his conscience by reflecting -that the more men he threw out of work, the sooner the good time would -come. I don’t see why that isn’t a good plan, and it would work in so -nicely with what we want to do. Just make everything so bad people -cannot bear it, and then they will rise up in their might and make it -better for themselves. Don’t you think so, Mr. Ray?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” he said.</p> - -<p>All this kind of thinking and feeling, which was a part and parcel of -these people’s daily life, was alien to his habit of mind. He grasped it -feebly and reluctantly, without the power or the wish to follow it to -conclusions, whether it was presented ironically by Mrs. Denton, or with -a fanatical sincerity by her husband.</p> - -<p>“No, no! That won’t do,” Denton said. “I have tried to see that as a -possible thoroughfare; but it isn’t possible. If we were dealing with -statistics it would do; but it’s men we’re dealing with: men like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span> -ourselves that have women and children dependent on them.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad to hear you say that, Ansel,” Peace said, gently.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he returned, bitterly, “whichever way I turn, the way is barred. -My hands are tied, whatever I try to do. Some one must be responsible. -Some one must atone. Who shall it be?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mrs. Denton, with a look of comic resignation, “it seems to -be a pretty personal thing, after all, in spite of father’s philosophy. -I always supposed that when we came into the world we should have an -election, and vote down all these difficulties by an overwhelming -majority.”</p> - -<p>Ray quoted, musingly:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The world is out of joint:—O cursed spite!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">That ever I was born to set it right!”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>“Yes? Who says that?”</p> - -<p>“Hamlet.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes. Well, I feel just exactly as Ham does about it.”</p> - -<p>Denton laughed wildly out at her saucy drolling, and she said, as if his -mirth somehow vexed her, “I should think if you’re so much troubled by -that hard question of yours, you would get your Voice to say something.”</p> - -<p>Her husband rose, and stood looking down, while a knot gathered between -his gloomy eyes. Then he turned and left the room without answering -her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span></p> - -<p>She sent a laugh after him. “Sometimes,” she said to the others, “the -Voice doesn’t know any better than the rest of us.”</p> - -<p>Peace remained looking gravely at her a moment, and then she followed -Denton out of the room.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton began to ask Ray about Mrs. Brandreth and Mrs. Chapley, -pressing him with questions as to what kind of people they really were, -and whether they were proud; she wondered why they had never come to -call upon her. It would all have been a little vulgar if it had not been -so childlike and simple. Ray was even touched by it when he thought that -the chief concern of these ladies was to find out from him just what -sort of crank her father was, and to measure his influence for evil on -Mr. Chapley.</p> - -<p>At the same time he heard Peace talking to Denton in a tone of entreaty -and pacification. She staid so long that Ray had risen to go when she -came back. He had hoped for a moment alone with her at parting, so that -he might renew in better form the excuses that he pretended he had come -to make. But the presence of her sister took all the seriousness and -delicacy from them; he had to make a kind of joke of them; and he could -not tell her at all of the mysterious message from Mr. Brandreth about -the friend to whom he wished to submit his book, and of the final pang -of disappointment which its immediate return had given him. He had meant -that she should say something to comfort him for this, but he had to -forego his intended consolation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> had no doubt that Kane was the court of final resort which the case -against his novel had been appealed to, and he thought it hard that he -should have refused to give it a last chance, or even to look at it -again. Surely it was not so contemptible as that, so hopelessly bad that -a man who seemed his friend could remember nothing in it that would make -it valuable in a second reading. If the fault were not in the book, then -it must be in the friend, and Ray renounced old Kane by every means he -could command. He could not make it an open question; he could only -treat him more and more coldly, and trust to Kane’s latent sense of -guilt for the justification of his behavior. But Kane was either so -hardened, or else regarded his own action as so venial, or perhaps -believed it so right, that he did not find Ray’s coldness intelligible.</p> - -<p>“My dear young friend,” he frankly asked, “is there anything between us -but our disparity of years? That existed from the first moment of our -acquaintance. I have consoled myself at times with the notion of our -continuing together in an exemplary friendship, you growing older and -wiser, and I younger and less wise, if possible, like two Swedenborgian -spirits in the final state. But evidently something has happened to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> -tinge our amity with a grudge in your mind. Do you object to saying just -what property in me has imparted this unpleasant discoloration to it?”</p> - -<p>Ray was ashamed to say, or rather unable. He answered that nothing was -the matter, and that he did not know what Kane meant. He was obliged to -prove this by a show of cordiality, which he began perhaps to feel when -he reasoned away his first resentment. Kane had acted quite within his -rights, and if there was to be any such thing as honest criticism, the -free censure of a friend must be suffered and even desired. He said this -to himself quite heroically; he tried hard to be ruled by a truth so -obvious.</p> - -<p>In other things his adversity demoralized him, for a time. He ceased to -live in the future, as youth does and should do; he lived carelessly and -wastefully in the present. With nothing in prospect, it was no longer -important how his time or money went; he did not try to save either. He -never finished his poem, and he did not attempt anything else.</p> - -<p>In the midst of his listlessness and disoccupation there came a letter -from Hanks Brothers asking if he could not give a little more social -gossip in his correspondence for the <i>Echo</i>; they reminded him that -there was nothing people liked so much as personalities. Ray scornfully -asked himself, How should he, who knew only the outsides of houses, -supply social gossip, even if he had been willing? He made a sarcastic -reply to Hanks Brothers, intimating his readiness to relinquish the -correspondence if it were not to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span> taste; and they took him at his -word, and wrote that they would hereafter make use of a syndicate -letter.</p> - -<p>It had needed this blow to rouse him from his reckless despair. If he -were defeated now, it would be in the face of all the friends who had -believed in him and expected success of him. His motive was not high; it -was purely egoistic at the best; but he did not know this; he had a -sense of virtue in sending his book off to a Boston publisher without -undoing the inner wrappings in which the last New York publisher had -returned it.</p> - -<p>Then he went round to ask Mr. Brandreth if he knew of any literary or -clerical or manual work he could get to do. The industrial fury which -has subdued a continent, and brought it under the hard American hand, -wrought in him, according to his quality, and he was not only willing -but eager to sacrifice the scruples of delicacy he had in appealing to a -man whom he had sought first on such different terms. His only question -was how to get his business quickly, clearly, and fully before him.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth received him with a gayety that put this quite out of his -mind; and he thought the publisher was going to tell him that he had -decided, after all, to accept his novel.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Mr. Ray,” Mr. Brandreth called out at sight of him, “I was just -sending a note to you! Sit down a moment, won’t you? The editor of -<i>Every Evening</i> was in here just now, and he happened to say he wished -he knew some one who could make him a syn<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span>opsis of a rather important -book he’s had an advanced copy of from the other side. It’s likely to be -of particular interest in connection with Coquelin’s visit; it’s a study -of French comic acting from Molière down; and I happened to think of -you. You know French?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes, thank you—to read. You’re very kind, Mr. Brandreth, to think -of me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not at all! I didn’t know whether you ever did the kind of thing -the <i>Every Evening</i> wants, or whether you were not too busy; but I -thought I’d drop an anchor to windward for you, on the chance that you -might like to do it.”</p> - -<p>“I should like very much to do it; and”—</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you why I did it,” Mr. Brandreth interrupted, radiantly. “I -happened to know they’re making a change in the literary department of -the <i>Every Evening</i>, and I thought that if this bit of work would let -you show your hand—See?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; and I’m everlastingly”—</p> - -<p>“Not at all, not at all!” Mr. Brandreth opened the letter he was -holding, and gave Ray a note that it inclosed. “That’s an introduction -to the editor of the <i>Every Evening</i>, and you’ll strike him at the -office about now, if you’d like to see him.”</p> - -<p>Ray caught with rapture the hand Mr. Brandreth offered him. “I don’t -know what to say to you, but I’m extremely obliged. I’ll go at once.” He -started to the door, and turned. “I hope Mrs. Brandreth is well, -and—and—the baby?”</p> - -<p>“Splendidly. I shall want to have you up there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span> again as soon as we can -manage it. Why haven’t you been at Mrs. Chapley’s? Didn’t you get her -card?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but I haven’t been very good company of late. I didn’t want to -have it generally known.”</p> - -<p>“I understand. Well, now you must cheer up. Good-by, and good luck to -you!”</p> - -<p>All the means of conveyance were too slow for Ray’s eagerness, and he -walked. On his way down to that roaring and seething maelstrom of -business, whose fierce currents swept all round the <i>Every Evening</i> -office, he painted his future as critic of the journal with minute -detail; he had died chief owner and had his statue erected to his memory -in Park Square before he crossed that space and plunged into one of the -streets beyond.</p> - -<p>He was used to newspaper offices, and he was not surprised to find the -editorial force of the <i>Every Evening</i> housed in a series of dens, -opening one beyond the other till the last, with the chief in it, looked -down on the street from which he climbed. He thought it all fit enough, -for the present; but, while he still dwelt in the future, and before the -office-boy had taken his letter from him to the chief, he swiftly flung -up a building for the <i>Every Evening</i> as lofty and as ugly as any of the -many-storied towers that rose about the frantic neighborhood. He -blundered upon two other writers before he reached the chief; one of -them looked up from his desk, and roared at him in unintelligible -affliction; the other simply wagged his head, without lifting it, in the -direction of the final room, where Ray<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span> found himself sitting beside the -editor-in-chief, without well knowing how he got there. The editor did -not seem to know either, or to care that he was there, for some time; he -kept on looking at this thing and that thing on the table before him; at -everything but the letter Ray had sent in. When he did take that up he -did not look at Ray; and while he talked with him he scarcely glanced at -him; there were moments when he seemed to forget there was anybody -there; and Ray’s blood began to burn with a sense of personal indignity. -He wished to go away, and leave the editor to find him gone at his -leisure; but he felt bound to Mr. Brandreth, and he staid. At last the -editor took up a book from the litter of newspapers and manuscripts -before him, and said:</p> - -<p>“What we want is a rapid and attractive <i>résumé</i> of this book, with -particular reference to Coquelin and his place on the stage and in art. -No one else has the book yet, and we expect to use the article from it -in our Saturday edition. See what you can do with it, and bring it here -by ten to-morrow. You can run from one to two thousand words—not over -two.”</p> - -<p>He handed Ray the book and turned so definitively to his papers and -letters again that Ray had no choice but to go. He left with the editor -a self-respectful parting salutation, which the editor evidently had no -use for, and no one showed a consciousness of him, not even the -office-boy, as he went out.</p> - -<p>He ground his teeth in resentment, but he resolved to take his revenge -by making literature of that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span> <i>résumé</i>, and compelling the attention of -the editor to him through his work. He lost no time in setting about it; -he began to read the book at once, and he had planned his article from -it before he reached his hotel. He finished it before he slept, and he -went to bed as the first milkman sent his wail through the street below. -His heart had worked itself free of its bitterness, and seemed to have -imparted its lightness to the little paper, which he was not ashamed of -even when he read it after he woke from the short rest he suffered -himself. He was sure that the editor of <i>Every Evening</i> must feel the -touch which he knew he had imparted to it, and he made his way to him -with none of the perturbation, if none of the romantic interest of the -day before.</p> - -<p>The editor took the long slips which Ray had written his copy on, and -struck them open with his right hand while he held them with his left.</p> - -<p>“Why the devil,” he demanded, “don’t you write a better hand?” Before -Ray could formulate an answer, he shouted again, “Why the devil don’t -you begin with a <i>fact</i>?”</p> - -<p>He paid no heed to the defence which the hurt author-pride of the young -fellow spurred him to make, but went on reading the article through. -When he had finished he threw it down and drew toward him a narrow book -like a check-book, and wrote in it, and then tore out the page, and gave -it to Ray. It was an order on the counting-room for fifteen dollars.</p> - -<p>Ray had a weak moment of rage in which he wished<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span> to tear it up and -fling it in the editor’s face. But he overcame himself and put the order -in his pocket. He vowed never to use it, even to save himself from -starving, but he kept it because he was ashamed to do otherwise. Even -when the editor at the sound of his withdrawal called out, without -looking round, “What is your address?” he told him; but this time he -wasted no parting salutations upon him.</p> - -<p>The hardest part was now to make his acknowledgments to Mr. Brandreth, -without letting him know how little his personal interest in the matter -had availed. He succeeded in keeping everything from him but the fact -that his work had been accepted, and Mr. Brandreth was delighted.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s first-rate, as far as it goes, and I believe it’s going to -lead to something permanent. You’ll be the literary man of <i>Every -Evening</i> yet; and I understand the paper’s making its way. It’s a good -thing to be connected with; thoroughly clean and decent, and yet -lively.”</p> - -<p>Though Ray hid his wrath from Mr. Brandreth, because it seemed due to -his kindness, he let it break out before Kane, whom he found dining -alone at his hotel that evening when he came down from his room.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know whether I ought to sit down with you,” he began, when Kane -begged him to share his table. “I’ve just been through the greatest -humiliation I’ve had yet. It’s so thick on me that I’m afraid some of it -will come off. And it wasn’t my fault, either; it was my misfortune.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“We can bear to suffer for our misfortunes,” said Kane, dreamily. “To -suffer for our faults would be intolerable, because then we couldn’t -preserve our self-respect. Don’t you see? But the consciousness that our -anguish is undeserved is consoling; it’s even flattering.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry to deprive you of a <i>Hard Saying</i>, if that’s one, but my -facts are against you.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but facts must always yield to reasons,” Kane began.</p> - -<p>Ray would not be stopped. But he suddenly caught the humorous aspect of -his adventure with the editor of <i>Every Evening</i>, and gave it with -artistic zest. He did not spare his ridiculous hopes or his ridiculous -pangs.</p> - -<p>From time to time Kane said, at some neat touch: “Oh, good!” “Very -good!” “Capital!” “Charming, charming!” When Ray stopped, he drew a long -breath, and sighed out: “Yes, I know the man. He’s not a bad fellow. -He’s a very good fellow.”</p> - -<p>“A good fellow?” Ray demanded. “Why did he behave like a brute, then? -He’s the only man who’s been rude to me in New York. Why couldn’t he -have shown me the same courtesy that all the publishers have? Every one -of them has behaved decently, though none of them, confound them! wanted -my book.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said Kane, “his conditions were different. They had all some -little grace of leisure, and according to your report he had none. I -don’t know a more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span> pathetic picture than you’ve drawn of him, trying to -grasp all those details of his work, and yet seize a new one. It’s -frightful. Don’t you feel the pathos of it?”</p> - -<p>“No man ought to place himself in conditions where he has to deny -himself the amenities of life,” Ray persisted, and he felt that he had -made a point, and languaged it well. “He’s to blame if he does.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no man willingly places himself in hateful or injurious -conditions,” said Kane. “He is pushed into them, or they grow up about -him through the social action. He’s what they shape him to, and when -he’s taken his shape from circumstances, he knows instinctively that he -won’t fit into others. So he stays put. You would say that the editor of -<i>Every Evening</i> ought to forsake his conditions at any cost, and go -somewhere else and be a civilized man; but he couldn’t do that without -breaking himself in pieces and putting himself together again. Why did I -never go back to my own past? I look over my life in New York, and it is -chiefly tiresome and futile in the retrospect; I couldn’t really say why -I’ve staid here. I don’t expect anything of it, and yet I can’t leave -it. The <i>Every Evening</i> man does expect a great deal of his conditions; -he expects success, and I understand he’s getting it. But he didn’t -place himself in his conditions in any dramatic way, and he couldn’t -dramatically break with them. They may be gradually detached from him -and then he may slowly change. Of course there are signal cases of -renunciation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> People have abdicated thrones and turned monks; but -they’ve not been common, and I dare say, if the whole truth could be -known, they have never been half the men they were before, or become -just the saints they intended to be. If you’ll take the most -extraordinary instance of modern times, or of all times—if you’ll take -Tolstoï himself, you’ll see how impossible it is for a man to rid -himself of his environment. Tolstoï believes unquestionably in a life of -poverty and toil and trust; but he has not been able to give up his -money; he is defended against want by the usual gentlemanly sources of -income; and he lives a ghastly travesty of his unfulfilled design. He’s -a monumental warning of the futility of any individual attempt to escape -from conditions. That’s what I tell my dear old friend Chapley, who’s -quite Tolstoï mad, and wants to go into the country and simplify -himself.”</p> - -<p>“Does he, really?” Ray asked, with a smile.</p> - -<p>“Why not? Tolstoï convinces your reason and touches your heart. There’s -no flaw in his logic and no falsity in his sentiment. I think that if -Tolstoï had not become a leader, he would have had a multitude of -followers.”</p> - -<p>The perfection of his paradox afforded Kane the highest pleasure. He -laughed out his joy in it, and clapped Ray on the shoulder, and provoked -him to praise it, and was so frankly glad of having made it that all -Ray’s love of him came back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">From</span> one phase of his experience with his story, Ray took a hint, and -made bold to ask Mr. Brandreth if he could not give him some manuscripts -to read; he had rather a fancy for playing the part of some other man’s -destiny since he could have so little to do with deciding his own. -Chapley & Co. had not much work of that kind to give, but they turned -over a number of novels to him, and he read them with a jealous -interest; he wished first of all to find whether other people were -writing better novels than his, and he hoped to find that they were not. -Mostly, they really were not, and they cumulatively strengthened him -against an impulse which he had more than once had to burn his -manuscript. From certain of the novels he read he got instruction both -of a positive and negative kind; for it was part of his business to look -at their construction, and he never did this without mentally revising -the weak points of his story, and considering how he could repair them.</p> - -<p>There was not a great deal of money in this work; but Ray got ten or -fifteen dollars for reading a manuscript and rendering an opinion of it, -and kept himself from the depravation of waiting for the turn of the -cards. He waited for nothing; he worked contin<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span>ually, and he filled up -the intervals of the work that was given to him with work that he made -for himself. He wrote all sorts of things,—essays, stories, sketches, -poems,—and sent them about to the magazines and the weekly newspapers -and the syndicates. When the editors were long in reporting upon them, -he went and asked for a decision; and in audacious moments he carried -his manuscript to them, and tried to surprise an instant judgment from -them. This, if it were in the case of a poem, or a very short sketch, he -could sometimes get; and it was usually adverse, as it usually was in -the case of the things he sent them by mail. They were nowhere unkindly; -they were often sympathetic, and suggested that what was not exactly -adapted to their publications might be adapted to the publication of a -fellow-editor; they were willing to sacrifice one another in his behalf. -They did not always refuse his contributions. Kane, who witnessed his -struggles at this period with an interest which he declared truly -paternal, was much struck by the fact that Ray’s failures and successes -exactly corresponded to those of business men; that is, he failed -ninety-five times out of a hundred to get his material printed. His -effort was not of the vast range suggested by these numbers; he had a -few manuscripts that were refused many times over, and made up the large -sum of his rejections by the peculiar disfavor that followed them.</p> - -<p>Besides these regular attacks on the literary periodicals, Ray carried -on guerilla operations of several sorts. He sold jokes at two dollars -apiece to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span> comic papers; it sometimes seemed low for jokes, but the -papers paid as much for a poor joke as a good one, and the market was -steady. He got rather more for jokes that were ordered of him, as when -an editor found himself in possession of an extremely amusing -illustration without obvious meaning. He developed a facility wholly -unexpected to himself in supplying the meaning for a picture of this -kind; if it were a cartoon, he had the courage to ask as much as five -dollars for his point.</p> - -<p>A mere accident opened up another field of industry to him, when one day -a gentleman halted him at the foot of the stairway to an elevated -station, and after begging his pardon for first mistaking him for a -Grand Army man, professed himself a journalist in momentary difficulty.</p> - -<p>“I usually sell my things to the <i>Sunday Planet</i>, but my last poem was -too serious for their F. S., and I’m down on my luck. Of course, I see -<i>now</i>,” said the journalist in difficulty, “that you <i>couldn’t</i> have -been in the war; at first glance I took you for an old comrade of mine; -but if you’ll leave your address with me—Thank you, sir! Thank you!”</p> - -<p>Ray had put a quarter in his hand, and he thought he had bought the -right to ask him a question.</p> - -<p>“I know that I may look twice my age when people happen to see double”—</p> - -<p>“Capital!” said the veteran. “First-rate!” and he clapped Ray on the -shoulder, and then clung to him long enough to recover his balance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span></p> - -<p>“But <i>would</i> you be good enough to tell me what the F. S. of the <i>Sunday -Planet</i> is?”</p> - -<p>“Why, the Funny Side—the page where they put the jokes and the comic -poetry. F. S. for short. Brevity is the soul of wit, you know.”</p> - -<p>Ray hurried home and put together some of the verses that had come back -to him from the comic papers, and mailed them to the <i>Sunday Planet</i>. He -had learned not to respect his work the less for being rejected, but the -<i>Planet</i> did not wane in his esteem because the editor of the F. S. -accepted all his outcast verses. The pay was deplorably little, however, -and for the first time he was tempted to consider an offer of -partnership with a gentleman who wrote advertisements for a living, and -who, in the falterings of his genius from overwork, had professed -himself willing to share his honors and profits with a younger man; the -profits, at any rate, were enormous.</p> - -<p>But this temptation endured only for a moment of disheartenment. In all -his straits Ray not only did his best, but he kept true to a certain -ideal of himself as an artist. There were some things he could not do -even to make a living. He might sell anything he wrote, and he might -write anything within the bounds of honesty that would sell, but he -could not sell his pen, or let it for hire, to be used as the lessee -wished. It was not the loftiest grade of æsthetics or ethics, and -perhaps the distinctions he made were largely imaginary. But he refused -the partnership offered him, though it came with a flattering -recognition of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span> literary abilities, and of his peculiar fitness for -the work proposed.</p> - -<p>He got to know a good many young fellows who were struggling forward on -the same lines with himself, and chancing it high and low with the great -monthlies, where they offered their poems and short stories, and with -the one-cent dailies, where they turned in their space-work. They had a -courage in their risks which he came to share in its gayety, if not its -irreverence, and he enjoyed the cheerful cynicism with which they -philosophized the facts of the newspaper side of their trade: they had -studied its average of successes and failures, and each of them had his -secret for surprising the favor of the managing editor, as infallible as -the gambler’s plan for breaking the bank at Monaco.</p> - -<p>“You don’t want to be serious,” one blithe spirit volunteered for Ray’s -instruction in a moment of defeat; “you want to give a light and -cheerful cast to things. For instance, if a fireman loses his life in a -burning building, you mustn’t go straight for the reader’s pity; you -must appeal to his sense of the picturesque. You must call it, ‘Knocked -out in a Fight with Fire,’ or something like that, and treat the -incident with mingled pathos and humor. If you’ve got a case of suicide -by drowning, all you’ve got to do is to call it ‘Launch of one more -Unfortunate,’ and the editor is yours. Go round and make studies of our -metropolitan civilization; write up the ‘Leisure Moments of Surface-Car -Conductors,’ or ‘Talks with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span> Ticket-Choppers.’ Do the amateur -scavenger, and describe the ‘Mysteries of the Average Ash-Barrel.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>As the time wore on, the circle of Ray’s acquaintance widened so much -that he no longer felt those pangs of homesickness which used to seize -him whenever he got letters from Midland. He rather neglected his -correspondence with Sanderson; the news of parties and sleigh-rides and -engagements and marriages which his friend wrote, affected him like -echoes from some former life. He was beginning to experience the -fascination of the mere city, where once he had a glimpse of the -situation fleeting and impalpable as those dream-thoughts that haunt the -consciousness on the brink of sleep. Then it was as if all were driving -on together, no one knew why or whither; but some had embarked on the -weird voyage to waste, and some to amass; their encounter formed the -opportunity of both, and a sort of bewildered kindliness existed between -them. Their common ignorance of what it was all for was like a bond, and -they clung involuntarily together in their unwieldy multitude because of -the want of meaning, and prospered on, suffered on, through vast -cyclones of excitement that whirled them round and round, and made a -kind of pleasant drunkenness in their brains, and consoled them for -never resting and never arriving.</p> - -<p>The fantastic vision passed, and Ray again saw himself and those around -him full of distinctly intended effort, each in his sort, and of -relentless energy, which were self-sufficing and self-satisfying. Most -of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span> people he knew were, like himself, bent upon getting a story, or -a poem, or an essay, or an article, printed in some magazine or -newspaper, or some book into the hands of a publisher. They were all, -like himself, making their ninety-five failures out of a hundred -endeavors; but they were all courageous, if they were not all gay, and -if they thought the proportion of their failures disastrous, they said -nothing to show it. They did not try to blink them, but they preferred -to celebrate their successes; perhaps the rarity of these merited it -more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">As</span> soon as Ray had pulled himself out of his slough of despond, and -began to struggle forward on such footing as he found firm, he felt the -rise of the social instinct in him. He went about and delivered his -letters; he appeared at one of Mrs. Chapley’s Thursdays, and began to be -passed from one afternoon tea to another. He met the Mayquaits at Mrs. -Chapley’s, those Gitchigumee people she had asked him about, and at -their house he met a lady so securely his senior that she could let him -see at once she had taken a great fancy to him. The Mayquaits have since -bought a right of way into the heart of society, but they were then in -the peripheral circles, and this lady seemed anxious to be accounted for -in that strange company of rich outcasts. Something in Ray’s intelligent -young good looks must have appealed to her as a possible solvent. As -soon as he was presented to her she began to ply him with subtle -questions concerning their hostess and their fellow-guests, with whom -she professed to find herself by a species of accident springing from -their common interest in a certain charity: that particular tea was to -promote it. Perhaps it was the steadfast good faith of the pretty boy in -refusing to share in her light satire, while he could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span> not help showing -that he enjoyed it, which commended Ray more and more to her. He told -her how he came to be there, not because she asked, for she did not ask, -but because he perceived that she wished to know, and because it is -always pleasant to speak about one’s self upon any pretext, and he -evinced a delicate sympathy with her misgiving. It flattered him that -she should single him out for her appeal as if he were of her sort, and -he eagerly accepted an invitation she made him. Through her favor and -patronage he began to go to lunches and dinners; he went to balls, and -danced sometimes when his pockets were so empty that he walked one way -to save his car fares. But his poverty was without care; it did not eat -into his heart, for no one else shared it; and those spectres of want -and shame which haunt the city’s night, and will not always away at -dawn, but remain present to eyes that have watched and wept, vanished in -the joyous light that his youth shed about him, as he hurried home with -the waltz music beating in his blood. A remote sense, very remote and -dim, of something all wrong attended him at moments in his pleasure; at -moments it seemed even he who was wrong. But this fled before his -analysis; he could not see what harm he was doing. To pass his leisure -in the company of well-bred, well-dressed, prosperous, and handsome -people was so obviously right and fit that it seemed absurd to suffer -any question of it. He met mainly very refined persons, whose interests -were all elevated, and whose tastes were often altruistic. He found<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span> -himself in a set of young people, who loved art and literature and -music, and he talked to his heart’s content with agreeable girls about -pictures and books and theatres.</p> - -<p>It surprised him that with all this opportunity and contiguity he did -not fall in love; after the freest give and take of æsthetic sympathies -he came away with a kindled fancy and a cold heart. There was one girl -he thought would have let him be in love with her if he wished, but when -he questioned his soul he found that he did not wish, or could not. He -said to himself that it was her money, for she was rich as well as -beautiful and wise; and he feigned that if it had not been for her money -he might have been in love with her. Her people, an aunt and uncle, whom -she lived with, made much of him, and the way seemed clear. They began -to tell each other about themselves, and once he interested her very -much by the story of his adventures in first coming to New York.</p> - -<p>“And did you never meet the two young women afterwards?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes. That was the curious part of it,” he said, and piqued that she -called them “two young women,” he went on to tell her of the Hugheses, -whom he set forth in all the picturesqueness he could command. She -listened intensely, and even provoked him with some questions to go on; -but at the end she said nothing; and after that she was the same and not -the same to him. At first he thought it might be her objection to his -knowing such queer people; she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span> very proud; but he was still made -much of by her family, and there was nothing but this difference in her -that marked with its delicate distinctness the loss of a chance.</p> - -<p>He was not touched except in his vanity. Without the subtle willingness -which she had subtly withdrawn, his life was still surpassingly rich on -the side where it had been hopelessly poor; and in spite of his personal -poverty he was in the enjoyment of a social affluence beyond the magic -of mere money. Sometimes he regarded it all as his due, and at all times -he took it with simple ingratitude; but he had moments of passionate -humility when he realized that he owed his good fortune to the caprice -of a worldly old woman, whom he did not respect very much.</p> - -<p>When he began to go into society, he did not forget his earlier friends; -he rather prided himself on his constancy; he thought it was uncommon, -and he found it a consolation when other things failed him. It was even -an amusement full of literary suggestion for him to turn from his own -dream of what the world was to Hughes’s dream of what the world should -be; and it flattered him that the old man should have taken the sort of -fancy to him that he had. Hughes consulted him as a person with a -different outlook on life, and valued him as a practical mind, akin to -his own in quality, if not in direction. First and last, he read him his -whole book; he stormily disputed with him about the passages which Ray -criticised as to their basal facts; but he adopted some changes Ray -suggested.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span></p> - -<p>The young fellow was a whole gay world to Mrs. Denton, in his -reproduction of his society career for her. She pursued him to the -smallest details of dress and table and manner; he lived his society -events over again for her with greater consciousness than he had known -in their actual experience; and he suffered patiently the little -splenetic resentment in which her satiety was apt finally to express -itself. He decided that he must not take Mrs. Denton in any wise -seriously; and he could see that Peace was grateful to him for his -complaisance and forbearance. She used to listen, too, when he described -the dinners and dances for her sister, and their interest gave the -material a fascination for Ray himself: it emphasized the curious -duality of his life, and lent the glamor of unreality to the regions -where they could no more have hoped to follow him than to tread the -realms of air. Sometimes their father hung about him—getting points for -his morals, as Ray once accused him of doing.</p> - -<p>“No, no!” Hughes protested. “I am interested to find how much better -than their conditions men and women always are. The competitive -conditions of our economic life characterize society as well as -business. Yet business men and society women are all better and kinder -than you would believe they could be. The system implies that the weak -must always go to the wall, but in actual operation it isn’t so.”</p> - -<p>“From Mr. Ray’s account there seem to be a good many wall-flowers,” Mrs. -Denton suggested.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span></p> - -<p>Hughes ignored her frivolity. “It shows what glorious beings men and -women would be if they were rightly conditioned. There is a whole heaven -of mercy and loving-kindness in human nature waiting to open itself: we -know a little of what it may be when a man or woman rises superior to -circumstance and risks a generous word or deed in a selfish world. Then -for a moment we have a glimpse of the true life of the race.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I wish I had a glimpse of the untrue life of the race, myself,” -said Mrs. Denton, as her father turned away. “I would give a whole year -of the millennium for a week in society.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said her husband. He had -been listening in gloomy silence to Ray’s talk, and he now turned on his -wife. “I would rather see you dead than in such ‘good society’ as that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well,” she answered, “you’re much likelier to see me dead. If I -understand Mr. Ray, it’s a great deal easier to get into heaven than to -get into good society.” She went up to her husband and pushed his hair -back from his eyes. “If you wore it that way, people could see what a -nice forehead you’ve got. You look twice as ‘brainy,’ now, Ansel.”</p> - -<p>He caught her hand and flung it furiously away. “Ansel,” she said, “is -beginning to feel the wear and tear of the job of setting the world -right as much as I do. He never had as much faith in the millennium as -father has; he thinks there’s got to be some sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span> sacrifice first; -he hasn’t made up his mind quite what it’s to be, yet.”</p> - -<p>Denton left them abruptly, and after a while Ray heard him talking in -the next room; he thought he must be talking to some one there, till his -wife said, “Ansel doesn’t say much in company, but he’s pretty sociable -when he gets by himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next time Ray came, he found Denton dreamily picking at the strings -of a violin which lay in his lap; the twins were clinging to his knees, -and moving themselves in time to the music. “You didn’t know Ansel was a -musician?” his wife said. “He’s just got a new violin—or rather it’s a -second-hand one; but it’s splendid, and he got it so cheap.”</p> - -<p>“I profited by another man’s misfortune,” said Denton. “That’s the way -we get things cheap.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, never mind about that, now. Play the ‘Darky’s Dream,’ won’t -you, Ansel? I wish we had our old ferry-boat darky here to whistle!”</p> - -<p>After a moment in which he seemed not to have noticed her, he put the -violin to his chin, and began the wild, tender strain of the piece. It -seemed to make the little ones drunk with delight. They swayed -themselves to and fro, holding by their father’s knees, and he looked -down softly into their uplifted faces. When he stopped playing, their -mother put out her hand toward one of them, but it clung the faster to -its father.</p> - -<p>“Let me take your violin a moment,” said Ray. He knew the banjo a -little, and now he picked out on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> the violin an air which one of the -girls in Midland had taught him.</p> - -<p>The twins watched him with impatient rejection; and they were not easy -till their father had the violin back. Denton took them up one on each -knee, and let them claw at it between them; they looked into his face -for the effect on him as they lifted themselves and beat the strings. -After a while Peace rose and tried to take it from them, for their -father seemed to have forgotten what they were doing; but they stormed -at her, in their baby way, by the impulse that seemed common to them, -and screamed out their shrill protest against her interference.</p> - -<p>“Let them alone,” said their father, gently, and she desisted.</p> - -<p>“You’ll spoil those children, Ansel,” said his wife, “letting them have -their own way so. The first thing you know, they’ll grow up -capitalists.”</p> - -<p>He had been looking down at them with dreamy melancholy, but he began to -laugh helplessly, and he kept on till she said:</p> - -<p>“I think it’s getting to be rather out of proportion to the joke; don’t -you, Mr. Ray? Not that Ansel laughs too much, as a rule.”</p> - -<p>Denton rose, when the children let the violin slip to the floor at last, -and improvised the figure of a dance with them on his shoulders, and let -himself go in fantastic capers, while he kept a visage of perfect -seriousness.</p> - -<p>Hughes was drawn by the noise, and put his head into the room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span></p> - -<p>“We’ve got the old original Ansel back, father!” cried Mrs. Denton, and -she clapped her hands and tried to sing to the dance, but broke down, -and mocked at her own failure.</p> - -<p>When Denton stopped breathless, Peace took the children from him, and -carried them away. His wife remained.</p> - -<p>“Ansel was brought up among the Shakers; that’s the reason he dances so -nicely.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, was that a Shaker dance?” Ray asked, carelessly.</p> - -<p>“No. The Shaker dance is a rite,” said Denton, angrily. “You might as -well expect me to burlesque a prayer.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Ray. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about -it.”</p> - -<p>But Denton left the room without visible acceptance of his excuse.</p> - -<p>“You must be careful how you say anything about the Shakers before -Ansel,” his wife explained. “I believe he would be willing to go back to -them now, if he knew what to do with the children and me.”</p> - -<p>“If it were not for their unpractical doctrine of celibacy,” said -Hughes, “the Shakers, as a religious sect, could perform a most useful -office in the transition from the status to better conditions. They are -unselfish, and most communities are not.”</p> - -<p>“We might all go back with Ansel,” said Mrs. Denton, “and they could -distribute us round in the different Families. I wonder if Ansel’s bull -is hang<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span>ing up in the South Family barn yet? You know,” she said, “he -painted a red bull on a piece of shingle when they were painting the -barn one day, and nailed it up in a stall; when the elders found it they -labored with him, and then Ansel left the community, and went out into -the world. But they say, once a Shaker always a Shaker, and I believe -he’s had a bad conscience ever since he’s left them.”</p> - -<p>Not long after this Ray came in one night dressed for a little dance -that he was going to later, and Mrs. Denton had some moments alone with -him before Peace joined them. She made him tell where he was going, and -who the people were that were giving the dance, and what it would all be -like—the rooms and decorations, the dresses, the supper.</p> - -<p>“And don’t you feel very strange and lost, in such places?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Ray. “I can’t always remember that I’m a poor -Bohemian with two cents in my pocket. Sometimes I imagine myself really -rich and fashionable. But to-night I shan’t, thank you, Mrs. Denton.”</p> - -<p>She laughed at the look he gave her in acknowledgment of her little -scratch. “Then you wouldn’t refuse to come to a little dance here, if we -were rich enough to give one?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I would come instantly.”</p> - -<p>“And get your fashionable friends to come?”</p> - -<p>“That might take more time. When are you going to give your little -dance?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“As soon as Ansel’s invention is finished.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Is he going on with that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. He has seen how he can do more good than harm with it—at last.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! We can nearly always coax conscience along the path of -self-interest.”</p> - -<p>This pleased Mrs. Denton too. “That sounds like Mr. Kane.”</p> - -<p>Peace came in while Mrs. Denton was speaking, and gave Ray her hand, -with a glance at his splendor, enhanced by his stylish manner of holding -his silk hat against his thigh.</p> - -<p>“Who was it told you that Mr. Kane was sick?” Mrs. Denton asked.</p> - -<p>Peace answered, “Mr. Chapley.”</p> - -<p>“Kane? Is Mr. Kane sick?” said Ray. “I must go and see him.”</p> - -<p>He asked Peace some questions about Kane, but she knew nothing more than -that Mr. Chapley said he was not very well, and he was going to step -round and see him on his way home. Ray thought of the grudge he had -borne for a while against Kane, and he was very glad now that there was -none left in his heart.</p> - -<p>“It’s too late to-night; but I’ll go in the morning. He usually drops in -on me Sundays; he didn’t come last Sunday; but I never thought of his -being sick.” He went on to praise Kane, and he said, as if it were one -of Kane’s merits, “He’s been a good friend of mine. He read my novel all -over after Chapley declined it, and tried to find enough good in it to -justify<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> him in recommending it to some other publisher. I don’t blame -him for failing, but I did feel hard about his refusing to look at it -afterwards; I couldn’t help it for a while.” He was speaking to Peace, -and he said, as if it were something she would be cognizant of, “I mean -when Mr. Brandreth sent for it again after he first rejected it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she admitted, briefly, and he was subtly aware of the withdrawal -which he noticed in her whenever the interest of the moment became -personal.</p> - -<p>But there was never any shrinking from the personal interest in Mrs. -Denton; her eagerness to explore all his experiences and sentiments was -vivid and untiring.</p> - -<p>“Why did he send for it?” she asked. “What in the world for?”</p> - -<p>Ray was willing to tell, for he thought the whole affair rather -creditable to himself. “He wanted to submit it to a friend of mine; and -if my friend’s judgment was favorable he might want to reconsider his -decision. He returned the manuscript the same day, with a queer note -which left me to infer that my mysterious friend had already seen it, -and had seen enough of it. I knew it was Mr. Kane, and for a while I -wanted to destroy him. But I forgave him, when I thought it all over.”</p> - -<p>“It was pretty mean of him,” said Mrs. Denton.</p> - -<p>“No, no! He had a perfect right to do it, and I had no right to -complain. But it took me a little time to own it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton turned to Peace. “Did you know about it?”</p> - -<p>Denton burst suddenly into the room, and stared distractedly about as if -he were searching for something.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Ansel?” Peace asked.</p> - -<p>“That zinc plate.”</p> - -<p>“It’s on the bureau,” said his wife.</p> - -<p>He was rushing out, when she recalled him.</p> - -<p>“Here’s Mr. Ray.”</p> - -<p>He turned, and glanced at Ray impatiently, as if he were eager to get -back to his work; but the gloomy face which he usually wore was gone; -his eyes expressed only an intense preoccupation through which gleamed a -sudden gayety, as if it flashed into them from some happier time in the -past. “Oh, yes,” he said to his wife, while he took hold of Ray’s arm -and turned him about; “this is the way you want me to look.”</p> - -<p>“As soon as your process succeeds, I expect you to look that way all the -time. And I’m going to go round and do my work in a low-neck dress; and -we are going to have champagne at every meal. I am going to have a day, -on my card, and I am going to have afternoon teas and give dinners. We -are going into the best society.”</p> - -<p>Denton slid his hand down Ray’s arm, and kept Ray’s hand in his hot -clasp while he rapidly asked him about the side of his life which that -costume represented, as though now for the first time he had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span> reason -for caring to know anything of the world and its pleasures.</p> - -<p>“And those people don’t do anything else?” he asked, finally.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it enough?” Ray retorted. “They think they do a great deal.”</p> - -<p>Denton laughed in a strange nervous note, catching his breath, and -keeping on involuntarily. “Yes; too much. I pity them.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said his wife, “I want to be an object of pity as soon as -possible. Don’t lose any more time, now, Ansel, from that precious -process.” The light went out of his face again, and he jerked his head -erect sharply, like one listening, while he stood staring at her. “Oh, -now, don’t be ridiculous, Ansel!” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next day after a little dance does not dawn very early. Ray woke -late, with a vague trouble in his mind, which he thought at first was -the sum of the usual regrets for awkward things done and foolish things -said the night before. Presently it shaped itself as an anxiety which -had nothing to do with the little dance, and which he was helpless to -deal with when he recognized it. Still, as a definite anxiety, it was -more than half a question, and his experience did not afford him the -means of measuring its importance or ascertaining its gravity. He -carried it loosely in his mind when he went to see Kane, as something he -might or might not think of.</p> - -<p>Kane was in bed, convalescent from a sharp gastric attack, and he -reached Ray a soft moist hand across the counterpane and cheerily -welcomed him. His coat and hat hung against a closet door, and looked so -like him that they seemed as much part of him as his hair and beard, -which were smoothly brushed, and gave their silver delicately against -the pillow. A fire of soft coal purred in the grate, faded to a fainter -flicker by the sunlight that poured in at the long south windows, and -lit up the walls book-lined from floor to ceiling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, in acceptance of the praises of its comfort that Ray -burst out with, “I have lived in this room so long that I begin to -cherish the expectation of dying in it. But, really, is this the first -time you’ve been here?”</p> - -<p>“The first,” said Ray. “I had to wait till you were helpless before I -got in.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, no; ah, no! Not so bad as that. I’ve often meant to ask you, when -there was some occasion; but there never seemed any occasion; and I’ve -lived here so much alone that I’m rather selfish about my solitude; I -like to keep it to myself. But I’m very glad to see you; it was kind of -you to think of coming.” He bent a look of affection on the young -fellow’s handsome face. “Well, how wags the gay world?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Does the gay world do anything so light-minded as to wag?” Ray asked in -his turn, with an intellectual coxcombry that he had found was not -offensive to Kane. “It always seems to me very serious as a whole, the -gay world, though it has its reliefs, when it tries to enjoy itself.” He -leaned back in his chair, and handled his stick a moment, and then he -told Kane about the little dance which he had been at the night before. -He sketched some of the people and made it amusing.</p> - -<p>“And which of your butterfly friends told you I was ill?” asked Kane.</p> - -<p>“The butterflyest of all: Mrs. Denton.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Did <i>she</i> give the little dance?”</p> - -<p>“No. I dropped in at the Hugheses’ on the way to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> the dance. But I don’t -know how soon she may be doing something of the kind. They’re on the -verge of immense prosperity. Her husband has invented a new art process, -and it’s going to make them rich. He doesn’t seem very happy about it, -but she does. He’s a dreary creature. At first I used to judge her -rather severely, as we do with frivolous people. But I don’t know that -frivolity is so bad; I doubt if it’s as bad as austerity; they’re both -merely the effect of temperament, it strikes me. I like Mrs. Denton, -though she does appear to care more for the cat than the twins. Perhaps -she thinks she can safely leave them to him. He’s very devoted to them; -it’s quite touching. It’s another quality of paternal devotion from Mr. -Brandreth’s; it isn’t half so voluble. But it’s funny, all the same, to -see how much more care of them he takes than their mother does. He looks -after them at table, and he carries them off and puts them to bed with -his own hands apparently,” said Ray, in celibate contempt of the -paternal tenderness.</p> - -<p>“I believe that in David’s community,” Kane suggested, “the male -assisted the female in the care of their offspring. We still see the -like in some of the feathered tribes. In the process of social evolution -the father bird will probably leave the baby bird entirely to the mother -bird; and the mother bird, as soon as she begins to have mind and money, -will hire in some poor bird to look after them. Mrs. Denton seems to -have evolved in the direction of leaving them entirely to the father -bird.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Well, she has to do most of the talking. Have you ever heard,” Ray -asked from the necessary association of ideas, “about her husband’s -Voice?”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Why, it seems that Mr. Denton has an inward monitor of some kind, like -the demon of Socrates, that they call a Voice, and that directs his -course in life, as I understand. I suppose it’s authorized him to go on -with his process, which he was doubtful about for a good while, because -if it succeeded it would throw a lot of people out of work. Then you’ve -never heard of his Voice?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Kane. He added: “I suppose it’s part of the psychical -nonsense that they go into in all sorts of communities. And Hughes,” he -asked after a moment—“how is Hughes now?”</p> - -<p>“He’s generally busy with his writing, and I don’t always see him. He’s -a fine old fellow, if he does prefer to call me out of my name; he still -addresses me generally as Young Man. Mrs. Denton has tried to teach him -better; but he says that names are the most external of all things, and -that I am no more essentially Ray than I am Hughes. There’s something in -it; I think one might get a kind of story out of the notion.”</p> - -<p>Kane lay silent in a pensive muse, which he broke to ask with a smile: -“And how is Peace these days? Do you see her?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; she’s very well, I believe,” said Ray, briefly, and he rose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Kane, “must you go?”</p> - -<p>He kept Ray’s hand affectionately, and seemed loath to part with him. -“I’m glad you don’t forget the Hugheses in the good time you’re having. -It shows character in you not to mind their queerness; I’m sure you -won’t regret it. Your visits are a great comfort to them, I know. I was -afraid that you would not get over the disagreeable impression of that -first Sunday, and I’ve never been sure that you’d quite forgiven me for -taking you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, I had,” said Ray, and he smiled with the pleasure we all feel -when we have a benefaction attributed to us. “I’ve forgiven you much -worse things than that!”</p> - -<p>“Indeed! You console me! But for example?”</p> - -<p>“Refusing to look at my novel a second time,” answered Ray, by a sudden -impulse.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand you,” said Kane, letting his hand go.</p> - -<p>“When Mr. Brandreth offered to submit it to you in the forlorn hope that -you might like it and commend it.”</p> - -<p>“Brandreth never asked me to look at it at all; the only time I saw it -was when you let me take it home with me. What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Brandreth wrote me saying he wanted to try it on a friend of mine, -and it came back the same day with word that my friend had already seen -it,” said Ray, in an astonishment which Kane openly shared.</p> - -<p>“And was that the reason you were so cold with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span> me for a time? Well, I -don’t wonder! You had a right to expect that I would say anything in -your behalf under the circumstances. And I’m afraid I should. But I -never was tempted. Perhaps Brandreth got frightened and returned the -manuscript with that message because he knew he couldn’t trust me.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” said Ray, blankly.</p> - -<p>“Who else could it have been? Have you any surmise?”</p> - -<p>“What is the use of surmising?” Ray retorted. “It’s all over. The story -is dead, and I wish it was buried. Don’t bother about it! And try to -forgive me for suspecting <i>you</i>.”</p> - -<p>“It was very natural. But you ought to have known that I loved you too -much not to sacrifice a publisher to you if I had him fairly in my -hand.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, thank you! And—good-by. Don’t think anything more about it. I -sha’n’t.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> could be only one answer to the riddle, if Kane’s suggestion that -Mr. Brandreth had returned the manuscript without showing it to any one -were rejected. The publisher could speak of no one besides Kane as a -friend except Miss Hughes, and it was clearly she who had refused to -look again at Ray’s book. She had played a double part with him; she had -let him make a fool of himself; she had suffered him to keep coming to -her, and reading his things to her, and making her his literary -confidante. He ground his teeth with shame to think how he had sought -her advice and exulted in her praise; but the question was not merely, -it was not primarily, a question of truth or untruth, kindness or -unkindness toward himself, but of justice toward Kane. He had told her -of the resentment he had felt toward Kane; he had left her to the belief -that he still suspected Kane of what she had done. If she were willing -that he should remain in this suspicion, it was worse than anything he -now accused her of.</p> - -<p>He kept away from Chapley’s all day, because of the embarrassment of -seeing her with that in his mind. He decided that he must never see her -again till she showed some wish to be relieved from the false posi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span>tion -she had suffered herself to be placed in. At the end of the afternoon -there came a knock at his door, and he set the door open and confronted -Mr. Brandreth, who stood smiling at the joke of his being there, with -his lustrous silk hat and gloves and light overcoat on. Ray passed some -young banter with him in humorous recognition of the situation, before -they came to business, as Mr. Brandreth called it.</p> - -<p>“Look here!” said the publisher, with a quizzical glance at him from -Ray’s easy-chair, while Ray himself lounged on the edge of his bed. “Did -you think I wanted to show your novel to old Kane, that time when I sent -back for it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Ray; and he could not say any more for his prescience of -what was coming.</p> - -<p>“Well, I didn’t,” Mr. Brandreth returned. “And if I’d ever thought you -suspected him, I should have told you so long ago. The person that I did -want it for is anxious you should know it wasn’t Kane, and I thought I’d -better come and tell you so by word of mouth; I rather made a mess of it -before, in writing. If you’ve any feeling about the matter, it’s only -fair to Kane to assure you that he wasn’t at all the person.”</p> - -<p>“Kane told me so himself to-day,” said Ray; “and all the grudge I felt -was gone long ago.”</p> - -<p>“Well, of course! It’s a matter of business.” In turning it off in this -common-sense way Mr. Brandreth added lightly, “I’m authorized to tell -you who it really was, if you care to know.”</p> - -<p>Ray shook his head. “I don’t care to know. What’s the use?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“There isn’t any. I’m glad you take it the way you do, and it will be a -great relief to—the real one.”</p> - -<p>“It’s all right.”</p> - -<p>Ray had been strengthening his defences against any confidential -approach from the moment Mr. Brandreth began to speak; he could not help -it. Now they began to talk of other things. At the end the publisher -returned to the book with a kind of desperate sigh: “You haven’t done -anything with your story yet, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth, after a moment’s hesitation, went away without saying -anything more. Even that tentative inquiry about the fate of his book -could not swerve Ray now from his search for the motives which had -governed Peace in causing this message to be sent him. It could only be -that she had acted in Kane’s behalf, who had a right to justice from -her, and she did not care what Ray thought of her way of doing justice. -In the complex perversity of his mood the affair was so humiliating to -him, as it stood, that he could not rest in it. That evening he went -determined to make an opportunity to speak with her alone, if none -offered.</p> - -<p>It was she who let him in, and then she stood looking at him in a kind -of daze, which he might well have taken for trepidation. It did not give -him courage, and he could think of no better way to begin than to say, -“I have come to thank you, Miss Hughes, for your consideration for Mr. -Kane. I couldn’t have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span> expected less of you, when you found out that I -had been suspecting him of that friendly refusal to look at my -manuscript the second time.”</p> - -<p>His hard tone, tense with suppressed anger, had all the effect he could -have wished. He could see her wince, and she said, confusedly, “I told -Mr. Brandreth, and he said he would tell you it wasn’t Mr. Kane.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Ray, stiffly, “he came to tell me.”</p> - -<p>She hesitated, and then she asked, “Did he tell you who it was?”</p> - -<p>“No. But I knew.”</p> - -<p>If she meant him to say something more, he would not; he left to her the -strain and burden that in another mood he would have shared so -willingly, or wholly assumed.</p> - -<p>At a little noise she started, and looked about, and then, as if -returning to him by a painful compliance with his will, she said, “When -he told me what he had done to get the manuscript back, I couldn’t let -him give it to me.”</p> - -<p>She stopped, and Ray perceived that, for whatever reason, she could say -nothing more, at least of her own motion. But it was not possible for -him to leave it so.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said, angrily, “I needn’t ask you why.”</p> - -<p>“It was too much for me to decide,” she answered, faintly.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he assented, “it’s a good deal to take another’s fate in one’s -hands. But you knew,” he added, with a short laugh, “you had my fortune -in your hands, anyway.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t see that then,” she answered, and she let her eyes wander, and -lapsed into a kind of absence, which vexed him as a slight to the -importance of the affair.</p> - -<p>“But it doesn’t really matter whether you decided it by refusing or -consenting to look at the book again,” he said. “The result would have -been the same, in any case.”</p> - -<p>She lifted her eyes to his with a scared look, and began, “I didn’t say -that”—and then she stopped again, and looked away from him as before.</p> - -<p>“But if I can’t thank you for sparing me an explicit verdict,” he pushed -on, “I can appreciate your consideration for Kane, and I will carry him -any message you will trust me with.” He rose as he said this, and he -found himself adding, “And I admire your strength in keeping your own -counsel when I’ve been talking my book over with you. It must have been -amusing for you.”</p> - -<p>When he once began to revenge himself he did not stop till he said all -he had thought he thought. She did not try to make any answer or -protest. She sat passive under his irony; at times he thought her hardly -conscious of it, and that angered him the more, and he resented the -preoccupation, and then the distraction with which she heard him to the -end.</p> - -<p>“Only I don’t understand exactly,” he went on, “how you could let me do -it, in spite of the temptation. I can imagine that the loss of my -acquaintance will be a deprivation to you; you’ll miss the pleasure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span> of -leading me on to make a fool of myself; but you know you can still laugh -at me, and that ought to keep you in spirits for a long time. I won’t -ask your motive in sending word to me by a third person. I dare say you -didn’t wish to tell me to my face; and it couldn’t have been an easy -thing to write.”</p> - -<p>“I ought to have written,” she said, meekly. “I see that now. But -to-day, I couldn’t. There is something—He offered to go to you—he -wished to; and—I let him. I was wrong. I didn’t think how it might -seem.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there was no reason why you should have thought of me in the -matter. I’m glad you thought of Mr. Kane; I don’t ask anything more than -that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you don’t understand,” she began. “You don’t know”—</p> - -<p>“Yes, I understand perfectly, and I know all that I wish to know. There -was no reason why you should have protected me against my own folly. I -have got my deserts, and you are not to blame if I don’t like them. -Good-by.”</p> - -<p>As he turned to go, she lifted her eyes, and he could see that they were -blind with tears.</p> - -<p>He went out and walked up and down the long, unlovely avenue, conscious -of being the ugliest thing in it, and unconsciously hammered by its -brutal noises, while he tried to keep himself from thinking how, in -spite of all he had said, he knew her to be the soul of truth and -goodness. He knew that all he had said was from the need of somehow -venting his wounded van<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span>ity. As far as any belief in wrong done him was -concerned, the affair was purely histrionic on his part; but he had seen -that the pain he gave was real; the image of her gentle sufferance of -his upbraiding went visibly before him. The wish to go back and own -everything to her became an intolerable stress, and then he found -himself again at her door.</p> - -<p>He rang, and after waiting a long time to hear the click of the -withdrawing latch, he rang again. After a further delay the door opened, -and he saw Hughes standing at the top of the stairs with a lamp held -above his head.</p> - -<p>“Who is there?” the old man called down, with his hoarse voice.</p> - -<p>“It’s I, Mr. Hughes,” Ray answered, a new trouble blending with his -sense of the old man’s picturesque pose, and the leonine grandeur of his -shaggy head. “Mr. Ray,” he explained.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Hughes. “I’m glad to see you. Will you come up?” He added, as -Ray mounted to him, and they entered his room together, “I am alone here -for the time. My daughters have both gone out. Will you sit down?” Ray -obeyed, with blank disappointment. Hughes could not have known of his -earlier visit, or had forgotten it. “They will be in presently. Peace -was here till a little while ago; when Ansel and Jenny came in, they all -went out together.” He lapsed into a kind of muse, staring absently at -Ray from his habitual place beside the window. He came back to a sense -of him with words that had no evident bearing upon the situation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span></p> - -<p>“The thing which renders so many reformers nugatory and ridiculous, and -has brought contempt and disaster on so many good causes, is the attempt -to realize the altruistic man in competitive conditions. That must -always be a failure or worse.” He went on at length to establish this -position. Then, “Here is my son-in-law”—and the old man had the effect -of stating the fact merely in illustration of the general principle he -had laid down—“who has been giving all his spare time this winter to an -invention in the line of his art, and had brought it to completion -within a few days. He has all along had misgivings as to the moral -bearing of his invention, since every process of the kind must throw a -number of people out of work, and he has shown a morbid scruple in the -matter which I have tried to overcome with every argument in my power.”</p> - -<p>“I thought,” Ray made out to say, in the pause Hughes let follow, “he -had come to see all that in another light.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” the old man resumed, “he has commonly yielded to reason, but -there is an unpractical element in the man’s nature. In fact, here, this -morning, while we supposed he was giving the finishing touches to his -work, he was busy in destroying every vestige of result which could -commend it to the people interested in it. Absolutely nothing remains to -show that he ever had anything of the kind successfully in hand.”</p> - -<p>“Is it possible?” said Ray, deeply shocked. “I am so sorry to hear -it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span>”—</p> - -<p>The old man had not heard him or did not heed him. “He has been in a -very exalted state through the day, and my daughters have gone out to -walk with him; it may quiet his nerves. He believes that he has acted in -obedience to an inner Voice which governs his conduct. I know nothing -about such things; but all such suggestions from beyond are to my -thinking mischievous. Have you ever been interested in the phenomena of -spiritualism, so-called?”</p> - -<p>Ray shook his head decidedly. “Oh, no!” he said, with abhorrence.</p> - -<p>“Ah! The Family were at one time disposed to dabble in those shabby -mysteries. But I discouraged it; I do not deny the assumptions of the -spiritualists; but I can see no practical outcome to the business; and I -have used all my influence with Ansel to put him on his guard against -this Voice, which seems to be a survival of some supernatural -experiences of his among the Shakers. It had lately been silent, and had -become a sort of joke with us. But he is of a very morbid temperament, -and along with this improvement, there have been less favorable -tendencies. He has got a notion of expiation, of sacrifice, which is -perhaps a survival of his ancestral Puritanism. I suppose the hard -experiences of the city have not been good for him. They prey upon his -fancy. It would be well if he could be got into the country somewhere; -though I don’t see just how it could be managed.”</p> - -<p>Hughes fell into another muse, and Ray asked, “What does he mean by -expiation?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The old man started impatiently. “Mere nonsense; the rags and tatters of -man’s infancy, outworn and outgrown. The notion that sin is to be atoned -for by some sort of offering. It makes me sick; and of late I haven’t -paid much attention to his talk. I supposed he was going happily forward -with his work; I was necessarily much preoccupied with my own; I have -many interruptions from irregular health, and I must devote every -available moment to my writing. There is a passage, by-the-way, which I -had just completed when you rang, and which I should like to have your -opinion of, if you will allow me to read it to you. It is peculiarly -apposite to the very matter we have been speaking of; in fact, I may say -it is an amplification of the truth that I am always trying to impress -upon Ansel, namely, that when you are in the midst of a battle, as we -all are here, you must fight, and fight for yourself, always, of course, -keeping your will fixed on the establishment of a lasting peace.” Hughes -began to fumble among the papers on the table beside him for his -spectacles, and then for the scattered sheets of his manuscript. “Yes, -there is a special obligation upon the friends of social reform to a -life of common-sense. I have regarded the matter from rather a novel -standpoint, and I think you will be interested.”</p> - -<p>The old man read on and on. At last Ray heard the latch of the street -door click, and the sound of the opening and then the shutting of the -door. A confused noise of feet and voices arrested the reading which -Hughes seemed still disposed to continue, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span> light steps ascended the -stairs, while as if in the dark below a parley ensued. Ray knew the -high, gentle tones of Peace in the pleading words, “But try, try to -believe that if it says that, it can’t be the Voice you used to hear, -and that always told you to do what was right. It is a wicked Voice, -now, and you must keep saying to yourself that it is wicked and you -mustn’t mind it.”</p> - -<p>“But the words, the words! Whose words were they? Without the shedding -of blood: what does that mean? If it was a sin for me to invent my -process, how shall the sin be remitted?”</p> - -<p>“There is that abject nonsense of his again!” said old Hughes, in a -hoarse undertone which drowned for Ray some further words from Denton. -“It’s impossible to get him away from that idea. Men have nothing to do -with the remission of sins; it is their business to cease to do evil! -But you might as well talk to a beetle!”</p> - -<p>Ray listened with poignant eagerness for the next words of Peace, which -came brokenly to his ear. He heard— “...justice and not sacrifice. If -you try to do what is right—and—and to be good, then”—</p> - -<p>“I will try, Peace, I will try. O Lord, help me!” came in Denton’s deep -tones. “Say the words again. The Voice keeps saying those—But I will -say yours after you!”</p> - -<p>“I will have justice.” The girl’s voice was lifted with a note in it -that thrilled to Ray’s heart, and made him start to his feet; Hughes -laid a detaining hand upon his arm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I will have justice,” Denton repeated.</p> - -<p>“And not sacrifice,” came in the girl’s tremulous accents.</p> - -<p>“And not sacrifice,” followed devoutly from the man. “I will have -justice, without the shedding of blood—it gets mixed; I can’t keep the -Voice out!—and not sacrifice. What is justice? What is justice but -sacrifice?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is self-sacrifice! All our selfish wishes”—</p> - -<p>“I have burnt them in a fire, and scattered their ashes!”</p> - -<p>“And all gloomy and morbid thoughts that distress other people.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you know I wouldn’t distress any one! You know how my heart is -breaking for the misery of the world.”</p> - -<p>“Let her alone!” said old Hughes to Ray, in his thick murmur, as if he -read Ray’s impulse in the muscle of his arm. “She will manage him.”</p> - -<p>“But say those words over again!” Denton implored. “The Voice keeps -putting them out of my mind!”</p> - -<p>She said the text, and let him repeat it after her word by word, as a -child follows its mother in prayer.</p> - -<p>“And try hard, Ansel! Remember the children and poor Jenny!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes. I will, Peace! Poor Jenny! I’m sorry for her. And the -children—You know I wouldn’t harm any one for the whole world, don’t -you, Peace?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do know, Ansel, how good and kind you are; and I know you’ll -see all this in the true light soon. But now you’re excited.”</p> - -<p>“Well, say it just once more, and then I shall have it.”</p> - -<p>Once more she said the words, and he after her. He got them straight -this time, without admixture from the other text. There came a rush of -his feet on the stairs, and a wild laugh.</p> - -<p>“Jenny! Jenny! It’s all right now, Jenny!” he shouted, as he plunged -into the apartment, and was heard beating as if on a door closed against -him. It must have opened, for there was a sound like its shutting, and -then everything was still except a little pathetic, almost inaudible -murmur as of suppressed sobbing in the dark of the entry below. -Presently soft steps ascended the stairs and lost themselves in the rear -of the apartment.</p> - -<p>“Now, young man,” said Hughes, “I think you had better go. Peace will be -in here directly to look after me, and it will distress her to find any -one else. It is all right now.”</p> - -<p>“But hadn’t I better stay, Mr. Hughes? Can’t I be of use?”</p> - -<p>“No. I will defer reading that passage to another time. You will be -looking in on us soon again. We shall get on very well. We are used to -these hypochrondriacal moods of Ansel’s.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was nothing for Ray to do but to accept his dismissal. He got -himself stealthily down stairs and out of the house, but he could not -leave it. He walked up and down before it, doubting whether he ought not -to ring and try to get in again. When he made up his mind to this he saw -that the front windows were dark. That decided him to go home.</p> - -<p>He did not sleep, and the next morning he made an early errand to the -publishers’. He saw Peace bent over her work in Mr. Chapley’s room. He -longed to go and speak to her, and assure himself from her own words -that all was well; but he had no right to do that, and with the first -stress of his anxiety abated, he went to lay the cause of it before -Kane.</p> - -<p>“It was all a mere chance that I should know of this; but I thought you -ought to know,” he explained.</p> - -<p>“Yes, certainly,” said Kane; but he was less moved than Ray had -expected, or else he showed his emotion less. “Hughes is not a fool, -whatever Denton is; this sort of thing must have been going on a good -while, and he’s got the measure of it. I’ll speak to Chapley about it. -They mustn’t be left altogether to themselves with it.”</p> - -<p>As the days began to go by, and Ray saw Peace<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span> constantly in her place -at the publishers’, his unselfish anxiety yielded to the question of his -own relation to her, and how he should make confession and reparation. -He went to Kane in this trouble, as in the other, after he had fought -off the necessity as long as he could, but they spoke of the other -trouble first.</p> - -<p>Then Ray said, with the effort to say it casually, “I don’t think I told -you that the great mystery about my manuscript had been solved.” Kane -could not remember at once what the mystery was, and Ray was forced to -add, “It seems that the unknown friend who wouldn’t look twice at my -book was—Miss Hughes.”</p> - -<p>Kane said, after a moment, “Oh!” and then, as if it should be a very -natural thing, he asked, “How did you find that out?”</p> - -<p>“She got Mr. Brandreth to tell me it wasn’t you, as soon as she knew -that I had suspected you.”</p> - -<p>“Of course. Did he tell you who it was?”</p> - -<p>“He was to tell me if I wished. But I knew it couldn’t be anybody but -she, if it were not you, and I went to see her about it.”</p> - -<p>“Well?” said Kane, with a kind of expectation in his look and voice that -made it hard for Ray to go on.</p> - -<p>“Well, I played the fool. I pretended that I thought she had used me -badly. I don’t know. I tried to make her think so.”</p> - -<p>“Did you succeed?”</p> - -<p>“I succeeded in making her very unhappy.”</p> - -<p>“That was success—of a kind,” said Kane, and he lay back in his chair -looking into the fire, while Ray<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span> sat uncomfortably waiting at the other -corner of the hearth.</p> - -<p>“Did she say why she wouldn’t look at your manuscript a second time?” -Kane asked finally.</p> - -<p>“Not directly.”</p> - -<p>“Did you ask?”</p> - -<p>“Hardly!”</p> - -<p>“You knew?”</p> - -<p>“It was very simple,” said Ray. “She wouldn’t look at it because it -wasn’t worth looking at. I knew that. That was what hurt me, and made me -wish to hurt her.”</p> - -<p>Kane offered no comment. After a moment he asked: “Has all this just -happened? Have you just found it out?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s bad enough, but isn’t so bad as that,” said Ray, forcing a -laugh. “Still, it’s as bad as I could make it. I happened to go to see -her that evening when I overheard her talk with Denton.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! And you spoke to her after that?”</p> - -<p>There was a provisional condemnation in Kane’s tone which kindled Ray’s -temper and gave him strength to retort: “No, Mr. Kane! I spoke to her -before that; and it was when I came back—to tell her I was all wrong, -and to beg her pardon—that I saw her father, and heard what I’ve told -you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I didn’t understand; I might have known that the other thing was -impossible,” said Kane.</p> - -<p>They were both silent, and Ray’s anger had died down into the shame that -it had flamed up from,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span> when Kane thoughtfully asked, “And you want my -advice?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Concretely?”</p> - -<p>“As concretely as possible.”</p> - -<p>“Then, if you don’t really know the reason why a girl so conscientious -as Peace Hughes wouldn’t look at your manuscript again when she was -practically left to decide its fate, I think you’d better not go there -any more.”</p> - -<p>Kane spoke with a seriousness the more impressive because he was so -rarely serious, and Ray felt himself reddening under his eye.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you rather enigmatical?” he began.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t think so,” said Kane, and then neither spoke.</p> - -<p>Some one knocked at the door. Kane called out, “Come in!” and Mr. -Chapley entered.</p> - -<p>After he had shaken hands with Kane and made Ray out, and had shaken -hands with him, he said, with not more than his usual dejection, “I’m -afraid poor David is in fresh trouble, Kane.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said Kane, and Ray waited breathlessly to hear what the trouble -was.</p> - -<p>“That wretched son-in-law of his—though I don’t know why I should -condemn him—seems to have been somewhere with his children and exposed -them to scarlet fever; and he’s down with diphtheritic sore throat -himself. Peace has been at home since the trouble declared itself, -helping take care of them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Is it going badly with them?” Kane asked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. It’s rather difficult to communicate with the family -under the circumstances.”</p> - -<p>“You might have said impossible, without too great violence, Henry,” -said Kane.</p> - -<p>“I had thought of seeing their doctor,” suggested Mr. Chapley, with his -mild sadness. “Ah, I wish David had stayed where he was.”</p> - -<p>“We are apt to think these things are accidents,” said Kane. “Heaven -knows. But scarlet fever and diphtheria are everywhere, and they take -better care of them in town than they do in the country. Who did you say -their doctor was?”</p> - -<p>“Dear me! I’m sure I don’t know who he is. I promised Mr. Brandreth to -look the matter up,” said Mr. Chapley. “He’s very anxious to guard -against any spread of the infection to his own child, and my whole -family are so apprehensive that it’s difficult. I should like to go and -see poor David, myself, but they won’t hear of it. They’re quite in a -panic as it is.”</p> - -<p>“They’re quite right to guard against the danger,” said Kane, and he -added, “I should like to hear David philosophize the situation. I can -imagine how he would view the effort of each one of us to escape the -consequences that we are all responsible for.”</p> - -<p>“It is civilization which is in the wrong,” said Mr. Chapley.</p> - -<p>“True,” Kane assented. “And yet our Indians suffered terribly from the -toothache and rheumatism.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span> You can carry your return to nature too far, -Henry; Nature must meet Man half-way.” Kane’s eye kindled with pleasure -in his phrase, and Ray could perceive that the literary interest was -superseding the personal interest in his mind. “The earth is a dangerous -planet; the great question is how to get away from it alive,” and the -light in Kane’s eyes overspread his face in a smile of deep satisfaction -with his paradox.</p> - -<p>The cold-blooded talk of the two elderly men sent a chill to Ray’s -heart. For him, at least, there was but one thing to do; and half an -hour later he stood at the open street door of the Hughes apartment, -looking up at Mrs. Denton silhouetted against the light on the landing -as he had first seen her there.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mrs. Denton,” he called up, “how are the children?”</p> - -<p>“I—I don’t know. They are very sick. The doctor is afraid”—</p> - -<p>“Oh!” Ray groaned, at the stop she made. “Can I help—can’t I do -something? May I come up?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” she answered mechanically, and Ray was stooping forward to -mount the stairs when he saw her caught aside, and Peace standing in her -place.</p> - -<p>“Don’t come up, Mr. Ray! You can’t do any good. It’s dangerous.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care for the danger,” he began. “Some one—some one must help -you! Your father”—</p> - -<p>“My father doesn’t need any help, and we don’t. Every moment you stay -makes the danger worse!”</p> - -<p>“But you, <i>you</i> are in danger! You<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span>”—</p> - -<p>“It’s my <i>right</i> to be. But it’s wrong for you. Oh, do go away!” She -wrung her hands, and he knew that she was weeping. “I do thank you for -coming. I was afraid you would come.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, were you?” he exulted. “I am glad of that! You know how I must have -felt, when I came to think what I had said.”</p> - -<p>“Yes—but, go, now!”</p> - -<p>“How can I do that? I should be ashamed”—</p> - -<p>“But you mustn’t,” she entreated. “It would put others in danger, too. -You would carry the infection. You must go,” she repeated.</p> - -<p>“Well, I shall come again. I must know how it is with you. When may I -come again!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. You mustn’t come inside again.” She thought a moment. “If -you come I will speak to you from that window over the door. You must -keep outside. If you will ring the bell twice, I shall know it is you.”</p> - -<p>She shut the door, and left him no choice but to obey. It was not -heroic; it seemed cowardly; and he turned ruefully away. But he -submitted, and twice a day, early in the morning and late at night, he -came and rang for her. The neighbors, such as cared, understood that he -was the friend of the family who connected its exile with the world; -sometimes the passers mistook these sad trysts for the happy lovers’ -meetings which they resembled, and lingered to listen, and then passed -on.</p> - -<p>They caught only anxious questions and hopeless<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">{257}</a></span> answers; the third -morning that Ray came, Peace told him that the little ones were dead.</p> - -<p>They had passed out of the world together, as they had entered it, and -Ray stood with their mother beside the grave where they were both laid, -and let her cling to his hand as if he were her brother. Her husband was -too sick to be with them, and there had been apparently no question of -Hughes’s coming, but Peace was there. The weather was that of a day in -late March, bitter with a disappointed hope of spring. Ray went back to -their door with the mourners. The mother kept on about the little ones, -as if the incidents of their death were facts of a life that was still -continuing.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know well enough,” she broke off from this illusion, “that they -are gone, and I shall never see them again; perhaps their father will. -Well, I don’t think I was so much to blame. I didn’t make myself, and I -never asked to come here, any more than they did.”</p> - -<p>She had the woe-begone hopeless face which she wore the first day that -Ray saw her, after the twins had thrown her porte-monnaie out of the car -window; she looked stunned and stupefied.</p> - -<p>They let her talk on, mostly without interruption. Only, at this point -Peace said, “That will be thought of, Jenny,” and the other asked, -wistfully, “Do you think so, Peace? Well!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">{258}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Peace</span> did not come back to her work at the publishers’ for several -weeks. The arrears began to accumulate, and Mr. Brandreth asked Ray to -help look after it; Ray was now so often with him that their friendly -acquaintance had become a confidential intimacy.</p> - -<p>Men’s advance in these relations is rapid, even in later life; in youth -it is by bounds. Before a week of their daily contact was out, Ray knew -that Mrs. Chapley, though the best soul in the world, and the most -devoted of mothers and grandmothers, had, in Mr. Brandreth’s opinion, a -bad influence on his wife, and through her on his son. She excited Mrs. -Brandreth by the long visits she paid her; and she had given the baby -medicine on one occasion at least that distinctly had not agreed with -it. “That boy has taken so much belladonna, as a preventive of scarlet -fever, that I believe it’s beginning to affect his eyes. The pupils are -tremendously enlarged, and he doesn’t notice half as much as he did a -month ago. I don’t know when Mrs. Chapley will let us have Miss Hughes -back again. Of course, I believe in taking precautions too, and I never -could forgive myself if anything really happened. But I don’t want to be -a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">{259}</a></span> perfect slave to my fears, or my mother-in-law’s, either—should -you?”</p> - -<p>He asked Ray whether, under the circumstances, he did not think he ought -to get some little place near New York for the summer, rather than go to -his country home in Massachusetts, where the Chapleys had a house, and -where his own mother lived the year round. When Ray shrank from the -question as too personal for him to deal with, Mr. Brandreth invited him -to consider the more abstract proposition that if the two grandmothers -had the baby there to quarrel over all summer, they would leave nothing -of the baby, and yet would not part friends.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you another reason why I want to be near my business so as to -keep my finger on it all the time, this year,” said Mr. Brandreth, and -he went into a long and very frank study of the firm’s affairs with Ray, -who listened with the discreet intelligence which made everybody trust -him. “With Mr. Chapley in the state he’s got into about business, when -he doesn’t care two cents whether school keeps or not, I see that I’ve -got to take the reins more and more into my own hands.” Mr. Brandreth -branched off into an examination of his own character, and indirectly -paid himself some handsome tributes as a business man. “I don’t mean to -say,” he concluded, “that I’ve got the experience of some of the older -men, but I do mean to say that experience doesn’t count for half of what -they claim, in the book business, and I can prove it out of their own -mouths. They all admit<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">{260}</a></span> that nobody can forecast the fate of a book. Of -course if you’ve got a book by a known author, you’ve got something to -count on, but not so much as people think, and some unknown man may -happen along with a thing that hits the popular mood and outsell him ten -times over. It’s a perfect lottery.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder they let you send your lists of new publications through the -mails,” said Ray, dryly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it isn’t quite as bad as that,” said Mr. Brandreth. “Though there -are a good many blanks too. I suppose the moral difference between -business and gambling is that in business you do work for a living, and -you don’t propose to give nothing for something, even when you’re buying -as cheap as you can to sell as dear as you can. With a book it’s even -better. It’s something you’ve put value into, and you have a right to -expect to get value out of it. That’s what I tell Mr. Chapley when he -gets into one of his Tolstoï moods, and wants to give his money to the -poor and eat his bread in the sweat of his brow.”</p> - -<p>The two young men laughed at these grotesque conceptions of duty, and -Mr. Brandreth went on:</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, if I could get hold of a good, strong, lively novel”—</p> - -<p>“Well, there is always <i>A Modern Romeo</i>,” Ray suggested.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth winced. “I know.” He added, with the effect of hurrying to -get away from the subject, “I’ve had it over and over again with Mr. -Chapley till I’m tired of it. Well, I suppose it’s his age,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">{261}</a></span> somewhat, -too. Every man, when he gets to Mr. Chapley’s time of life, wants to go -into the country and live on the land. I’d like to see him living on the -land in Hatboro’, Massachusetts! You can stand up in your buggy and -count half-a-dozen abandoned farms wherever you’ve a mind to stop on the -road. By-the-way,” said Mr. Brandreth, from an association of ideas that -Ray easily followed, “have you seen anything of the book that Mr. Hughes -is writing? He’s got a good title for it. ‘The World Revisited’ ought to -sell the first edition of it at a go.”</p> - -<p>“Before people found out what strong meat it was? It condemns the whole -structure of society; he’s read me parts of it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” said Mr. Brandreth, in a certain perplexity, “that might -make it go too. People like strong meat. They like to have the structure -of society condemned. There’s a good deal of sympathy with the -underpinning; there’s no use trying to deny it. Confound it! I should -like to try such a book as that in the market. But it would be regarded -by everybody who knew him as an outcome of Mr. Chapley’s Tolstoï twist.”</p> - -<p>“I understand that Mr. Hughes’s views are entirely opposed to Tolstoï’s. -He regards him as unpractical,” said Ray, with a smile for Hughes’s -practicality.</p> - -<p>“It wouldn’t make any difference. They would call it Tolstoïan on Mr. -Chapley’s account. People don’t know. There was <i>Looking Backward</i>; they -took that at a gulp, and didn’t know that it was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">{262}</a></span> rankest sort of -socialism. My! If I could get hold of a book like <i>Looking Backward</i>!”</p> - -<p>“I might have it come out that the wicked cousin in <i>A Modern Romeo</i> was -a secret Anarchist. That ought to make the book’s fortune.”</p> - -<p>Ray could deal lightly with his rejected novel, but even while he made -an open jest of it, the book was still inwardly dear to him. He still -had his moments of thinking it a great book, in places. He was always -mentally comparing it with other novels that came out, and finding it -better. He could not see why they should have got publishers, and his -book not; he had to fall back upon that theory of mere luck which first -so emboldens and then so embitters the heart; and the hope that lingered -in him was mixed with cynicism.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">{263}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Peace came back to her work, Mr. Brandreth, in admiration of her -spirit, confided to Ray that she had refused to take pay for the time -she had been away, and that no arguments availed with her.</p> - -<p>“They must have been at unusual expense on account of this sickness, and -I understand that the son-in-law hasn’t earned anything for a month. But -what can you do?”</p> - -<p>“You can’t do anything,” said Ray. Their poverty might be finally -reached from without, and it was not this which made him chiefly anxious -in his futile sympathy for Peace. He saw her isolated in the presence of -troubles from which he was held as far aloof as her father lived in his -dream of a practicable golden age. Their common sorrow, which ought to -have drawn the mother and father of the dead children nearer together, -seemed to have alienated them. After the first transports of her grief, -Mrs. Denton appeared scarcely to miss the little ones; the cat, which -they had displaced so rarely, was now always in her lap, and her idle, -bantering talk went on, about anything, about everything, as before, but -with something more of mockery for her husband’s depressions and -exaltations. It might have been from a mistaken wish to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">{264}</a></span> rouse him to -some sort of renewed endeavor that she let her reckless tongue run upon -what he had done with his process; it might have been from her -perception that he was most vulnerable there; Ray could not decide. For -the most part Denton remained withdrawn from the rest, a shadow and a -silence which they ignored. Sometimes he broke in with an irrelevant -question or comment, but oftener he evaded answering when they spoke to -him. If his wife pressed him at such times he left them; and then they -heard him talking to himself in his room, after an old habit of his; now -and then Ray thought he was praying. If he did not come back, Peace -followed him, and then her voice could be heard in entreaty with him.</p> - -<p>“She’s the only one that can do anything with Ansel,” her sister lightly -explained one evening. “She has so much patience with him; father hasn’t -any more than I have; but Peace can persuade him out of almost anything -except his great idea of sacrifice.”</p> - -<p>“Sacrifice?” Ray repeated.</p> - -<p>“Yes. I don’t know what he means. But he thinks he’s been very wicked, -trying to invent that process, and he can’t get forgiveness without some -kind of sacrifice. He’s found it in the Old Testament somewhere. <i>I</i> -tell him it’s a great pity he didn’t live in the days of the prophets; -he might have passed for one. I don’t know what he’s going to do. He -says we must make some sacrifice; but I can’t see what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">{265}</a></span> we’ve got left -to sacrifice. We might make a burnt offering of the chairs in father’s -stove; the coal’s about gone.”</p> - -<p>She stopped, and looked up at Denton, who had come in with a book in his -hand; Peace glided in behind him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, are you going to read us something, Ansel?” his wife asked with her -smile of thoughtless taunting. “I don’t see why you don’t give public -readings. You could read better than the elocutionists that used to read -to us in the Family. And it wouldn’t be taking the bread out of any one -else’s mouth.” She turned to Ray: “You know Ansel’s given up his place -so as to let another man have his chance. It was the least he could do -after he had tried to take away the livelihood of so many by inventing -that wicked process of his.”</p> - -<p>Denton gave no sign of having heard her. He fixed his troubled eyes on -Ray. “Do you know that poem?” he asked, handing him the open book.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“It’s a mistake,” said Denton, “all a mistake. I should like to write to -Tennyson and tell him so. I’ve thought it out. The true sacrifice would -have been the best, not the dearest; the best.”</p> - -<p>The next day was Sunday, and it broke, with that swift, capricious heat -of our climate, after several days of cloudy menace. The sun shone, and -the streets were thronged with people. They were going to church in -different directions, but there was every<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">{266}</a></span>where a heavy trend toward the -stations of the elevated road, and the trains were crammed with men, -women and children going to the Park. When Ray arrived there with one of -the throngs he had joined, he saw the roads full of carriages, and in -the paths black files of foot-passengers pushing on past the seats -packed with those who had come earlier, and sat sweltering under the -leafless trees. The grass was already green; some of the forwarder -shrubs were olive-gray with buds.</p> - -<p>Ray walked deep into the Park. He came in sight of a bench near a shelf -of rock in a by-path, with a man sitting alone on it. There was room for -two, and Ray made for the place.</p> - -<p>The man sat leaning forward with his heavy blonde head hanging down as -if he might have been drunk. He suddenly lifted himself, and Ray saw -that it was Denton. His face was red from the blood that had run into -it, but as it grew paler it showed pathetically thin. He stared at Ray -confusedly, and did not know him till he spoke.</p> - -<p>Then he said, “Oh!” and put out his hand. A sudden kindness in Ray, more -than he commonly felt for the man whom he sometimes pitied, but never -liked, responded to the overture.</p> - -<p>“May I have part of your bench?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Denton. “Sit down,” and he made way for him. “It isn’t mine; -it’s one of the few things in this cursed town that belongs to every -one.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Ray, cheerfully, “I suppose we’re all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">{267}</a></span> proprietors of the -Park, even if we’re not allowed to walk on our own grass.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but don’t get me thinking about that. There’s been too much of -that in my life. I want to get away—away from it all. We are going into -the country. Do you know about those abandoned farms in New England? -Could we go and take up one of them?”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I don’t know. But what could you do with it, if you did? The -owners left those farms because they couldn’t live on them. You would -have to fight a battle you’re not strong enough for. Better wait till -you get fairly on your feet.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’m sick; I’m no good. But it would be expiation.”</p> - -<p>Ray did not speak at once. Then, partly because he thought he might be -of use to the man by helping him to an objective vision of what was -haunting him, and partly from an æsthetic desire to pry into the -confusion of his turbid soul, he asked: “Do you mean for that invention -of yours?”</p> - -<p>“No; that’s nothing; that was a common crime.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I have no right to ask you anything further. But in any given -case of expiation, the trouble is that a man can’t expiate alone; he -makes a lot of other people expiate with him.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; you can’t even sin alone. That is the curse of it, and then the -innocent have to suffer with the sinners. But I meant—the children.”</p> - -<p>“The children?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">{268}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I let them die.”</p> - -<p>Ray understood now that it was remorse for his exposure of the little -ones to contagion which was preying on him. “I don’t think you were to -blame for that. It was something that might have happened to any one. -For the sake of your family you ought to look at it in the true light. -You are no more responsible for your children’s death than I am.” Ray -stopped, and Denton stared as if listening.</p> - -<p>“What? What? What?” he said, in the tone of a man who tries to catch -something partly heard. “Did you hear?” he asked. “They are both talking -at once—with the same voice; it’s the twin nature.” He shook his head -vehemently, and said, with an air of relief: “Well, now it’s stopped. -What did you say?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t say anything,” Ray answered.</p> - -<p>“Oh! It was the Voice, then. You see it was a mistake not to do it -sooner; I ought to have <i>given</i> them; not waited for them to be <i>taken</i>. -I couldn’t understand, because in the flesh they couldn’t speak. They -had to speak in the spirit. That was it—why they died. I thought that -if I took some rich man who had made his millions selfishly, -cruelly—you see?—it would satisfy justice; then the reign of peace and -plenty could begin. But that was wrong. That would have made the guilty -suffer for the innocent; and the innocent must suffer for the guilty. -Always! There is no other atonement. Now I see that. Oh, my soul, my -soul! What? No! Yes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">{269}</a></span> yes! The best, the purest, the meekest! Always -that! Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission—Who do you -think is the best person in New York—the purest, the meekest?”</p> - -<p>“Who?” Ray echoed.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Denton. Then he broke off. “She said, No! No! No!” He -started up from the seat. “For their life, their life, their life! That -was where the wrong was. I knew it was all wrong, always. Oh, my soul, -my soul! What shall the atonement be?” He moved away, and at a few -paces’ distance he began to run.</p> - -<p>Ray watched him running, running, till he was out of sight.</p> - -<p>He passed a restless, anxious day, and in the evening he could not keep -from going to the Hugheses’. He found them all together, and gayer than -he had seen them since the children’s death. He tried to join in the -light-hearted fun that Mrs. Denton was making with her husband; she was -unusually fond, and she flattered him with praises of his talent and -good looks; she said his pallor became him.</p> - -<p>“Do you know,” she asked Ray, “that we’re all going to New Hampshire to -live on an abandoned farm?”</p> - -<p>She made Denton get his violin, and he played a long time. Suddenly he -stopped, and waited in the attitude of listening. He called out, “Yes!” -and struck the instrument over a chair-top, breaking it to splinters. He -jumped up as if in amaze at what had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">{270}</a></span> happened; then he said to Peace, -“I’ve made you some kindling.”</p> - -<p>His wife said with a smile, “A man must do <i>something</i> for a living.”</p> - -<p>Denton merely looked at her with a kind of vague surprise. After a -moment’s suspense he wheeled about and caught his hat from the wall, and -rushed down the stairs into the street.</p> - -<p>Hughes came in from the front room, with his pen in his hand, and -hoarsely gasping. “What is the matter?” he weakly whispered. No one -spoke, but the ruin of the violin answered for itself. “Some more of -that fool’s work, I suppose. It is getting past all endurance. He was -always the most unpractical creature, and of late, he’s become utterly -worthless.” He kept on moving his lips as if he were speaking, but no -sound came from them.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton burst into a crowing laugh: “It’s too bad Ansel should have -<i>two</i> voices and father none at all!”</p> - -<p>The old man’s lips still moved, and now there came from them, “A fool, a -perfect fool!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, father,” said Peace, and she went up to the old man. “You know -Ansel isn’t a fool. You know he has been tried; and he is good, you know -he is! He has worked hard for us all; and I can’t bear to have you call -him names.”</p> - -<p>“Let him show some common-sense, then,” said her father. “I have no wish -to censure him. But his continual folly wears me out. He owes it to the -cause,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">{271}</a></span> if not to his family, to be sensible and—and—practical. Tell -him I wish to see him when he comes in,” he added, with an air of -authority, like the relic of former headship. “It’s high time I had a -talk with him. These disturbances in the family are becoming very -harassing. I cannot fix my mind on anything.”</p> - -<p>He went back into his own room, where they heard him coughing. It was a -moment of pain without that dignity which we like to associate with the -thought of suffering, but which is seldom present in it; Ray did not -dare to go; he sat keenly sensible of the squalor of it, unable to stir. -He glanced toward Peace for strength; she had her face hidden in her -hands. He would not look at Mrs. Denton, who was saying: “I think father -is right, and if Ansel can’t control himself any better than he has of -late, he’d better leave us. It’s wearing father out. Don’t you think he -looks worse, Mr. Ray?”</p> - -<p>He did not answer, but remained wondering what he had better do.</p> - -<p>Peace took down her hands and looked at him, and he saw that she wished -him to go. He went, but in the dark below he lingered, trying to think -whom he should turn to for help. He ran over Mr. Chapley, Brandreth, -Kane in his mind with successive rejection, and then he thought of -Kane’s doctor; he had never really seen him, but he feigned him the -wisest and most efficient of the doctors known to fiction. Of course it -must be a doctor whom Ray should speak to; but he must put the affair -hypothetically, so that if the doctor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">{272}</a></span> thought it nothing, no one would -be compromised. It must be a physician of the greatest judgment, a man -of sympathy as well as sagacity; no, it could be any sort of doctor, and -he ought to go to him at once.</p> - -<p>He was fumbling in the dark for the wire that pulled the bolt of the -street door when a night-latch was thrust into the key-hole outside, and -the door was burst open with a violence that flung him back against the -wall behind it. Before it could swing to again he saw Denton’s figure -bent in its upward rush on the stairs; he leaped after him.</p> - -<p>“Now, then!” Denton shouted, as they burst into the apartment together. -“The time has come! The time has come! They are calling you, Peace! You -wouldn’t let me give them, and the Lord had to take them, but they have -reconciled Him to you; He will accept you for their sake!”</p> - -<p>Old Hughes had entered from his room, and stood looking on with a -frowning brows, but with more vexation than apprehension. “Be done with -that arrant nonsense!” he commanded. “What stuff are you talking?”</p> - -<p>Denton’s wife shrank into the farthest corner, with the cat still in her -arms. Peace stood in the middle of the room staring at him. He did not -heed Hughes except to thrust him aside as he launched himself towards -the girl.</p> - -<p>Ray slipped between them, and Denton regarded him with dull wavering -eyes like a drunken man’s. “Oh, you’re here still, are you?” he said; a -cunning gleam<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">{273}</a></span> came into his eyes, and he dropped his voice from its -impassioned pitch. He kept his right hand in his coat pocket, and Ray -watched that hand too solely. Denton flashed past him, and with his left -swept away the hands which Peace mechanically lifted to her face, and -held them in his grip. Ray sprang upon him, and pinioned his right -wrist.</p> - -<p>“Hold him fast!” Hughes added his grip to Ray’s. “He’s got something in -his pocket, there! Run to the window, Jenny, and call for help!”</p> - -<p>“No, no, Jenny, don’t!” Peace entreated. “Don’t call out. Ansel won’t -hurt me! I know he’ll listen to me; won’t you Ansel? Oh, what is it you -want to do?”</p> - -<p>“Here!” cried Denton. “Take it! In an instant you will be with them! The -sin will be remitted.” He struggled to reach her lips with the hand -which he had got out of his pocket. Old Hughes panted out:</p> - -<p>“Open his fist! Tear it open. If I had a knife”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t hurt him!” Peace implored. “He isn’t hurting me.”</p> - -<p>Denton suddenly released her wrists, and she sank senseless. Ray threw -himself on his knees beside her, and stretched his arms out over her.</p> - -<p>Denton did not look at them; he stood a moment listening; then with a -formless cry he whirled into the next room. The door shut crashing -behind him, and then there came the noise of a heavy fall within. The -rush of a train made itself loudly heard in the silence.</p> - -<p>A keen bitter odor in the air rapt Ray far away to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">{274}</a></span> an hour of childhood -when a storm had stripped the blossoms from a peach-tree by the house, -and he noted with a child’s accidental observance the acrid scent which -rose from them.</p> - -<p>“That is prussic acid,” Hughes whispered, and he moved feebly towards -the door and pushed it open. Denton lay on the floor with his head -toward the threshold, and the old man stood looking down into his dead -face.</p> - -<p>“It must have been that which he had in his hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">{275}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV.</h2> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Well</span>, old fellow, I’ve got some good news for you,” said Mr. Brandreth, -when Ray showed himself at the door of the publisher’s little den the -next morning. Ray thought that he carried the record of the event he had -witnessed in every lineament, but Mr. Brandreth could have seen nothing -unusual in his face. “The editor of <i>Every Evening</i> has just been here, -and he wants to see you about taking hold of his literary department.” -Ray stared blankly. Mr. Brandreth went on with generous pleasure: “He’s -had some trouble with the man who’s been doing it, and it’s come to a -complete break at last, and now he wants you to try. He’s got some new -ideas about it. He wants to make something specially literary of the -Saturday issue; he has a notion of restoring the old-fashioned serial. -If you take charge, you could work in the <i>Modern Romeo</i> on him; and -then, if it succeeds as a serial, we can republish it in book form! -Better see him at once! Isn’t it funny how things turn out? He said he -was coming down town in a Broadway car, and happened to catch sight of -Coquelin’s name on a poster at the theatre, and it made him think of -you. He’d always liked that thing you did for him, and when he got down -here, he jumped out and came<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">{276}</a></span> in to ask about you. I talked you into him -good and strong, and he wants to see you.”</p> - -<p>Ray listened in nerveless passivity to news that would have transported -him with hope a few hours before. Mr. Brandreth might well have mistaken -his absent stare for the effect of such a rapture. He said, as a man -does when tempted a little beyond prudence by the pleasure he is giving:</p> - -<p>“The fact is, I’ve been thinking about that work of yours, myself. I -want to try <i>some</i> novel for the summer trade; and I want you to let me -see it again. I want to read it myself this time. They say a publisher -oughtn’t to know anything about the inside of a book, but I think we -might make an exception of yours.” Ray’s face remained unchanged, and -Mr. Brandreth now asked, with a sudden perception of its strangeness: -“Hello! What’s the matter? Anything gone wrong with you?”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” Ray struggled out, “not with me. But”—</p> - -<p>“Nothing new with the Hugheses, I hope?” said Mr. Brandreth, with -mounting alarm. “Miss Hughes was to have come back to work this morning, -but she hasn’t yet. No more diphtheria, I hope? By Jove, my dear fellow, -I don’t think you ought to come here if there is! I don’t think it’s -quite fair to me.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t diphtheria,” Ray gasped. “But they’re in great trouble. I -hardly know how to tell you. That wretched creature, Denton, has killed -himself. He’s been off his base for some time, and I’ve been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">{277}</a></span> -dreading—I’ve been there all night with them. He took prussic acid and -died instantly. Mr. Hughes and I had a struggle with him to -prevent—prevent him; and the old man got a wrench, and then he had a -hemorrhage. He is very weak from it, but the doctor’s brought him round -for the present. Miss Hughes wanted me to come and tell you.”</p> - -<p>“Has it got out yet?” Mr. Brandreth asked. “Are the reporters on to it?”</p> - -<p>“The fact has to come out officially through the doctor, but it isn’t -known yet.”</p> - -<p>“I wish it hadn’t happened,” said Mr. Brandreth. “It will be an awful -scandal.”</p> - -<p>There had been a moment with Ray too when the scandal of the fact was -all he felt. “Yes,” he said, mechanically.</p> - -<p>“You see,” Mr. Brandreth explained, “those fellows will rummage round in -every direction, for every bit of collateral information, relevant and -irrelevant, and they will make as much as they can of the fact that Miss -Hughes was employed here.”</p> - -<p>“I see,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth fell into a rueful muse, but he plucked himself out of it -with self-reproachful decency. “It’s awful for them, poor things!”</p> - -<p>“It’s the best thing that could have happened, under the circumstances,” -said Ray, with a coldness that surprised himself, and a lingering -resentment toward Denton that the physical struggle had left in his -nerves. “It was a question whether he should kill<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">{278}</a></span> himself, or kill some -one else. He had a mania of sacrifice, of atonement. Somebody had to be -offered up. He was a crank.” Ray pronounced the word with a strong -disgust, as if there were nothing worse to be said of a man. He paused, -and then he went on. “I shall have to tell you all about it, Brandreth;” -and he went over the event again, and spared nothing.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth listened with starting eyes. As if the additional details -greatly discouraged him, he said, “I don’t think those things can be -kept from coming out. It will be a terrible scandal. Of course, I pity -the family; and Miss Hughes. It’s strange that they could keep living on -with such a danger hanging over them for weeks and months, and not try -to do anything about it—not have him shut up.”</p> - -<p>“The doctor says we’ve no idea what sort of things people keep living on -with,” said Ray, gloomily. “The danger isn’t always there, and the hope -is. The trouble keeps on, and in most cases nothing happens. The doctor -says nothing would have happened in this case, probably, if the man had -staid quietly in the country, in the routine he was used to. But when he -had the stress of new circumstances put on him, with the anxieties and -the chances, and all the miseries around him, his mind gave way; I don’t -suppose it was ever a very strong one.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t see how the strongest stands it, in this infernal -hurly-burly,” said Mr. Brandreth, with an introspective air. He added, -with no effect of relief<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">{279}</a></span> from his reflection, “I don’t know what I’m -going to say to my wife when all this comes out. I’ve got to prepare -her, somehow—her and her mother. Look here! Why couldn’t you go up to -Mr. Chapley’s with me, and see him? He wasn’t very well, yesterday, and -said he wouldn’t be down till this afternoon. My wife’s going there to -lunch, and we can get them all together before the evening papers are -out. Then I think we could make them see it in the right light. What do -you say?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why I shouldn’t go with you. If I can be of any use,” said -Ray, with an inward regret that he could think of no excuse for not -going.</p> - -<p>“I think you can be of the greatest use,” said Mr. Brandreth. He called -a clerk, and left word with him that he should not be in again till -after lunch. “You see,” he explained, as they walked out together, “if -we can get the story to Mrs. Brandreth and her mother before it comes to -them in print it won’t seem half as bad. Some fellow is going to get -hold of the case and work it for all it is worth. He is going to unearth -Mr. Hughes’s whole history, and exploit him as a reformer and a -philosopher. He’s going to find out everybody who knows him, or has ever -had anything to do with him, and interview people right and left.”</p> - -<p>Ray had to acknowledge that this was but too probable. He quailed to -think of the publicity which he must achieve in the newspapers, and how -he must figure before the people of Midland, who had expected such a -different celebrity for him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">{280}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You must look out for yourself. I’m going to put Mr. Chapley on his -guard, and warn the ladies not to see any reporters or answer any -questions. By-the-way, does Mr. Kane know about this yet?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve just come from his place; he wasn’t at home; I left a note for -him.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder if we hadn’t better go round that way and tell him?” Mr. -Brandreth faltered a moment, and then pushed on. “Or, no! He’s a wary -old bird, and I don’t think he’ll say anything that will commit -anybody.” They walked on in silence for awhile before Mr. Brandreth -said, with an air of relevance, “Of course, I shouldn’t want you to -count too much upon our being able to do anything with your book this -year, after all.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Ray. “If I’m mixed up with this business in the -papers, my name won’t be a very good one for a respectable house to -conjure with for some years to come. Perhaps never.”</p> - -<p>At that moment he was mere egoist, feeling nothing but the mockery and -the malice of fortune; all his compassion for the hapless creatures -whose misery had involved him died within him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t mean that, exactly,” said Mr. Brandreth. “But isn’t it -curious how we’re all bound together here? It’s enough to make one -forswear all intercourse with his fellow-beings. Here we are in same -boat with people whom I didn’t know the existence of six months ago; and -because Mr. Chapley has stood by his old friend and tried to help him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">{281}</a></span> -along, he will probably be pilloried with him before the public as a -fellow-Tolstoïan, and people all over the country that used to order -their books through us will think we’re in sympathy with the anarchists, -and won’t have any more to do with us than if we had published the -<i>Kreuzer Sonata</i>.”</p> - -<p>Ray thought how he had never asked to know the Hugheses at all, and was -not justly responsible for them, even through a tie of ancient -friendship. But in the presence of Mr. Brandreth’s shameless anxieties, -he was ashamed to air his own. He only said, cynically: “Yes, it appears -that a homicidal lunatic can’t take himself harmlessly out of the world. -His fate reaches out in every direction, and covers everybody that knew -him with confusion. And they talk of a moral government of the -universe!”</p> - -<p>“Yes!” said Mr. Brandreth, with as much satisfaction in Ray’s scorn of -the order of things as his mild nature could probably feel.</p> - -<p>At Mr. Chapley’s house they learned that Mrs. Brandreth had brought the -baby to spend the day with her mother. Her sister, whom Ray knew, met -the two men at the door on her way out to a young ladies’ lunch, and -told them they would find her father in his library. She said Mr. Kane -was there with him; and Mr. Brandreth, with a glance at Ray, said, -“Well, that’s first-rate!” and explained, as they pushed on upstairs, -“He may be able to suggest something.”</p> - -<p>Kane did not suggest anything at once. He lis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">{282}</a></span>tened in silence and -without apparent feeling to Ray’s story.</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” Mr. Chapley lamented. “Dreadful, dreadful! Poor David must be -in a sad state about it! And I’m not fit to go to him!”</p> - -<p>“He wouldn’t expect you, sir,” Mr. Brandreth began.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; he would certainly come to me if I were in trouble. Dear, -dear! Was the hemorrhage very exhausting, Mr.—er—Ray?”</p> - -<p>Ray gave the doctor’s word that there was no immediate danger from it, -and Mr. Brandreth made haste to say that he had come to tell the ladies -about the affair before they saw it in the papers, and to caution them -against saying anything if reporters called.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s very well,” said Mr. Chapley. “But I see nothing -detrimental to us in the facts.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. Not unless they’re distorted, and—in connection with your -peculiar views, sir. When those fellows get on to your old friendship -with Mr. Hughes, and <i>his</i> peculiar views, there’s no telling what they -won’t make of them.” Kane glanced round at Ray with arched eyes and -pursed mouth. Mr. Brandreth turned toward Ray, and asked sweetly, -“Should you mind my lighting one of those after-dinner pastilles?” He -indicated the slender stem in the little silver-holder on the mantel. -“Of course there’s no danger of infection now; but it would be a little -more reassuring to my wife, especially as she’s got the boy here with -her.”</p> - -<p>“By all means,” said Ray, and the pastille began<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283">{283}</a></span> sending up a delicate -thread of pungent blue smoke, while Mr. Brandreth went for his wife and -mother-in-law.</p> - -<p>“It seems to me you’re in a parlous state, Henry,” said Kane. “I don’t -see but you’ll have to renounce Tolstoï and all his works if you ever -get out of this trouble. I’m sorry for you. It takes away half the -satisfaction I feel at the lifting of that incubus from poor David’s -life. I think I’d better go.” He rose, and went over to give his hand to -Mr. Chapley, where he sat in a reclining-chair.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chapley clung to him, and said feebly: “No, no! Don’t go, Kane. We -shall need your advice, and—and—counsel,” and while Kane hesitated, -Mr. Brandreth came in with the ladies, who wore a look of mystified -impatience.</p> - -<p>“I thought they had better hear it from you, Mr. Ray,” he said, and for -the third time Ray detailed the tragical incidents. He felt as if he had -been inculpating himself.</p> - -<p>Then Mrs. Chapley said: “It is what we might have expected from the -beginning. But if it will be a warning to Mr. Chapley”—</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brandreth turned upon her mother with a tone that startled Mr. -Chapley from the attitude of gentle sufferance in which he sat resting -his chin upon his hand. “I don’t see what warning there can be for papa -in such a dreadful thing. Do you think he’s likely to take prussic -acid?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t say that, you know well enough, child.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284">{284}</a></span> But I shall be quite -satisfied if it is the last of Tolstoïsm in <i>this</i> family.”</p> - -<p>“It has nothing to do with Tolstoï,” Mrs. Brandreth returned, with -surprising energy. “If we’d all been living simply in the country, that -wretched creature’s mind wouldn’t have been preyed upon by the misery of -the city.”</p> - -<p>“There’s more insanity in proportion to the population in the country -than there is in the city,” Mrs. Chapley began.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brandreth ignored her statistical contribution. “There’s no more -danger of father’s going out to live on a farm, or in a community, than -there is of his taking poison; and at any rate he hasn’t got anything to -do with what’s happened. He’s just been faithful to his old friend, and -he’s given his daughter work. I don’t care how much the newspapers bring -that in. We haven’t done anything wrong.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth looked at his wife in evident surprise; her mother said, -“Well, my dear!”</p> - -<p>Her father gently urged: “I don’t think you’ve quite understood your -mother. She doesn’t look at life from my point of view.”</p> - -<p>“No, Henry, I’m thankful to say I don’t,” Mrs. Chapley broke in; “and I -don’t know anybody who does. If I had followed you and your prophet, we -shouldn’t have had a roof over our heads.”</p> - -<p>“A good many people have no roofs over their heads,” Mr. Chapley meekly -suggested.</p> - -<p>“That’s no reason why we shouldn’t,” said his wife.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285">{285}</a></span></p> - -<p>“No; you’re right there, my dear. That’s the hopeless part of it. -Perhaps poor David is right, and the man who attempts to solve the -problem of altruism singly and in his own life”—</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brandreth would not let him finish. “The question is, what are we -going to do for these poor things in their trouble?” She looked at Ray, -who had sat by trying in his sense of intrusion and superfluity to -shrink into as small a space as possible. He now blushed to find himself -appealed to. He had not seen Mrs. Brandreth often, and he had not -reversed his first impression of a narrow, anxious, housewifely spirit -in her, sufficient to the demands of young motherhood, but of few and -scanty general sympathies.</p> - -<p>“When did you see them last?” she asked.</p> - -<p>He told her, and she said, “Well, I am going right up there with Percy.”</p> - -<p>“And bring back the scarlet fever to your child!” cried her mother. “You -shall neither of you go, as long as I have anything to say about it. Or, -if you do, you shall not come back to this house, and I shall keep the -baby here till there isn’t the least fear of danger; and I don’t know -how long that will be.”</p> - -<p>All the grandmother rose in Mrs. Chapley; she lifted her voice, and in -the transport of her alarm and indignation she suddenly appealed to Mr. -Kane from the wilfulness she evidently feared in her daughter: “What do -you think, Mr. Kane?”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t presume to decide such a question finally; it’s too -important,” Kane said, in his mellow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286">{286}</a></span> murmur. “But I wish that for the -moment Mrs. Brandreth would let me be the bearer of her kind messages -and inquiries. If you haven’t been in the habit of calling there”—</p> - -<p>“I have never been there at all, I’m sorry to say,” Mrs. Brandreth -frankly declared.</p> - -<p>“Ah! Well, I don’t see what good could come of it, just at present; and -there might be some lingering infection.”</p> - -<p>“It has been carried in clothes across the ocean months afterwards, and -in letters,” Mrs. Chapley triumphed.</p> - -<p>Kane abandoned the point to her. “The situation might be very much worse -for the Hugheses, as I was saying to Henry before you came in. The -Powers are not commonly so considerate. It seems to me distinctly the -best thing that could have happened, at least as far as Denton is -concerned.”</p> - -<p>“Surely,” said Mrs. Chapley, “you don’t approve of suicide?”</p> - -<p>“Not in the case of sane and happy people,” Kane blandly replied. “The -suicide of such persons should be punished with the utmost rigor of the -law. But there seem to be extenuating circumstances in the present -instance; I hope the coroner’s jury will deal leniently with the -culprit. I must go and see if I can do anything for David. Probably I -can’t. It’s always a question in these cases whether you are not adding -to the sufferings of the mourners by your efforts to alleviate them; but -you can only solve it at their expense by trying.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287">{287}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“And you will let us know,” said Mrs. Chapley, “whether <i>we</i> can do -anything, Mr. Kane.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brandreth did not openly persist in her determination to go to the -Hugheses. She said, “Yes, be sure you let us know,” and when Kane had -gone on an errand of mercy which he owned was distasteful to him, her -husband followed Ray down to the door.</p> - -<p>“You see what splendid courage she has,” he whispered, with a backward -glance up the stairs. “I must confess that it surprised me, after all -I’ve seen her go through, that stand she took with her mother. But I -don’t altogether wonder at it; they were disagreeing about keeping up -the belladonna when I found them, upstairs, and I guess Mrs. Brandreth’s -opposition naturally carried over into this question about the Hugheses. -Of course Mrs. Chapley means well, but if Mrs. Brandreth could once be -got from under her influence she would be twice the woman she is. I -think she’s right about the effect of our connection with the family -before the public. They can’t make anything wrong out of it, no matter -how they twist it or turn it. I’m not afraid. After all, it isn’t as if -Mr. Hughes was one of those howling socialists. An old-time Brook -Farmer—it’s a kind of literary tradition; it’s like being an original -abolitionist. I’m going to see if I can’t get a glimpse of that book of -his without committing myself. Well, let me know how you get on. I -wouldn’t let that chance on <i>Every Evening</i> slip. Better see the man. -Confound the papers! I hope they won’t drag us in!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288">{288}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">A few</span> lines, with some misspelling of names, told the story of the -suicide and inquest in the afternoon papers, and it dwindled into still -smaller space and finer print the next morning. The publicity which -those least concerned had most dreaded was spared them. Ray himself -appeared in print as a witness named Bray; there was no search into the -past of Hughes and his family, or their present relations; none of the -rich sensations of the case were exploited; it was treated as one of -those every-day tragedies without significance or importance, which -abound in the history of great cities, and are forgotten as rapidly as -they occur. The earth closed over the hapless wretch for whom the dream -of duty tormenting us all, more or less, had turned to such a hideous -nightmare, and those whom his death threatened even more than his life -drew consciously or unconsciously a long breath of freedom.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth’s courage rose with his escape; there came a moment when -he was ready to face the worst; the moment did not come till the danger -of the worst was past. Then he showed himself even eager to retrieve the -effect of anxieties not compatible with a scrupulous self-respect.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289">{289}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Why should we laugh at him?” Kane philosophized, in talking the matter -over with Ray. “The ideals of generosity and self-devotion are -preposterous in our circumstances. He was quite right to be cautious, to -be prudent, to protect his business and his bosom from the invasion of -others’ misfortunes, and to look anxiously out for the main chance. Who -would do it for him, if he neglected this first and most obvious duty? -He has behaved most thoughtfully and kindly toward Peace through it all, -and I can’t blame him for not thrusting himself forward to offer help -when nothing could really be done.”</p> - -<p>Kane had himself remained discreetly in the background, and had not -cumbered his old acquaintance with offers of service. He kept away from -the funeral, but he afterwards visited Hughes frequently, though he -recognized nothing more than the obligation of the early kindness -between them. This had been affected by many years of separation and -wide divergence of opinion, and it was doubtful whether his visits were -altogether a pleasure to the invalid. They disputed a good deal, and -sometimes when Hughes lost his voice from excitement and exhaustion, -Kane’s deep pipe kept on in a cool smooth assumption of positions which -Hughes was physically unable to assail.</p> - -<p>Mr. Chapley went out of town to his country place in Massachusetts, to -try and get back his strength after a touch of the grippe. The Sunday -conventicles had to be given up because Hughes could no longer lead -them, and could not suffer the leadership of others. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290">{290}</a></span> was left mainly -for society and consolation to the young fellow who did not let him feel -that he differed from him, and was always gently patient with him.</p> - -<p>Ray had outlived the grudge he felt at Kane for delivering him over to -bonds which he shirked so lightly himself; but this was perhaps because -they were no longer a burden. It was not possible for him to refuse his -presence to the old man when he saw that it was his sole pleasure; he -had come to share the pleasure of these meetings himself. As the days -which must be fewer and fewer went by he tried to come every day, and -Peace usually found him sitting with her father when she reached home at -the end of the afternoon. Ray could get there first because his work on -the newspaper was of a more flexible and desultory sort; and he often -brought a bundle of books for review with him, and talked them over with -Hughes, for whom he was a perspective of the literary world, with its -affairs and events. Hughes took a vivid interest in the management of -Ray’s department of <i>Every Evening</i>, and gave him advice about it, -charging him not to allow it to be merely æsthetic, but to imbue it with -an ethical quality; he maintained that literature should be the handmaid -of reform; he regretted that he had not cast the material of <i>The World -Revisited</i> in the form of fiction, which would have given it a charm -impossible to a merely polemical treatise.</p> - -<p>“I’m convinced that if I had it in that shape it would readily find a -publisher, and I’m going to see what I can do to work it over as soon as -I’m about again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291">{291}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I hope you’ll be luckier than I’ve been with fiction,” said Ray. “I -don’t know but it might be a good plan to turn <i>A Modern Romeo</i> into a -polemical treatise. We might change about, Mr. Hughes.”</p> - -<p>Hughes said, “Why don’t you bring your story up here and read it to me?”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t that be taking an unfair advantage of you?” Ray asked. “Just -at present my chief’s looking over it, to see if it won’t do for the -<i>feuilleton</i> we’re going to try. He won’t want it; but it affords a -little respite for you, Mr. Hughes, as long as he thinks he may.”</p> - -<p>He knew that Peace must share his constraint in speaking of his book. -When they were alone for a little while before he went away that evening -he said to her, “You have never told me yet that you forgave me for my -bad behavior about my book the last time we talked about it.”</p> - -<p>“Did you wish me to tell you?” she asked, gently. “I thought I needn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, do,” he urged. “You thought I was wrong?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she assented.</p> - -<p>“Then you ought to say, in so many words, ‘I forgive you.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>He waited, but she would not speak.</p> - -<p>“Why can’t you say that?”</p> - -<p>She did not answer, but after a while she said, “I think what I did was -a good reason for”—</p> - -<p>“My being in the wrong? Then why did you do it? Can’t you tell me -that?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292">{292}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Not—now.”</p> - -<p>“Some time?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“Then I may ask you again?”</p> - -<p>She was silent, sitting by the window in the little back room, where her -head was dimly outlined against the late twilight. Between the rushing -trains at the front they could hear Mrs. Denton talking to her father, -joking and laughing. Our common notion of tragedy is that it alters the -nature of those involved, as if it were some spiritual chemistry -combining the elements of character anew. But it is merely an incident -of our being, and, for all we can perceive, is of no more vital effect -than many storms in the material world. What it does not destroy, it -leaves essentially unchanged. The light creature whom its forces had -beaten to the earth, rose again with the elasticity of light things, -when it had passed. She was meant to be what she was made, and even Ray, -with the severity of his young morality, and the paucity of his -experience, perceived that the frivolity which shocked him was comfort -and cheer to the sick old man. She sat with him, and babbled and jested; -and Ray saw with a generous resentment that she must always have been -his favorite. There was probably a responsive lightness in Hughes’s own -soul to which hers brought the balm of kinship and of perfect sympathy. -There was no apparent consciousness of his preference in the sisters; -each in her way accepted it as something just and fit. Peace looked -after the small housekeeping, and her sister had more and more the care -of their father.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293">{293}</a></span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton’s buoyant temperament served a better purpose in the economy -of sorrow than a farther-sighted seriousness. In virtue of all that Ray -had ever read or fancied of such experiences, the deaths that had -bereaved her ought to have chastened and sobered her, and he could not -forgive her because she could not wear the black of a hushed and -spiritless behavior. It even shocked him that Peace did nothing to -restrain her, but took her from moment to moment as she showed herself, -and encouraged her cheerful talk, and smiled at her jokes. He could not -yet understand how the girl’s love was a solvent of all questions that -harass the helpless reason, and embitter us with the faults of others; -but from time to time he had a sense of quality in her that awed him -from all other sense of her. There is something in the heart of man that -puts a woman’s charm before all else, and that enables evil and foolish -women to find husbands, while good and wise women die unwed. But in the -soul of incontaminate youth there is often a passionate refusal to -accept this instinct as the highest. The ideal of womanhood is then -something too pure and hallowed even for the dreams of love. It was -something like this, a mystical reverence or a fantastic exaltation, -which removed Ray further from Peace, in what might have joined their -lives, than he was the first day they met, when he began to weave about -her the reveries which she had no more part in than if they had been the -dreams of his sleep. They were of the stuff of his literature, and like -the innumerably trooping, insubstantial fancies<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294">{294}</a></span> that followed each -other through his brain from nothing in his experience. When they ceased -to play, as they must after the little romance of that first meeting had -yielded to acquaintance, what had taken their place? At the end of the -half-year which had united them in the intimacy of those strange events -and experiences, he could not have made sure of anything but a sort of -indignant compassion that drew him near her, and the fantastic sentiment -that held him aloof. The resentment in his pity was toward himself as -much as her father; when he saw her in the isolation where the old man’s -preference for her sister left her, he blamed himself as much as them.</p> - -<p>Peace blamed no one by word or look. He doubted if she saw it, till he -ventured one day to speak of her father’s fondness for her sister, and -then she answered that he would always rather have Jenny with him than -any one else. Ray returned some commonplaces, not too sincere, about the -compensation the care of her father must be to Mrs. Denton in her -bereavement, and Peace answered as frankly as before that they had got -each other back again. “Father didn’t want her to marry Ansel, and he -didn’t care for the children. He couldn’t help that; he was too old; and -after we were all shut up here together they fretted him.”</p> - -<p>She sighed gently, in the way she had, and Ray said, with the fatuity of -comforters, “I suppose they are better off out of this world.”</p> - -<p>“They were born into this world,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he had to own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295">{295}</a></span></p> - -<p>He saw how truly and deeply she grieved for the little ones, and he -realized without umbrage that she mourned their wretched father too, -with an affection as simple and pure. There were times when he thought -how tragical it would be for her to have cared for Denton, in the way -his wife cared so little; and then his fancy created a situation in -whose unreality it ran riot. But all the time he knew that he was -feigning these things, and that there was no more truth in them than in -the supposition which he indulged at other times that he was himself in -love with Mrs. Denton, and always had been, and this was the reason why -he could not care for Peace. It was the effect in both cases of the -æsthetic temperament, which is as often the slave as the master of its -reveries.</p> - -<p>It was in Mrs. Denton’s favor that she did not let the drift of their -father’s affections away from Peace carry her with them. The earthward -bodily decline of the invalid implied a lapse from the higher sympathies -to the lower, and she seemed to have some vague perception of this, -which she formulated in her own way, once, when she wished to account -for the sick man’s refusal of some service from Peace which he accepted -from herself.</p> - -<p>“He has more use for me here, Peace, because I’m of the earth, earthy, -but he’ll want you somewhere else.”</p> - -<p>The old man clung to the world with a hope that admitted at least no -open question of his living. He said that as soon as the spring fairly -opened, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296">{296}</a></span> weather would allow him to go out without taking more -cold, he should carry his manuscript about to the different publishers, -and offer it personally. He thought his plan carefully out, and talked -it over with Ray, whom he showed that his own failure with his novel was -from a want of address in these interviews. He proposed to do something -for Ray’s novel as soon as he secured a publisher for himself, and again -he bade him bring it and read it to him. Ray afterwards realized with -shame that he would have consented to this if Hughes had persisted. But -the invitation was probably a mere grace of civility with him, an effect -of the exuberant faith he had in his own success.</p> - -<p>As the season advanced, and the heat within-doors increased, they had to -open the windows, and then the infernal uproar of the avenue filled the -room, so that they could not hear one another speak till the windows -were closed again. But the rush and clank of the elevated trains, the -perpetual passage of the surface cars, with the clatter of their horses’ -hoofs, and the clash of the air-slitting bells, the grind and jolt of -the heavy trucks, the wild clatter of express carts across the rails or -up and down the tracks, the sound of feet and voices, the cries of the -fruit-venders, and the whiffs of laughter and blasphemy that floated up -from the turmoil below like filthy odors, seemed not so keenly to -afflict the sick man, or to rend his nerves with the anguish that forced -the others to shut it all out, and rather stifle in the heat. Yet, in -some sort, he felt it too, for once when Ray spoke of it, he said yes, -it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297">{297}</a></span> atrocious. “But,” he added, “I am glad I came and placed myself -where I could fully realize the hideousness of a competitive metropolis. -All these abominations of sight and sound, these horrible discords, that -offend every sense, physically express the spiritual principle -underlying the whole social framework. It has been immensely instructive -to me, and I have got some color of it into my book: not enough, of -course, but infinitely more than I could possibly have imagined. No one -can imagine the horror, the squalor, the cruel and senseless turpitude -which these things typify, except in their presence. I have merely -represented the facts in regard to them, and have left the imagination -free to deal with the ideal city as a contrast, with its peaceful -streets, cleanly and quiet, its stately ranks of beautiful dwellings, -its noble piles of civic and religious architecture, its shaded and -colonnaded avenues, its parks and gardens, and all planned and built, -not from the greed and the fraud of competition, but from the generous -and unselfish spirit of emulation, wherein men join to achieve the best -instead of separating to get the most. Think of a city operated by -science, as every city might be now, without one of the wretched animals -tamed by the savage man, and still perpetuated by the savage man for the -awkward and imperfect uses of a barbarous society! A city without a -horse, where electricity brought every man and everything silently to -the door. Jenny! Get me that manuscript, will you? The part I was -writing on to-day—in the desk—the middle drawer—I should like to -read<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298">{298}</a></span>”—</p> - -<p>Mrs. Denton dropped her cat from her lap and ran to get the manuscript. -But when she brought it to her father, and he arranged the leaves with -fluttering fingers, he could not read. He gasped out a few syllables, -and in the paroxysm of coughing which began, he thrust the manuscript -toward Ray.</p> - -<p>“He wants you to take it,” said Peace. “You can take it home with you. -You can give it to me in the morning.”</p> - -<p>Ray took it, and stood by, looking on, not knowing how to come to their -help for the sick man’s relief, and anxious not to cumber them. When -they had got him quiet again, and Ray had once more thrown up the -window, and let in the mild night air which came laden with that -delirium of the frenzied city, Peace followed him into the little back -room, where they stood a moment.</p> - -<p>“For Heaven’s sake,” he said, “why don’t you get him away from here, -where he could be a little more out of the noise? It’s enough to drive a -well man mad.”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t feel it as if he were well,” she answered. “We have tried to -get him to let us bring his bed out here. But he won’t. I think,” she -added, “that he believes it would be a bad omen to change.”</p> - -<p>“Surely,” said Ray, “a man like your father couldn’t care for that -ridiculous superstition. What possible connection could his changing to -a quieter place have with his living or”—</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a matter of reason with him. I can see<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299">{299}</a></span> how he’s gone back to -his early life in a great many things in these few days. He hasn’t been -so much like himself for a long time as he has to-night.”</p> - -<p>“What does the doctor say?”</p> - -<p>“He says to let him have his own way about it. He says that—the noise -can’t make any difference—now.”</p> - -<p>They were in the dark; but he knew from her voice that tears were in her -eyes. He felt for her hand to say good-night. When he had found it, he -held it a moment, and then he kissed it. But no thrill or glow of the -heart justified him in what he had done. At the best he could excuse it -as an impulse of pity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300">{300}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> editor of <i>Every Evening</i> gave Ray his manuscript back. He had -evidently no expectation that Ray could have any personal feeling about -it, or could view it apart from the interests of the paper. He himself -betrayed no personal feeling where the paper was concerned, and he -probably could have conceived of none in Ray.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it will do for us,” he said. “It is a good story, and I -read it all through, but I don’t believe it would succeed as a serial. -What do you think, yourself?”</p> - -<p>“I?” said Ray. “How could I have an unprejudiced opinion?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You know what we want; we’ve talked it -over enough; and you ought to know whether this is the kind of thing. -Anyhow, it’s within your province to decide. I don’t think it will do, -but if you think it will, I’m satisfied. You must take the -responsibility. I leave it to you, and I mean business.”</p> - -<p>Ray thought how old Kane would be amused if he could know of the -situation, how he would inspect and comment it from every side, and try -to get novel phrases for it. He believed himself that no author<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301">{301}</a></span> had -ever been quite in his place before; it was like something in Gilbert’s -operas; it was as if a prisoner were invited to try himself and -pronounce his own penalty. His chief seemed to see no joke in the -affair; he remained soberly and somewhat severely waiting for Ray’s -decision.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Ray. “I don’t think it would do for -<i>Every Evening</i>. Even if it would, I should doubt the taste of working -in something of my own on the reader at the beginning.”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t care for that,” said the chief, “if it were the thing.”</p> - -<p>Ray winced, but the chief did not see it. Now, as always, it was merely -and simply a question of the paper. He added carelessly:</p> - -<p>“I should think such a story as that would succeed as a book.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you would get some publisher to think so.”</p> - -<p>The chief had nothing to say to that. He opened his desk and began to -write.</p> - -<p>In spite of the rejected manuscript lying on the table before him, Ray -made out a very fair day’s work himself, and then he took it up town -with him. He did not go at once to his hotel, but pushed on as far as -Chapley’s, where he hoped to see Peace before she went home, and ask how -her father was getting on; he had not visited Hughes for several weeks; -he made himself this excuse. What he really wished was to confront the -girl and divine her thoughts concerning himself. He must do that, now; -but if it were not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302">{302}</a></span> for the cruelty of forsaking the old man, it might -be the kindest and best thing never to go near any of them again.</p> - -<p>He had the temporary relief of finding her gone home when he reached -Chapley’s. Mr. Brandreth was there, and he welcomed Ray with something -more than his usual cordiality.</p> - -<p>“Look here,” he said, shutting the door of his little room. “Have you -got that story of yours where you could put your hand on it easily?”</p> - -<p>“I can put my hand on it instantly,” said Ray, and he touched it.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” Mr. Brandreth returned, a little daunted. “I didn’t know you -carried it around with you.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t usually—or only when I’ve got it from some publisher who -doesn’t want it.”</p> - -<p>“I thought it had been the rounds,” said Mr. Brandreth, still uneasily.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s an editor, this time. It’s just been offered to me for serial -use in <i>Every Evening</i>, and I’ve declined it.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” Mr. Brandreth smiled in mystification.</p> - -<p>“Exactly what I say.” Ray explained the affair as it had occurred. “It -makes me feel like Brutus and the son of Brutus rolled into one. I’m -going round to old Kane, to give the facts away to him. I think he’ll -enjoy them.”</p> - -<p>“Well! Hold on! What did the chief say about it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303">{303}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he liked it. Everybody likes it, but nobody wants it. He said he -thought it would succeed as a book. The editors all think that. The -publishers think it would succeed as a serial.”</p> - -<p>Ray carried it off buoyantly, and enjoyed the sort of daze Mr. Brandreth -was in.</p> - -<p>“See here,” said the publisher, “I want you to leave that manuscript -with me.”</p> - -<p>“Again?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I’ve never read it myself yet, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Take it and be happy!” Ray bestowed it upon him with dramatic effusion.</p> - -<p>“No, seriously!” said Mr. Brandreth. “I want to talk with you. Sit down, -won’t you? You know the first time you were in here, I told you I was -anxious to get Chapley & Co. in line as a publishing house again; I -didn’t like the way we were dropping out and turning into mere jobbers. -You remember.”</p> - -<p>Ray nodded.</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, I’ve never lost sight of that idea, and I’ve been keeping -one eye out for a good novel, to start with, ever since. I haven’t found -it, I don’t mind telling you. You see, all the established reputations -are in the hands of other publishers, and you can’t get them away -without paying ridiculous money, and violating the comity of the trade -at the same time. If we are to start new, we must start with a new man.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know whether I’m a new man or not,” said Ray, “if you’re -working up to me. Sometimes I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304">{304}</a></span> feel like a pretty old one. I think I -came to New York about the beginning of the Christian era. But <i>A Modern -Romeo</i> is as fresh as ever. It has the dew of the morning on it -still—rubbed off in spots by the nose of the professional smeller.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, “it’s new enough for all practical purposes. -I want you to let me take it home with me.”</p> - -<p>“Which of the leading orchestras would you like to have accompany you to -your door?” asked Ray.</p> - -<p>“No, no! Don’t expect too much!” Mr. Brandreth entreated.</p> - -<p>“I don’t expect anything,” Ray protested.</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s right—that’s the only business basis. But if it <i>should</i> -happen to be the thing, I don’t believe you’d be personally any happier -about it than I should.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, thank you!”</p> - -<p>“I’m not a fatalist”—</p> - -<p>“But it would look a good deal like fatalism.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it would. It would look as if it were really intended to be, if it -came back to us now, after it had been round to everybody else.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but if it was fated from the beginning, I don’t see why you didn’t -take it in the beginning. I should rather wonder what all the bother had -been for.”</p> - -<p>“You might say that,” Mr. Brandreth admitted.</p> - -<p>Ray went off on the wave of potential prosperity, and got Kane to come -out and dine with him. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_305" id="page_305">{305}</a></span> decided upon Martin’s, where the dinner -cost twice as much as at Ray’s hotel, and had more the air of being a -fine dinner; and they got a table in the corner, and Ray ordered a -bottle of champagne.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Kane, “that is the right drink for a man who wishes to spend -his money before he has got it. It’s the true gambler’s beverage.”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t drink it,” said Ray. “You shall have the <i>vin ordinaire</i> -that’s included in the price of the dinner.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t mind a glass of champagne now and then, after I’ve brought -my host under condemnation for ordering it,” said Kane.</p> - -<p>“And I want to let my heart out to-night,” Ray pursued. “I may not have -the chance to-morrow. Besides, as to the gambling, it isn’t I betting on -my book; it’s Brandreth. I don’t understand yet why he wants to do it. -To be sure, it isn’t a great risk he’s taking.”</p> - -<p>“I rather think he <i>has</i> to take some risks just now,” said Kane, -significantly. He lowered his soft voice an octave as he went on. “I’m -afraid that poor Henry, in his pursuit of personal perfectability, has -let things get rather behindhand in his business. I don’t blame him—you -know I never blame people—for there is always a question as to which is -the cause and which is the effect in such matters. My dear old friend -may have begun to let his business go to the bad because he had got -interested in his soul, or he may have turned to his soul for refuge -because he knew his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_306" id="page_306">{306}</a></span> business had begun to go to the bad. At any rate, -he seems to have found the usual difficulty in serving God and Mammon; -only, in this case Mammon has got the worst of it, for once: I suppose -one ought to be glad of that. But the fact is that Henry has lost heart -in business; he doesn’t respect business; he has a bad conscience; he -wants to be out of it. I had a long talk with him before he went into -the country, and I couldn’t help pitying him. I don’t think his wife and -daughter even will ever get him back to New York. He knows it’s rather -selfish to condemn them to the dulness of a country life, and that it’s -rather selfish to leave young Brandreth to take the brunt of affairs -here alone. But what are you to do in a world like this, where a man -can’t get rid of one bad conscience without laying in another?”</p> - -<p>In his pleasure with his paradox Kane suffered Ray to fill up his glass -a second time. Then he looked dissatisfied, and Ray divined the cause. -“Did you word that quite to your mind?”</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t. It’s too diffuse. Suppose we say that in our conditions -no man can do right without doing harm?”</p> - -<p>“That’s more succinct,” said Ray. “Is it known at all that they’re in -difficulties?”</p> - -<p>Kane smoothly ignored the question. “I fancy that the wrong is in -Henry’s desire to cut himself loose from the ties that bind us all -together here. Poor David has the right of that. We must stand or fall -together in the pass we’ve come to; and we cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_307" id="page_307">{307}</a></span> helpfully eschew the -world except by remaining in it.” He took up Ray’s question after a -moment’s pause. “No, it isn’t known that they’re in difficulties, and I -don’t say that it’s so. Their affairs have simply been allowed to run -down, and Henry has left Brandreth to gather them up single-handed. I -don’t know that Brandreth will complain. It leaves him unhampered, even -if he can do nothing with his hands but clutch at straws.”</p> - -<p>“Such straws as the <i>Modern Romeo</i>?” Ray asked. “It seems to me that <i>I</i> -have a case of conscience here. Is it right for me to let Mr. Brandreth -bet his money on my book when there are so many chances of his losing?”</p> - -<p>“Let us hope he won’t finally bet,” Kane suggested, and he smiled at the -refusal which instantly came into Ray’s eyes. “But if he does, we must -leave the end with God. People,” he mused on, “used to leave the end -with God a great deal oftener than they do now. I remember that I did, -myself, once. It was easier. I think I will go back to it. There is -something very curious in our relation to the divine. God is where we -believe He is, and He is a daily Providence or not, as we choose. People -used to see His hand in a corner, or a deal, which prospered them, -though it ruined others. They may be ashamed to do that now. But we -might get back to faith by taking a wider sweep and seeing God in our -personal disadvantages—finding Him not only in luck but in bad luck. -Chance may be a larger law, with an orbit far transcending the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_308" id="page_308">{308}</a></span> range of -the little statutes by which fire always burns, and water always finds -its level.”</p> - -<p>“That is a better Hard Saying than the other,” Ray mocked. “‘I’ faith an -excellent song.’ Have some more champagne. Now go on; but let us talk of -<i>A Modern Romeo</i>.”</p> - -<p>“We will drink to it,” said Kane, with an air of piety.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_309" id="page_309">{309}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII.</h2> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Well</span>, sir,” said Mr. Brandreth when he found Ray waiting for him in his -little room the next morning, “I haven’t slept a wink all night.”</p> - -<p>Ray had not slept a wink himself, and he had not been able to keep away -from Chapley’s in his fear and his hope concerning his book. He hoped -Mr. Brandreth might have looked at it; he feared he had not. His heart -began to go down, but he paused in his despair at the smiles that Mr. -Brandreth broke into.</p> - -<p>“It was that book of yours. I thought I would just dip into it after -dinner, and try a chapter or two on Mrs. Brandreth; but I read on till -eleven o’clock, and then she went to bed, and I kept at it till I -finished it, about three this morning. Then the baby took up the strain -for about half an hour and finished <i>me</i>.”</p> - -<p>Ray did not know what to say. He gasped out, “I’m proud to have been -associated with young Mr. Brandreth in destroying his father’s rest.”</p> - -<p>The publisher did not heed this poor attempt at nonchalance. “I left the -manuscript for Mrs. Brandreth—she called me back to make sure, before I -got out of doors—and if she likes it as well to the end—But I know she -will! She likes you, Ray.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_310" id="page_310">{310}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Does she?” Ray faintly questioned back.</p> - -<p>“Yes; she thinks you’re all kinds of a nice fellow, and that you’ve been -rather sacrificed in some ways. She thinks you behaved splendidly in -that Denton business.”</p> - -<p>Ray remained mutely astonished at the flattering opinions of Mrs. -Brandreth; he had suspected them so little. Her husband went on, -smiling:</p> - -<p>“She wasn’t long making out the original of your hero.” Ray blushed -consciously, but made no attempt to disown the self-portraiture. “Of -course,” said Mr. Brandreth, “we’re all in the dark about the heroine. -But Mrs. Brandreth doesn’t care so much for her.”</p> - -<p>Now that he was launched upon the characters of the story, Mr. Brandreth -discussed them all, and went over the incidents with the author, whose -brain reeled with the ecstacy of beholding them objectively in the -flattering light of another’s appreciation.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, at last, when Ray found strength to rise -from this debauch of praise, “you’ll hear from me, now, very soon. I’ve -made up my mind about the story, and unless Mrs. Brandreth should hate -it very much before she gets through with it—Curious about women, isn’t -it, how they always take the personal view? I believe the main reason -why my wife dislikes your heroine is because she got her mixed up with -the girl that took the part of Juliet away from her in our out-door -theatricals. I tell her that you and I are not only the two Percys,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_311" id="page_311">{311}</a></span> -we’re the two Romeos, too. She thinks your heroine is rather weak; of -course you meant her to be so.”</p> - -<p>Ray had not, but he said that he had, and he made a noisy pretence of -thinking the two Romeos a prodigious joke. His complaisance brought its -punishment.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth, “I must tell you a singular thing that -happened. Just as I got to that place where he shoots himself, you know, -and she starts up out of her hypnotic trance, our baby gave a frightful -scream, and Mrs. Brandreth woke and thought the house was on fire. I -suppose the little fellow had a bad dream; it’s strange what dreams -babies <i>do</i> have! But wasn’t it odd, happening when I was wrought up so? -Looks like telepathy, doesn’t it? Of course my mind’s always on the -child. By-the-way, if this thing goes, you must try a telepathic story. -It hasn’t been done yet.”</p> - -<p>“Magnificent!” said Ray. “I’ll do it!”</p> - -<p>They got away from each other, and Ray went down to his work at the -<i>Every Evening</i> office. He enslaved himself to it by an effort twice as -costly as that of writing when he was in the deepest and darkest of his -despair; his hope danced before him, and there was a tumult in his -pulses which he could quiet a little only by convincing himself that as -yet he had no promise from Mr. Brandreth, and that if the baby had given -Mrs. Brandreth a bad day, it was quite within the range of possibility -that the publisher might, after all, have perfectly good reasons for -rejecting his book. He insisted with himself upon this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_312" id="page_312">{312}</a></span> view of the -case; it was the only one that he could steady his nerves with; and -besides, he somehow felt that if he could feign it strenuously enough, -the fates would be propitiated, and the reverse would happen.</p> - -<p>It is uncertain whether it was his pretence that produced the result -intended, but in the evening Mr. Brandreth came down to Ray’s hotel to -say that he had made up his mind to take the book.</p> - -<p>“We talked it over at dinner, and my wife made me come right down and -tell you. She said you had been kept in suspense long enough, and she -wasn’t going to let you go overnight. It’s the first book <i>we’ve</i> ever -taken, and I guess she feels a little romantic about the new departure. -By-the-way, we found out what ailed the baby. It was a pin that had got -loose, and stuck up through the sheet in his crib. You can’t trust those -nurses a moment. But I believe that telepathic idea is a good one.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes; it is,” said Ray. Now that the certainty of acceptance had -come, he was sobered by it, and he could not rejoice openly, though he -was afraid he was disappointing Mr. Brandreth. He could only say, “It’s -awfully kind of Mrs. Brandreth to think of me.”</p> - -<p>“That’s her way,” said Mr. Brandreth, and he added briskly, “Well, now, -let’s come down to business. How do you want to publish? Want to make -your own plates?”</p> - -<p>“No,” Ray faltered; “I can’t afford to do that; I had one such offer”—</p> - -<p>“I supposed you wouldn’t,” Mr. Brandreth cut in,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_313" id="page_313">{313}</a></span> “but I thought I’d -ask. Well, then, we’ll make the plates ourselves, and we’ll pay you ten -per cent. on the retail price of the book. That is the classic -arrangement with authors, and I think it’s fair.” When he said this he -swallowed, as if there were something in his throat, and added, “Up to a -certain point. And as we take all the risk, I think we ought to -have—You see, on one side it’s a perfect lottery, and on the other side -it’s a dead certainty. You can’t count on the public, but you can count -on the landlord, the salesman, the bookkeeper, the printer, and the -paper-maker. We’re at all the expense—rent, clerk-hire, plates, -printing, binding, and advertising, and the author takes no risk -whatever.”</p> - -<p>It occurred to Ray afterwards that an author took the risk of losing his -labor if his book failed; but the public estimates the artist’s time at -the same pecuniary value as the sitting hen’s, and the artist insensibly -accepts the estimate. Ray did not think of his point in season to urge -it, but it would hardly have availed if he had. He was tremulously eager -to close with Mr. Brandreth on any terms, and after they had agreed, he -was afraid he had taken advantage of him.</p> - -<p>When the thing was done it was like everything else. He had dwelt so -long and intensely upon it in a thousand reveries that he had perhaps -exhausted his possibilities of emotion concerning it. At any rate he -found himself curiously cold; he wrote to his father about it, and he -wrote to Sanderson, who would be sure to make a paragraph for the -<i>Echo</i>, and unless<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_314" id="page_314">{314}</a></span> Hanks Brothers killed his paragraph, would electrify -Midland with the news. Ray forecast the matter and the manner of the -paragraph, but it did not excite him.</p> - -<p>“What is the trouble with me?” he asked Kane, whom he hastened to tell -his news. “I ought to be in a transport; I’m not in anything of the -kind.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! That is very interesting. No doubt you’ll come to it. I had a -friend once who was accepted in marriage by the object of his -affections. His first state was apathy, mixed, as nearly as I could -understand, with dismay. He became more enthusiastic later on, and lived -ever after in the belief that he was one of the most fortunate of men. -But I think we are the victims of conventional acceptations in regard to -most of the great affairs of life. We are taught that we shall feel so -and so about such and such things: about success in love or in -literature; about the birth of our first-born; about death. But probably -no man feels as he expected to feel about these things. He finds them of -exactly the same quality as all other experiences; there may be a little -more or a little less about them, but there isn’t any essential -difference. Perhaps when we come to die ourselves, it will be as simply -and naturally as—as”—</p> - -<p>“As having a book accepted by a publisher,” Ray suggested.</p> - -<p>“Exactly!” said Kane, and he breathed out his deep, soft laugh.</p> - -<p>“Well, you needn’t go on. I’m sufficiently accounted<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_315" id="page_315">{315}</a></span> for.” Ray rose, -and Kane asked him what his hurry was, and where he was going.</p> - -<p>“I’m going up to tell the Hugheses.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! then I won’t offer to go with you,” said Kane. “I approve of your -constancy, but I have my own philosophy of such things. I think David -would have done much better to stay where he was; I do not wish to -punish him for coming to meet the world, and reform it on its own -ground; but I could have told him he would get beaten. He is a thinker, -or a dreamer, if you please, and in his community he had just the right -sort of distance. He could pose the world just as he wished, and turn it -in this light and in that. But here he sees the exceptions to his rules, -and when I am with him I find myself the prey of a desire to dwell on -the exceptions, and I know that I afflict him. I always did, and I feel -it the part of humanity to keep away from him. I am glad that I do, for -I dislike very much being with sick people. Of course I shall go as -often as decency requires. For Decency,” Kane concluded, with the effect -of producing a Hard Saying, “transcends Humanity. So many reformers -forget that,” he added.</p> - -<p>The days were now getting so long that they had just lighted the lamps -in Hughes’s room when Ray came in, a little after seven. He had a few -words with Peace in the family room first, and she told him that her -father had passed a bad day, and she did not know whether he was asleep -or not.</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll go away again,” said Ray.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_316" id="page_316">{316}</a></span></p> - -<p>“No, no; if he is awake, he will like to see you. He always does. And -now he can’t see you much oftener.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Peace! Do you really think so?”</p> - -<p>“The doctor says so. There is no hope any more.” There was no faltering -in her voice, and its steadiness strengthened Ray, standing so close to -one who stood so close to death.</p> - -<p>“Does he—your father—know?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell. He is always so hopeful. And Jenny won’t hear of giving -up. She is with him more than I am, and she says he has a great deal of -strength yet. He can still work at his book a little. He has every part -of it in mind so clearly that he can tell her what to do when he has the -strength to speak. The worst is, when his voice fails him—he gets -impatient. That was what brought on his hemorrhage to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Peace! I am ashamed to think why I came to-night. But I hoped it might -interest him.”</p> - -<p>“About your book? Oh yes. Mr. Brandreth spoke to me about it. I thought -you would like to tell him.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” said Ray. He was silent for a moment. She stood against the -pale light of one of the windows, a shadowy outline, and he felt as if -they were two translated spirits meeting there exterior to the world and -all its interests; he made a mental note of his impression for use some -time. But now he said: “I thought I should like to tell him, too. But -after all, I’m not so sure. I’m not like you, Peace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_317" id="page_317">{317}</a></span> And I suppose I’m -punished for my egotism in the very hour of my triumph. It isn’t like a -triumph; it’s like—nothing. I’ve looked forward to this so long—I’ve -counted on it so much—I’ve expected it to be like having the world in -my hand. But if I shut my hand, it’s empty.”</p> - -<p>He knew that he was appealing to her for comfort, and he expected her to -respond as she did.</p> - -<p>“That’s because you don’t realize it yet. When you do, it will seem the -great thing that it is.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think it’s a great thing?”</p> - -<p>“As great as any success can be.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think it will succeed?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Brandreth thinks it will. He’s very hopeful about it.”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes I wish it would fail. I don’t believe it deserves to succeed. -I’m ashamed of it in places. Have I any right to let him foist it on the -public if I don’t perfectly respect it? You wouldn’t if it were yours.”</p> - -<p>He wished her to deny that it was bad in any part, but she did not. She -merely said: “I suppose that’s the way our work always seems to us when -it’s done. There must be a time when we ought to leave what we’ve done -to others; it’s for them, not for ourselves; why shouldn’t they judge -it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; that is true! How generous you are! How can you endure to talk to -me of my book? But I suppose you think that if I can stand it, you can.”</p> - -<p>“I will go in, now,” said Peace, ignoring the drift<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_318" id="page_318">{318}</a></span> of his words, “and -see if father is awake.” She returned in a moment, and murmured softly, -“Come!”</p> - -<p>“Here is Mr. Ray, father,” said Mrs. Denton. She had to lift her voice -to make the sick man hear, for the window was open, and the maniacal -clamor of the street flooded the chamber. Hughes lay at his thin -full-length in his bed, like one already dead.</p> - -<p>He stirred a little at the sound of his daughter’s voice; and when he -had taken in the fact of Ray’s presence, he signed to her to shut the -window. The smells of the street, and the sick, hot whiffs from the -passing trains were excluded; the powerful odors of the useless drugs -burdened the air; by the light of the lamp shaded from Hughes’s eyes Ray -could see the red blotches on his sheet and pillow.</p> - -<p>He no longer spoke, but he could write with a pencil on the little -memorandum-block which lay on the stand by his bed. When Peace said, -“Father, Mr. Ray has come to tell you that his book has been accepted; -Chapley & Co. are going to publish it,” the old man’s face lighted up. -He waved his hand toward the stand, and Mrs. Denton put the block and -pencil in it, and held the lamp for him to see.</p> - -<p>Ray took the block, and read, faintly scribbled on it: “Good! You must -get them to take my <i>World Revisited</i>.”</p> - -<p>The sick man smiled as Ray turned his eyes toward him from the paper.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” demanded Mrs. Denton, after a moment. “Some secret? What -is it, father?” she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_319" id="page_319">{319}</a></span> pursued, with the lightness that evidently pleased -him, for he smiled again, and an inner light shone through his glassy -eyes. “Tell us, Mr. Ray!”</p> - -<p>Hughes shook his head weakly, still smiling, and Ray put the leaf in his -pocket. Then he took up the old man’s long hand where it lay inert on -the bed.</p> - -<p>“I will do my very best, Mr. Hughes. I will do everything that I -possibly can.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_320" id="page_320">{320}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">A purpose</span> had instantly formed itself in Ray’s mind which he instantly -set himself to carry out. It was none the less a burden because he tried -to think it heroic and knew it to be fantastic; and it was in a mood of -equally blended devotion and resentment that he disciplined himself to -fulfil it. It was shocking to criticise the dying man’s prayer from any -such point of view, but he could not help doing so, and censuring it for -a want of taste, for a want of consideration. He did not account for the -hope of good to the world which Hughes must have had in urging him to -befriend his book; he could only regard it as a piece of literature, and -judge the author’s motives by his own, which he was fully aware were -primarily selfish.</p> - -<p>But he went direct to Mr. Brandreth and laid the matter before him.</p> - -<p>“Now I’m going to suggest something,” he hurried on, “which may strike -you as ridiculous, but I’m thoroughly in earnest about it. I’ve read Mr. -Hughes’s book, first and last, all through, and it’s good literature, I -can assure you of that. I don’t know about the principles in it, but I -know it’s very original and from a perfectly new stand-point, and I -believe it would make a great hit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_321" id="page_321">{321}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth listened, evidently shaken. “I couldn’t do it, now. I’m -making a venture with your book.”</p> - -<p>“That’s just what I’m coming to. Don’t make your venture with my book; -make it with his! I solemnly believe that his would be the safest -venture of the two; I believe it would stand two chances to one of -mine.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll look at it for the fall.”</p> - -<p>“It will be too late, then, as far as Hughes is concerned. It’s now or -never, with him! You want to come out with a book that will draw -attention to your house, as well as succeed. I believe that Hughes’s -book will be an immense success. It has a taking name, and it’s a novel -and taking conception. It’ll make no end of talk.”</p> - -<p>“It’s too late,” said Mr. Brandreth. “I couldn’t take such a book as -that without passing it round among all our readers, and you know what -that means. Besides, I’ve begun to make my plans for getting out your -book at once. There isn’t any time to lose. I’ve sent out a lot of -literary notes, and you’ll see them in every leading paper to-morrow -morning. I’ll have Mr. Hughes’s book faithfully examined, and if I can -see my way to it—I tell you, I believe I shall make a success of the -<i>Modern Romeo</i>. I like the title better and better. I think you’ll be -pleased with the way I’ve primed the press. I’ve tried to avoid all -vulgar claptrap, and yet I believe I’ve contrived to pique the public -curiosity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_322" id="page_322">{322}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>He went on to tell Ray some of the things he had said in his paragraphs, -and Ray listened with that mingled shame and pleasure which the artist -must feel whenever the commercial side of his life presents itself.</p> - -<p>“I kept Miss Hughes pretty late this afternoon, working the things into -shape, so as to get them to the papers at once. I just give her the main -points, and she has such a neat touch.”</p> - -<p>Ray left his publisher with a light heart, and a pious sense of the -divine favor. He had conceived of a difficult duty, and he had -discharged it with unflinching courage. He had kept his word to Hughes; -he had done all that he could for him, even to offering his own chance -of fame and fortune a sacrifice to him. Now he could do no more, and if -he could not help being glad that the sacrifice had not been accepted of -him, he was not to be blamed. He was very much to be praised, and he -rewarded himself with a full recognition of his virtue; he imagined some -words, few but rare, from Peace, expressing her sense of his -magnanimity, when she came to know of it. He hoped that a fact so -creditable to him, and so characteristic, would not escape the notice of -his biographer. He wished that Hughes could know what he had done, and -in his revery he contrived that his generous endeavor should be brought -to the old man’s knowledge; he had Hughes say that such an action was -more to him than the publication of his book.</p> - -<p>Throughout his transport of self-satisfaction there ran a nether torment -of question whether Peace Hughes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_323" id="page_323">{323}</a></span> could possibly suppose that he was -privy to that paragraphing about his book, and this finally worked to -the surface, and become his whole mood. After his joyful riot it was -this that kept him awake till morning, that poisoned all his pleasure in -his escape from self-sacrifice. He could only pacify himself and get -some sleep at last by promising to stop at the publisher’s on his way -down to the <i>Every Evening</i> office in the morning, and beseech her to -believe that he had nothing to do with priming the press, and that he -wished Mr. Brandreth had not told him of it. Nothing less than this was -due him in the character that he desired to appear in hereafter.</p> - -<p>He reached the publisher’s office before Mr. Brandreth came down, and -when he said he would like to see Miss Hughes, the clerk answered that -Miss Hughes had sent word that her father was not so well, and she would -not be down that day.</p> - -<p>“He’s pretty low, I believe,” the clerk volunteered.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid so,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>He asked if the clerk would call a messenger to take a note from him to -his office, and when he had despatched it he went up to see Hughes.</p> - -<p>“Did you get our message?” Peace asked him the first thing.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Ray. “What message?”</p> - -<p>“That we sent to your office. He has been wanting to see you ever since -he woke this morning. I knew you would come!”</p> - -<p>“O yes. I went to inquire of you about him at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_324" id="page_324">{324}</a></span> Chapley’s, and when I -heard that he was worse, of course I came. Is he much worse?”</p> - -<p>“He can’t live at all. The doctor says it’s no use. He wants to see you. -Will you come in?”</p> - -<p>“Peace!” Ray hesitated. “Tell me! Is it about his book?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, something about that. He wishes to speak with you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Peace! I’ve done all I could about that. I went straight to Mr. -Brandreth and tried to get him to take it. But I couldn’t. What shall I -tell your father, if he asks me?”</p> - -<p>“You must tell him the truth,” said the girl, sadly.</p> - -<p>“Is that Mr. Ray?” Mrs. Denton called from the sick-room. “Come in, Mr. -Ray. Father wants you.”</p> - -<p>“In a moment. Come here, Mrs. Denton,” Ray called back.</p> - -<p>She came out, and he told her what he had told Peace. She did not seem -to see its bearing at once. When she realized it all, and had spent her -quick wrath in denunciation of Mr. Brandreth’s heartlessness, she said -desperately: “Well, you must come now. Perhaps it isn’t his book; -perhaps it’s something else. But he wants you.”</p> - -<p>She had to rouse her father from the kind of torpor in which he lay like -one dead. She made him understand who was there, and then he smiled, and -turned his eyes appealingly toward Ray. “Put your ear as close to his -lips as you can. He can’t write any more. He wants to say something to -you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_325" id="page_325">{325}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Ray stooped over and put his ear to the drawn lips. A few whiffs of -inarticulate breath mocked the dying man’s endeavor to speak. “I’m -sorry; I can’t catch a syllable,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>A mute despair showed itself in the old man’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Look at me father!” cried Mrs. Denton. “Is it about your book?”</p> - -<p>The faintest smile came over his face.</p> - -<p>“Did you wish to ask Mr. Ray if he would speak to Mr. Brandreth about -it?”</p> - -<p>The smile dimly dawned again.</p> - -<p>“Well, he has spoken to him. He went to see him last night, and he’s -come to tell you”—Ray shuddered and held his breath—“to tell you that -Mr. Brandreth will take your book, and he’s going to publish it right -away!”</p> - -<p>A beatific joy lit up Hughes’s face; and Ray drew a long breath.</p> - -<p>Peace looked at her sister.</p> - -<p>“I don’t care!” said Mrs. Denton, passionately, dropping her voice. “You -have your light, and I have mine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_326" id="page_326">{326}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> followed Hughes to his grave in the place where Denton and his -children were already laid. It did not seem as if the old man were more -related to them in death than he had been in life by their propinquity; -but it satisfied a belated maternal and conjugal sentiment in Mrs. -Denton. She did not relinquish the leading place in the family affairs -which she had taken in her father’s last days. She decided against -staying in their present apartment after their month was out, and found -a tiny flat of three rooms in a better neighborhood down-town, where she -had their scanty possessions established, including the cat.</p> - -<p>Kane did not go to the funeral because of a prejudice which he said he -had against such events; David Hughes, he said, would have been the -first to applaud his sincerity in staying away. But he divined that -there might be need of help of another kind in the emergency, and he -gave it generously and delicately. He would not suffer Mr. Brandreth to -render any part of this relief; he insisted that it was his exclusive -privilege as Hughes’s old friend. Now that David was gone, he professed -a singularly vivid sense of his presence; and he owned that he had -something like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_327" id="page_327">{327}</a></span> the pleasure of carrying a point against him in -defraying his funeral expenses.</p> - -<p>Hughes’s daughters accepted his help frankly, each after her kind: Mrs. -Denton as a gift which it must long continue to be; Peace as a loan -which must some day be repaid. The girl went back to her work in due -time, and whenever Ray visited his publisher he saw her at her desk.</p> - -<p>He did not always go to speak to her, for he had a shamefaced fear that -she was more or less always engaged in working up hints from Mr. -Brandreth into paragraphs about a <i>A Modern Romeo</i>. His consciousness -exaggerated the publisher’s activity in this sort; and at first he -shunned all these specious evidences of public interest in the -forthcoming novel. Then he began jealously to look for them, and in his -mind he arraigned the journals where they did not appear for envy and -personal spite. It would have been difficult for him to prove why there -should have been either in his case, unless it was because their -literary notes were controlled by people whose books had been ignored or -censured by <i>Every Evening</i>, and this theory could not hold with all. -Most of the papers, however, published the paragraphs, with that -munificence which journalism shows towards literature. The author found -the inspired announcements everywhere; sometimes they were varied by the -office touch, but generally they were printed exactly as Mr. Brandreth -framed them; however he found them, they gave Ray an insensate joy. Even -the paragraphs in the trade journals, purely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_328" id="page_328">{328}</a></span> perfunctory as they were, -had a flavor of sincere appreciation; the very advertisements which -accompanied them there affected him like favorable expressions of -opinion. His hunger for them was inappeasable; in his heart he accused -Mr. Brandreth of a stinted proclamation.</p> - -<p>The publisher was hurrying the book forward for the summer trade, and -was aiming it especially at the reader going into the country, or -already there. He had an idea that the summer resorts had never been -fully worked in behalf of the better sort of light literature, and he -intended to make any sacrifice to get the book pushed by the news -companies. He offered them rates ruinously special, and he persuaded Ray -to take five per cent. on such sales if they could be made. He pressed -forward the printing, and the author got his proofs in huge batches, -with a demand for their prompt return. The nice revision which he had -fancied himself giving the work in type was impossible; it went from his -hand with crudities that glared in his tormented sense, till a new -instalment eclipsed the last. He balanced the merits and defects against -one another, and tried to believe that the merits would distract the -attention of criticism from the defects. He always knew that the story -was very weak in places; he conceived how it could be attacked in these; -he attacked it himself with pitiless ridicule in a helpless -impersonation of different reviewers; and he gasped in his -self-inflicted anguish. When the last proof left his hands the feeblest -links were the strength of the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_329" id="page_329">{329}</a></span> chain, which fell to pieces from -his grasp like a rope of sand.</p> - -<p>There was some question at different times whether the book had not -better be published under a pseudonym, and Ray faithfully submitted it -to the editor of <i>Every Evening</i>, as something he was concerned in. It -was to be considered whether it was advisable for a critic to appear as -an author, and whether the possible failure of the book would not react -unfavorably upon the criticisms of the journal. The chief decided that -it would make no difference to him, and at the worst it could do no more -than range Ray with the other critics who had failed as authors. With -the publisher it was a more serious matter, and he debated much whether -the book, as a stroke of business, had not better go to the public -anonymously. They agreed that P. B. S. Ray on the title-page would be -rather formidable from the number of the initials which the reader would -have to master in speaking of the author. Shelley Ray, on the other -hand, would be taken for a sentimental pseudonym. They decided that -anonymity was the only thing for it.</p> - -<p>“But then, it will be losing the interest of your money, if the book -goes,” Mr. Brandreth mused. “You have a right to the cumulative -reputation from it, so that if you should write another”—</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t be afraid of there ever being another!” said Ray, with his -distracted head between his hands. He suddenly lifted it. “What is the -matter with the Spartan severity of S. Ray?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_330" id="page_330">{330}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“S. Ray might do,” Mr. Brandreth assented, thoughtfully. “Should you -mind my asking Mrs. Brandreth how it strikes her?”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. Very glad to have you. It’s short, and unpretentious, and -non-committal. I think it might do.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Brandreth thought so too, and in that form the author’s name -appeared on the title-page. Even in that form it did not escape question -and censure. One reviewer devoted his criticism of the story to inquiry -into the meaning of the author’s initial; another surmised it a mask. -But, upon the whole, its simplicity piqued curiosity, and probably -promoted the fortune of the book, as far as that went.</p> - -<p>There was no immediate clamor over it. In fact, it was received so -passively by the public and the press that the author might well have -doubted whether there was any sort of expectation of it, in spite of the -publisher’s careful preparation of the critic’s or the reader’s mind. -There came back at once from obscure quarters a few echoes, more or less -imperfect, of the synopsis of the book’s attractions sent out with the -editorial copies, but the influential journals remained -heart-sickeningly silent concerning <i>A Modern Romeo</i>. There was a -boisterous and fatuous eulogy of the book in the Midland <i>Echo</i>, which -Ray knew for the expression of Sanderson’s friendship; but eager as he -was for recognition, he could not let this count; and it was followed by -some brief depreciatory paragraphs in which he perceived the willingness -of Hanks Brothers<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_331" id="page_331">{331}</a></span> to compensate themselves for having so handsomely let -Sanderson have his swing. He got some letters of acknowledgment from -people whom he had sent the book; he read them with hungry zest, but he -could not make himself believe that they constituted impartial opinion; -not even the letter of the young lady who had detected him in the -panoply of his hero, and who now wrote to congratulate him on a success -which she too readily took for granted. One of his sisters replied on -behalf of his father and mother, and said they had all been sitting up -reading the story aloud together, and that their father liked it as much -as any of them; now they were anxious to see what the papers would say; -had he read the long review in the <i>Echo</i>, and did not he think it -rather cool and grudging for a paper that he had been connected with? He -hardly knew whether this outburst of family pride gave him more or less -pain than an anonymous letter which he got from his native village, and -which betrayed the touch of the local apothecary; his correspondent, who -also dealt in books, and was a man of literary opinions, heaped the -novel with ridicule and abuse, and promised the author a coat of tar and -feathers on the part of his betters whom he had caricatured, if ever he -should return to the place. Ray ventured to offer a copy to the lady who -had made herself his social sponsor in New York, and he hoped for some -intelligent praise from her. She asked him where in the world he had got -together such a lot of queer people, like nothing on earth but those one -used to meet in the old days when one took<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_332" id="page_332">{332}</a></span> country board; she mocked at -the sufferings of his hero, and said what a vulgar little piece his -heroine was; but she supposed he meant them to be what they were, and -she complimented him on his success in handling them. She confessed, -though, that she never read American novels, or indeed any but French -ones, and that she did not know exactly where to rank his work; she -burlesqued a profound impression of the honor she ought to feel in -knowing a distinguished novelist. “You’ll be putting us all into your -next book, I suppose. Mind you give me golden hair, not yet streaked -with silver.”</p> - -<p>In the absence of any other tokens of public acceptance, Ray kept an -eager eye out for such signs of it as might be detected in the -booksellers’ windows and on their sign-boards. The placards of other -novels flamed from their door-jambs, but they seemed to know nothing of -<i>A Modern Romeo</i>. He sought his book in vain among those which formed -the attractions of their casements; he found it with difficulty on their -counters, two or three rows back, and in remote corners. It was like a -conspiracy to keep it out of sight; it was not to be seen on the -news-stands of the great hotels or the elevated stations, and Ray -visited the principal railway depots without detecting a copy.</p> - -<p>He blamed Mr. Brandreth for a lack of business energy in all this; he -would like to see him fulfil some of those boasts of push which, when he -first heard them, made him creep with shame. Mr. Brandreth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_333" id="page_333">{333}</a></span> had once -proposed a file of sandwich men appealing with successive bill-boards:</p> - -<p class="c"> -I.<br /> -<span class="smcap">Have you Read</span><br /> -<br /> -II.<br /> -“<span class="smcap">A Modern Romeo?</span>”<br /> -<br /> -III.<br /> -<span class="smcap">Every One is Reading</span><br /> -<br /> -IV.<br /> -“<span class="smcap">A Modern Romeo.</span>”<br /> -<br /> -V.<br /> -<span class="smcap">Why?</span><br /> -<br /> -VI.<br /> -<span class="smcap">Because</span><br /> -<br /> -VII.<br /> -<span class="smcap">“A Modern Romeo” is</span><br /> -<br /> -VIII.<br /> -<span class="smcap">The Great American Novel.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>Ray had absolutely forbidden this procession, but now he would have -taken off his hat to it, and stood uncovered, if he could have met it in -Union Square or in Twenty-third Street.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_334" id="page_334">{334}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>XL.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> this time of suspense Ray kept away from old Kane, whose peculiar -touch he could not bear. But he knew perfectly well what his own -feelings were, and he did not care to have them analyzed. He could not -help sending Kane the book, and for a while he dreaded his -acknowledgments; then he resented his failure to make any.</p> - -<p>In the frequent visits he paid to his publisher, he fancied that his -welcome from Mr. Brandreth was growing cooler, and he did not go so -often. He kept doggedly at his work in the <i>Every Evening</i> office; but -here the absolute silence of his chief concerning his book was as hard -to bear as Mr. Brandreth’s fancied coolness; he could not make out -whether it meant compassion or dissatisfaction, or how it was to effect -his relation to the paper. The worst of it was that his adversity, or -his delayed prosperity, which ever it was, began to corrupt him. In his -self-pity he wrote so leniently of some rather worthless books that he -had no defence to make when his chief called his attention to the wide -divergence between his opinions and those of some other critics. At -times when he resented the hardship of his fate he scored the books -before him with a severity that was as unjust as the weak commiseration -in his praises. He felt sure that if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_335" id="page_335">{335}</a></span> situation prolonged itself his -failure as an author must involve his failure as a critic.</p> - -<p>It was not only the coolness in Mr. Brandreth’s welcome which kept him -aloof; he had a sense of responsibility, which was almost a sense of -guilt, in the publisher’s presence, for he was the author of a book -which had been published contrary to the counsel of all his literary -advisers. It was true that he had not finally asked Mr. Brandreth to -publish it, but he had been eagerly ready to have him do it; he had kept -his absurd faith in it, and his steadfastness must have imparted a -favorable conviction to Mr. Brandreth; he knew that there had certainly -been ever so much personal kindness for him mixed up with its -acceptance. The publisher, however civil outwardly—and Mr. Brandreth, -with all his foibles, was never less than a gentleman—must inwardly -blame him for his unlucky venture. The thought of this became -intolerable, and at the end of a Saturday morning, when the book was -three or four weeks old, he dropped in at Chapley’s to have it out with -Mr. Brandreth. The work on the Saturday edition of the paper was always -very heavy, and Ray’s nerves were fretted from the anxieties of getting -it together, as well as from the intense labor of writing. He was going -to humble himself to the publisher, and declare their failure to be all -his own fault; but he had in reserve the potentiality of a bitter -quarrel with him if he did not take it in the right way.</p> - -<p>He pushed on to Mr. Brandreth’s room, tense with his purpose, and stood -scowling and silent when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_336" id="page_336">{336}</a></span> found Kane there with him. Perhaps the old -fellow divined the danger in Ray’s mood; perhaps he pitied him; perhaps -he was really interested in the thing which he was talking of with the -publisher, and which he referred to Ray without any preliminary ironies.</p> - -<p>“It’s about the career of a book; how it begins to go, and why, and -when.”</p> - -<p>“Apropos of <i>A Modern Romeo</i>?” Ray asked, harshly.</p> - -<p>“If you please, <i>A Modern Romeo</i>.” Ray took the chair which Mr. -Brandreth signed a clerk to bring him from without. Kane went on: “It’s -very curious, the history of these things, and I’ve looked into it -somewhat. Ordinarily a book makes its fortune, or it doesn’t, at once. I -should say this was always the case with a story that had already been -published serially; but with a book that first appears as a book, the -chances seem to be rather more capricious. The first great success with -us was <i>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</i>, and that was assured before the story was -finished in the old <i>National Era</i>, where it was printed. But that had -an immense motive power behind it—a vital question that affected the -whole nation.”</p> - -<p>“I seem to have come too late for the vital questions,” said Ray.</p> - -<p>“Oh no! oh no! There are always plenty of them left. There is the -industrial slavery, which exists on a much more universal scale than the -chattel slavery; that is still waiting its novelist.”</p> - -<p>“Or its Trust of novelists,” Ray scornfully suggested.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_337" id="page_337">{337}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Very good; very excellent good; nothing less than a syndicate perhaps -could grapple with a theme of such vast dimensions.”</p> - -<p>“It would antagonize a large part of the reading public,” Mr. Brandreth -said; but he had the air of making a mental memorandum to keep an eye -out for MSS. dealing with industrial slavery.</p> - -<p>“So much the better! So much the better!” said Kane. “<i>Robert Elsmere</i> -antagonized much more than half its readers by its religious positions. -But that wasn’t what I was trying to get at. I was thinking about how -some of the phenomenally successful books hung fire at first.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, that interests me as the author of a phenomenally successful book -that is still hanging fire,” sighed Ray.</p> - -<p>Kane smiled approval of his attempt to play with his pain, and went on: -“You know that <i>Gates Ajar</i>, which sold up into the hundred thousands, -was three months selling the first fifteen hundred.”</p> - -<p>“Is that so?” Ray asked. “<i>A Modern Romeo</i> has been three weeks selling -the first fifteen.” He laughed, and Mr. Brandreth with him; but the fact -encouraged him, and he could see that it encouraged the publisher.</p> - -<p>“We won’t speak of <i>Mr. Barnes of New York</i>”—</p> - -<p>“Oh no! Don’t!” cried Ray.</p> - -<p>“You might be very glad to have written it on some accounts, my dear -boy,” said Kane.</p> - -<p>“Have you read it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_338" id="page_338">{338}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“That’s neither here nor there. I haven’t seen <i>Little Lord Fauntleroy</i>. -But I wanted to speak of <i>Looking Backward</i>. Four months after that was -published, the first modest edition was still unsold.”</p> - -<p>Kane rose. “I just dropped in to impart these facts to your publisher, -in case you and he might be getting a little impatient of the triumph -which seems to be rather behind time. I suppose you’ve noticed it? These -little disappointments are not suffered in a corner.”</p> - -<p>“Then your inference is that at the end of three or four months <i>A -Modern Romeo</i> will be selling at the rate of five hundred a day? I’m -glad for Brandreth here, but I shall be dead by that time.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no! Oh no!” Kane softly entreated, while he took Ray’s hand between -his two hands. “One doesn’t really die of disappointed literature any -more than one dies of disappointed love. That is one of the pathetic -superstitions which we like to cherish in a world where we get well of -nearly all our hurts, and live on to a hale old imbecility. Depend upon -it, my dear boy, you will survive your book at least fifty years.” Kane -wrung Ray’s hand, and got himself quickly away.</p> - -<p>“There is a good deal of truth in what he says”—Mr. Brandreth began -cheerfully.</p> - -<p>“About my outliving my book?” Ray asked. “Thank you. There’s all the -truth in the world in it.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean that, of course. I mean the chances<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_339" id="page_339">{339}</a></span> that it will pick up -any time within three months, and make its fortune.”</p> - -<p>“You’re counting on a lucky accident.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I am. I’ve done everything I can to push the book, and now we must -trust to luck. You have to trust to luck in the book business, in every -business. Business is buying on the chance of selling at a profit. The -political economists talk about the laws of business; but there are no -laws of business. There is nothing but chances, and no amount of wisdom -can forecast them or control them. You had better be prudent, but if you -are always prudent you will die poor. ‘Be bold; be bold; be not too -bold.’ That’s about all there is of it. And I’m going to be cheerful -too. I’m still betting on <i>A Modern Romeo</i>.” The young publisher leaned -forward and put his hand on Ray’s shoulder, in a kindly way, and shook -him a little. “Come! What will you bet that it doesn’t begin to go -within the next fortnight? I don’t ask you to put up any money. Will you -risk the copyright on the first thousand?”</p> - -<p>“No, I won’t bet,” said Ray, more spiritlessly than he felt, for the -proposition to relinquish a part of his copyright realized it to him. -Still he found it safest not to allow himself any revival of his hopes; -if he did it would be tempting fate to dash them again. In that way he -had often got the better of fate; there was no other way to do it, at -least for him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_340" id="page_340">{340}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>XLI.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">After</span> a silent and solitary dinner, Ray went to see Mrs. Denton and -Peace in their new lodging. It was the upper floor of a little house in -Greenwich Village, which was sublet to them by a machinist occupying the -lower floors; Ray vaguely recalled something in his face at his first -visit, and then recognized one of the attendants at Hughes’s Sunday -ministrations. He was disposed to fellowship Ray in Hughes’s doctrine, -and in the supposition of a community of interest in Hughes’s daughters. -They could not have been in better or kindlier keeping than that of the -machinist’s friendly wife, who must have fully shared his notion of -Ray’s relation to them. She always received him like one of the family, -and with an increasing intimacy and cordiality.</p> - -<p>That evening when she opened the street door to him she said, “Go right -along up; I guess you’ll find them there all right,” and Ray mounted -obediently. Half-way up he met Mrs. Denton coming down, with her cat in -her arms. “Oh, well!” she said. “You’ll find Peace at home; I’ll be back -in a moment.”</p> - -<p>He suspected that Mrs. Denton fostered the belief of the machinist and -his wife that there was a tacit if not an explicit understanding between -himself and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_341" id="page_341">{341}</a></span> Peace, and he thought that she would now very probably talk -the matter over with them. But he kept on up to the little apartment at -the top of the house, and tapped on the door standing wide open. The -girl was sitting at one of the windows, with her head and bust sharply -defined against the glassy clear evening light of the early summer. She -had her face turned toward the street, and remained as if she did not -hear him at first, so that there was a moment when it went through his -mind that he would go away. Then she looked round, and greeted him; and -he advanced into the room, and took the seat fronting her on the other -side of the window. There was a small, irregular square below, and above -the tops of its trees the swallows were weaving their swift flight and -twittering song; the street noises came up slightly muted through the -foliage; it was almost like a sylvan withdrawal from the city’s worst; -and they talked of the country, and how lovely it must be looking now.</p> - -<p>He said: “Yes, I wonder we can ever leave it. This is the first -spring-time that I have ever been where I couldn’t feel my way with -Nature at every step she took. It’s like a great loss out of my life. I -think sometimes I am a fool to have staid here; I can never get it back. -I could have gone home, and been the richer by the experience of another -spring. Why didn’t I do it?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you couldn’t have done your work there,” she suggested.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my work! That is what people are always<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_342" id="page_342">{342}</a></span> sacrificing the good of -life to—their work! Is it worth so much? If I couldn’t do my -newspaper-work there, I could do something else. I could write another -unsuccessful novel.”</p> - -<p>“Is your novel a failure?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know it is? It’s been out three weeks, and nobody seems to -know it. That’s my grief, now; it may one day be my consolation. I don’t -complain. Mr. Brandreth still keeps his heroic faith in it, and even old -Kane was trying to rise on the wings of favorable prophecy when I saw -him just before dinner. But I haven’t the least hope any more. I think I -could stand it better if I respected the book itself more. But to fail -in a bad cause—that’s bitter.” He stopped, knowing as well as if he had -put his prayer in words, that he had asked her to encourage him, and if -possible, flatter him.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been reading it all through again, since it came out,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, have you?” he palpitated.</p> - -<p>“And I have lent it to the people in the house here, and they have read -it. They are very intelligent in a kind of way”—</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“And they have been talking to me about it; they have been discussing -the characters in it. They like it because they say they can understand -just how every one felt. They like the hero, and Mrs. Simpson cried over -the last scene. She thinks you have managed the heroine’s character -beautifully. Mr. Simpson<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_343" id="page_343">{343}</a></span> wondered whether you really believe in -hypnotism. They both said they felt as if they were living it.”</p> - -<p>Ray listened with a curious mixture of pleasure and of pain. He knew -very well that it was not possible for such people as the Simpsons to -judge his story with as fine artistic perception as that old society -woman who thought he meant to make his characters cheap and ridiculous, -and in the light of this knowledge their praise galled him. But then -came the question whether they could not judge better of its truth and -reality. If he had made a book which appealed to the feeling and -knowledge of the great, simply-conditioned, sound-hearted, -common-schooled American mass whom the Simpsons represented, he had made -his fortune. He put aside that other question, which from time to time -presses upon every artist, whether he would rather please the few who -despise the judgment of the many, or the many who have no taste, but -somehow have in their keeping the touchstone by which a work of art -proves itself a human interest, and not merely a polite pleasure. Ray -could not make this choice. He said dreamily: “If Mr. Brandreth could -only find out how to reach all the Simpsons with it! I believe a -twenty-five-cent paper edition would be the thing after all. I wish you -could tell me just what Mr. and Mrs. Simpson said of the book; and if -you can remember what they disliked as well as what they liked in it.”</p> - -<p>Peace laughed a little. “Oh, they disliked the wicked people. They -thought the hard old father of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_344" id="page_344">{344}</a></span> the heroine was terrible, and was justly -punished by his daughter’s death. At the same time they thought you -ought to have had her revive in time to seize the hero’s hand, when he -is going to shoot himself, and keep him from giving himself a mortal -wound. The cousin ought to get well, too; or else confess before he dies -that he intended to throw the hero over the cliff, so that it could be -made out a case of self-defence. Mr. Simpson says that could be done to -the satisfaction of any jury.”</p> - -<p>Ray laughed too. “Yes. It would have been more popular if it had ended -well.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not,” Peace suggested. “Isn’t it the great thing to make people -talk about a book? If it ended well they wouldn’t have half so much to -say as they will now about it.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” Ray assented with meek hopefulness. “But, Peace, what do -<i>you</i> say about it? You’ve never told me that yet. Do you really despise -it so much?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve never said that I despised it.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve never said you didn’t, and by everything that you’ve done, -you’ve left me to think that you do. I know,” said the young man, “that -I’m bringing up associations and recollections that must be painful to -you; they’re painful and humiliating to me. But it seems to me that you -owe me that much.”</p> - -<p>“I owe you much more than that,” said the girl. “Do you think that I -forget—can forget—anything—all that you’ve been to us?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_345" id="page_345">{345}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t speak of it!” said Ray. “I didn’t mean that. And you needn’t -tell me now what you think of my book. But sometime you will, won’t -you?” He drew forward a little nearer to her, where they sat in the -light which had begun to wane. “Until then—until then—I want you to -let me be the best friend you have in the world—the best friend I can -be to any one.”</p> - -<p>He stopped for some answer from her, and she said: “No one could be a -truer friend to us than you have been, from the very first. And we have -mixed you up so in our trouble!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no! But if it’s given me any sort of right to keep on coming to see -Mrs. Denton and you, just as I used?”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” she returned.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_346" id="page_346">{346}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XLII" id="XLII"></a>XLII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Ray</span> went home ill at ease with himself. He spent a bad night, and he -seemed to have sunk away only a moment from his troubles, when a knock -at his door brought him up again into the midst of them. He realized -them before he realized the knock sufficiently to call out, “Who’s -there?”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth’s voice without; “you’re not up yet! Can I come -in?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly,” said Ray, and he leaned forward and slid back the bolt of -his door: it was one advantage of a room so small that he could do this -without getting out of bed.</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth seemed to beam with one radiance from his silk hat, his -collar, his boots, his scarf, his shining eyes and smooth-shaven -friendly face, as he entered.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said, “you haven’t seen the <i>Metropolis</i> yet?”</p> - -<p>“No; what is the matter with the <i>Metropolis</i>?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth, with his perfectly fitted gloves on, and his natty cane -dangling from his wrist, unfolded the supplement of the newspaper, and -accurately folded it again to the lines of the first three columns<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_347" id="page_347">{347}</a></span> of -the page. Then he handed it to Ray, and delicately turned away and -looked out of the window.</p> - -<p>Ray glanced at the space defined, and saw that it was occupied by a -review of <i>A Modern Romeo</i>. There were lengths of large open type for -the reviewer’s introduction and comments and conclusion, and embedded -among these, in closer and finer print, extracts from the novel, where -Ray saw his own language transfigured and glorified.</p> - -<p>The critic struck in the beginning a note which he sounded throughout; a -cry of relief, of exultation, at what was apparently the beginning of a -new order of things in fiction. He hailed the unknown writer of <i>A -Modern Romeo</i> as the champion of the imaginative and the ideal against -the photographic and the commonplace, and he expressed a pious joy in -the novel as a bold advance in the path that was to lead forever away -from the slough of realism. But he put on a philosophic air in making -the reader observe that it was not absolutely a new departure, a break, -a schism; it was a natural and scientific evolution, it was a -development of the spiritual from the material; the essential part of -realism was there, but freed from the grossness, the dulness of realism -as we had hitherto known it, and imbued with a fresh life. He called -attention to the firmness and fineness with which the situation was -portrayed and the characters studied before the imagination began to -deal with them; and then he asked the reader to notice how, when this -foundation had once been laid, it was made to serve as a -“star-ypoint<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_348" id="page_348">{348}</a></span>ing pyramid” from which the author’s fancy took its bold -flight through realms untravelled by the photographic and the -commonplace. He praised the style of the book, which he said -corresponded to the dual nature of the conception, and recalled -Thackeray in the treatment of persons and things, and Hawthorne in the -handling of motives and ideas. There was, in fact, so much subtlety in -the author’s dealing with these, that one might almost suspect a -feminine touch, but for the free and virile strength shown in the -passages of passion and action.</p> - -<p>The reviewer quoted several of such passages, and Ray followed with a -novel intensity of interest the words he already knew by heart. The -whole episode of throwing the cousin over the cliff was reprinted; but -the parts which the reviewer gave the largest room and the loudest -praise were those embodying the incidents of the hypnotic trance and the -tragical close of the story. Here, he said, was a piece of the most -palpitant actuality, and he applauded it as an instance of how the -imagination might deal with actuality. Nothing in the whole range of -commonplace, photographic, realistic fiction was of such striking effect -as this employment of a scientific discovery in the region of the ideal. -He contended that whatever lingering doubt people might have of the -usefulness of hypnotism as a remedial agent, there could be no question -of the splendid success with which the writer of this remarkable novel -had turned it to account in poetic fiction of a very high grade. He did -not say the highest grade;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_349" id="page_349">{349}</a></span> the book had many obvious faults. It was -evidently the first book of a young writer, whose experience of life had -apparently been limited to a narrow and comparatively obscure field. It -was in a certain sense provincial, even parochial; but perhaps the very -want of an extended horizon had concentrated the author’s thoughts the -more penetratingly on the life immediately at hand. What was important -was that he had seen this life with the vision of an idealist, and had -discerned its poetic uses with the sense of the born artist, and had set -it in</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“The light that never was on sea or land.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Much more followed to like effect, and the reviewer closed with a -promise to look with interest for the future performance of a writer who -had already given much more than the promise of mastery; who had given -proofs of it. His novel might not be the great American novel which we -had so long been expecting, but it was a most notable achievement in the -right direction. The author was the prophet of better things; he was a -Moses, who, if we followed him, would lead us up from the flesh-pots of -Realism toward the promised land of the Ideal.</p> - -<p>From time to time Ray made a little apologetic show of not meaning to do -more than glance the review over, but Mr. Brandreth insisted upon his -taking his time and reading it all; he wanted to talk to him about it. -He began to talk before Ray finished; in fact he agonized him with -question and comment, all through;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_350" id="page_350">{350}</a></span> and when Ray laid the paper down at -last, he came and sat on the edge of his bed.</p> - -<p>“Now, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I don’t believe in working on -Sunday, and that sort of thing; but I believe this is providential. My -wife does, too; she says it’s a reward for the faith we’ve had in the -book; and that it would be a sin to lose a moment’s time. If there is to -be any catch-on at all, it must be instantaneous; we mustn’t let the -effect of this review get cold, and I’m going to strike while it’s -red-hot.” The word seem to suggest the magnitude of the purpose which -Mr. Brandreth expressed with seriousness that befitted the day. “I’m -simply going to paint the universe red. You’ll see.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” said Ray, “you’d better not tell me how. I guess I’ve got -as much as I can stand, now.”</p> - -<p>“If that book doesn’t succeed,” said Mr. Brandreth, as solemnly as if -registering a vow, “it won’t be my fault.”</p> - -<p>He went away, and Ray passed into a trance such as wraps a fortunate -lover from the outer world. But nothing was further from his thoughts -than love. The passion that possessed him was egotism flattered to an -intensity in which he had no life but in the sense of himself. No -experience could be more unwholesome while it lasted, but a condition so -intense could not endure. His first impulse was to keep away from every -one who could keep him from the voluptuous sense of his own success. He -knew very well that the review in the <i>Metropolis</i> overrated his book, -but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_351" id="page_351">{351}</a></span> liked it to be overrated; he wilfully renewed his delirium from -it by reading it again and again, over his breakfast, on the train to -the Park, and in the lonely places which he sought out there apart from -all who could know him or distract him from himself. At first it seemed -impossible; at last it became unintelligible. He threw the paper into -some bushes; then after he had got a long way off, he went back and -recovered it, and read the review once more. The sense had returned, the -praises had relumed their fires; again he bathed his spirit in their -splendor. It was he, he, he, of whom those things were said. He tried to -realize it. Who was he? The question scared him; perhaps he was going -out of his mind. At any rate he must get away from himself now; that was -his only safety. He thought whom he should turn to for refuge. There -were still people of his society acquaintance in town, and he could have -had a cup of tea poured for him by a charming girl at any one of a dozen -friendly houses. There were young men, more than enough of them, who -would have welcomed him to their bachelor quarters. There was old Kane. -But they would have all begun to talk to him about that review; Peace -herself would have done so. He ended by going home, and setting to work -on some notices for the next day’s <i>Every Evening</i>. The performance was -a play of double consciousness in which he struggled with himself as if -with some alien personality. But the next day he could take the time to -pay Mr. Brandreth a visit without wronging the work he had carried so -far.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_352" id="page_352">{352}</a></span></p> - -<p>On the way he bought the leading morning papers, and saw that the -publisher had reprinted long extracts from the <i>Metropolis</i> review as -advertisements in the type of the editorial page; in the <i>Metropolis</i> -itself he reprinted the whole review. “This sort of thing will be in the -principal Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis -papers just as soon as the mail can carry them my copy. I <i>had</i> thought -of telegraphing the advertisement, but it will cost money enough as it -is,” said Mr. Brandreth.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure you’re not throwing your money away?” Ray asked, somewhat -aghast.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I’m not throwing my chance away,” the publisher retorted with -gay courage. He developed the plan of campaign as he had conceived it, -and Ray listened with a kind of nerveless avidity. He looked over at Mr. -Chapley’s room, where he knew that Peace was busily writing, and he -hoped that she did not know that he was there. His last talk with her -had mixed itself up with the intense experience that had followed, and -seemed of one frantic quality with it. He walked out to the street door -with Mr. Brandreth beside him, and did not turn for a glimpse of her.</p> - -<p>“Oh by-the-way,” said the publisher at parting, “if you’d been here a -little sooner, I could have made you acquainted with your reviewer. He -dropped in a little while ago to ask who S. Ray was, and I did my best -to make him believe it was a real name. I don’t think he was more than -half convinced.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_353" id="page_353">{353}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I don’t more than half believe in him,” said Ray, lightly, to cover his -disappointment. “Who is he?”</p> - -<p>“Well, their regular man is off on sick leave, and this young -fellow—Worrell is his name—is a sort of under study. He was telling me -how he happened to go in for your book—those things are always -interesting. He meant to take another book up to his house with him, and -he found he had yours when he got home, and some things about hypnotism. -He went through them, and then he thought he would just glance at yours, -anyway, and he opened on the hypnotic trance scene, just when his mind -was full of the subject, and he couldn’t let go. He went back to the -beginning and read it all through, and then he gave you the benefit of -the other fellow’s chance. He wanted to see you, when I told him about -you. Curious how these things fall out, half the time?”</p> - -<p>“Very,” said Ray, rather blankly.</p> - -<p>“I knew you’d enjoy it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I do.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_354" id="page_354">{354}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII"></a>XLIII.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Whether</span> the boom for <i>A Modern Romeo</i> which began with the appearance of -the <i>Metropolis</i> review was an effect of that review or not, no one -acquainted with the caprices of the book trade would undertake to say. -There had been enthusiastic reviews of other books in the <i>Metropolis</i> -which had resulted in no boom whatever, as Kane pointed out in -ironically inviting the author to believe that the success of the book -was due wholly to its merit.</p> - -<p>“And what was its long failure due to?” Ray asked, tasting the bitter of -the suggestion, but feigning unconsciousness.</p> - -<p>“To its demerit.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth was at first inclined to ascribe the boom to the review; -afterwards he held that it was owing to his own wise and bold use of the -review in advertising. There, he contended, was the true chance, which, -in moments of grateful piety, he claimed that he was inspired to seize. -What is certain is that other friendly reviews began to appear in other -influential journals, in New York and throughout the country. Ray began -to see the book on the news-stands now; he found it in the booksellers’ -windows; once he heard people in an elevated car talking of it; somehow -it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_355" id="page_355">{355}</a></span> was in the air. But how it got in the air, no one could exactly say; -he, least of all. He could put his hand on certain causes, gross, -palpable, like the advertising activities of Mr. Brandreth; but these -had been in effectless operation long before. He could not define the -peculiar attraction that the novel seemed to have, even when frankly -invited to do so by a vivid young girl who wrote New York letters for a -Southern paper, and who came to interview him about it. The most that he -could say was that it had struck a popular mood. She was very grateful -for that idea, and she made much of it in her next letter; but she did -not succeed in analyzing this mood, except as a general readiness for -psychological fiction on the part of a reading public wearied and -disgusted with the realism of the photographic, commonplace school. She -was much more precise in her personal account of Ray; the young novelist -appeared there as a type of manly beauty, as to his face and head, but -of a regrettably low stature, which, however, you did not observe while -he remained seated. It was specially confided to lady readers that his -slightly wavy dark hair was parted in the middle over a forehead as -smooth and pure as a girl’s. The processed reproduction of Ray’s -photograph did not perfectly bear out her encomium; but it was as much -like him as it was like her account of him. His picture began to appear -in many places, with romanced biographies, which made much of the -obscurity of his origin and the struggles of his early life. When it -came to be said that he sprang from the lower classes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_356" id="page_356">{356}</a></span> it brought him a -letter of indignant protest from his mother, who reminded him that his -father was a physician, and his people had always been educated and -respectable on both sides. She thought that he ought to write to the -papers and stop the injurious paragraph; and he did not wholly convince -her that this was impossible. He could not have made her understand how -in the sudden invasion of publicity his personality had quite passed out -of his own keeping. The interviewers were upon him everywhere: at his -hotel, whose quaintness and foreign picturesqueness they made go far in -their studies of him; at the <i>Every Evening</i> office, where their visits -subjected him to the mockery of his associates on the paper. His chief -was too simple and serious of purpose to take the comic view of Ray’s -celebrity; when he realized it through the frequency of the interviews, -he took occasion to say: “I like your work and I want to keep you. As it -is only a question of time when you will ask an increase of salary, I -prefer to anticipate, and you’ll find it put up in your next check to -the figure which I think the paper ought to stand.” He did not otherwise -recognize the fact of the book’s success, or speak of it; as compared -with his paper, Ray’s book was of no importance to him whatever.</p> - -<p>The interviews were always flattering to Ray’s vanity, in a certain way, -but it was rather wounding to find that most of the interviewers had not -read his book; though they had just got it, or they were going to get it -and read it. In some cases they came to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_357" id="page_357">{357}</a></span> with poetic preoccupations -from previous interviews with Mr. Brandreth, and he could not disabuse -them of the notion that his literary career had been full of facts much -stranger than fiction.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Brandreth says that if the truth could be told about that book,” -one young lady journalist stated, keeping her blue eyes fixed winningly -upon the author’s, “it would form one of the most dramatic chapters in -the whole history of literature. <i>Won’t</i> you tell <i>me</i> the truth about -it, Mr. Ray?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I don’t know the truth about it myself,” Ray said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how delightful!” cried the young lady. “I’m going to put <i>that</i> in, -at any rate;” and she continued to work the young author with her -appealing eyes and her unusually intelligent flatteries, until she had -got a great deal more out of him concerning the periculations of his -novel in manuscript than he could have believed himself capable of -telling.</p> - -<p>He went to Mr. Brandreth smarting with a sense of having made a fool of -himself, and, “See here, Brandreth,” he said, “what is so very -remarkably dramatic in the history of a novel kicking about for six -months among the trade?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth stared at him, and then said, with a flash of -recollection, “Oh! <i>That</i> girl! Well, she was determined to have -<i>something</i> exclusive about the book, and I just threw out the remark. I -wasn’t thinking of your side of the business entirely. Ray, you’re a -good fellow, and I don’t mind telling you that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_358" id="page_358">{358}</a></span> when I chanced it on -this book of yours, it had got to a point with us where we had to chance -it on something. Mr. Chapley had let the publishing interests of the -house go till there was hardly anything of them left; and when he went -up into the country, this spring, he was strongly opposed to my trying -anything in the publishing line. But my wife and I talked it over, and -she saw as well as I did that I should either have to go actively into -the business, or else go out of it. As it stood, it wouldn’t support two -families. So I made up my mind to risk your book. If it had failed it -would have embarrassed me awfully; I don’t say but what I could have -pulled through, but it would have been rough sledding.”</p> - -<p>“That <i>is</i> interesting,” said Ray. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t begin to -pose as your preserver.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it wasn’t quite so bad as that,” Mr. Brandreth gayly protested. -“And at the last moment it might have been some one else. There’s no -reason why I shouldn’t tell you that the night you came and wanted me to -take old Hughes’s book, I talked it very seriously over with my wife, -and we determined that we would look at it in the morning, and perhaps -postpone your novel. We woke the baby up with our talk, and then he woke -us up the rest of the night, and in the morning we were not fit to -grapple with the question, and I took that for a sign and let them go on -with your book. I suppose these things were in my mind when I told that -girl what she repeated to you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_359" id="page_359">{359}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Well, the incidents are dramatic enough,” said Ray, musingly. “Even -tragical.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” sighed Mr. Brandreth. “I always dreaded to ask you how you made -it right with Mr. Hughes.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mrs. Denton made it right with <i>him</i>,” Ray scoffed. “I told her how -I failed with you, and she went right to him and said that you had taken -his book and would bring it out at once.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth looked pained. “Well, I don’t know what to say about that. -But I’m satisfied now that I acted for the best in keeping on with your -book. I’m going to have Mr. Hughes’s carefully examined, though. I -believe there’s the making of another hit in it. By-the-way,” he ended, -cheerily, “you’ll be glad to know that <i>A Modern Romeo</i> has come of age; -we’ve just printed the twenty-first thousand of him.”</p> - -<p>“Is it possible!” said Ray, with well-simulated rapture. With all the -talk there had been about the book, he supposed it had certainly gone to -fifty thousand by this time.</p> - -<p>The sale never really reached that figure. It went to forty two or three -thousand, and there it stopped, and nothing could carry it farther. The -author talked the strange arrest over with the publisher, but they could -arrive at no solution of the mystery. There was no reason why a book -which had been so widely talked about and written about should not keep -on selling indefinitely; there was every reason why it should; but it -did not. Had it, by some process of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_360" id="page_360">{360}</a></span> natural selection, reached exactly -those people who cared for a psychological novel of its peculiar make, -and were there really no more of them than had given it just that vogue? -He sought a law for the fact in vain, in the more philosophical -discussions he held with old Kane, as well as in his inquiries with Mr. -Brandreth.</p> - -<p>Finally, Kane said: “Why do we always seek a law for things? Is there a -law for ourselves? We think so, but it’s out of sight for the most part, -and generally we act from mere caprice, from impulse. I’ve lived a good -many years, but I couldn’t honestly say that I’ve seen the cause -overtaken by the consequence more than two or three times; then it -struck me as rather theatrical. Consequences I’ve seen a plenty, but not -causes. Perhaps this is merely a sphere of ultimations. We used to -flatter ourselves, in the simple old days, when we thought we were all -miserable sinners, that we were preparing tremendous effects, to follow -elsewhere, by what we said and did here. But what if the things that -happen here are effects initiated elsewhere?”</p> - -<p>“It’s a very pretty conjecture,” said Ray, “but it doesn’t seem to have -a very direct bearing on the falling off in the sale of <i>A Modern -Romeo</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Everything in the universe is related to that book, if you could only -see it properly. If it has stopped selling, it is probably because the -influence of some favorable star, extinguished thousands of years ago, -has just ceased to reach this planet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_361" id="page_361">{361}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Kane had the air of making a mental note after he said this, and Ray -began to laugh. “There ought to be money in that,” he said.</p> - -<p>“No, there is no money in Hard Sayings,” Kane returned, sadly; “there is -only—wisdom.”</p> - -<p>Ray was by no means discouraged with his failures to divine the reason -for the arrested sale of his book. At heart he was richly satisfied with -its success, and he left the public without grudging, to their belief -that it had sold a hundred and fifty thousand. Mr. Brandreth was -satisfied, too. He believed that the sale would pick up again in the -fall after people got back from the country; he had discovered that the -book had enduring qualities; but now the question was, what was Ray -going to write next? “You ought to strike while the iron’s hot, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, I’ve been thinking about that,” the young fellow admitted, -“and I believe I’ve got a pretty good scheme for a novel.”</p> - -<p>“Could you give me some notion of it?”</p> - -<p>“No, I couldn’t. It hasn’t quite crystallized in my mind yet. And I -don’t believe it will, somehow, till I get a name for it.”</p> - -<p>“Have you thought of a name?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—half-a-dozen that won’t do.”</p> - -<p>“There’s everything in a name,” said the publisher. “I believe it made -the <i>Modern Romeo’s</i> fortune.”</p> - -<p>Ray mused a moment. “How would <i>A Rose by any other Name</i> do?”</p> - -<p>“That’s rather attractive,” said Mr. Brandreth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_362" id="page_362">{362}</a></span> “Well, anyway, remember -that we are to have the book.”</p> - -<p>Ray hesitated. “Well—not on those old ten-percent. terms, Brandreth.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I think we can arrange the terms all right,” said Mr. Brandreth.</p> - -<p>“Because I can do much better, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, they’ve been after you, have they?”</p> - -<p>The young fellow held up the fingers of one hand.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, “your next book belongs to Chapley & Co. You -want to keep your books together. One will help sell the other. <i>A Rose -by any other Name</i> will wake up <i>A Modern Romeo</i> when it comes out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_363" id="page_363">{363}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV"></a>XLIV.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">For</span> Peace Hughes and her sister, the summer passed uneventfully. The -girl made up for the time she had lost earlier in the year by doing -double duty at the increased business of the publishing house. The -prosperity of <i>A Modern Romeo</i> had itself added to her work, and the new -enterprises which its success had inspired Mr. Brandreth to consider -meant more letter-writing and more formulation of the ideas which he -struck shapelessly if boldly out. He trusted her advice as well as her -skill, and she had now become one of the regular readers for Chapley & -Co.</p> - -<p>Ray inferred this from the number of manuscripts which he saw on her -table at home, and he could not help knowing the other things through -his own acquaintance, which was almost an intimacy, with Mr. Brandreth’s -affairs. The publisher was always praising her. “Talk about men!” he -broke out one day. “That girl has a better business head than half the -business men in New York. If she were not a woman, it would be only a -question of time when we should have to offer her a partnership, or run -the risk of losing her. But there’s only one kind of partnership you can -offer a woman.” Ray flushed, but he did not say anything, and Mr. -Brandreth asked, apparently from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_364" id="page_364">{364}</a></span> some association in his mind, “Do you -see much of them at their new place?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I go there every week or so.”</p> - -<p>“How are they getting on?”</p> - -<p>“Very well, I believe.” Ray mused a moment, and then he said: “If it -were not contrary to all our preconceptions of a sort of duty in people -who have been through what they have been through, I should say they -were both happier than I ever saw them before. I don’t think Mrs. Denton -cared a great deal for her children or husband, but in her father’s last -days he wouldn’t have anybody else about him. She strikes one like a -person who would get married again.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brandreth listened with the air of one trying to feel shocked; but -he smiled.</p> - -<p>“I don’t blame her,” Ray continued. “Perhaps old Kane’s habit of not -blaming people is infectious. She once accounted for herself on the -ground that she didn’t make herself; I suppose it might be rather -dangerous ground if people began to take it generally. But Miss Hughes -did care for those poor little souls and for that wretched creature, and -now the care’s gone, and the relief has come. They both miss their -father; but he was doomed; he <i>had</i> to die; and besides, his fatherhood -struck me as being rather thin, at times, from having been spread out -over a community so long. I can’t express it exactly, but it seems to me -that the children of a man who is trying to bring about a millennium of -any kind do not have a good time. Still, I suppose we must have the -millenniums.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_365" id="page_365">{365}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You said that just like old Kane,” Mr. Brandreth observed.</p> - -<p>“Did I? I just owned he was infectious. If I’ve caught his habit of -mind, I dare say I’ve caught his accent. I don’t particularly admire -either. But what I mean is that Miss Hughes and her sister are getting -on very comfortably and sweetly. Their place is as homelike as any I -know in New York.”</p> - -<p>“As soon as we get back in the fall, Mrs. Brandreth is going to call on -them. Now that Mr. Chapley and Mr. Hughes are out of the way, there’s no -reason why we shouldn’t show them some attention. Miss Hughes, at least, -is a perfect lady. I’m going to see that she doesn’t overwork; the -success of <i>A Modern Romeo</i> has killed us nearly all; I’m going to give -her a three weeks’ vacation toward the end of August.”</p> - -<p>Ray called upon Peace one evening in the beginning of her vacation, and -found her with the manuscript of a book before her; Mrs. Denton was -sitting with the Simpsons on their front steps, and sent him on up to -Peace when he declined to join her there.</p> - -<p>He said, “I supposed I should find you reading up the Adirondack -guide-books, or trying to decide between Newport and Saratoga. I don’t -see how your outing differs very much from your inning.”</p> - -<p>“This was only a book I brought home because I had got interested in -it,” the girl explained in self-defence. “We’re not going away -anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“I think I would stay myself,” said Ray, “if it were not for wanting to -see my family. My vacation begins to-morrow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_366" id="page_366">{366}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Does it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; and I should be very willing to spend my fortnight excursioning -around New York. But I’m off at once to-night; I came in to say good-by. -I hope you’ll miss me.”</p> - -<p>“We shall miss you very much,” she said; and she added, “I suppose most -of our fashionable friends have gone out of town.”</p> - -<p>“Have they?”</p> - -<p>“I should think you would know. We had them at second-hand from you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Those?” said Ray. “Yes. They’re gone, and I’m going. I hate to -leave you behind. Have you any message for the country?”</p> - -<p>“Only my love.” She faced the manuscript down on the table before her, -and rocked softly to and fro a moment. “It does make me a little -homesick to think of it,” she said, with touching patience.</p> - -<p>He felt the forlornness in her accent, and a sense of her isolation -possessed him. When Mrs. Denton should marry again, Peace would be alone -in the world. He looked at her, and she seemed very little and slight, -to make her way single-handed.</p> - -<p>“Peace!” he said, and the intensity of his voice startled him. “There is -something I wanted to say to you—to ask you,” and he was aware of her -listening as intensely as he spoke, though no change of attitude or -demeanor betrayed the fact; he had to go on in a lighter strain if he -went on at all. “You know, I suppose, what a rich man I am going to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_367" id="page_367">{367}</a></span> -when I get the copyright on my book. It’s almost incredible, but I’m -going to be worth five or six thousand dollars; to be as rich as most -millionaires. Well—I asked you to let me be your friend once, because I -didn’t think a man who was turning out a failure had the right to ask to -be more. Or, no! That <i>isn’t</i> it!” he broke off, shocked by the false -ring of his words. “I don’t know how to say it. I was in love once—very -much in love; the kind of love that I’ve put into my book; and -this—this worship that I have for you, for I do worship you!—it isn’t -the same, Peace. It’s everything that honors you, and once it <i>was</i> like -that; but now I’m not sure. But I couldn’t go away without offering you -my worship, for you to accept for all our lives; or reject, if it wasn’t -enough. Do you understand?”</p> - -<p>“I do understand,” the girl returned, and she nervously pressed the hand -which she allowed to gather hers into it.</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t leave you,” he went on, “without telling you that there is -no one in the world that I honor so much as you. I had it in my heart to -say this long ago; but it seems such a strange thing to stop with. If I -didn’t think you so wise and so good, I don’t believe I could say it to -you. I know that now whatever you decide will be right, and the best for -us both. I couldn’t bear to have you suppose I would keep coming to see -you without—I would have told you this long ago, but I always expected -to tell you more. But I’m twenty-six now, and perhaps I shall never<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_368" id="page_368">{368}</a></span> -feel in that old way again. I <i>know</i> our lives would be united in the -highest things; and you would save me from living for myself alone. What -do you say, Peace?”</p> - -<p>He waited for her to break the silence which he did not know how to -interpret. At last she said “No!” and she drew back from him and took -her hand away. “It wouldn’t be right. I shouldn’t be afraid to trust -you”——</p> - -<p>“Then why”——</p> - -<p>“For I know how faithful you are. But I’m afraid—I <i>know</i>—I don’t love -you! And without that it would be a sacrilege. That isn’t enough of -itself, but everything else would be nothing without it.” As if she felt -the wound her words must have dealt to his self-love, she hurried on: “I -did love you once. Yes! I did. And when Mr. Brandreth wanted me to read -your book that time, I wouldn’t, because I was afraid of myself. But -afterwards it—went.”</p> - -<p>“Was it my fault?” Ray asked.</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t any one’s fault,” said the girl. “If I had not been so -unhappy, it might have been different.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Peace!”</p> - -<p>“But I had no heart for it. And now my life must go on just as it is. I -have thought it all out. I thought that some time you might tell -me—what you have—or different—and I tried to think what I ought to -do. I shall never care for any one else; I shall never get married. -Don’t think I shall be unhappy! I can take good care of myself, and -Jenny<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_369" id="page_369">{369}</a></span> and I will not be lonesome together. Even if we don’t always live -together—still, I can always make myself a home. I’m not afraid to be -an old maid. There is work in the world for me to do, and I can do it. -Is it so strange I should be saying this?”</p> - -<p>“No, no. It’s right.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose that most of the girls you know wouldn’t do it. But I have -been brought up differently. In the Family they did not think that -marriage was always the best thing; and when I saw how Jenny and -Ansel—I don’t mean that it would ever have been like that! But I don’t -wish you to think that life will be hard or unhappy for me. And you—you -will find somebody that you can feel towards as you did towards that -first girl.”</p> - -<p>“Never! I shall never care for any one again!” he cried. At the bottom -of his heart there was a relief which he tried to ignore, though he -could not deny himself a sense of the unique literary value of the -situation. It was from a consciousness of this relief that he asked, -“And what do you think of me, Peace? Do you blame me?”</p> - -<p>“Blame you? How? For my having changed?”</p> - -<p>“I feel to blame,” said the young man. “How shall we do, now? Shall I -come to see you when I return?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. But we won’t speak of this again.”</p> - -<p>“Shall you tell Mrs. Denton?”</p> - -<p>“Of course.”</p> - -<p>“She will blame me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_370" id="page_370">{370}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“She will blame <i>me</i>,” said Peace. “But—I shall not be troubled, and -you mustn’t,” she said, and she lightly touched him. “This is just as I -wish it to be. I’ve been afraid that if this ever happened, I shouldn’t -have the courage to tell you what I have. But you helped me, and I am so -glad you did! I was afraid you would say something that would blind me, -and keep me from going on in the right way; but now—Good-night.”</p> - -<p>“Good-night,” said Ray, vaguely. “May I—dream of you, Peace?”</p> - -<p>“If you’ll stop at daybreak.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, then I shall begin to think of you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_371" id="page_371">{371}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XLV" id="XLV"></a>XLV.</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">They</span> had certainly come to an understanding, and for Ray at least there -was release from the obscure sense of culpability which had so long -harassed him. He knew that unless he was sure of his love for Peace, he -was to blame for letting her trust it; but now that he had spoken, and -spoken frankly, it had freed them both to go on and be friends without -fear for each other. Her confession that there had been a time when she -loved him flattered his vanity out of the pain of knowing that she did -not love him now; it consoled him, it justified him; for the offence -which he had accused himself of was of no other kind than hers. How -wisely, how generously she had taken the whole matter!</p> - -<p>The question whether she had not taken it more generously than he -merited began to ask itself. She might have chosen to feign a parity -with him in this. He had read of women who sacrificed their love to -their love; and consented to a life-long silence, or practised a -life-long deceit, that the men they loved might never know they loved -them. He had never personally known of such a case, but the books were -full of such cases. This might be one of them. Or it might much more -simply and probably be that she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_372" id="page_372">{372}</a></span> received his strange declaration as -she did in order to spare his feelings. If that were true she had -already told her sister, and Mrs. Denton had turned the absurd side of -it to the light, and had made Peace laugh it over with her.</p> - -<p>A cold perspiration broke out over him at the notion, which he rejected -upon a moment’s reflection as unworthy of Peace. He got back to his -compassionate admiration of her, as he walked down to the ferry and -began his homeward journey. He looked about the boat, and fancied it the -same he had crossed to New York in, when he came to the city nearly a -year before. The old negro who whistled, limped silently through the -long saloon; he glanced from right to left on the passengers, but he -must have thought them too few, or not in the mood for his music. Ray -wondered if he whistled only for the incoming passengers. He recalled -every circumstance of his acquaintance with Peace, from the moment she -caught his notice when Mrs. Denton made her outcry about the -pocket-book. He saw how once it had seemed to deepen to love, and then -had ceased to do so, but he did not see how. There had been everything -in it to make them more to each other, but after a certain time they had -grown less. It was not so strange to him that he had changed; he had -often changed; but we suppose a constancy in others as to all passions -which we cannot exact of ourselves. He tried to think what he had done -to alienate the love which she confessed she once had for him, and he -could not remember anything unless it was his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_373" id="page_373">{373}</a></span> cruelty to her when he -found that she was the friend who would not look at his story a second -time. She said she had forgiven him that; but perhaps she had not; -perhaps she had divined a potential brutality in him, which made her -afraid to trust him. But after that their lives had been united in the -most intimate anxieties, and she had shown absolute trust in him. He -reviewed his conduct toward her throughout, and he could find no blame -in it except for that one thing. He could truly feel that he had been -her faithful friend, and the friend of her whole uncomfortable family, -in spite of all his prejudices and principles against people of that -kind. In the recognition of this fact he enjoyed a moment’s sense of -injury, which was heightened when he reflected that he had even been -willing to sacrifice his pride, after his brilliant literary success, so -far as to offer himself to a girl who worked for her living; it had -always galled him that she held a place little better than a -type-writer’s. No, he had nothing to accuse himself of, after a scrutiny -of his behavior repeated in every detail, and applied in complex, again -and again, with helpless iteration. Still he had a remote feeling of -self-reproach, which he tried to verify, but which forever eluded him. -It was mixed up with that sense of escape, which made him ashamed.</p> - -<p>He lay awake in the sleeping-car the greater part of the night, and -turned from side to side, seeking for the reason of a thing that can -never have any reason, and trying to find some parity between his -expectations and experiences of himself in such an affair. It went<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_374" id="page_374">{374}</a></span> -through his mind that it would be a good thing to write a story with -some such situation in it; only the reader would not stand it. People -expected love to begin mysteriously, but they did not like it to end so; -though life itself began mysteriously and ended so. He believed that he -should really try it; a story that opened with an engagement ought to be -as interesting as one that closed with an engagement; and it would be -very original. He must study his own affair very closely when he got a -little further away from it. There was no doubt but that when the -chances that favored love were so many and so recognizable, the chance -that undid it could at last be recognized. It was merely a chance, and -that ought to be shown.</p> - -<p>He began to wonder if life had not all been a chance with him. Nothing, -not even the success of his book, in the light he now looked at it in, -was the result of reasoned cause. That success had happened; it had not -followed; and he didn’t deserve any praise for what had merely happened. -If this apparent fatality were confined to the economic world alone, he -would have been willing to censure civilization, and take his chance -dumbly, blindly, with the rest. He had not found it so. On the contrary, -he had found the same caprice, the same rule of mere casualty, in the -world which we suppose to be ordered by law—the world of thinking, the -world of feeling. Who knew why or how this or that thought came, this or -that feeling? Then, in that world where we lived in the spirit, was -wrong always punished, was right always rewarded?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_375" id="page_375">{375}</a></span> We must own that we -often saw the good unhappy, and the wicked enjoying themselves. This was -not just; yet somehow we felt, we knew, that justice ruled the universe. -Nothing, then, that seemed chance was really chance. It was the -operation of a law so large that we caught a glimpse of its vast orbit -once or twice in a lifetime. It was Providence.</p> - -<p>The car rushed on through the night with its succession of smooth -impulses. The thought of the old friends he should soon meet began to -dispossess the cares and questions that had ridden him; the notion of -certain girls at Midland haunted him sweetly, warmly. He told that one -who first read his story all about Peace Hughes, and she said they had -never really been in love, for love was eternal. After a while he -drowsed, and then he heard her saying that he had got that notion of the -larger law from old Kane. Then it was not he, and not she. It was -nothing.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD OF CHANCE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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