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A Black Adonis

by Linn Boyd Porter · English · Gutenberg #26599 · 461,732 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Black Adonis

Author: Linn Boyd Porter


        
Release date: September 12, 2008 [eBook #26599]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26599

Credits: E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown, and the Project Gutenberg
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Transcriber's note:

   Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
   as possible; please see detailed list of printing issues at the
   end of the text.





A BLACK ADONIS.

by

ALBERT ROSS.


       *       *       *       *       *

  THE
  ALBATROSS NOVELS

  By ALBERT ROSS

  23 Volumes

  May be had wherever books are sold at the price you paid for this volume

    Black Adonis, A
    Garston Bigamy, The
    Her Husband's Friend
    His Foster Sister
    His Private Character
    In Stella's Shadow
    Love at Seventy
    Love Gone Astray
    Moulding a Maiden
    Naked Truth, The
    New Sensation, A
    Original Sinner, An
    Out of Wedlock
    Speaking of Ellen
    Stranger Than Fiction
    Sugar Princess, A
    That Gay Deceiver
    Their Marriage Bond
    Thou Shalt Not
    Thy Neighbor's Wife
    Why I'm Single
    Young Fawcett's Mabel
    Young Miss Giddy

  G. W. DILLINGHAM CO.
  Publishers  ::  ::   New York

       *       *       *       *       *


A BLACK ADONIS.

by

ALBERT ROSS.

Author of
 "Out of Wedlock," "Speaking of Ellen," "Thou Shalt Not,"
 "Why I'm Single," "Love at Seventy," Etc., Etc.


   "You see!" he answered, bitterly. "Because I am black I
   cannot touch the hand of a woman that is white. And yet you
   say the Almighty made of one blood all nations of the
   earth!"--Page 212.





New York:
Copyright, 1896, by G. W. Dillingham.
G. W. Dillingham Co., Publishers.
[All rights reserved.]





CONTENTS.

 Chapter                                         Page

      I. A Rejected Manuscript                      9

     II. "Was my story too bold?"                  23

    III. "Her feet were pink"                      35

     IV. With Titian Tresses                       49

      V. Studying Miss Millicent                   65

     VI. "How the women stare!"                    79

    VII. A Dinner at Midlands                      93

   VIII. Holding Her Hand                          99

     IX. "Daisy, my darling!"                     110

      X. "Oh, so many, many maids!"               121

     XI. Archie Pays Attention                    136

    XII. Dining at Isaac's                        143

   XIII. A Question of Color                      155

    XIV. "Let us have a betrayal"                 166

     XV. The Green-Eyed Monster                   177

    XVI. "I've had such luck!"                    190

   XVII. A Burglar in the House                   198

  XVIII. Black and White                          204

    XIX. "Play out your farce"                    215

     XX. Like a Stuck Pig                         226

    XXI. "We want Millie to understand"           238

   XXII. Where Was Daisy?                         246

  XXIII. An Awful Night                           254

   XXIV. "This ends it, then?"                    263

    XXV. An Undiscoverable Secret                 273

   XXVI. "I played, and I lost"                   282

  XXVII. Absolutely Blameless                     292

 XXVIII. Trapping a Wolf                          301

   XXIX. "The Greatest Novel"                     309




TO MY READERS.


I do not know how better to use the space that the printer always leaves
me in this part of the book than to redeem the promise I made at the end
of my last novel, and tell you in a few words what became of Blanche
Brixton Fantelli and her husband.

But, do you really need to be told?

Could they have done anything else than live in connubial felicity,
after the man had proved himself so noble and the woman had learned to
appreciate him at his true worth?

Well, whether they could or not, they didn't. Blanche is the happiest of
wedded wives. She still holds to her theory that marriage is based on
wrong principles, and that the contract as ordinarily made is
frightfully immoral; but she says if all men were like "her Jules" there
would be no trouble.

In this she proves herself essentially feminine. She is learning, albeit
a little late, that man was not made to live alone, and that the love a
mother feels for her child is not the only one that brings joy to a
woman's breast.

Fantelli does not claim that Blanche is his property. He is her lover
still, even though he has gained the law's permission to be her master.
He recognizes that she has rights in herself that are inviolable. This
is why they live together so contentedly. She would not be his mate on
any other terms.

If it is not the ideal existence, it is very near it. As near as a man
and woman who care for the world's opinion can live it in these days.

And now, with heartfelt thanks for the continued favor of the reading
public, which I am conscious is far beyond my desert, I bid a temporary
farewell to American shores. By the time this book is on the shelves of
the dealers I shall be on European soil, there to remain, I trust, for
the better part of a year. Wherever I am, my thoughts will always turn
to you who have made these journeys possible, and there as here my pen
will continue devoted to your service.

  ALBERT ROSS.

  Cambridge, Mass.,
    _June 1, 1895._




A BLACK ADONIS.




CHAPTER I.

A REJECTED MANUSCRIPT.


"A letter for Mr. Roseleaf," he heard his landlady say to the
chambermaid. And he was quite prepared to hear the girl reply, in a tone
of surprise:

"For Mr. Roseleaf! This is the first letter he has had since he came."

The young man referred to stood just within his chamber door, waiting
with some anxiety for the letter to be brought to him. He was about
twenty years of age, of medium height, with rather dark complexion,
curling hair and expressive eyes, and with a natural delicacy of manner
that made him seem almost feminine at first view.

He had the greatest possible interest in the letter that the postman had
just brought, but he was far too polite to disturb the landlady or her
servant, who were not yet through with it.

"You can see that it is from a publishing house," commented Mrs.
Ranning, inspecting the envelope with care. "It is from Cutt & Slashem,
who bring out more novels than any other firm in the city. I told you he
was some kind of a writer. Perhaps they are going to publish a book for
him! If they do he will leave us for finer quarters. Novelists make a
mint of money, I have heard. We must do our best to keep him as long as
we can. Be very polite to him, Nellie. He appears to be an excellent
young man."

Shirley Roseleaf's anxiety to get possession of his letter was not
lessened by this conversation. It seemed as if his entire future hung on
the contents of that envelope tarrying so long in Nellie's hands. The
great publishers, Cutt & Slashem, had had a manuscript of his in their
hands for nearly a fortnight. When they had definitely accepted it, his
path would be perfectly clear. If they rejected it--but he had not got
so far as that.

The manuscript was a romance--a romance of love! Its author had spent a
great deal of time upon it. He had rewritten it with care, and finally
made a neat copy, of which he was very proud. Then he had thought a long
time over the question of a publishing firm. Cutt & Slashem stood at the
top of their profession, and they finally received the preference. With
the MSS. Roseleaf sent a pretty note, in which he included a delicate
compliment on their success. The MSS. and the note were arranged
tastefully in a neat white package and tied with pink twine.

After all of those precautions it is no wonder that the novelist felt
surprise when days passed and no reply was sent to him. But never at any
time was he discouraged. Had they intended to reject the novel, he
reasoned, they could as easily have done so in three days as ten.

He pictured the members of the firm hugging themselves over their good
fortune, passing the manuscript from one to the other, all eager for a
taste of such a marvelous work. He did not think it egotism to believe
they did not get stories like that every day.

His thoughts flew rapidly as Nellie slowly climbed the stairs. Now he
would be famous, he would be courted, he would be envied! He would also
be very, very rich, though that was not of so much account.

As Nellie handed him the letter he responded to her pleasant smile with
one of his own, and even pressed a twenty-five cent piece into her hand.
Then he closed his door behind him, bolting it in his eagerness to be
alone. The morning was foggy, and he sank into a chair by the window,
the only part of the room where he could see to read distinctly.

There was an attraction about the envelope. It was light buff in color,
bearing the address of Cutt & Slashem in large letter on one side of the
front face, besides the names of several of the most famous authors
whose publishers the firm had the happiness to be.

"Shirley Roseleaf!" It would not look so badly in print.

So lost was he in the pleasant pictures which these thoughts conjured
up that it was some minutes before he tore open the envelope. Then his
astounded eyes rested upon these lines:

      "Messrs. Cutt & Slashem regret to be obliged to decline
      with thanks the MSS. of M. Shirley Roseleaf, and request to
      be informed what disposition he desires made of the same."

Roseleaf read this dizzily. For some moments he could not understand
what that sentence meant. "Obliged to decline" was plain enough; but his
confused mind found some grains of comfort in the request of the firm to
know what he wished done with his manuscript. They must, he reasoned,
consider it of value, or they would not respond in that courteous
manner. Still, he could not comprehend how they had had the asininity to
"decline" it at all.

Were they unwilling to add another star to their galaxy?

Could they actually have read the tale?

A firm of their reputation, too!

When Roseleaf emerged from his temporary stupor it was into a state of
great indignation. Why, the men were fools! He wished heartily he had
never gone to them. They would yet see the day when, with tears in their
eyes, they would regret their lack of judgment. His first act should be
to go to their office and express his opinion of their stupidity, and
then he would take his MSS. to some rival house. And never, never in the
world--after he had become famous, and when every publisher on both
sides of the Atlantic were besieging him--never, he said, should these
ignorant fellows get a scrap of his writing, not even if they offered
its weight in gold!

He was too excited for delay, and donning his hat, he took his way with
all speed to Cutt & Slashem's office. At that instant he had more faith
in his novel than ever. As he walked rapidly along he compared it with
some of the stories issued by the firm that had rejected it, to the
great disadvantage of the latter.

"I wish to see Mr. Cutt or Mr. Slashem," he said, imperiously, as he
entered the counting room.

"Both are in," said the office boy, imperturbably. "Which will you
have?"

"I will see them together."

Had they been tigers, fresh from an Indian jungle, it would have made no
difference to him.

The boy asked for his card, vanished with it, returned and bade him
follow. Up a flight of stairs they went, then to the left, then to the
right, then across a little hall. A door with the name of the house and
the additional word "Private" loomed before them.

"Come in!" was heard in response to the knock of the office boy.

Roseleaf entered, something slower than a cannon ball, and yet
considerably faster than a snail. The two principal members of the firm
were sitting together, with lighted cigars in their mouths, examining a
lot of paper samples that lay upon a table. They did no more at first
than glance up and nod, not having finished the business upon which
they were engaged.

"Is it any better than the last?" asked Mr. Slashem, referring to the
sample his partner was examining.

"It's just as good, at least," was the answer. "And an eighth of a cent
a pound less. I think we had better order five hundred reams."

"Five hundred reams," repeated the other, slowly, making a memorandum in
a little book that he carried. "And the other lot we'll wait about, eh?
Paper is not very steady. It's gone off a sixteenth since Thursday."

This conversation only served to infuriate still more the visitor who
stood waiting to pour out his wrath. Were these men wasting time over
fractions of a cent in the price of stock, just after they had rejected
one of the greatest romances of modern times!

With the precision of a duplex machine both partners finally looked up
from the table at the young man.

"Mr. Shirley Roseleaf?" said Mr. Slashem, interrogatively, glancing at
the card that the office boy had brought.

"Yes, sir!" was the sharp and disdainful reply.

"We need nothing in your line," interrupted Mr. Cutt. "I suppose Mr.
Trimm has our other order well under way?"

The look of indignant protest that appeared in Roseleaf's face caused
Mr. Slashem to speak.

"This is not Mr. Roseberg," he explained. "My partner took you for an
agent of our bookbinder," he added.

The novelist thought his skin would burst.

"I am quite complimented," he said, in an icy tone. "Let me introduce
myself. I am the author of 'Evelyn's Faith.'"

The partners consulted each other.

"The similarity of names confused me," said Mr. Cutt. "Is your book one
that we have published?"

Saints and angels!

"It is one that was sent to you _for_ publication," replied Roseleaf,
with much heat, "and has been returned this morning--_rejected_!"

"Ah!" said Mr. Cutt.

"We have nothing to do with that department," said Mr. Slashem, coming
to the rescue. "You should see Mr. Gouger, on the second floor above;
though if he has rejected your story a visit would be quite useless. He
never decides a matter without sufficient reason."

"Oh, dear, no!" added Mr. Cutt, feeling again of the paper samples.

Shirley Roseleaf listened with wild incredulity.

"Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that you, the members of the firm of
Cutt & Slashem, have rejected my story without even reading it?"

The partners glanced at each other again.

"We never read books," said Mr. Cutt.

"Never," said Mr. Slashem, kindly. "We have things much more important
to attend to. We pay Mr. Gouger a large salary. Why, my young friend,
there are probably a dozen manuscripts received at our office every
week. If we were to try to _read_ them, who do you think would attend
to the _essential_ points of our business?"

Roseleaf's contempt for the concern was increasing at lightning speed.
He did not care to mince his words, for it could make no difference now.

"I should imagine that the selection of the books you are to print would
be at least as important as the paper you are to use," he retorted.

Mr. Cutt looked at him in great astonishment.

"You are much mistaken," said he.

"Entirely mistaken," confirmed Mr. Slashem.

The author had no desire to remain longer, as it was evident he was
losing his temper to no purpose. If it was Mr. Gouger who had rejected
his work, it was Mr. Gouger that he must see.

Bowing with ironical grace to the examiners of printing paper, he took
leave of them, and mounted to the sanctum of the man who he had been
told was the arbiter of his fate. A girl with soiled hands pointed out
the room, for there was nothing to indicate it upon the dingy panel of
the door; and presently Roseleaf stood in the presence of the individual
he believed at that moment his worst enemy.

There were two men in the room. One of them indicated with a motion of
his hand that the other was the one wanted, and with a second motion
that the caller might be seated. Mr. Gouger was partly hidden behind a
desk, engaged in turning over a heap of manuscript, and it appeared from
the manner of his companion that he did not wish to be disturbed.

Somewhat cooled down by this state of affairs, the young novelist took
the chair indicated and waited several minutes.

"What d--d nonsense they are sending me these days!" exclaimed Mr.
Gouger at last, thrusting the sheets he had been scanning back into the
wrapper in which they had come, without, however, raising his eyes from
his desk. "Out of a hundred stories I read, not three are fit to build a
fire with! This thing is written by a girl who ought to take a term in a
grammar school. She has no more idea of syntax than a lapdog. Her father
writes that he is willing to pay a reasonable sum to have it brought
out. Why, Cutt & Slashem couldn't afford to put their imprint on that
rot for fifty thousand dollars!"

He had finished saying this before he learned that a third person was in
the room. Upon making this discovery he lowered his voice, as if
regretting having exhibited too great warmth before a stranger. The
novelist rose and handed him a card, and as Mr. Gouger glanced at the
name a gleam of recognition lit up his face.

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Roseleaf," he said. "I had half a notion to
ask you to call, when I felt obliged to send you that note yesterday.
There are several things I would like to say to you. Archie, perhaps you
would let us have the room for a few minutes."

The last remark was addressed familiarly to the man who occupied the
third chair, and who looked so disheartened at the prospect of having to
rise therefrom that Roseleaf hastened to express a hope that he would
not do so on his account.

"Very well," said Mr. Gouger, abruptly. "You heard what I said about
this copy I have just read, though it was not my intention that you
should. I supposed I was talking only to Mr. Weil, who is not in the
profession and does not expect to be. Now, let me say at once, Mr.
Roseleaf, that your contribution is not open to any of the objections I
have cited. You have evidently been well educated. Your English is pure
and forcible. It is a real delight to read your pages. Every line shows
the greatest care in construction. I did with your story what I have not
done with another for a long time--I read it through. Why then did I
reject it?"

The question was too great for the one most interested to answer, but in
the glow of pleasure that the compliment brought he forgot for the
moment his bitter feelings.

"Possibly," he suggested, "Cutt & Slashem have more novels on hand than
they feel like producing at present."

"No," responded Mr. Gouger, disposing of that theory in one breath. "A
house like ours would never reject a really desirable manuscript. If you
will reflect that only one or two of this description are produced each
year you will the more readily understand me. Your story has a cardinal
fault for which no excellence of style or finish can compensate. Shall I
tell you what it is, and before this gentleman?"

He indicated Mr. Weil as he spoke. Roseleaf's heart sank. For the first
time he felt a deadly fear.

"Tell me, by all means," he responded, faintly.

Mr. Gouger's face bore its gentlest expression at that moment. He was
taking valuable time, time that belonged to his employers, to say
something that must temporarily disappoint, though in the end it might
benefit his hearer.

"Let me repeat," he said, "that your work is well written, and that I
have read it with the greatest interest. Its fault--an insuperable
one--is that it lacks fidelity to nature. Mr. Roseleaf, I think I could
gauge your past life with tolerable accuracy merely from what that
manuscript reveals."

The novelist shook his head. There was not a line of autobiography in
those pages, and he told his critic so.

"Oh, I understand," replied Mr. Gouger. "But this I have learned: Your
life has been marvelously colorless. Yet, in spite of that, you have
undertaken to write of things of which you know nothing, and about
which, I may add, you have made very poor guesses."

Mr. Weil, leaning back in his chair, began to show a decided interest.
Mr. Roseleaf, sitting upright, in an attitude of strained attention,
inquired what Mr. Gouger meant.

"Well, for instance, this," responded the critic: "You attempt to depict
the sensations of love, though you have never had a passion. Can you
expect to know how it feels to hold a beautiful girl in your arms, when
you never had one there? You put words of temptation into the mouth of
your villain which no real scamp would think of using, for their only
effect would be to alarm your heroine. You talk of a planned seduction
as if it were part of an oratorio. And you make your hero so
superlatively pure and sweet that no woman formed of flesh and blood
could endure him for an hour."

The color mounted to Roseleaf's face. He felt that this criticism was
not without foundation. But presently he rallied, and asked if it were
necessary for a man to experience every sensation before he dared write
about them.

"Do you suppose," he asked, desperately, "that Jules Verne ever traveled
sixty thousand leagues under the sea or made a journey to the moon?"

Mr. Weil could not help uttering a little laugh. Mr. Gouger struck his
hands together and clinched them.

"No," said he. "But he could have written neither of those wonderful
tales without a knowledge of the sciences of which they treat."

"He has read, and I have read," responded Roseleaf. "What is the
difference?"

"He has studied, and you have not," retorted the critic. "That makes all
the difference in the world. He has a correct idea of the structure of
the moon and what should be found in the unexplored caverns of the
ocean; while you, in total ignorance, have attempted to deal in a
science to which these are the merest bagatelles! You know as little of
the tides that control the heart of a girl as you do of the personal
history of the inhabitants of Jupiter! Your powers of description are
good; those of invention feeble. Either throw yourself into a love
affair, till you have learned it root and branch, or never again try to
depict one."

Mr. Archie Weil smiled and nodded, as if he entirely agreed with the
speaker.

"What a novel _I_ could make, my dear fellow!" he exclaimed, "if I only
had the talent. I have had experiences enough, but I could no more write
them out than I could fly."

"It is quite as well," was the response, "your women would all be
Messalinas and fiction has too many now."

"Not _all_ of them, Lawrence," was the quick and meaning reply.

"In that case," said Gouger, "I wish heartily you could write. The world
is famishing for a real love story, based on modern lines, brought up to
date. I tell you, there has been nothing satisfactory in that line since
Goethe's day."

Mr. Weil suggested Balzac and Sand.

"Why don't you include George William Reynolds?" inquired Gouger, with a
sneer. "Neither of them wrote until they were depraved by contract with
humanity. If we could get a young man of true literary talent to see
life and write of it as he went along, what might we not secure? But I
have no more time to spare, Mr. Roseleaf. I was sorry to be obliged to
reject your story. Some day, when you have seen just a little of the
world, begin again on the lines I have outlined, and come here with the
result."

Quite dispirited, now that the last plank had slipped from under him,
the novelist walked slowly down the stairs. He did not even ask for his
manuscript. After what he had heard, it did not seem worth carrying to
his lodgings. His plans were shipwrecked. Instead of the fame and
fortune he had hoped for, he felt the most bitter disappointment. All
his bright dreams had vanished.

A step behind him quicker than his own, made him aware that some one was
following him, and presently a voice called his name. It was Mr. Archie
Weil, who had put himself to unusual exertion, and required some seconds
to recover his breath before he could speak further.

"I want you to come over to my hotel and have a little talk with me," he
said. "Gouger has interested me in you immensely. I believe, as he says,
that you have the making of a distinguished author, and I want to
arrange a plan by which you can carry out his scheme."

Mr. Roseleaf stared doubtfully at his companion.

"What scheme?" he said, briefly.

"Why, of imparting to you that knowledge of the world which will enable
you to draw truthful portraits. You have the art, he says, the talent,
the capacity--whatever you choose to call it. All you lack is
experience. Given that, you would make a reputation second to none. What
can be plainer than that you should acquire the thing you need without
delay?"

"The 'thing I need'?" repeated Roseleaf, dolefully.

Mr. Weil laughed, delightfully.

"Yes!" he explained. "What you need is a friend able to interest you, to
begin with. Pardon me if I say I may be described by that phrase. Come
to my hotel a little while and let us talk it over."

It was not an opportunity to be refused, in Roseleaf's depressed
condition, and the two men walked together to the Hoffman House, where
Mr. Weil at that time made his home.




CHAPTER II.

"WAS MY STORY TOO BOLD?"


"Well, Millie, your letter has come," said Mr. Wilton Fern, as he
entered the parlor of his pleasant residence, situated about twenty
miles from the limits of New York City. "Open it as quick as you can,
and learn your fate."

His daughter started nervously from her seat near the window, where she
had been spending the previous hour in speculations regarding the very
missive that was now placed in her hands. She was a handsome girl,
neither blonde nor brunette, with eyes of hazel gray and hair of that
color that moderns call Titian red. She took the envelope that her
father gave her, and though she wanted intensely to know the contents
she hesitated to open it.

"Read it, Millie," smiled Mr. Fern. "Let us learn whether we have an
authoress in our house who is destined to become famous."

But this remark made Miss Millicent less willing than before to open the
letter in her father's presence. She slowly left the room without
answering and did not break the seal of her communication till she was
in the seclusion of her chamber.

And it was quite a while, even then, before she summoned the necessary
courage. Some days previous she had sent a MSS. to the great publishing
house of Cutt & Slashem. The writing had taken up the best of her time
for a year. She had high hopes that it was destined to lay the
foundation of an artistic success. Her plot was novel, not to say
startling. It was entirely out of the conventional order. It would be
certain to arouse talk and provoke comment, if it got into print; and to
make sure that it _would_ get into print she had persuaded her father to
write a little note, which she enclosed with the MSS., saying that he
would pay a cash bonus, if the firm demanded it, to guarantee them
against possible loss.

With this note in her mind, Miss Millicent had felt little doubt that
her story would be accepted and printed. She only wondered how warmly
they would praise her work. It was not enough to have them print it; she
wanted something to justify her in saying to her father, "There, you see
I was not wrong after all in thinking I could have a literary career!"

At last the envelope was removed, and the girl's astonished eyes lit
upon this cold, dry statement:

      "Messrs. Cutt & Slashem regret to be obliged to decline
      with thanks the MSS. of Miss M. Fern, and request to be
      informed what disposition she desires made of the same."

Millicent felt a ringing in her ears. Her hands grew clammy. A dull pain
pressed on her forehead. She felt a faintness, a sinking at the heart.
Was it possible she had read aright? Rejected, in this cruel way,
without even a reference to her father's offer! It was atrocious, and,
girl-like, she burst into a spasm of weeping.

How could she ever face her father? The sacrifices she had made came
back to her, sacrifices of which she had thought little at the time, but
which now seemed gigantic. There had been nights when she had not gone
to bed till three, other nights when she had been too full of her
subject to sleep and had risen in the small hours to finish some
particularly interesting chapter. Twelve hundred pages there were in
all, note size, in her large, round, almost masculine hand. And this
time was all lost! She had mistaken her vocation. The greatest
publishing house in the country had decided against her.

Gradually she dried her eyes. It would do no good to weep. She read the
curt answer that had come in the mail, a dozen times. Why could not the
firm have sent her a reason, an excuse that meant something? She wanted
to know wherein her fault lay. It might be possible to correct it.
Perhaps the state of business was to blame. The more she thought, the
more determined she grew to investigate this strange affair, and within
an hour she had donned her street clothes and started, without saying
anything to the rest of the household of her intention, for the office
of Cutt & Slashem in the city.

She knew that each large concern had one or more "readers," on whose
judgment they relied in such matters. She, therefore, paused only long
enough at the counting-room to get directed to Mr. Gouger. Her knock on
the critic's door brought forth a loud "Come in," and as she entered she
saw two men standing with hats in their hand, as if about to take their
departure.

"I beg your pardon," she said, "but I wish to see Mr. Gouger."

"That is my name," responded one of the men, stepping forward.

"I am Miss Fern."

Mr. Gouger did not seem very glad to hear it. The hour of one had just
struck, and he was about to go to his lunch. He recognized the girl's
name, as that of the author of the MSS. he had criticized so severely to
his friend, Weil, who was, by-the-way, the third person in the room at
this moment. Had she sent up her card, as is usual with women, he would
have avoided seeing her at any hazard.

Mr. Weil took a long survey of the young lady, and then retired to the
vicinity of the front windows. He pretended to interest himself in the
rush of traffic that was going on in the street below, but he missed
nothing of what was said, and stole from time to time a glance at his
two companions, particularly the younger one.

"A mighty pretty girl," was his mental comment. "I hope Lawrence isn't
going to be nasty with her."

Mr. Gouger motioned Miss Fern rather stiffly to a seat.

"I do not wish to detain you," she said, with feminine inconsistency, as
she accepted it. "I only want to know, if you will be so kind as to tell
me, what is the trouble with my story."

The critic was pleased at one thing. Miss Fern's voice was reasonably
clear. She had finished her weeping at home. There was to be no scene,
something he dreaded, and in the course of his connection with this
house he had experienced scores of them. He inspected his caller
critically in the few seconds that elapsed while she was asking this
question, and when she paused he decided to answer her with as much of
the truth as he dared use.

"The fact is," he began, "a firm like ours is unable to use more than
one novel out of fifty that is submitted to it. Of our friends who send
us manuscripts, the vast majority must, therefore, be disappointed. Now,
your story--shall I be frank?"

"By all means," answered Miss Fern.

"Your story, though written with spirit and power, needs a great deal of
revision from a--from a rhetorical standpoint. It is, in fact,
carelessly put together. That is a cardinal fault in a literary
production, and one for which no amount of talent, or even of genius,
can compensate."

The girl listened with deep interest. She tried to think where the
blemishes alluded to could be, for she had read the story twenty times.
To say nothing of several girl friends, who had listened with evident
wonder and delight, to various parts of the tale, as it progressed.

"If that is true," answered Miss Fern, slowly--, "could not the trouble
be remedied by sending the MSS. to some very competent person and having
the errors made right?"

Mr. Gouger smiled.

"Hardly," he said. "A novel is like a painting. The _ensemble_--do you
understand?--is the thing. Can you conceive a painting being 'done
over'? Your book would lose its quality if subjected to that process."

A look of discouragement crossed the features of the young woman.

"Of course, you know best," she stammered. "What would you advise
me--try again?"

Mr. Gouger raised both his hands.

"It is difficult to say, in such a case," he replied. "But--if you want
my best opinion--"

"That is just what I want," said the girl, with ill-concealed
impatience.

"You are not dependent upon your exertions, I suppose, for a living?"

Millicent shook her head, almost sorry at the moment that she could not
reply in the affirmative.

"Then--I should give up the idea of being an authoress."

This was very unpalatable medicine, and the critic realized it as he
looked at the sombre face before him.

"Is your rejection of my story based at all," asked Miss Fern, after a
pause, "on the--boldness of its subject?"

Mr. Gouger smiled again.

"We publish the works of Hall Caine and George Moore," he said. "I
should not consider your story overbold, if there was nothing else
against it. It is a wonder to me, and always will be, why such young
girls as you choose _risque_ themes, but if the work is well done the
public will pay for it."

There was a slight blush on Miss Fern's face, partly at the insinuation
and partly at the adverse criticism that had crept thoughtlessly into
the sentence.

"For my part," she explained, "I wanted to write something that would
attract attention--that would put my name prominently before the public
and keep it there. The girls I read it to thought the scenes just
lovely, though some said perhaps their mothers would not feel that way.
And I told them that the mothers of to-day were very old-fashioned, and
that the public taste was changing rapidly. If the story is too bold,
there are things I could cut out of it, but if you say that would make
no difference, I would rather let them stand. I intend to try some other
concern before I give up."

Mr. Archie Weil had abandoned all pretence of looking out the window. He
stood with his eyes fastened on the pretty girl, as she made these
statements in such a matter-of-fact way. He wondered what the dickens
the story was about, and made up his mind that he would try to get
possession of it.

"All the same," responded Mr. Gouger, who had apparently forgotten his
lunch in his growing interest in the conversation, "I don't see where
girls like you obtain such an intimate knowledge of things. You are not
over twenty--excuse me, I am old enough to tell you this without
offence. It is not you alone, but a hundred others who have made me ask
myself this question. As soon as the modern girl gets a bottle of ink
and a pen and begins to let her thoughts flow over paper, it transpires
that she knows everything--more than everything, almost. Why, I was
twenty-five before I was as wise as the heroine of sixteen, in this
story of yours!"

Miss Fern reddened again, all the more because she had glanced up and
encountered the bright eyes of Mr. Weil fixed upon her.

"Why, Archie," pursued the literary man--he turned toward Mr. Weil--"you
remember Lelia Dante, you have seen her here. Five or six years ago I
got a letter from that young girl's mother asking me to come to their
residence and hear a story she had written. It was her first one, and
the child was not a day over seventeen. I couldn't believe it when she
came into the room, with her hair tumbled about her shoulders, and began
to read to me the first chapter of 'Zaros.' 'Did _she_ write that?' I
asked her mother, incredulously. 'Certainly,' she replied. 'Without aid
from any one?' 'Absolutely alone.' My hair stood on end. I could not
keep it down for the next week with a brush. You know the story. We
printed it, and it sold well, and that is all that C. & S. cared about
it; but I never understood how that infant could conceive it. No more
than I can understand your ability to write this story of yours, Miss
Fern," he added, pointedly.

The young woman bridled a little.

"It does not matter much, if you are not going to print it," she said,
raising her eyes to his.

He bowed low to express whatever apology might be necessary.

"I would have accepted it if I could," he said. "My entire life is spent
in reading manuscripts in the hope of discovering one that will make a
hit with the public to whom we cater. When successful I am as pleased as
a South African who fishes a diamond of the first water out of the mine.
Your story, Miss Fern, shows decided talent. You have a greater
knowledge of some of the important things of life, I will wager, than
your grandmother had at eighty, if she lived so long. As I am obliged to
go now, let me add, without mincing matters, that you are very deficient
in English grammar, and that nothing you can write will be acceptable to
any first-class house until that fault is remedied. Are you ready,
Archie?"

Mr. Weil felt indignant. He could not have spoken to any girl as pretty
as this one in such language, and he thought it quite inexcusable on the
part of his friend to do so. Mr. Gouger, though feeling that it was best
to use little circumlocution, had not meant to wound his caller. But
her countenance showed that he _had_ wounded her, and the natural
gallantry of his younger companion came to the rescue.

"I am not ready yet," said Mr. Weil, telegraphing at the same time a
series of signals with his eyes. "I want a few minutes' talk with Miss
Fern, if you will introduce me. I think I can say something she will
like to hear."

Mr. Gouger, who now stood in such a position that Miss Fern could not
see him, shook his head to imply that he did not fancy this arrangement;
but he ended by saying, "Very well." He then abruptly made the
presentation, put on his hat, said good-by, and vanished.

Miss Millicent, who had risen, turned with an air of puzzled inquiry
toward Mr. Weil.

"Be seated again, for a moment," he said, politely. "I want your
permission to read your story."

"Why, I don't know," she answered. "Are you one of the employes of Cutt
& Slashem?"

He smilingly denied the imputation.

"I have not that felicity," he added, "but I am much interested in
things literary, and have a rather wide acquaintance in this line of
business. If I could be allowed to read your MSS. perhaps I should form
a milder opinion of its faults than my unbending friend. And in that
case a word from me, to another house, would certainly do you no harm."

A brighter light came into Miss Millicent's eyes.

"I shall be only too glad to have you read it," she answered. "It is
hard to believe that I have wasted almost a year in something entirely
worthless. You may take it with pleasure."

Mr. Weil went to Mr. Gouger's desk, from which he soon came with the
parcel in question. He untied the string and for a moment his gaze
rested on the handwriting.

"Do you live far from here?" he began; and then added, as he noticed the
address on an enclosed card, "Ah, I see! At Midlands."

She explained herself rather more to him, giving the full address of her
father, and some particulars about the manner in which she had been
drawn into attempting literary work. He listened intently, all the time
engaged in rapid thought.

"The best way for me to get a thoroughly correct impression of this
novel," he said, when she came to a pause, "is to hear you read it
aloud. In that manner," he added, as he saw that she was about to
interrupt, "a hundred meanings would come to the surface that a mere
inspection of the pages might fail to show. Beside, there would be an
opportunity for discussion. If convenient to you I would gladly come to
your residence for this purpose."

The eyes of the young girl brightened. She was greatly pleased at the
idea and said so without delay.

"Very well," said Mr. Weil, more than delighted with the success of his
experiment. "To-day is Tuesday; shall I come for the first time, say,
Thursday evening?"

"That would suit me perfectly; or to-morrow, if you wish. I shall put
aside everything and have my time free for you."

Mr. Weil nodded.

"Let it be Thursday then. And the hour--shall we call it eight?"

The time was promptly agreed to.

"In the meantime, I will take the MSS. and look it over, to form a
general idea of the plot. Here is my card. By-the-way, you will of
course arrange it so that we shall not be interrupted during our
conference. It disturbs anything of that kind to have people coming in
and out. We want to be entirely alone so as to give our full attention
to the work in hand."

Miss Fern smilingly acquiesced, saying that it was exactly what she
would wish.

"And do you think there may be hope for it yet--that poor little
manuscript?" she asked, as she stood by the door ready to take her
departure.

"That is a question I can hardly answer," he replied. "I shall be better
able to tell you in a week or two, I trust."

She lingered, with her hand on the door knob.

"My father is willing to take all the financial risks," she said. "That
ought to make a difference, don't you think so?"

"It would, with many houses," he admitted. "I am glad to know these
things. Thursday, then, Miss--Miss Fern."

He wanted to call her "Millicent," for he had read the name on the
package he still held in his hand; but on the whole he concluded that
this would be a little premature.




CHAPTER III.

"HER FEET WERE PINK."


When Miss Millicent Fern entered the office of Lawrence Gouger, as
detailed in the preceding chapter, it will be remembered that she found
that gentleman and his friend, Archie Weil, with their hats in their
hands. The fact was that Mr. Weil had but just entered the room, and
that Mr. Gouger had accepted an invitation to take lunch with him, an
arrangement that was by no means an infrequent one between them. The
entrance of Miss Fern, and the subsequent proceedings, compelled the
literary critic to go out alone, as has been seen. When he returned he
found Mr. Weil still there.

"Haven't you been to lunch yet!" exclaimed Mr. Gouger.

"I have not been out of this office," was the reply, "and all appetite
for anything to eat has left me. Lawrence, that is one of the most
interesting girls I ever met."

Mr. Gouger pursed up his lips, and uttered an impatient, "Pah!" He then
remarked that Mr. Weil had a habit of finding such a quality in the
latest women of his acquaintance.

"What does she amount to?" he asked. "An overgrown schoolgirl, who did
not half learn her lessons. Read that MSS. she left here, and get
disillusionized in short order. Why, she doesn't even know how to
spell, and her periods and commas are in a hopeless tangle."

His companion eyed him quizzically.

"Are periods and commas, even a correct spelling of the English
language, the only things you can see in a bright, handsome girl?" he
demanded. "For shame, Lawrence! You are a dried-up old mummy. Your
senses are numb. A lively wind will come in at the keyhole some day and
blow you out of that chimney."

Mr. Gouger heaved a sigh, as if to say that discussion with such a
nonsensical fellow was useless, and took his seat at his desk, where an
unfinished pile of MSS. awaited his reading.

"She's given me leave to take her story home," said Mr. Weil, with a
mischievous expression.

The critic stared at his friend.

"Given it to you?" he repeated. "How did that happen?"

"I asked her for it, naturally. You were so severe on the poor child,
that I couldn't help putting in a cheering word. We talked of the whole
business, and she was willing I should see if my opinion agreed with
yours."

"_Your_ opinion!" echoed Gouger, testily. "What is that worth? But take
the stuff, if you want it, and when you are done, send it to her; it
will make less rubbish in this confounded hole. One thing I'll tell you,
though, in advance. You'll never be able to make sense of it, unless you
get some one to straighten it out."

"That's all right," replied the other. "After I have read it through, I
am going to Miss Fern's house, where she will read it to me."

Mr. Gouger started from his chair.

"You don't mean that!" he exclaimed.

"But I do. She asked me, and I'm going. I understand that it's a rather
bold tale, and I can conceive nothing more entertaining than to hear
that kind of thing from the red lips of such a pretty piece of flesh and
blood as has just left here."

There was an uneasy expression on the face of the critic as he heard
these words. He liked Weil, although they were as different in their
natures as two men could well be. He wanted to please him, but the
aspect of this affair was not agreeable.

"Look here, Archie," he said, earnestly, "there are some things that I
can't permit, you know. My office must not be made a starting-place for
one of your lawless adventures. You met Miss Fern here. Now, I protest
against your going to her house, pretending that you are interested in
that novel, when your real purpose is of a much more questionable kind."

Mr. Weil put on the air of one whose feelings are lacerated by an unjust
suspicion.

"My dear Lawrence--" he began.

"That's all right," growled the critic. "I may or may not be your 'dear
Lawrence,' but I know you like--like a book," he added, hitting by
accident on a very excusable simile. "You are an old dog that is not
likely to learn new tricks. I shall send this MSS. back to Miss Fern,
myself, enclosing a letter warning her to have nothing to do with you."

A laugh escaped the lips of Archie Weil at this proposition.

"If you knew the feminine mind half as well as you do modern
literature," he answered, "you would see how little that would avail. I
have met Miss Fern and made a distinctly favorable impression. Her
address is in my pocket, and I have received a pressing invitation to
call. If you choose to send the MSS. by another messenger you will
relieve me of the task of carrying a bundle, but you will accomplish
nothing more."

Mr. Gouger's mouth opened in astonishment at the evident advantage which
his friend had gained in so short a time.

"You must have convinced her that your literary opinions are of value,"
he said, presently. "If I write that you are a charletan and entirely
unworthy of attention, what will happen then?"

The smiling gentleman opposite crossed his hands over his left knee, and
did not delay his answer.

"I will tell you," he said. "In the same mail she will receive a letter
from me, warning her that a certain party, who has given an adverse
judgment on her writings, may attempt to influence her against others
more likely to decide in her favor. She will be told that, having
rejected a book, this certain party does not wish any one else to print
it. Send the severest note you can construct, Lawrence. I have few
talents, but I know how to write letters."

The critic could hardly believe that fate had thrown so many cords
around his neck in the brief space of one hour, but the more he thought
the more he became convinced that his best course was to shut his eyes.

"Well, gang your gait," he said, after a long pause, during which the
look of triumph deepened on his companion's face. "You will have to
answer for your own sins. But I'll tell you one thing, that may save
your time. Women who write racy novels are almost without exception
remarkably correct in their own lives."

Mr. Weil inquired if his friend was certain of this, and there was a
suspicion of disappointment in his tone.

"Absolutely," said Mr. Gouger, refreshing his memory. "I can think of a
dozen instances to prove the point. There is Lelia Dante, for instance,
who writes like a--like a--well, you know how she writes. She sticks to
her mother's apron strings like a four-year-old child. They never are
seen apart, I am told. Then there is Mrs. Helen Walker Wilbur, the
poetess. We have a volume of her verse that is positively combustible
from its own heat. The sheets had to be run off the press soaked in
water to keep them from igniting. The room was full of steam all the
time the work was going on. Warm! I should say so! Now, that woman is
vain, and she dresses foolishly, and she does odd things for the sake of
being talked about--but nobody questions her loyalty to her husband. You
would think by some of her poems that an East Indian regiment would not
suffice for her, and yet she is the straightest wife on Manhattan
Island. Oh, I know so many cases. You remember that girl who wrote,
'Love's Extremities,' a work as passionate as Sappho. She is a little
Quaker-like maiden,[A] who dresses and talks like a sister of one of the
Episcopal guilds. These women are on fire at the brain only. They would
repel a physical advance with more indignation than those endowed with
less esthetic perceptions. So, see Miss Fern as much as you like. Should
you attempt anything improper you will prove the truth of my
assertions."

    [Footnote A: Now dead, alas!--A. R.]

Mr. Weil changed the knee he had been nursing, but the quiet smile did
not leave his countenance.

"What an inconsistent fellow you are, Lawrence," he said. "I could
convict you of a hundred errors of logic. Do you remember telling Mr.
Roseleaf that a man should have a passion before he attempts to depict
one."

"And I say so still," retorted Gouger. "_You_ don't call the ravings of
these poetesses and female novelists real life, do you? _You_ know the
actual lover isn't content with kissing the hair and the feet of his
divinity! There is more about women's _feet_ in these poems and novels
than all the rest of their anatomy put together. And what is a woman's
foot? Did you ever see one that was pretty--that you wanted to put to
your lips?"

"Yes," interrupted Archie, dreamily, "once. At Capri. She was fifteen.
Her feet were pink, like a shell. She was walking along the shore in the
early evening."

"With the dirt of the soil on them!" exclaimed Mr. Gouger, in disgust.

"No, she had just emerged from her bath. The sand there was clean as a
carpet, cleaner, in fact. Gods! They were exquisite!"

The critic uttered an exclamation.

"I waste time talking to you," he said, sharply. "You are like the rest
of the imaginative crowd. It is a pity you were not gifted with the
divine afflatus, that you could have added your volumes to the nonsense
they print."

"And which you are always glad to get," interpolated Mr. Weil.

"Because it will sell. Cutt & Slashem are in this business to make
money, and my thoughts must be directed to the saleable quality of the
manuscripts submitted. If _I_ was running the concern, though, I would
touch the mooney, maundering mess. It makes my flesh creep, sometimes,
to read it."

Archie Weil uttered another of his winsome laughs.

"How would you like to be a serpent," he asked, "and have your flesh
creep all the time? But before we dismiss this matter of Miss Fern, I
want you to clear your mind, if you can, of the haunting suspicions you
always have when a woman is concerned. You know there are concerns in
the city who would print her book, with a proper amount paid down, if it
had neither sense, syntax nor orthography. If she wants it fixed up, I
can find tailors to help her out; and if her papa wants it on the
market, why shouldn't he be able to get it there? Now, let us talk a
little about Roseleaf."

Mr. Gouger brightened at the change of subject. His interest in Mr.
Roseleaf was genuine, and he had already learned that Archie had formed
a sort of copartnership with the novelist, in the hope of making his
future work a success. While the critic could not be said to have any
real faith in the arrangement, it certainly interested him.

"What strange freak will you take to next?" he asked. "And do you really
expect to make a novelist out of that young man?"

Mr. Weil's eyes had a twinkle in them.

"Didn't you say, yourself, that it could be done?" he inquired. "If I
have made any mistake in my investment, I shall charge the loss to you."

The critic reflected a minute.

"I'm not so certain it _can't_ be done," he said. "But that's quite
different from investing money in it, as you are doing. A man wants
pretty near a certainty before he puts up the stuff."

"You greedy fellow!" exclaimed Weil. "Will you never think of anything
but gain? I have to spend about so much money every year, in a continual
attempt to amuse myself, and it might as well be this way as another. I
have a document, signed and solemnly sealed, by which I am to back him
against the field in the interest of romantic and realistic literature,
and in return he is to give me a third of the net profits of his
writings. I don't know that I have done so badly. Perhaps you may live
to see Cutt & Slashem pay us a handsome sum in royalties."

Mr. Gouger looked oddly at his friend, whose face was perfectly serious.

"What are you going to begin with?" he asked.

"Love, of course. It is the A B C, as well as the X Y Z of the whole
business."

"What kind of love?"

"The best that can be got," replied Weil, now laughing in spite of
himself. "The very finest quality in the market. Oh, we shall do this up
brown, I tell you."

"What have you done so far?" asked Gouger.

"You want to know it all, eh?" responded Mr. Weil. "I don't think I am
justified in letting you too deeply into our secrets. However, you are
too honorable to betray us, and so here goes: I have instructed my
protege that he must fall violently under the tender passion before next
Saturday night."

"With a lady whom you have selected, of course?"

"By no means. He must catch his own sweethearts."

Mr. Gouger played with his watchchain.

"And this is Tuesday," he commented. "Do you think he will succeed?"

"He must," laughed Weil. "It's like the case of the boy who was digging
out the woodchuck. 'The minister's coming to dinner.'"

"You might at least have got an introduction for him," said Gouger,
reflectively.

"Not I. There's nothing in our agreement that puts such a task on me.
Besides, there's no romance in an introduction. He would write a story
as prosy as one of Henry James' if he started off like that."

Mr. Gouger nodded his head slowly.

"That would be something to avoid at all hazards," he assented.

And at this juncture, to the surprise of both the parties to this
conversation, the young man of whom they were speaking entered the room.

"I was telling Mr. Gouger of our agreement," said Mr. Weil, as soon as
the greetings were over. "How do you get along? Have you discovered your
heroine yet?"

Mr. Roseleaf answered, with an air of timidity, in the negative.

"I don't quite know where to find one," he said.

Mr. Weil spread out his arms to their fullest capacity.

"There are thirty millions of them in the United States alone," he
exclaimed. "Out of that number you ought to find a few whom you can
study. What a pity that _I_ cannot write! I would go out of that door
and in ten minutes I would have a subject ready for vivisection."

The younger man raised his eyebrows slightly.

"But, that kind of a woman--would be what you would want--the kind that
would let you talk to her on a mere street acquaintance!"

Mr. Weil leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs.

"Oh, yes," he said. "She would do for a beginning. Don't imagine that
none of these easy going girls are worth the attention of a novelist.
Sometimes they are vastly more interesting than the bread and butter
product of the drawing rooms. It won't do, in your profession, to
ignore any sort of human being."

Roseleaf breathed a sigh as soft as his name.

"You were right, Mr. Gouger," he said, turning to that gentleman. "I do
not know anything. I have judged by appearances, and I now see that
truth cannot be learned in that way."

"All the better!" broke in Archie. "The surest progress is made by the
man who has learned his deficiencies. You remember the hare and the
tortoise. I have read somewhere that the race is not always to the
swift. You must treat your fellow men and women as if you had just
arrived on this earth from the planet Mars. You must dig through the
strata of conventionality to the virgin soil beneath. The great human
passions are lust and avarice, though they take a thousand forms, in
many of which they have more polite names. For instance, the former,
when kept within polite boundaries, is usually known as Love. As Avarice
makes but a sorry theme for the romantic writer, Love is the subject
that must principally claim your attention. All the world loves a lover,
while the miser is despised even by those who cringe beneath the power
of his gold. Study the women, my lad, and when you know them thoroughly
begin your great novel in earnest."

Roseleaf listened with rapt attention.

"And the men?" he asked.

"The men," was the quick reply, "are too transparent to require study.
It is the women, with their ten million tricks to cajole and wheedle us,
that afford the best field for your efforts."

Mr. Gouger, who had never been known to take so much time from his work
during business hours, tried to begin his reading, but without success.
When at his usual occupation he would not have been disturbed by the
conversation of a room full of people, so preoccupied was he with what
he had to do; but on this occasion he was too much entertained with his
companions to do anything but hear them through.

"Is there no such thing as unselfish love--in a woman--love that
sacrifices itself for its object?" asked Roseleaf, with a trace of
anxiety in his tone.

"M----m, possibly," drawled Mr. Weil. "A female animal with young
sometimes evinces the possession of that sort of thing, and women may
have touches of it on occasions. That will be a good point for you to
remember when you are deeper in your investigations. However, I ought
not to fill your head with ideas of my own. I think what we most desire
in our friend," he added, turning to the critic, "is complete
originality."

The young man shifted his feet nervously.

"Pardon me," he said, "would it not be well to talk with people and
learn their impressions? Then I can compare these with my own
experiences, when they come. You would not send a blind man out on the
street unled."

Archie Weil laughed deliciously.

"You are ingenious, when you should only be ingenuous," he replied. "You
do not act at all like the young man from Mars that I have in mind.
Perhaps, nevertheless, you are not wholly wrong, for even my traveler
from that planet might have to ask his way to the nearest town.
Supposing you had just reached the earth, and had met me with a thousand
questions. What could I answer that would be of any use?"

Mr. Roseleaf reflected a moment.

"You could tell me your idea of a perfect woman," he suggested.

"Well, I will," said Weil, glancing meaningly at Mr. Gouger. "The
perfect woman is about nineteen years of age. She is neither very light
nor very dark. Her eyes are hazel, with a touch of gray in them. She
measures, say, five feet, four inches in height, and--about--twenty-two
inches around the waist. She has a plump arm, not too fleshy, a
well-made leg, a head set on her shoulders with enough neck to give it
freedom and grace of movement, but not sufficient to warrant comparison
with a swan, or even a goose. Her hands match her feet, being not too
slender nor too dainty. Her hips are medium, but not bulging. She weighs
in the vicinity of a hundred and twenty-five pounds. And her hair--there
is but one color for a woman's hair--is Titian red."

The young man had taken out his note-book and rapidly sketched this list
of attractions.

"Every woman cannot have Titian hair," remarked Mr. Gouger. "Would you
condemn one with all the other attributes on account of missing that?"

"I would, decidedly," was the reply, "when it is obtained so easily. I
think it only costs two dollars a bottle, for the finest shade. Have
you written it all down, Mr. Roseleaf?"

The young man ran over his notes.

"I have it--all but the hair," he said. "Of course I could not forget
that."

"Very well. And this hair must be long enough, but not too long,
remember, for everything unduly accentuated spoils a woman. It should
hang about five inches below the waist, when unfastened, and be thick
enough to make a noticeable coil. There should be sufficient to hide her
face and her lover's when he takes her in his arms."

Mr. Roseleaf started slightly.

"Then she should have a lover?" he remarked, curiously.

"Undoubtedly. Else why the hair and the arms, and the five feet four! It
is a woman's business to be loved and to make herself lovable. When you
have found this woman, if she has no lover, you will be expected to
officiate in that capacity. If she has one, you must supplant him as
soon as possible. And when you have fallen desperately, ravingly in love
with such a creature, you will not have to come to me for further
advice."

The young man surveyed the speaker with the utmost gravity.

"Have _you_ ever been in love?" he inquired.

"Never."

"Why?"

"It was not necessary; _I_ did not intend to write novels," said Archie,
with a laugh. "But, come, we have bothered Lawrence enough. Let us go."

He took the package containing Miss Fern's story, and sauntered out,
paying no attention to the peculiar glances that his friend, the critic,
threw at him as he was leaving.




CHAPTER IV.

WITH TITIAN TRESSES.


Mr. Weil deciphered the MSS. of Miss Fern with some difficulty. Not that
the handwriting was particularly illegible, though it did not in the
least resemble copperplate engraving; but, as Mr. Gouger had intimated,
the sentences were so badly constructed, and the punctuation so
different from that prescribed by the usual authorities, that he was
continually obliged to go back over his tracks and hunt for meanings.
Nevertheless, within an hour from the time when he sat down in his room
at the Hoffman House and opened the package he had brought, he had to
confess himself deeply interested.

Miss Fern had conceived some entertaining characters, and some very
unconventional situations. Her people were virile; her hero was strong
if not always grammatical; her heroine did and said things not common in
real life, and yet that were quite reasonable when her peculiar nature
and environment were considered.

Archie paused once in awhile to wonder how much of all this record was
within the direct knowledge of the young authoress; which expressions
conveyed her own ideas and which sentiments she would personally
endorse. Gouger might be right as to the exceeding purity of most of the
ladies who dealt in eroticism, but in this especial case Mr. Weil meant
to make an investigation on his own account before he accepted as a
universal rule the one his friend had laid down.

He did not go to sleep that night until he had finished his story. Had
it been arranged by a competent hand he could have read it in four
hours, but as it was he consumed eight in the work. With all its faults,
he liked it. There was something breezy about it, and it had a theme
that he did not remember had been treated exactly in the same way
before. Though, as he himself had said, without much talent for
composition, Archie had read a great many books. It is no proof because
a person cannot write that he would make a poor critic. Mr. Weil might
almost have filled Lawrence Gouger's place at Cutt & Slashem's. He had
written fugitive pieces in his time for the papers, in reference to his
travels, which had been extensive, and had even contributed occasional
book reviews to the magazines. His connection with Gouger enabled him to
keep in touch with what was going on in the literary world, and the
dozens of new volumes which passed through that office were always at
his disposal.

"She's not a fool, by any means," he remarked to himself, when he put
down the last sheet of Miss Fern's work. "A fellow who understood his
business might put that into such shape that it would be worth using. I
mean to find some one who can do it, and suggest the idea to her, when I
get to that stage in this affair. Let me see, who do I know that could
undertake it?"

He had begun to undress, and was in the act of taking off his collar as
he spoke. His mind ran over a list of struggling literary men. Something
seemed the matter with most of them. There was Hamlin, but he would be
too exacting, and would want to suggest alterations in the story itself,
which would never do. There was Insley, whose last three books had been
flat failures, and for whom Cutt & Slashem had positively refused to
print anything more; but Insley had gone into the country for the summer
and nobody knew his address. Then there was--

"_Roseleaf!_"

Archie received this thought like an inspiration. He threw his cravat on
the bureau and began tugging at his shoestrings to the imminent danger
of getting them into hard knots that no one could unravel. Roseleaf! Why
not? The boy would do almost anything he suggested, so great was his
confidence that a road to literary preferment could be staked out over
that path. Roseleaf would not undertake the work for the sake of
pecuniary compensation, but the thing could be presented to him in quite
another light. In Miss Fern's story there were living, breathing men and
women. In his own there were beautifully drawn marionettes. He could be
made to see that the study of the young lady's method was worth his
while. And then!

Mr. Weil's shoes lay on the floor, in the disorder of a bachelor who had
never in his life taken pains to put anything in the place where it
really belonged. He took out the studs of his shirt, pulled that garment
over his head, and then sat for some minutes wrapped in active thought.

"They must be introduced to each other!" he exclaimed, at last. "Between
them they have every qualification for success; apart they are like the
separated wheels of a watch. There is Shirley, with a style so sweetly
subtle, a grace so perfect, every line a gem; and with it all not a sign
of human emotion. There is Millicent, full of plot and daring and
breathing characters, and bold conceptions, and no more able to write
good English than an Esquimaux squaw. I have both these interesting
persons on my hands, and I must combine them, for their mutual good.

"I wonder what Gouger will say when I unfold my plan. Perhaps I had best
not tell him. He actually came near threatening, to-day, to send a line
to Miss Fern, warning her against me. He wouldn't have done it, though.
Lawrence has a bark that is worse than his bite by a great deal. Yes,
I'll bring these young folks together. I'll take them as Hermann does
the rabbits, and press them gently but firmly into one. And then sha'n't
we get a combination! And won't Mr. Lawrence Gouger hug himself when the
product of their joint endeavor comes to him for a reading!"

The muser finished disrobing and donned his night robes, but it was a
long time before he felt like slumber. He could think of nothing but his
scheme. As he revolved it over in his mind, it took many new forms. At
first Roseleaf was to be asked to rewrite the story that Miss Fern had
offered Cutt & Slashem. And afterwards there must be an entirely new
novel, conceived together and worked out slowly, using the best of what
was brightest in both of them.

The last idea Mr. Weil had before he relapsed into unconsciousness
contained two novels, worked out at the same time. Roseleaf was all
right, if he could only get a glimpse of realism into his work. Miss
Fern would have no trouble if her ideas could find a garb that suited
them.

There would be a way to make them of service to each other, and the time
to cross a bridge is always when you come to it. So thought Archie Weil,
as he fell asleep.

In the morning he laughed to think of the description he had given to
Shirley, in his offhand way, of "the perfect woman." It was a faithful
list of Miss Millicent's charms, so far as they were apparent to him.
Shirley had noted them down with great carefulness, and would be sure to
notice how fully the authoress met the ideal he now had in mind. It only
remained for the schemer to say something to Miss Fern that would
suggest Roseleaf to her, whenever they were made acquainted.

It must be plain to the reader that Mr. Weil's principal intention in
this whole matter was to dispose of the _ennui_ which idleness brings
even to its most adoring devotees. He had a fair fortune, accumulated
by a father who had denied himself every luxury to amass it. Drifting to
New York, he had found the vicinity of the Hoffman House very agreeable,
and his companions, with the exception of Mr. Gouger, were of about as
light views of life as himself. The critic was one of those strange
exceptions with which most of us come in contact, where persons of
entirely opposite tastes and inclinations become attached friends.

Breakfast was served so late to Mr. Weil that he had not finished that
repast when the young novelist made his appearance. Seating himself on
the side of the table that faced his friend, Mr. Roseleaf responded to
the latter's inquiries in regard to his health by saying that he was
quite well. Indeed, he looked it. His eye was bright, his cheek rosy.
His attire showed just enough of a negligent quality to be attractive.
There was an air about him such as is often associated with an artist of
the pencil and brush.

"Never better in health," he said, "but very anxious to begin something
definite in the way of work."

Mr. Weil smiled his most affable smile.

"What did I tell you to do, first?" he asked, playfully.

"To fall in love."

"Which you have not yet done!"

The young man shook his head.

"Good Heavens! And you have lost more than a week!"

Roseleaf colored more than ever.

"Isn't there something else--that I could--begin on?" he asked, humbly.

"I don't know of anything. Love is the alphabet of the novelist. You'd
best go straight. Aren't there any eligible young women at your lodging
house?"

The younger man thought a moment.

"No; only the chambermaid."

Mr. Weil sipped his coffee with a wise expression.

"It may come to that," he said, putting down the cup, "but we'll hope
not. We will hope not. What's the matter with Central Park? There are
five hundred nice girls there every afternoon."

"But I don't know them," said Roseleaf, desperately. "And--I have been
there. Yesterday one of them looked at me and smiled. I walked toward
her, and she slackened her speed. When I came within a few feet she
almost stopped. Then--I could think of nothing to say to her, and I
walked on, looking in the other direction."

Several breakfasters in the vicinity turned their heads to note the
couple at the table, from which a laugh that could be heard all over the
room came musically.

"Why didn't you say 'Good-morning?'"

"Yes! And she might have said 'Good-morning.' And then it would be my
turn, and what could I have done?"

Mr. Weil folded up his napkin and laid it by his plate.

"You coward," he replied, affably, "you could have done a thousand
things. You could have remarked that the day was fair, or that you
wondered if it would rain. And you could have asked her to stroll over
to a restaurant and take a little refreshment. Once opposite to her, the
rest would have come fast enough."

The novelist took out a handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. It all seemed very easy the way Archie described it, but he
was sure it would be very different in practice. How could he know, he
demanded, that the young lady would go to the restaurant with him? She
might have declined, and then he would have been in a worse position
than ever.

"Declined!" echoed Archie. "Declined a lunch? Declined ice cream?
Declined champagne frappe! Well, you _are_ ignorant of the sex. My dear
boy, it is evident that I shall have to introduce you to the leading
lady of your company, and if you will be patient for a very few days, I
hope to be able to do so."

Rousing himself with a show of genuine interest, Roseleaf inquired for
further particulars.

"Listen," replied the other. "I expect, to-morrow evening, to spend a
few hours in the company of one of the most charming members of her sex.
She, like you, has an ambition to become a successful writer. Like you,
also, she lacks some of the prime qualities that are needed for that
end. It happens, however, that the things wanting are entirely different
in each of your cases--that you will, if you choose, be able to
supplement and perfect each other. I shall tell her that I know a young
man of literary taste who will give her advice on the points in which
she is deficient. With such an opening you will be at once on Easy
street, and if you cannot fall in love within forty-eight hours, I shall
regard you as a case too hopeless to merit further attention at my
hands."

The young man's cheek glowed with pleasure.

"That is more like it," he said. "When do you think I shall be able to
meet this young lady?"

"Within a week or two, at the latest. I must sound her before I trust
you with her, for she is nearly as much a stranger to me, so far, as to
you. Of course there is no objection--quite the contrary--to your
falling in love elsewhere in the meantime, if opportunity serves."

At this moment Mr. Weil called his companion's attention to a rather
corpulent gentleman who had just entered the breakfast room and was
stopping near the door to hold a brief conversation with some one he had
met there.

"You see that fellow?" he remarked. "Wait a minute, and I will get him
over here. If you ever want to put a real character into one of your
stories you will only need to take his photograph. In actual life he is
as dull as a rusty meat axe, but for literary purposes he would be a
godsend."

Catching the eye of the person of whom he was speaking, Mr. Weil
motioned to him to come to his part of the room, and as he approached
arranged a chair for him invitingly.

"Mr. Boggs, I want to present a young friend of mine to you," said
Archie, rising. "Mr. Walker Boggs--Mr. Shirley Roseleaf."

Mr. Boggs went through the usual ceremony, announcing that he was most
happy, etc., in the perfunctory style that a million other men follow
every day. Then he took the chair that was offered him, and gave an
order for his breakfast to a waiter.

"Are you a New Yorker, Mr. Roseleaf?" he asked, when this important
matter was disposed of.

"Mr. Roseleaf is staying here for the present," explained Mr. Weil. "He
is a novelist by profession, and I tell him there is no better place to
study the sensational than this vicinity."

The young man's color deepened. He doubted if it was right to introduce
the subject in exactly these terms. Mr. Boggs' next question did not
detract from his uneasiness.

"Excuse me--I am not altogether up in current literature, and I must ask
what Mr. Roseleaf has written."

Mr. Weil helped his young friend out of this dilemma as well as he
could.

"He has written nothing, as yet; at least nothing that has been
printed," he said. "He is wise, I think, in laying a deep foundation for
his romances, instead of rushing into print with the first thoughts that
enter his head, as so many do, to their own subsequent regret and the
distress of their readers. I want him to meet men and women who have
known what life is by their own experiences. You ought to be worth
something to a bright writer, Walker. You have had many an adventure in
your day."

Mr. Walker Boggs shrugged his shoulders.

"In my 'day,' yes," he assented. "Enough to fill the Astor and Lenox
libraries and leave enough for Charlie Dillingham and The American News
Company. But that is nothing but history now. My 'day' is over and it
will never return."

He paused and ran his right hand dejectedly across his vest in the
vicinity of the waist band. Though he knew perfectly what Mr. Boggs
referred to, Archie Weil wanted him to express it in his own words to
Shirley.

"You wouldn't think," continued Mr. Boggs, after a pause which seemed
filled with strange emotions, "that my figure was once the admiration of
every lady who saw it, that they used to stop and gaze at me with eyes
of positive envy. And now--look at this!"

He indicated his embonpoint again, and shook his head wrathfully.

"It is simply damnable," he continued, as neither of the others thought
best to interrupt him. "When I was twenty-four I had a reputation that
was as wide as the continent. When I walked down Broadway you would have
supposed a procession was passing, the crowds gathered in such numbers.
If it was mentioned that I would spend a week at Saratoga or Newport,
the hotels had not a room to spare while I remained. The next year I
married, and as one of the fashion journals put it, two thousand women
went into mourning. For a decade I devoted myself entirely to my wife
and to business. I made some money, and kept out of the public eye.
Then my wife died, and I retired from the firm with which I had been
connected. The next twelve months dragged terribly. I did not know what
to do. Finally I decided that there was but one course open to me. I
must resume again the position I had vacated as a leader of fashion."

Mr. Weil bowed, as if to say that this was a very natural and
praiseworthy conclusion; precisely as if he had not heard the story told
in substantially the same way a dozen times before. He was watching
Roseleaf's interested expression and had difficulty in repressing an
inclination to laugh aloud.

"I sought out the best tailor in the city," continued Mr. Boggs. "I went
to the most fashionable hair dresser. I spent considerable time in
selecting hats, cravats and gloves. When all was ready I took a stroll,
as I had done in the old days, from Fiftieth street, down Fifth Avenue
and Broadway to Union Square. I met a few acquaintances who stared at me
slightly, but did not act in the least impressed. The women merely
glanced up and glanced away again. What was the matter? I went home and
took a long survey of myself in the mirror, a cheval glass that showed
me from crown to toe. My costume was perfect. There was not a wrinkle in
my face--this was several years ago, remember. There was not a gray hair
in my head then--there are a few now, I admit. 'What is it?' I asked
myself a hundred times as I stood there, studying out the cursed
problem. My tie was all right, my shirt front of the latest cut, my
watch chain straight from Tiffany's, my--ah! I saw it all in a moment!"

Roseleaf, who did not see it even yet, wore such an astonished
expression that Mr. Weil had to stuff his napkin into his mouth to
prevent an explosion.

"It was this devilish abdomen!" said Mr. Boggs, slapping that portion of
his frame as if he had a special grudge against it and would be glad if
he could hit it hard enough to bring it to a realizing sense of its
turpitude. "My figure had gone to the devil! It was not as large as it
is now, but it was large enough to cook my gruel. My waist had increased
so gradually that I had never noticed it. I got a tape and took its
measure. Forty-two inches, sir! The jig was up. With a heart as young as
ever, with a face as good and a purse able to supply all reasonable
demands, I was knocked out of the race on the first round by this
adipose tissue that no ingenuity could hope to conceal!"

Mr. Weil could wait no longer. His musical laugh rang out over the room.

"Let this be a warning to you, Shirley," he said, "to wear corsets."

"It is no joke," was the indignant comment of Mr. Walker Boggs, as he
proceeded to add to his rotundity by devouring the hearty breakfast that
the waiter had just brought him. "I am left like a marooned sailor on
the sea of life. The only occupation that could have entertained me is
gone. It is no time to enter business again, I couldn't have selected a
wiser one to leave it. I don't want to marry, once was enough of that.
The only women I can attract are those commercially inclined females
that any other man could have as well as I. What is the result? My life
is ruined. I take no pleasure in anything. I eat, walk about, go to a
play, sleep. A _pig_ could do as much; and a pig would not have these
memories to haunt him, these recollections of a time so different that I
am almost driven wild."

Roseleaf felt a sincere pity for the unfortunate gentleman, and did not
see the slightest element of humor in his melancholy recital. But Archie
Weil could not be restrained.

"You're right about that pig business," he remarked. "You recall the
incident in Mother Goose, where--

    'A little pig found a fifty dollar note,
    And purchased a hat and a very fine coat.'

"There are strange parallels in history."

Mr. Boggs would have replied to this remark in the terms it deserved had
he not been too much engaged at the moment in masticating a particularly
fine chop. As it was he growled over the meat like a mastiff in bad
humor.

"Are there no remedies for excessive accumulation of fat in the
abdominal region?" asked Weil, taking his advantage. "It seems to me I
have read advertisements of them in the newspapers."

"Remedies!" retorted the other, having swallowed the food and
supplemented it with a glass of ale. "There are a thousand, and I have
tried them all. I have taken things by the gross. I have paid money to
every quack I could find. For awhile I starved myself so nearly to death
that I went to making my will. And every day I grew stouter. I don't
know what I measure now, and I don't care. A few fathoms more or less,
doesn't count, when one falls from a steamer in midocean."

Mr. Weil took occasion to say that there was no need for this extreme
discouragement. A little coin in the hand, or a new diamond ring, would
still bring youth and beauty to his disconsolate friend.

"That's just it," retorted Boggs. "It's the contrast that's killing me.
The only women who would look at me to-day are mercenary ones that
wouldn't care if I was black as Othello or big as George IV. Why, I
could show you a trunkful of letters, written me by the finest women in
this country, when I was at my best. They breathe but one thing--love,
love, love! I lived on it! It was the air that kept my lungs in motion.
And I thought to go back to it so easily! _Ah!_"

Mr. Boggs commenced upon his fourth chop and emptied the last of the
quart bottle into his glass.

"Well, I'm sorry for you," said Weil. "I think the times must have
changed, as well as yourself, though. Now, here's a young fellow, with
all the qualifications of face, figure and address that you once had,
and he claims to be unable to make the acquaintance of a single
interesting woman between Brooklyn Bridge and Spuyten Duyvil."

The heavy eyes of Mr. Walker Boggs rested upon the youthful face
opposite to him. Under the scrutiny to which he was subjected Roseleaf
reddened, in the way he had. He had never looked more handsome.

"This is evidently a jest of yours," said Boggs, turning to Mr. Weil.

"Not in the least, I assure you."

"Then I say he can do what he likes, and I know it," replied the stout
man. "If I had his form I'd have to ask the police to clear the way for
me. I have seen circulation impeded in front of this very hotel because
I was coming out to take my carriage. If he won't look at them, why, of
course, the women can't do it all, but it lies with him."

Roseleaf's eyes glistened with a strange mixture of hope and fear. He
did not think he would care to be in such great demand as that, but he
dearly wished to break through the iron bars that enclosed him. He
glanced in a glass that paneled the wall near by. He was good-looking
enough, it was no vanity to say so. What he lacked was confidence.

"He is afraid of them, that's his trouble," smiled Weil. "We will cure
him of that, and when he gets to know women as they are he will give us
a novel that will set all creation by the ears. Gouger--you know
Gouger--says he writes the purest English. All he needs is a taste of
life."

To this Mr. Boggs gave his unqualified assent. And he added that if he
could be of any service in the matter he would only be too glad.

"We thank you for the offer, and may be able later to make use of it,"
said Mr. Weil. "And now good-morning, for we have important business to
attend to."

Roseleaf looked long and earnestly at the person they were leaving. He
seemed to him a very ordinary individual. If such a man had won the
love of scores of beautiful women, surely he himself could gain the
affections of one. When he stood with Weil in front of the hotel, by
which an unrivaled procession of ladies and gentleman was already
beginning to pass, though it was only eleven o'clock, he felt much
encouraged.

"They are looking at you," whispered Archie, "plenty of them. Did you
see those two girls in pink in that landau? Why, they nearly broke their
necks to get the last glimpse of you. There is another lady who would
stop if you asked her, pretty as any of them, though she must be nearly
thirty. Your eyes are not open. Ah, here is something better! In that
carriage, with the Titian tresses!"

It was Miss Millicent Fern, and she bowed to Mr. Weil. Then her bright
eyes lit up with a new lustre as they fell upon his companion.




CHAPTER V.

STUDYING MISS MILLICENT.


When Mr. Weil made his appearance at the residence of Mr. Wilton Fern,
the door was opened for him by a young negro of such superb proportions
that the caller could not help observing him with admiration. He thought
he had never seen a man more perfectly formed. The face, though too dark
to suggest the least admixture of Caucasian blood, was well featured.
The lips were not thick nor was the nose flat, as is the case with so
many of the African race. The voice, as the visitor heard it, was by no
means unpleasant. Mr. Weil could not imagine a better model for an ebony
statue than this butler, or footman, or whatever position, perhaps both,
he might be engaged to fill.

"Yes, sir, Miss Millicent is in, and she is expecting you," said the
negro, in his pleasant and strong tones. "Let me take your hat and
stick. Now, sir, this way."

Miss Fern came in a few moments to the parlor, where Archie was left,
and greeted him most cordially.

"There is a sitting-room on the next floor," she said, "where we shall
not be disturbed. I have given Hannibal orders to admit no one, saying
that we shall want the evening entirely to ourselves."

"Hannibal?" repeated the visitor. "Is that the name of the remarkable
individual who received me just now?"

"Yes," said Miss Fern, rather coldly. "Though I do not know why you call
him 'remarkable.'"

"He is so tall, so grand, so entirely overpowering," explained Mr. Weil.
"One would think he might be the son of an African king. I never saw a
black man that gave me such an impression of force and power."

Millicent elevated her eyebrows a little, as if annoyed at these
expressions. She answered, still frigidly, that she had noticed nothing
unusual about Hannibal. She did not believe she had looked closely
enough at his face to be able to identify him in a court.

"He would make a fine character for a novel," said Mr. Weil, as they
walked together up the broad staircase. "I could almost write one
myself, around such a personality."

The young lady looked disgusted.

"A negro servant!" she exclaimed. "What kind of a novel could you write
with such a central figure?"

"Perhaps I should not put him in the centre," laughed Archie, determined
to win her good nature. "Every story needs lights and shades. You can't
deny that he would cast a magnificent shadow."

The humor of this observation struck Miss Fern and she joined mildly in
her companion's mirth. Then she remarked that the central figure of a
novel--the main thing in it--to her mind, should be a being who could be
given the attributes of beauty and grace. The minor characters were of
less account, and would come into existence almost of their own accord.

"And now, before we do anything more," she said, "I want you to tell me
about that excessively handsome young man that I saw with you yesterday
in Madison Square."

Weil was delighted at this introduction of his young friend. He began a
most flattering account of Shirley Roseleaf, describing him as a genuine
paragon among men, both in talent and goodness. He drew heavily on his
imagination as he proceeded, feeling that he was "in for it," and might
as well do his best at once. And he could see the cheek of the young
listener taking on a new and more enticing color as he went farther and
farther into his subject.

"If I have to rearrange my novel--the one Mr. Gouger rejected--I shall
draw my hero after that model," she cried, when he paused for breath. "I
never saw a man who came so near my ideal."

"But--you would have to alter your hero's character, in that case?" he
said. "I have read your MSS., and your description does not tally with
my young friend at all."

Miss Fern reddened.

"You don't mean to claim, do you," she replied, "that physical beauty
and moral goodness always go hand in hand?"

"They should," he answered, in a tone that was meant to be impressive.

"Ah, that is another question! _Do_ they? that is all the novelist needs
to know. Did you ever read Ouida's 'Sigma?' There are the two sisters,
one as pure as can be, the other quite the opposite, and the beauty
belongs to the depraved one. I know Oscar Wilde takes a different view
in 'Dorian Grey,' but he is wrong. I am sure that the worst man or woman
in the world--reckoning by what are called the 'amiable vices'--might be
the most lovely to look upon, the most delightful to associate with. Eve
found the serpent attractive, remember."

Where did she learn all these things? Weil looked at her with
increasing astonishment. "Amiable vices." He liked the appellation.

"Perhaps you are right," he assented, as if slowly convinced. "If you
wish to be acquainted with Mr. Roseleaf, I will bring him here with
pleasure. My only fear is that he will not interest you. He seems almost
too perfect for earth. Think of a young man who knows nothing of women,
who says he has no idea what it is to be in love, who does not
understand why the ladies who pass down Fifth Avenue turn their heads to
look at him! He, like yourself, is a novelist, but his characters are
beautiful images that lack life. He carves marble figures and attempts
to palm them off as flesh and blood. He really thinks they _are_,
because he has never known the difference. If you could take him, Miss
Fern, and teach him what love really is--"

The young lady blushed more than before.

"_I_--" she stammered.

"In a strictly literary way," he explained. "But," he added, thinking he
was getting upon the edge of a quicksand, "we must not forget the object
of my visit."

He took the parcel containing her MSS. that he had obtained from Mr.
Gouger, and began to untie the string. Manlike he soon had it in a hard
knot, and Miss Millicent, coming to his rescue, her young hands touched
his and made his heart beat faster.

"There," she said, when the knot had given way to their joint endeavors.
"It is all right, now. But, before we begin on this, tell me a little
more about Mr. Roseleaf. What has he written? Where was it published? I
will send to-morrow morning and buy a copy."

Her enthusiasm was agreeable under the circumstances, but the truth had
to be explained to her.

"What he has written I will let you see, one of these days," he replied.
"As for publishing, he ran upon the same rock that you did--that of Mr.
Lawrence Gouger."

The beautiful eyes opened wider.

"So he rejected his work, too! And yet you say that it was well done?"

"Exquisitely. Shirley's lines are as symmetrical as his face and figure.
His people are dead, that is all the trouble. Gouger scented the
difficulty under which he labors, in a moment. 'Go and fall in love!' he
said to him, 'and you will write a story at which the world will
marvel!'"

Miss Fern arranged one of her locks of Titian red that had fallen down.

"And hasn't he taken the advice?" she inquired, in a low voice.

"Not yet," smiled the other. "He says, like a very child, that 'he
cannot find any one to love.' I walked up the avenue with him to-day,
and afterwards rode in the Park. There were hundreds of the prettiest
creatures, all looking their eyes out at him. And he hadn't the courage
to return one glance, not one. Ah, Miss Fern, it will be genuine love
with Shirley Roseleaf, if any. The imitations one finds in the
fashionable world will never answer for him."

The young lady breathed a gentle sigh, as her thoughts dwelt on the
handsome figure she had seen in front of the Hoffman House.

"You may bring him here--yes, I should be glad to have you," she said,
slowly. "But I must ask one favor; do not tell him what I said so
thoughtlessly about his being my ideal. Let me talk with him on fair
terms. It may be, as you suggest, that we shall be of advantage to each
other. When can you arrange it?"

"Almost any day," smiled Weil. "I will let you know, by mail or
otherwise. And now, this story of yours," he added, thinking it a shrewd
plan to divert her attention from the other matter while it was still
warm in her mind. "Though I have read it through, and think I understand
it fairly well, I am all the more anxious to hear it from your lips. You
will put into the text new meanings, I have no doubt, that have escaped
my observation."

Miss Fern flushed pleasantly and inquired with a show of anxiety whether
Mr. Weil had found its construction as bad as his friend, Mr. Gouger,
had intimated.

"To be perfectly honest, it might be improved," he replied. "But the
germ is there, Miss Fern--that necessary thing for a good novel--an
interest that will hold the reader in spite of himself. I disagree with
Lawrence in his essential point. I am sure that a good writer of English
with a taste for fiction could make all the necessary alterations
without in the least detracting from the value of the story. For
instance, I believe if Mr. Roseleaf would take hold of it I could
guarantee to get you a publisher this winter."

"And do you think he would?" she cried.

"I think so."

The authoress was so delighted with this announcement that she conquered
the slight wound to her pride. It would be herself still who had drawn
the picture, who had put the coloring into it; all that the other would
have to do might be described as varnishing. She took up the first sheet
of her writing, and turned up an oil lamp that stood upon the table at
her elbow, the better to see the lines.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"Quite ready," smiled Mr. Weil.

In a voice that trembled a little, and yet not unpleasantly to the
listener, Miss Fern began to read her manuscript. The opening chapter
introduced the heroine and two gentlemen, either one of whom might be
the hero. As the book is now so well known it is needless to transfer
its features to these pages.

Presently the authoress paused and seemed to wait for her guest's
criticism.

"That is one chapter," she said.

"Yes. I remember. And the second one is where Algernon begins to
disclose a very little of his true nature. Shall we not have that now?"

"As you like. I thought perhaps you would give me advice as we
proceeded, some fault-finding here and there, a suggestion of
alterations."

He shook his head affably.

"Not yet," he answered. "Up to this point I see nothing that requires
condemnation."

"Nor praise, perhaps?" she said, in a low tone.

"That might be true, also," he replied. "The first chapter of a novel is
only the laying of the cloth and the placing of a few dishes. The viands
that form the meal are still in the kitchen."

She smiled at the simile.

"But even the laying of the cloth is important," she said.

"Your cloth is laid most admirably," he answered. "And now we will have
the castor, which in this case, I believe, contains a certain quantity
of mustard and red pepper."

At this she laughed the more, and glanced through a few of the sheets in
her hands before she spoke again.

"Did you form any opinion about--about _me_--from this story?" she
asked, constrainedly. "Did you, in brief, think it had taken a bold girl
to write it?"

He hesitated a moment.

"Yes," he said, at last. "A bold girl, a daring girl, a brave girl. Not
one, however, whose own conduct would necessarily be like that of the
woman she has delineated."

She was so pleased that she put down the MSS. and leaned toward him with
both hands clasped together.

"You are very, very kind," she said, impressively.

"No, merely truthful," he replied. "With your permission I want to
retain that last quality in all my conversations with you. When you ask
me a question I wish to be perfectly free to answer according to my
honest convictions."

"It is what I especially desire," she said, brightening. "No one able to
judge has heard anything of this story except your friend, Mr. Gouger. I
know it is bold, sometimes I think it is brazen. I can conceive that
there are excellent people who would say it never should have been
written. To my mind, the moral I have drawn more than justifies the
plainness of my speech. You can tell better than I where I have
overstepped the proper bounds, if there be such places. You are, of
course, a man of the world--"

The protesting expression on the face of her companion arrested her at
this point.

"That depends on what you mean by 'a man of the world?'"

"It is a common expression."

"And has many definitions. Before I plead guilty to it, I want to know
just how much you intend by it."

Miss Fern put down the page she had taken up and a puzzled look crossed
her pretty face.

"You make it hard for me to explain myself," she said. "I suppose I
meant--"

"Now, be as honest as you asked me to be," he interrupted.

"Well, then, I suppose you are a man like--like other men."

"But there are many kinds of other men."

The young lady tried several times to make herself clearer, and then
asked, with a very pathetic pout, that she might be permitted to
proceed with her reading, as the hour was growing later. It was not a
very important point, any way, she said.

"I cannot entirely agree with you," replied Archie. "If you are to be a
writer of fiction, you should not consider any time wasted which informs
you in reference to your fellow creatures. It is from them that you must
draw your inspiration; it is their figures you must put, correctly or
incorrectly, on your canvas. Don't understand me as dictating to you, my
dear Miss Fern. I only wish, as long as you have referred to me, to know
of what I am accused."

To this Miss Fern answered, with many pauses, that she had not intended
to accuse her visitor of anything. And once more--with evident
distress--she begged to be permitted to drop the matter and return to
her reading.

"Very well," he assented, thinking he had annoyed her as much as was
advisable for the present. "As they say in parliamentary bodies, we will
lay the question on the table, from which it can be taken at some more
fitting time. I am as anxious as you can be to get into Chapter II."

She read this chapter to the end, and paused a few seconds to see if he
had any comments to make, but he shook his head without breaking
silence, and she went on with the story. He pursued the same plan till
the end of the fifth chapter.

"It is interesting, exciting and true," he remarked, referring to the
closing scene. "And I cannot help feeling arise in my brain the question
that Mr. Gouger put when he read it: How could a young, innocent girl
like you depict that situation with such absolute fidelity."

He had come to the point with a vengeance. But to Miss Fern his manner
was far more agreeable than if he had approached it by stealth, or in an
insinuating way. She had anticipated something of the sort and had tried
to prepare herself to meet it.

"Does not nature teach us some things?" she asked, speaking
straightforwardly, though her color heightened in spite of her efforts.
"Given a certain condition, an intelligent mind can prophesy results."

He shook his head in mild disagreement with her.

"Gouger is an expert, and he denies this, as a regular rule, at least.
You should have heard him argue it with Roseleaf. 'Either throw yourself
into a love affair,' he said, 'or never try to depict one.' Excuse me,
Miss Fern, you bade me be frank--"

She assented, with a grave nod of her shapely head.

"You may have been in love--I do not ask you whether you have or
not--but you cannot have known personally of the sort of love that you
have depicted in these pages. I call it little less than miraculous that
you should draw the scene so accurately."

She colored again, this time partly with pleasure, for she was very
susceptible to compliments.

"Perhaps your statement may explain to you," she said, pointedly, "what
I meant a few minutes ago by calling you 'a man of the world.' You
recognize at a glance what I had to construct from my imagination."

Archie Weil's face changed as he realized how deftly he had been caught.
He had meant to pretend to this girl that he was more than usually
ignorant of the nether side of life.

"Don't think too badly of me because I happen to know what is clear to
every man," he said, impressively.

"To every one?" she answered. "To your friend, Mr. Roseleaf?"

"Ah! He is an exception to all rules. And yet, Gouger says he can never
write a successful book till he is more conversant with life than he is
at present."

She looked troubled.

"With life?" she echoed. "With sin, do you mean?"

"With the ordinary things that men know, and that most of them at some
time experience."

Her bright eyes were temporarily clouded.

"What a pity!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he said, for it was his humor to agree with her. "It is a pity."

There was a pause of a minute, and then she asked if she had read enough
for one evening. He answered that as it was now past ten o'clock it
would not be easy to get much farther and that he would come again
whenever she chose to set the time.

"You do not say much about my work," she said, anxiously, as he prepared
to go.

"Silence is approval," he responded. "I can talk it over with you
better when you have reached the end. I have things to say, and I shall
not hesitate to say them then."

"When is it most convenient to you to come?" she inquired.

"Any time," he answered. "I don't do much that is really useful. But
wait till you see Shirley. He will atone for the shortcomings you find
in me."

She repeated the word "Shirley," as if to test its sound.

"You are your father's only child, are you not?" he asked, thoughtfully.

"No. I have a sister, Daisy, a little younger than I."

"And has she a literary turn, also?"

"Not in the least."

Archie arose, and Miss Millicent accompanied him to the front door. The
tall negro came to open the portal, but Miss Fern told him, with the
same quality of dislike in her tone which Weil had noticed before, that
he need not wait.

"He is really a magnificent piece of humanity," said Archie, when the
man had disappeared. "I never saw anything quite like him."

"You admire negroes, then?" said the young lady, almost impolitely.

"I like representatives of every race," he answered, as if not noticing
her. "There are interesting specimens in all. I number among my
acquaintances several Chinamen, a Moor, a Mexican, Jews, Portuguese and
Russians innumerable. If that fellow was not in your employ I would
engage him to-morrow, merely as a study."

Miss Fern took the hand he held out to her and set the next meeting for
Saturday evening. Then she said:

"If you want Hannibal, perhaps papa would oblige you. I certainly would
do all I could to persuade him."




CHAPTER VI.

"HOW THE WOMEN STARE!"


The next day Archie Weil lunched with Lawrence Gouger. He wanted to talk
with his friend about the young author and authoress. Gouger listened
with interest to the story he had to relate, and nodded approval when it
appeared that Archie had behaved admirably thus far in relation to Miss
Millicent.

"Do you know anything about Mr. Fern?" he asked, when the other had
reached a period.

"Nothing."

"Well, neither did I, a week ago, but I have taken pains to inform
myself. He is a highly respectable elderly party, who deals in wool. He
married a very beautiful lady, who has now been dead eight or ten years
and he lives altogether in the society of his two daughters. If you
succeed in getting Millicent's book on the counters you will earn his
everlasting gratitude. They say he is not literary enough himself to be
a judge of its merits, and if she has fifty copies to present to the
family friends it will probably be all he will ask."

Mr. Weil uttered a low whistle.

"I don't know what the family friends will say of it," he replied, "but
I call it pretty warm stuff. If the list includes many prudes they will
hardly thank the girl for sending such a firebrand into their houses."

"Pshaw!" said Gouger. "The world is getting used to that sort of thing,
and they won't mind it a bit. Besides, they will be so lost in
admiration of their cousin's name on the cover that they will think of
nothing else. What did you make out of her? Is she as innocent as I
predicted?"

Archie poured out a glass of Bass' ale and sipped it slowly.

"Quite," he said, as he put it down on the table. "And she's no dunce,
either." He went on to tell of the trap he had fallen into. "I'm dying
with impatience to get her and Roseleaf together. They'd make an idealic
couple."

Mr. Gouger inquired what he was waiting for.

"Oh, I want to do the thing right," said Weil. "I want to learn her as
thoroughly as I can, before I bring him upon the stage. It will take
three or four evenings more to hear the rest of her novel, and another
to discuss it. I shall get around to him in about a fortnight, at the
rate things are going. He will keep. What do you suppose he is doing
now? Writing poetry! He sent a piece a few days ago to the _Century_,
and they accepted it."

"He will be gray when it appears," said the critic. "It takes a long
time for anything to see the light in that publication."

"But in this case an exception will be made," said Weil. "They have
assured him that it will come out in their very next issue. He will be
so proud to see his name in print that I expect to find difficulty in
holding him back. A poet who appears in the Century has certainly
stepped a little higher on the ladder."

The critic agreed to this, and remarked that such a man as Roseleaf
should give his whole attention to poetry.

"Wait!" cried Archie. "Give him time. See him after he has fallen head
over ears in love with charming Millicent Fern. There is something in
him, I feel sure, and between that dear girl and myself we will bring it
out. By-the-way, there is a character I want you to meet," he added, as
Mr. Walker Boggs came into the room. "You have never had the pleasure, I
think, though you have heard me speak of him."

Mr. Boggs had his attention attracted by a waiter who was sent for the
purpose and came with great willingness to occupy a seat with Mr. Weil
and his friend.

"We were talking of a New York merchant just now," said Archie, when the
introductions were over, "and it occurs to me that you, who know almost
everybody, may have some knowledge of him. He is in the wool business,
I hear, and I think you once told me you had done something in that way.
His name is Wilton Fern, and he lives at Midlands."

"Do I know anything about him?" echoed Mr. Boggs. "I should say so. He
was my partner for seven years, and I still have a little stake left in
the concern, on which I am drawing interest."

Mr. Weil showed his astonishment at this statement. What a very small
world it was, after all! Then, after pledging his friend not to mention
that he had ever discussed the matter with him, he went guardedly into
the particulars of Miss Millicent's book, and of his having called at
the house for the purpose of passing judgment upon it.

"I didn't know that was in your line," replied Boggs.

"Well, it was this way," answered Archie. "Mr. Gouger's decision didn't
exactly suit the young lady, as it was not very favorable. Mine will be
quite to her taste, as I view her abilities in a more favorable light.
Now tell us all about the family, as the only one of them I have met is
Miss Millicent. Why, this is a regular find, old man! You should have
told me a week ago that you possessed all this information that I have
been aching to get hold of."

Thus adjured, Mr. Boggs entered upon his story. From which it appeared
that he knew the Ferns, root and branch, and had dined with them dozens
of times.

"What sort of a chap is the pater?" asked Weil.

"A very well-kept man of nearly seventy, with a great deal of what is
called 'breeding' in his manner, and a face like the portrait of a
French marquis cut out of a seventeenth century frame. He doesn't look
like a business man at all, and between ourselves he's not much of a
one. All the money he ever made--saving my apparent egotism--was when I
was in the concern. I've heard he's got a big mortgage on his residence
and is going down hill generally. Too bad; nice fellow; sorry for him;
such is life."

Archie asked if Boggs would do him a personal and particular favor, if
it would not cause him much trouble; and on being answered in the
affirmative, said he would esteem it a great honor if he could be
introduced to Mr. Fern by that gentleman's former business associate.

"I suppose I shall run across him at Midlands, some evening," he said,
"and get one of those presentations that are the most aggravating things
in the world. I don't want that to happen, and the best way, to use an
elegant phrase, is to take the bull by the horns, or in this case, the
sheep by the tail. Will you make an accidental call on him to-morrow
afternoon and let me be of the party?"

Mr. Boggs responded that he would be delighted. And this matter being
settled, all parties could give more direct attention to their lunch
than they had been doing for the preceding ten minutes.

"You must have heard of my friend Boggs, in the days when he was a
figure on the streets of this town," said Weil, presently, returning to
what he knew was the favorite subject of that personage. "You've lived
here for twenty years, and of course the name of Walker Boggs is
familiar to you."

Mr. Gouger looked a good counterfeit of complete mystification for some
seconds, and then a gleam as of sudden recollection shot across his
face.

"Certainly, certainly!" he said. "Mr. Boggs was what is popularly known
as a lady killer, if I am not mistaken. You got married, did you not,
Mr. Boggs, some ten or eleven years ago?"

The party addressed acknowledged the practical correctness of the date.

"Why, it comes back as plain as day," said the critic. "The _Herald_ had
a page about you, including your portrait and some verses by a well
known poet. It said your marriage had cast a gloom over Manhattan Island
and some of the up-river counties."

Mr. Boggs gloomily nodded, to show that the statement was true. Then he
touched his most rotund portion with a significant look.

"I'm a widower now," he said, "and nothing but this--_this_--stands in
my way. As Shakespeare says, ''Tis not as deep as a well, nor as wide as
a church door, but--' The ladies never look at me now, and all on
account of this d--d flesh, which hangs like a millstone around my
neck."

Cutt & Slashem's critic, ignoring the peculiar character of the metaphor
used, remarked politely that he thought no lady of sense would put great
stress on such an insignificant matter.

"Insignificant!" echoed Boggs. "I'll bet it's fifty inches around,
come! And it's not the 'ladies of sense' I'm after. Quite the contrary."

One of Archie Weil's explosive laughs followed this statement, which
caused an expression of mild injury to settle over the countenance of
Mr. Boggs.

"You're getting on toward forty, and you ought to quit," said Weil.
"Confound the women! Let them go."

"That's well enough to talk about," replied Boggs, gruffly. "How would
you like to follow your own advice?"

Weil uttered an exclamation.

"I? I have precious little to do with them, I assure you. For a man of
my correct habits I have the worst name of any one I know. Everybody
insinuates things about me, and they can prove nothing."

"We'll ask Isaac Leveson about that," sneered Boggs. "By-the-way, that
wouldn't be a bad place to take young Roseleaf to, when you get to
instructing him in earnest. I met the young fellow on the avenue last
night and walked around with him for a couple of hours. He's a darling!"

"Roseleaf?" cried both the other gentlemen, in one breath.

"To be sure. How the women stared at him! I couldn't blame them; his
waist isn't over thirty, and he's as handsome as--as I was at his age. I
told him he could have all the loveliness in New York at his feet, if he
liked."

Weil smiled significantly at Gouger.

"What did he reply to that?" he asked.

"Oh, he had an ideal in his head, and none of those we saw quite came up
to it; for I did get him to raise his eyes and look at the prettiest
ones. I drew out of him slowly that he would have nothing to do with a
girl unless she had red hair; that--"

Mr. Weil uttered a laugh so hearty that it attracted the attention of
everybody in the room. Mr. Boggs paused to inquire the cause of this
outbreak, but Archie assured him that something entirely out of the
present discussion had just occurred to him, which was to blame for his
impoliteness.

"A girl must have _Titian_ hair," repeated Mr. Boggs, accepting the
explanation, "or he would not consider her. He ruled out all the
striking blondes and brunettes, saying that he liked only those of a
medium shade. We came across one that answered these descriptions, an
exquisite little creature who looked as if she would swallow him could
she get the chance. And then there came out another idea. He would not
think of this fairy because she was so short. 'I want a woman five feet,
four inches tall,' he said, as if the article could be made to order, in
case the size did not happen to be in stock. Then, would you believe it,
he found a girl embracing every attribute he had mentioned. Her hair was
just the right shade, her height must have hit the mark exactly, her
complexion was medium. But no. She was too heavy. She would weigh a
hundred and forty-five, he said, quite twenty pounds too much. If we had
found a girl that filled all his description he would have invented
something new to bar her out of the race."

Mr. Weil remarked that he was not so sure of Roseleaf's insincerity. He
believed the right woman would yet be discovered, and that a case of the
most intense affection would then spontaneously develop.

"In fact," he added, "I have the identical creature in mind. It is clear
to us--to myself and Mr. Gouger here--that Shirley will never write a
thrilling romance till he has fallen wildly, passionately in love."

Mr. Boggs smiled slightly, and then sobered again.

"Shall you have him marry, also?" he inquired, pointedly.

"Why not?"

"Because it will finish him; that's why. The romance in a modern
marriage lasts six weeks. At the end of that time he will be useless for
literary purposes, or anything else."

Mr. Weil shook his head in opposition to this rash statement.

"My theory is," said he, "that a novelist should know everything. To
write of love he should have been in love; to tell of marriage he should
have had a wife--a real one, no mere imitation; to talk of fatherhood
intelligently he should become a father. How can he know his subjects
otherwise?"

The stout man smiled significantly.

"And if he wishes to write of murder, he must kill some one. And if he
wants to depict the sensations of a robber he must take a pistol and ask
people to stand, on the highway."

"Now you are becoming absurd," said Archie.

"No more than you," said Boggs. "You go too far, and you will find it
out. Let your novelist fall in love. That will do him good. But don't
let him marry, or you will lose him, mark my word. Let him contemplate
matrimony at a distance. Let him reflect on the glory of seeing his
children about his knees. So far, so good. But when you have shelved him
with a wife of the present era, when you have kept him up nights for a
month with a baby that screams--his literary capacity will be gone. Make
no mistake!"

Mr. Weil, half convinced, and much surprised to hear such wisdom from
this unexpected source, made an effort to maintain his ground.

"Nearly all the modern novelists _are_ married," he remarked.

"Yes, and nice stuff they write, don't they? Namby-pamby, silly-billy
stories, misleading in every line! They are the most unsafe pilots on
the shores of human life. They start, without exception, from false
premises. Their chart is wrong, their compass unreliable, their
reckoning ridiculous from beginning to end. Where did you ever see a bit
of real life that resembled these abortions? Do lovers usually fall on
their knees when they propose? Is the modern girl an idiot, knowing less
of the facts of nature than an oyster? Is the conversation between men
and women filled exclusively with twaddle? You would think so, from
reading these books; and why? They are written by married people, most
of them, people who don't dare step over the line of the commonplace any
more than a woman would dare order her dressmaker to put pockets in her
gown!"

Archie looked at Mr. Gouger, who nodded a partial approval of these
statements. Mr. Boggs betook himself with more interest to his chops.
And the other two gentlemen, remarking that time pressed, bade him
good-by for the day.

"I see you agree with him that I shouldn't marry Roseleaf?" said Archie,
with a rising inflection.

"There is certainly point in what he says," replied Mr. Gouger.

"But--confound it! With the boy's disposition, it will be a delicate
business," retorted Weil. "I don't know as I can carry him to the point
of passionate love for pretty Miss Fern, and then shut off the steam
when it suits me."

This matter was discussed for the next ten minutes, as the friends
walked along toward the office of Cutt & Slashem.

"I think you are foolish to delay so long introducing him to her," said
Gouger, finally. "I don't see that you are making any progress
whatever."

"Ah, but I am," replied Weil. "I am making both of them more and more
anxious for the meeting. Shirley walks the street feverishly impatient,
and I have no doubt mutters her name in his dreams. Millicent talks
about her ideal of manly beauty. When they get together failure will be
impossible."

Mr. Gouger laughed at the idea that Roseleaf was "feverishly impatient"
to meet any girl, and ventured to predict that the young man would have
to be put in irons to get him to the residence of the Ferns when the
time came; or at least to keep him there.

"Just the point I am working on," replied Weil. "Under ordinary
circumstances I would have to handcuff his wrists to mine, but I am
making such a strong impression on his imagination that he is crazy to
go. And once she gets him under her influence--I tell you, Lawrence, she
is no ordinary girl."

"She certainly does not write like one," smiled the critic, "either in
her subject or her English. You may make something of him--I rather
think you will--but not of her. Her ideas are wild, and her realism a
little too pronounced even for the present age."

"She has truth on her side, you admit," said Archie.

"Yes, to a remarkable degree."

"Well, that ought to be something, if Boggs' estimate of the modern liar
is correct. Shirley will help her to style, give her his own, if
necessary. I am going to land both of these fish, if only to spite you,
Lawrence. You tossed them away with that fine contempt of yours, and you
will weep hot tears for it before you die."

At the door of Cutt & Slashem's they met the two members of that firm,
who paused to say a word to Mr. Gouger. They were anxious for a new book
to bring out as soon as possible, and were regretting with him that
nothing worth publishing seemed to present itself.

"You may strain matters, it necessary," said Mr. Cutt. "We can't keep
up on reprints forever. I hope you made no mistake in rejecting that
book of Mrs. Hotbox. I hear it is selling well."

Mr. Gouger's face was, as ever, immovable before his employers.

"What 'Fire and Brimstone?'" he inquired. "The authorities seized the
entire edition this morning."

Mr. Cutt looked at Mr. Slashem, with a startled expression.

"In that case, I am glad we escaped it," he said. "We shouldn't like
that sort of an affair, of course."

Mr. Weil, who knew both the gentlemen well, inquired what they thought
of Mrs. Hotbox's production.

"I have never seen it," said Mr. Slashem.

"Nor I," said Mr. Cutt.

The partners disappeared into the counting-room, where they had an
interview with a binder who had offered to do their work at one-tenth of
a cent a hundred copies less than the concern with which they were then
dealing. Archie said good-by to Gouger, and went off to find Roseleaf,
with whom he had engaged to take, later in the day, a ride through the
Park.

"How soon am I to see your paragon?" sighed the young man, as they were
making the grand round of that famous drive.

"Within a week, I hope. Are you getting uneasy?"

"I am getting lonesome," was the gloomy reply. "And I want to begin
work."

"Well, it will soon pass now. To-morrow evening I am to hear another
installment of her novel. Two more sittings after that will finish it, I
should say. And the next thing will be--you. But have you seen no one
else in all this time that you care for?"

The young man looked aimlessly at the fleecy clouds that hung low on the
horizon.

"No," he answered.

"And you think you are ready for a passionate affection, if the right
person is found?"

"I will try," he said, simply.

Mr. Weil roused himself and touched his horse with the whip.

"Try!" he echoed. "You will not have to try. She will carry you off your
feet, at the first go. Shirley, I have found you a superb woman, that
you _must_ love. All I want to feel sure of is, that you can control
yourself enough to behave in a reasonable manner."

Roseleaf looked up inquiringly.

"She belongs to an eminently respectable family," explained Archie. "Her
father is a gentleman of the most honorable type. She has a young
sister, who--"

Roseleaf, slow at all times, had at last begun to comprehend.

"You surely don't think--" he began.

"Ah, that is the question! A novelist must learn so very much--a
novelist who is to depict the truth, as you are to do. Where should he
stop? What experience should he refuse, provided it may be utilized in
his work? A responsibility that is no light one will rest on me, my dear
boy, when I have introduced you to this family, and left you to your
own devices."

Roseleaf's eyes opened wider at these mysterious suggestions, but he did
not like to make any more inquiries. Weil changed the conversation,
calling attention to the women they met, who turned their handsome heads
to look at the young man, as their equipages almost touched his.

"What an awfully wide swath you are cutting!" was Archie's exclamation,
as the throng increased.




CHAPTER VII.

A DINNER AT MIDLANDS.


True to his appointment Walker Boggs met Mr. Weil on the following
afternoon, and set out with him for Wilton Fern's office. Though
engaged, as has been already stated, in the wool trade, Mr. Fern did not
have on the premises to which these worthies repaired a very large
assortment of that product. His warehouses were in another part of the
city, and all the wool that was visible to his customers was arranged in
sample lots that would easily have gone into a barrel. Mr. Weil,
notwithstanding the description that Boggs had given of his ex-partner,
was not prepared to see such an exceedingly fine specimen of humanity as
the one introduced to him. The word "gentleman" was written in large
characters on his broad forehead and in every word he spoke. It
certainly was not often, said Archie to himself, that one encountered
that sort of man in business.

"I have already heard something of you, sir," said Mr. Fern, affably,
but with the dignity that was a part of his nature, no more to be
discarded than his eyes. "That is, if you are the same gentleman that
has kindly offered to assist my daughter in arranging a story she has
written."

Mr. Weil admitted the correctness of the supposition, but disclaimed any
special credit for what he had done. He explained briefly how he was
drawn into the case. The visit lasted upwards of an hour, during which
the conversation wandered from literature to business and politics, and
all sorts of things.

Mr. Weil could not tell from Mr. Fern's manner of alluding to his
daughter's work whether he had a very high idea of its value or not.
Indeed, there was very little to be learned from this grave gentleman
that was not expressed in the language he used. He was inclined, Archie
thought, to reticence, for when there was a lull in the conversation it
was always one of the others who had to start it going. The thing that
might be counted a substantial gain, out of the whole affair, was an
invitation to dinner for the following Wednesday, in which Mr. Roseleaf
was included, and Mr. Boggs also.

Before the Wednesday set for the formal dinner at the Ferns', Mr. Weil
had heard the whole of Miss Millicent's novel read by the lips of that
charming young woman. There was certainly something very strong in it,
in spite of its grammatical faults. It would be a very good story when
"Dr." Roseleaf had put it into a little better English.

The meeting between Roseleaf and Millicent was most interesting to the
one who had been the means of bringing them together. The girl put out
her hand with a straightforward motion of welcome, and it was accepted
with something resembling timidity by the young man, who did not even
raise his eyes to hers. The talk that followed was nearly all her own,
Shirley's part in it being largely monosyllabic replies to her
statements and suggestions.

When Miss Daisy was presented to both the gentlemen, for the first
time--Mr. Boggs she remembered very well--she drew their attention for a
few moments from her sister, but soon relapsed into the more
insignificant place which she seemed to prefer. She was not as large in
any way, as Millicent, and did not seem likely to become so. Her hair
was of a soft shade of light brown, and her eyes a decided blue. In the
presence of her sister she did not expect to shine, and was evidently
relieved when she could go into a corner and talk over times long past
with Walker Boggs.

Mr. Fern came in rather late, but still before the hour announced for
dinner. He had his habitual look of quiet elegance, but withal an
expression of care about his face, that Weil attributed to the business
troubles of which Boggs had spoken. The manner of the daughters toward
him was marked by the watchful eyes of the chief conspirator. Millicent
merely looked up and said, "Papa, this is Mr. Roseleaf, of whom we have
spoken," and then when the greetings that followed were exchanged, went
on talking with those about her as if there had been no interruption.
Daisy, on the other hand, crept softly to her father's side, and putting
an arm around his neck, kissed him when she thought no one observed her.

"You are tired, papa," she whispered.

"No, no!" he said, brightening. "I am very well."

It was at the table that Mr. Fern had his first conversation with
Roseleaf, and the two men got along nicely together. Shirley acquitted
himself creditably. Weil, who saw everything, noticed that the negro,
Hannibal, in superintending the service in the dining-room, lingered
more about Miss Daisy's chair than any other, and took extra pains to
see that her wants were anticipated. In spite of this, however, Mr. Fern
frequently asked his younger daughter to have more of certain dishes, as
if his mind was constantly turned in that direction.

"How long do you think it will require to do the work you have so
generously undertaken?" asked Mr. Fern of Roseleaf, when the dessert was
reached.

"It is impossible to say," stammered the young man. "Some weeks, at
least."

"So I supposed," said Mr. Fern. "That being the case I wish to tender
you the hospitality of my home. It would be a great deal of trouble for
you to come every day from the city, and I know we could make you
comfortable here."

Roseleaf was about to decline the offer with thanks, when Mr. Weil spoke
to him in a low tone.

"Take it, by all means," he said. "It's a chance in a lifetime. You know
nothing of family life. Don't dream of refusing."

The delay allowed Miss Millicent to add her request to that of her
father, and fearing to let his protege answer, Mr. Weil boldly spoke for
him.

"It is a good idea," he said. "He will have his baggage brought up
to-morrow. There's nothing like being on the ground, when there's work
to be done. And, with the general permission, I am going to run out
pretty often myself, to see how things progress."

The bright, off-hand way of the last speaker seemed to please Mr. Fern,
for he heartily seconded this suggestion. When the table was vacated,
Mr. Fern asked if he might be excused for a few minutes, while he wrote
a couple of important letters, and requested Walker Boggs to show the
guests through the grounds, where they could smoke their cigars till he
returned.

Accordingly Weil and Roseleaf accompanied their new guide out of doors
and across an extensive lawn to an arbor at the further end, where a
handsome prospect of the Hudson unfolded itself. As Archie was wishing
for some feasible way of getting rid of Boggs, temporarily, that
gentleman espied an acquaintance in the adjacent road and went off to
speak to him.

"Are you in love yet, you dog?" asked Archie, as soon as he and his
young friend were alone. "What! You're not! Don't let an hour pass,
then, before you are. The best of all proverbs is, 'Never put off till
to-morrow what you can do to-day.'"

"How can I do this to-day?" was the doleful response.

"How can you help it, you mean? There she was at the table--Titian hair,
hazel-grey eyes, lovely waist--everything. Love! _I_ could fall in love
with that girl, marry her, get a divorce and commit suicide, within
forty-eight hours."

Even Roseleaf had to smile at this extravagant statement.

"Do you want me to do all of those things?" he asked.

"Only the first one, at present. If you can't do that, give up all ideas
of being a novelist and secure a place in some factory or counting-room.
Everything is ready for you. You are _persona grata_ here. Nothing can
come in your way. Oh, don't exasperate me!"

Roseleaf haltingly said he would do his best; and the next day he came
to Midlands, prepared to spend a month or longer.




CHAPTER VIII.

HOLDING HER HAND.


For the first three days Roseleaf gave most of his time to reading the
MSS. that Miss Fern had written. He could not say that he liked it,
exactly, but that was not necessary. To fill in the time, he consented
to let the girl read his own story that Gouger had rejected, though he
did this with trepidation, having a dread that she would think it
insipid. When she had finished it, however, her delight was unbounded.

"It is lovely!" she exclaimed, in response to his inquiring eyes. "I
cannot see why they refused it. I haven't been so interested in a story
in years."

When he had read _her_ story through he began to rewrite it, departing
as little as possible from the original. As soon as he had a chapter
finished he would give it to her, for comparison, and criticism, if she
chose to make any. She proved, however, a most charming critic, her
shafts falling mainly upon herself, for she declared that her novel
seemed unworthy of its elegant new dress. She conceived a shyness toward
this quiet youth, and blushed when the striking situations and bold
language of her tale came into the conversation. It was so different
from his own work!

"It is too bold. I am sure it is," she said, repeatedly. "I ought to
begin again. My plot has too much freedom, too little conventionality.
People will say a very strange girl must have written it."

And he would tell her that he did not think so; that the strength of her
ideas was very great, and that the public would find excuses enough for
anything that interested and entertained it. He even added that he
wished he possessed her knowledge, her insight into life, her
fearlessness to tread on any ground that her subject made desirable.

Between them they were doing very good work, without doubt. Mr. Weil
took some of the completed chapters to Lawrence Gouger, who returned
them with a smile that spoke volumes. Cutt & Slashem would take the
story when it was ready, if the subsequent pages kept up to the mark of
the first ones.

"Don't forget your own book," said Gouger, in a note he enclosed for
Roseleaf.

Mr. Weil was not backward in accepting the cordial invitation he had had
to join the Ferns at dinner whenever he could make it convenient.
Besides this he called frequently at the wool office, and ingratiated
himself into Mr. Fern's good graces in many ways. Within a fortnight he
knew all there was to be known about wool, in which he seemed to have
conceived a great interest. In his talks with Roseleaf he spoke
learnedly on this subject, referring to the foreign and domestic
staples, like one who had made the matter a life study.

"What a queer thing trade is!" he exclaimed, on one of these occasions.
"Here we find a man who ought to adorn an atelier, or a seat in
Congress, and yet is obliged to guide his entire existence by the price
of such a confoundedly dull thing as the hair on a sheep's back. He
votes a certain political ticket on account of the attitude of the party
on Wool; he dines off mutton and lambs' tongues; he casts his lot with
the Sheep at church. I don't know but he would feel a genuine pleasure
in having Wool pulled over his eyes. And still I am convinced that he
never ought to have been in the Wool business at all, and that
Boggs--what a drop--is right in his impression that it will eventually
swamp him."

Roseleaf asked how Mr. Fern got into the trade in the first place.

"Well, as I understand it, Boggs was looking for a partner. Mrs. Fern
had some cash and her husband wanted to put it into a good thing, from a
financial standpoint. They did well while they were together. When Boggs
pulled out they had a clear $200,000 apiece. Boggs--confound him!--has
his yet; Fern hasn't. He's proud as the devil, and didn't tell me this,
by any means. It would break him up completely to have to go into
bankruptcy. Really, I wish I could do something for him."

Roseleaf looked up inquiringly.

"Why, I've got a fair amount of money," explained Archie, "and perhaps a
lift over these hard times might be the making of him. I'm not
particularly a philanthropist, but I like this fellow wonderfully well
for such a new acquaintance. I shall give him a delicate hint in a day
or two, and if I can fix things without too much risk--we have to
protect ourselves, you know--I am willing to do so."

This struck Shirley Roseleaf as rather odd. He had never thought about
Mr. Weil in that way. Whether he was rich or poor had never entered his
head. He began to wonder if he was very wealthy. He certainly lived
well, and had no visible occupation of the sort the census takers call
"gainful."

"It is an interesting family, though," pursued Archie, in his rambling
way. "I wish I could get into it as you did, you rascal, and observe it
at shorter range. Even the servants are worth studying. Look at that
Hannibal; who can say that the African race is inferior when it produces
such marvels! I can hardly take my eyes off the black paragon when he is
present. How he passes the soup--as if it were some heavenly decoction,
made by the gods themselves and sent to earth by their favorite
messenger! With what grace he opens the carriage door! with what majesty
he mounts to his seat by the driver! I wonder if he has a sister. She
would be worth a journey to see. I have met such women on their native
soil, statuesque, slender, full-breasted, square-shouldered, with jars
of water on their heads and clinking silver anklets. What a cursed thing
is our American prejudice against color! No other people carries it to
such an extent. In the Latin Quarter the West India blacks are prime
favorites with the pretty grisettes."

The young man could not help a slight shiver at this information. He did
not in the least agree with the sentiments his friend was advancing, but
neither did he think it wise to contradict him.

"Then there is the little one--Miss Daisy"--continued Weil, branching
suddenly into that topic. "So quiet, so self-abased, as if she would not
for the world attract one glance that might be claimed by her elder
sister, who is perfectly willing to be a monopolist of attention. A nice
girl, sweet as a fresh-plucked lily. There must be treasures hidden
under all that reticence. Still waters run deep, the silent swine devour
the milk. I think I ought to investigate the child. If you are to have
that aggregation of beauty known as Millicent, what prevents me from
securing a slight hold in the affections of the junior?"

Roseleaf shook his head in a way that might have meant almost anything.
He never could tell how much in earnest his friend was when he took up a
vein like this. Neither could he imagine little Daisy in the role of an
entertainer for such a very wise man as Archie, not only much her senior
but a thousand times her superior in knowledge and acquaintance with
things that people talk about.

"Keep your eye on her--she will be worth watching," said Weil, with one
of his laughs at the sober face before him. "She is worth almost as much
to a rising author as the negro--not quite, but nearly. Then there is
the pater-familias; is there anything in him? No, he will be of no
service to you. And that brings us back to our superb Millicent, with
whom you must now be wildly infatuated."

Roseleaf shook his head again.

"No--not yet," he said.

"But, what do you do all the time? How can you sit by the side of a
pretty girl, and kiss her cheeks, and put your arm around her, and yet
keep from falling in love?"

The younger man gasped at each of these suggestions, like one who has
stepped into icy water and feels it gradually creeping upward.

"I have done none of those things," he faltered.

"None of them! Then I shall not let you stay here!" cried Archie. "What
does the girl expect? That we are going to make her reputation in the
literary world and get nothing for ourselves? I never heard such
effrontery! She refuses to give you the least opportunity, does she--the
jade!"

More and more confused grew the other at these expressions.

"You don't understand--you are quite in error," he articulated.
"She--she has refused me nothing, because--because I have asked
nothing."

Mr. Weil uttered a disheartened groan.

"But this will not do, my dear fellow!" he said. "How can you accomplish
anything unless you make a beginning? Rewriting the story that she has
written will not advance you one step on the path you profess such
anxiety to tread. That is only an excuse--a make-believe--a pretence
under which you have been given quarters in this house and allowed every
chance in creation to learn your lesson. Are you afraid of her, or what
is the matter? Does she overpower you with her beauty? Tell me where
your difficulty lies."

But Shirley could hardly answer these apparently simple questions. He
said he feared the trouble might be in the formality of the situation.
How could Mr. Weil expect, he asked, that a spontaneous case of
love-making would develop from such a condition of things.

"Stuff!" cried Archie, with a grimace. "If you and she were members of a
theatrical company, and were cast as a pair of lovers, you wouldn't find
so many pitfalls. You would go ahead and repeat the lines of your part,
wouldn't you? All you want is to do the same now."

"But what _are_ the 'lines of my part?'" inquired the other, dolefully.

"Take her hand once in yours and they will come to you," retorted Weil.

Roseleaf reddened so much that Archie regretted the severity of his
tone, and hastened to turn the conversation to something more agreeable.
He made up his mind, however, to have a talk with Miss Fern, and at the
first opportunity he did so. It was on an afternoon when he knew
Roseleaf was in the city, and he came to the point at once, after his
own fashion.

"How are you and my young friend getting along?" he asked her.

"Oh, as well as possible," she responded. "I am learning to like him
more and more. I really shall be sorry when his task is done."

Mr. Weil shrugged his shoulders.

"There's a bit of selfishness in your words, Miss Fern," he said. "Have
you forgotten that he is not here to be useful to _you_ alone; that you
agreed to do what you could for _him_, as well?"

The girl cast down her pretty eyes in confusion.

"I am sure I have tried to be agreeable," she replied, gently.

"That is not enough," replied Archie, gravely. "What he needs is
something--some one--to stir his blood, to awaken his fancy. I told you
in the first place that you ought to make him fall in love with you--for
literary reasons. He must feel a sensation stronger than mere friendship
for a woman before he can write such a story as will bring him fame."

Miss Millicent did not grow more comfortable under this suggestion. She
remarked, after a long wait, that she did not see how the end sought was
to be accomplished. Love, she said, was not a mere expression, it was a
deep, actual entity. Two people, playing at love with each other, might
afterwards find that they were experimenting with fire.

"I have heard," she continued, her fair cheeks growing crimson, "that
there are women--"

Then she paused and could go no further. But he understood.

"There are women--thousands of them," he admitted, "who would willingly
do what I ask. If it is necessary, he must go to them."

She wanted to say that she hoped it would not come to that--she wanted
to convey to her companion the horror she felt for what she supposed his
words implied--but she could not. It was so much easier to write of
things than to talk of them to a man like him.

"Do you call it quite fair," he asked, "to claim all and give nothing?
He does not require much. Could you not let him take your hand, and--"

"And--"

"Possibly, touch your lips with his?"

Miss Fern rose to her feet with a fierce gesture.

"Sir!" she exclaimed.

"Very well," replied Mr. Weil, shortly, turning away.

The girl resumed her seat, with rapidly rising and falling bosom. She
was in a quandary. The suggestion she had heard would have sounded from
any other lips like a premeditated insult. Coming from this man the
venom seemed to have vanished.

Roseleaf felt somewhat discouraged after his latest talk with Weil. He
wanted to make a start, to do something, no matter how little, toward
the object he fully believed was to be attained. That evening while
walking with Miss Fern (for it was their frequent habit to go out of
doors unchaperoned) he found himself unconsciously taking her hand--that
hand for which he had until now felt a genuine fright. And she, after
all her resolutions never to permit anything of the sort, gave it to
him, as they strolled together along an unfrequented byway.

"I want so much to make a Name," he was saying fervently. "I have tried
and tried to begin such a book as Mr. Gouger wants, but I cannot. Won't
you help me, dear Miss Fern? Won't you show me what I lack? I know you
can, if you will. They tell me I have had no experiences, and that I
must have--not a real affair, you know, but an inkling of what it is
like. I have tried to say things to you and have been in fear that you
would not like them, and have held my peace. But now, I can wait no
longer."

In his exuberance Roseleaf spoke at last with ardor, and even went so
far as to attempt to put one of his arms around the waist of the fair
creature by his side. On her part Miss Fern was nearly overcome by
surprise.

In one instant the timid young gentleman had changed into the similitude
of a most ardent swain; but in the next he became again his natural
self, with the added confusion resulting from his excited and mortified
state.

"Let me take you home," he said, when he saw that she could find no
words even to chide him. "Let me take you home; and to-morrow I will go
away."

Go away! She did not like that idea! Her book was not yet finished, for
one thing; and besides he was a nice young fellow, and had meant no
offense.

"There is no reason why you should go," she stammered. "I forgive you, I
am sure."

"Do you!" cried Roseleaf, grasping her hand again in his joy. "You are
kindness itself to say so. I must appear very stupid" (here he half put
his arm around her again, checking himself with difficulty from
completeing the movement) "and dull, and wanting in manners, but you are
the only young lady I have ever known on terms of the least intimacy."

Miss Fern replied that she did not mind what had occurred, and hoped he
would forget it. She added that she would do anything she could for
him, and had the most earnest wish that they should be friends.

At the gate they paused, and in some way their eyes were looking into
each other. The girl laughed, a relief to feelings that had been for the
past ten minutes somewhat overcharged.

"Well, you have made a beginning," she said, mischievously, for she
wanted to drive the sober expression from his clouded face.

"A beginning?" he echoed.

"Yes," she said. "You have held my hand."

He crimsoned.

"You said you would forgive me," he murmured.

"With all my heart," she responded, putting the hand in his again.

He felt a thrill go through him, but it was a pleasant sensation.

"I came very near putting my arm around you," said he, looking away from
her. "Do you forgive that, too?"

She took the hand away and struck him playfully on the cheek with the
palm of it.

Then, before he surmised what she intended, she ran brightly up the
steps of the house and vanished.




CHAPTER IX.

"DAISY, MY DARLING!"


It was Roseleaf's full intention to say something about this adventure
to his instructor in the art of love, Mr. Archie Weil, but somehow he
was not able to summon the requisite courage. He had a delicate sense
that such a thing ought not to be repeated, where it might by any
possibility bring a laugh. And about this time the novelist's attention
began to be attracted toward the younger sister, who had till then
almost entirely escaped his observation.

He noticed particularly the ceaseless devotion that the black servant of
the family exhibited toward her. She might have been a goddess and he a
devotee; a queen and he her slave. Hannibal moved about the girl like
her very shadow, ready to anticipate her slightest wants, while Daisy
seemed to take this excess of attention as a matter of course.

Millicent constantly showed her dislike for the servant.

"I don't see how you can endure to have him touch you," she said to
Daisy. "He knows better than to lay his hands on me. I have told papa
often that I want him discharged, and he ought to consider my wishes a
little."

To this Daisy answered that the boy, as she persisted in calling the
giant, meant well and was certainly intelligent. Her father did not like
to change servants, for it took him a long time to get used to new
ones. So Millicent tossed her head, returned to her collaboration with
Mr. Roseleaf, and things went on as usual.

Imperceptibly Shirley began to take an interest in Daisy. She did not
run away from him, and he discovered, much to his surprise, that she was
worth talking to. She was not exactly the child he had supposed, and she
had the full value of her eighteen years in her pretty head. He got into
the habit of taking short strolls with her, on evenings when Millicent
was occupied with Archie, and when, as often happened, Mr. Fern was away
with Hannibal in the city. There was a sequestered nook at the far end
of the lawn, in which the pair found retreat. Before he realized it,
Roseleaf had developed a genuine liking for these rambles, and was
pleased when the evenings came that brought Mr. Weil to dinner.

Daisy was ingenuous, to a degree, if surface indications counted for
anything. The words that flowed from her red lips were as unstudied as
the pretty attitudes she assumed, or the exceedingly plain but very
becoming dresses that she wore. After she once got "used" to Roseleaf
she treated him quite as if she had been five years his senior.

"Are you a rich man?" she asked him, on one of those early autumn
evenings that they passed together.

Her manner was as simple as if she had said that it looked like rain,
and his answer was hardly less so.

"No, Daisy. I have not much property, but I intend to earn more,
by-and-by. Did you think, because I seem so idle, that I was a
millionaire?"

"No," she answered, a shade of disappointment in her face. "I only
wanted, in case you had plenty of money, to get you to lend me some."

He stared at her through the half-light. Her features were turned in a
direction that did not reveal them very well. What did she want of
money!

"How much do you need?" he inquired, wondering if it was within his
power to oblige her.

"Oh, too much, I am afraid. And I cannot answer any questions, because
the object I have is a secret. I don't think my plan very feasible, for
it might be years and years before I could pay it back. You won't mind
my speaking of it, will you?"

Curiosity grew stronger, and as politely as possible he renewed his
question as to how much the girl needed to carry out her plan.

"I don't know, exactly," she said, thoughtfully. "Perhaps a thousand
dollars a year for five or six years; it might take less."

"It is a great deal," he admitted. "Does your father know what you
contemplate?"

The girl changed color at once.

"Oh, no. I should not like to have him, either. He would say it was very
foolish. And yet I am sure it would not be. The money would do much
good--yes, ever so much."

The young man thought hard for a few moments. A desire to see a brighter
light flash into those young eyes possessed him. He debated seriously
the idea of handing her his patrimony, as he would have given her a
pound of candy if she had wanted it.

"I might give you part," he said, after a pause. "Perhaps your thousand
for the first year or two."

She looked him full in the face, and put both her hands in his
impulsively.

"You are too good," she exclaimed, with fervor. "But you cannot afford
so large a gift. No, I would only take it if you had a very large sum,
and could not possibly miss it. I asked carelessly. I should not have
done so--I was selfish to think of such a thing."

"I want to speak to you about something, also," said Roseleaf, after a
strained pause. "I have noticed of late that your father has some
trouble on his mind."

She started suddenly.

"Ah!" was all she said.

"And I have wondered if there was anything I could do to--to aid
_him_--to relieve him. Because, I would like it very much if I could, on
account of--of--"

She looked up inquiringly.

"I have been so much a member of your family, in a certain way, that a
grief like this appeals strongly to me," he said, haltingly.

She paled slightly as she repeated his words.

"A grief?"

"Well, distress, annoyance, whatever it may be called. If there is
anything I can do, I shall be more than happy."

The girl sat for some moments with her eyes on the ground.

"He _is_ troubled," she said, finally. "I am glad to talk with you, for
I cannot get him to tell me anything. He is greatly troubled, and I am
worried beyond expression. I can't understand it. He has always confided
in me so thoroughly, but now he shakes his head and says it is nothing,
trying to look brighter even when the tears are almost ready to fall.
What can it be, Mr. Roseleaf? He has no companions outside of his office
and this house? He sits by himself, and isn't a bit like he used to be
and every day I think he grows worse."

Roseleaf asked if Daisy had talked much with her sister about it.

"No," she said, with a headshake. "I don't believe Millie has noticed
anything. She is so occupied with her literary matters"--there was a
sarcastic touch upon the word, that did not escape the listener--"she
has no time for such things. I hope you won't think I mean to criticise
her," added the young girl, with a blush. "I know you care a great deal
for my sister, and--"

She stopped in the midst of the sentence, leaving it unfinished. And
Roseleaf thought how interesting this girl had become.

"Let me confide in you, Daisy," he said, in his softest tone. "I do not
care 'a great deal,' nor even a very little for your sister. You see,"
he went on, in response to the startled look that greeted him, "I am to
be a novelist. To be successful in writing fiction, I have been told
that I ought to be in love--just once--myself. And I came here and tried
very hard to fall in love with Miss Millicent; and I simply cannot."

Daisy's fresh young laugh rang out on the air of the evening.

"Poor man!" she cried, with mock pity. "And hasn't she tried to help
you?"

"No. She hasn't. And as soon as I get the work done I have commenced for
her, I am going away."

The child--she was scarcely more than that--grew whiter, but the shadows
of the evening hid the fact from her companion.

"You ought not to go," she said, slowly, and rather faintly, "until you
have made another trial."

"Oh! It is useless!" he replied.

"Is it that you cannot love--Millie--or that you cannot love--any one?"

He hesitated, puzzled, himself, at the question.

"I never did love any one--any woman," he confessed, "and perhaps I
never shall. But your sister seems peculiarly hard to love. Yet she is a
very handsome girl and equipped with a mind of unusual calibre."

Daisy acknowledged this description of her sister's charms. She remarked
that it was strange that such a combination did not suffice to
accomplish the desired result.

"There are people who do find her entertaining," she added. "Mr. Weil is
one of them."

"Oh, Archie!" said Roseleaf. "He finds everything entertaining. It is
nothing worth remarking. She is the exact description of his ideal in
feminine face and form. He once gave me the list of the excellencies of
a 'perfect woman,' and your sister has them all."

The younger Miss Fern had her own opinions about this matter. She
thought the innocent man at her side had not quite gauged the interest
that Mr. Weil took in her family.

"I will make a proposition," she said, with a light laugh, when they had
talked longer upon the subject. "I am afraid it won't seem worth much to
you, and perhaps you can do better; but why can't you stay here, and--if
Millie won't do--make love to _me_?"

Darkness is responsible for many things. In the light, Daisy could not
have uttered those words, even in jest. There, when the sun had set and
the stars were not yet on duty, she found the courage to make that
suggestion.

"You are very kind," he stammered, when he grasped her meaning. "But I
do not think it will answer. I am afraid love cannot be pushed to any
point without its own initiative."

"That is probably the case with _real_ love," replied the girl, "but an
imitation that would serve your purpose might be evolved in the way I
have indicated. For instance, you could take my hand in yours--like
this--and I could lean toward you in--this way. And then, if you had
sufficient courage--"

Before he dreamed of doing it, it was done! He had kissed her on her
tempting lips, placed within an inch of his own.

"You are too good a scholar," she pouted, rising to her feet in some
confusion. "I did not give you leave to do that."

"I beg your pardon most humbly," he answered, with intense contrition.
"May I assure you that the act was wholly involuntary and that I am very
sorry for it?"

She turned and surveyed him in the shadow.

"Are--you--_very_--sorry?" she repeated.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I have made you angry."

"Do I seem angry?"

"At least, I have injured your feelings."

Her face was close to his again.

"Well, I forgive you. There, let us make up."

She raised herself on the tips of her toes and kissed him twice.

All the blood in this young man's body seemed to rush to his head and
then back with violence to his heart.

"_Daisy!_" he stammered. "_Daisy!_"

But she sprang away as he tried to embrace her, and standing two yards
off, tauntingly cried that he did not know what love was, and that no
one could ever teach him. Taking up the challenge he started toward her.
She ran away, he in pursuit. She had gone but a few steps when she
tripped over an object in the path and went down. In trying to stop
himself Roseleaf fell by her side.

"Daisy!" he cried. "Are you injured?"

She did not answer. In the darkness he saw her lying there so still that
he was frightened. He caught her passionately in his arms, and knew no
better way to bring her to consciousness than to rain kisses on her
cheeks. As might be expected this only served to prolong her swoon,
which was not a very genuine one, if the truth must be told, and it was
some seconds before she opened her eyes and caught him, as one might
say, in the act.

"How dare you!" she demanded, shrinking away from him.

"Daisy, my darling!" he answered, his voice tremulous. "I thought you
were dead, and I knew for the first time how dearly, how truly I loved
you!"

She laughed, not very heartily. She had hurt herself truly in her fall,
and her feminine nerves were jarred.

"You are doing nicely," she said. "For a beginner, one could ask nothing
better. And now, if you will help to rise, I think it would be more
proper."

"No." He spoke with force and passion. "You must not think I am
trifling. _I love you!_ Yes, I love you! _I worship you!_"

"I do not see," she remarked, insisting in spite of him that she must
assume a standing position, "how you differ in your expressions from the
lovers I have read of in novels. It is quite time that we returned to
the house. To-morrow, if you like, I will give you another lesson."

Shirley was a picture of utter despair. His new sensations almost
overwhelmed him. In one second the dead arteries in his body had leaped
into the fullest life. The touch of that young maiden's lips had
galvanized him. He could not bear to leave her with those mocking words.
But at that moment a voice was heard in the direction of the residence.

"Miss--Dai-sy! Miss--Dai-sy!"

It was Hannibal, who had returned from a drive with Mr. Fern. They could
see him dimly coming across the lawn with the girl's cloak in his hand.
Daisy, with one quick grasp of the fingers that hung close to hers, said
good-night to her companion, and started in the direction of the
servant. If she intended--as seemed probable--to pretend she was out
alone, Roseleaf did not mean to share in that deception, and he followed
close behind her.

"Here I am, Hannibal," called Daisy. "Ah, you have my coat. It was very
kind of you. Has papa come home? I am coming in. I did not think how
late it was."

The negro stopped as he saw the strollers, and knew that they had
undoubtedly been together. What more he suspected no one can say with
certainty. But he threw the cloak upon the grass that bordered the
pathway and turned on his heel without a word.

"Confound his impudence!" exclaimed Roseleaf, when he had recovered
sufficiently from his surprise to speak. "I have a good notion to
follow him and box his ears."

The soft hand of the girl was on his sleeve in a moment.

"Say nothing to him--_please!_" she answered. "He--he is very thoughtful
for me--of my health--and I was careless. Papa must have sent him."

The touch on his arm mollified the young man at once. He tried to make
out the lines of the pretty face that was so near him and yet so far
away.

"We are to study again to-morrow, then," he said, taking up her
statement with an assumed air of gayety. "At what hour?"

But she broke away from him abruptly, and ran into the house without a
word. Hannibal stood in the doorway and Roseleaf thought he
distinguished harsh sounds from the negro's lips; but this seemed so
incredible that he conceived his senses at fault.

Looking at his watch the novelist saw that it was still early enough to
take a stroll by himself and ponder over his new happiness--or misery,
which was it?--under the open sky. It was two hours later that his
latchkey turned in the door, and in that time he had resolved either to
make Daisy Fern his wife or commit suicide in the most expeditious
fashion.




CHAPTER X

"OH, SO MANY, MANY MAIDS!"


The only disagreeable thing about falling in love with Daisy was that
Roseleaf felt compelled to reveal the truth to Archie Weil. He believed
he was bound to do this by a solemn contract which he had no moral right
to ignore. Perhaps Weil might claim that he had no business to fall in
love with one sister when his "manager" had picked out the other for
this operation. Be that as it may, there was no use in evading the
question. It must be talked over, be the result what it might.

"Well, I know what love is now," was the abrupt way in which the young
man opened the subject on the following afternoon.

He had ridden to the city, as Weil was not expected at the residence of
Mr. Fern that day. The hope he had formed the previous evening of
getting another interview with Daisy had not materialized, she having
gone on some short journey before he could intercept her.

"You do!" was the equally abrupt reply, uttered in a tone that betrayed
undoubted astonishment. "What do you mean?"

Roseleaf reddened.

"It came to me all at once, last evening," he said, avoiding the gaze of
his companion. "We were down at the end of the lawn, you know--"

Archie interrupted him with a sudden shout.

"Not _Daisy_!"

"Yes."

"You are in love with _Daisy_!"

Roseleaf bowed.

"Upon my word!"

There was nothing in any of these expressions that conveyed the
information which the younger man craved, namely, whether his friend
approved what he had announced, but he stole a look at him and saw that
he appeared more astounded than angry.

"You dear boy," he said, "I don't know what to say to you. You blush
like a maiden over the acknowledgment. I am half inclined to believe you
are the girl in the case, and your partner in love some great, strapping
fellow on whose bosom you intend to pillow your coy head. So it is
Daisy, eh? And last night it came to you? Tell me how it happened."

Comforted in a measure by the good nature of his friend, Roseleaf
proceeded to give the outlines of what had occurred, suppressing the
more intimate facts with which the luckier reader is acquainted. He
admitted the touch of hands, but did not mention the pressure of lips to
lips. He told of the girl's swoon, but said nothing of the extraordinary
measures adopted to bring her to her senses. But, while he made no
insinuations, nor pretended to see through the meshes in this net, the
experience of Mr. Weil served him in good stead. He could fill in the
vacant places in the story with substantial correctness.

"I don't know what Miss Millicent will say to all this," he remarked,
when the recital came to a pause.

"I think she was just beginning to like you a little herself. Most of
our talk last evening was about you, and when I mentioned, as I took my
leave, that you were probably out walking with Daisy, I could see
distinct traces of jealousy. I want to be fair with my client. I told
her that you came there to learn love from her, not from her little
sister. If all this should result in breaking her heart, I don't see how
I could excuse myself. And the other one, she seems such a child, I
never thought of her in that connection. Why, how old is she--not over
eighteen, I think."

Roseleaf answered that Daisy would be nineteen on her next birthday, an
ingenious way of stating age that was not original with him.

"All right," said Archie, digesting this statement slowly. "And now,
what is your programme?"

Roseleaf looked surprised at the business-like nature of the question.

"I mean to secure her consent to marry me, as soon as possible," he
said.

"And then?"

"Why, see her father, I suppose. Isn't that the most important thing to
do?"

Mr. Weil shook his head decidedly.

"Not by any means. You must not act with undue haste. Mr. Fern would say
she was too young to think of matrimony, a proposition you could not
successfully dispute. Besides, should he happen to give his consent and
appoint a week from Wednesday for the happy occasion, see what a mess
it would put you in."

The suggestion caused the brightest of smiles to illumine the
countenance of the listener.

"It would make me the happiest of mortals!" he cried. "There is nothing
that could prevent my summoning the clergyman and securing the prize I
desire."

Mr. Weil grunted.

"H--m! And in the meanwhile what would become of your great novel?"

This question brought a sober pause to the young novelist.

"I could write it after my wedding," he answered, finally.

"Could you? You could write nothing at all then--nothing that any one
would pay a cent to read. I have told you from the start that what you
want is a _grande passion_, something to stir your soul to its depths.
You are on the verge of that experience. Already you have had a glimpse
of what it will be like. For the first time the touch of a woman's
fingers has driven sleep from your eyelids. No, you didn't tell me you
laid awake all night, but I saw it by looking at you. You can shut
yourself up in your room now, and rhapsodize over the dear face, the
lovely mouth, the soft voice of your beloved. In another week, if this
keeps on, you can write like a combination of George Eliot (after she
met Lewes) and Amelie Rives (before her marriage). A month later, Gouger
might rave over your productions, for you will be on the Matterhorn of
bliss unsatisfied."

A slight laugh, at his own excess of description, issued from the lips
of Mr. Weil, but the countenance of his companion was as firm as a rock.

"You are right," said Roseleaf, gravely. "Already I see the vast
difference between this sensation of love and the thing I imagined it to
be when I wrote those silly pages that Cutt & Slashem did so well to
reject. But I am torn between two desires. I want to write my
novel--until yesterday I thought no wish could be so great. And I also
want my wife." He breathed the word with a simple reverence that
affected even the flinty heart of his hearer. "I shall never rest easy
until I find her wholly mine, to love, honor and cherish while God gives
me breath!"

The hand of the elder man dropped heavily on the table by his side.

"_Good!_" he exclaimed. "_Very_ good! You could not have said it better.
There is an opportunity before you to accomplish both of these things. I
only wish to impress upon you the fact that they must come in the order
I have indicated, or one of them will never come at all. Write your
story while the fever of passion is on you. The dead calm of married
life would only bring the sort of novel that the shelves are already
piled with, nauseating to the public and a drug in the hands of the
publishers."

Roseleaf doubted the full correctness of these conclusions. He thought,
with that dear girl by his side, he could write with all the fervor of a
sweetheart, for his affection was to have no boundary, no limit, no end.
But he had a high opinion of the abilities of Mr. Weil, and he had no
idea of disputing the conclusions of that wise guide.

"Do you think she will accept me?" he asked, wistfully, returning to the
main question. "It came so sudden, and there was very little said, and
it was late; and then Hannibal came after her, and she went into the
house. Everything was left in a state of uncertainty."

"Did nothing show whether you were indifferent to her?" was the wily
interrogation that followed. "Usually I believe something conveys the
sweet word 'hope' to the waiting one. And what do you say about
Hannibal? That he came to call your charmer and took her away from you?"

Without reserve the young man repeated what had happened. Archie seemed
deeply interested, but whatever his thoughts he did not express them at
the time.

"And that reminds me of another thing," said Roseleaf. "Have you noticed
anything strange about Mr. Fern?"

"Yes," said Mr. Weil, "I have noticed. I wondered if you had done the
same. Have you discovered what the trouble is?"

"No, and Daisy doesn't know, either. Indeed, she is much distressed
about it. Remember, this is a secret between us, for perhaps I had no
right to talk of their affairs. He is in a state of great depression,
and as he is so regular in his habits I can't imagine what to lay it to.
You are so shrewd, couldn't you find out?"

Mr. Weil rose and took a few paces up and down the room.

"You are the fellow to do that, not I," he said, presently. "Yes, hear
me out. You are in a sense a member of his family, and would have a
natural right to allude to the state of his health. Then, if you were to
put in a word about Miss Daisy--why, you might kill several birds with
one stone."

Roseleaf looked much puzzled.

"I thought," he said, "that you wanted me to postpone the matter of my
marriage as long as possible."

"Your marriage, yes. But not the preliminaries. They may require a dozen
bouts with the old gentleman. The first time he will probably laugh you
out of the room as a silly young noodle; the second he will say that he
has nothing against you personally, but that his 'baby' is too infantile
to think of such things for ten years yet; the third he will begin to
see the situation in its right light, and after that it will be only a
matter of detail. All these things will be of the greatest value to you
in the novel you are going to write, and you must not on your life miss
a single one of them.

"Drop into the wool shop, catch his royal highness there, and for the
first thing express solicitude for his health. Unless he is on his guard
more than is likely you ought to catch some slight straw to show what
ails him. Then follow it up with a word or two about Miss Daisy, and you
will have spent a good afternoon, even if he doesn't smile on your suit
at first hand, and take you to his manly breast as his long-lost
son-in-law."

The reasonings set forth in these propositions were so evidently correct
that Roseleaf resolved to adopt them just as soon as he could bring
himself into the proper mood. In the meantime, however, he wanted to
have a little further talk with Daisy, for he could hardly ask her
father for her hand without the semblance of permission on her part. He
tried to remember all she had said to him at the foot of the lawn, and
was compelled to admit that it was very little indeed. The only things
he was certain of were the kisses, but his experiences were so slight
that he could not tell how much weight to give even these.

That evening he tried his best to get a word with her alone, but she
eluded him, and he was obliged to go to the boudoir of her sister and
read over that young lady's MSS. as it stood revised by his careful
hands.

"Well, another chapter will finish it," said Miss Fern, when he put down
the pages. "And then Mr. Gouger will decide whether Cult & Slashem
consider it worth printing."

"Yes," he answered, gravely. "They will print _your_ story now, without
doubt. But _I_ am as far as ever from satisfying their requirements."

Millicent thought how supremely selfish she must seem, talking always of
her own hopes and doing nothing to help the one who had made her success
possible. She saw that he wore a dejected look, and she began to
sincerely pity him. When our own ships are safely in sight of the
harbor we have more time to dwell on the derelicts in which the property
of our friends is embarked.

"Perhaps, when we get this disposed of, I can help you," she suggested.

It was nearly a week before Roseleaf could get another talk with Daisy,
a week that tried him to the utmost, for he could think of nothing but
her, and could not understand her reasons for treating him so strangely.
At last he wrote her a letter, giving it to Hannibal to deliver, in
which he said that he was about to return to his city lodging and wanted
to know if she meant him to leave without a kind word at parting. He
thought the negro looked peculiar as he took the note, half as if he did
not intend to accept the commission to deliver it; but he concluded that
this must be imagination. He wondered why Archie Weil took such a fancy
to Hannibal. If Roseleaf was lucky enough to claim Daisy as his wife, he
would never have that figure darken his door.

The letter must have been taken to its destination without delay, for an
answer was brought in the course of an hour, stating in the briefest
language that Miss Daisy would await him in the parlor, after lunch.

At the table Miss Fern was present, as usual, but not her father, his
business in the city keeping him away at that hour. At meals it was
Daisy's habit to say little, leaving the conversation to her sister and
whoever else happened to be there. At the end of this particular lunch
Millicent went up stairs to her chamber and Daisy betook herself to the
parlor, followed a few minutes later by the young man.

"Why have you treated me so coldly?" were his first words, when he found
himself alone with her.

"Oh, dear, that is a very bad beginning!" she said, smiling. "I shall
have to instruct you in some of the simplest things, I see already. When
you wish to make friends with a woman, don't begin by scolding her. I am
here because you wrote that you wished a kind word. Don't give me too
many cross ones, please."

He sighed impatiently.

"Daisy," he exclaimed. "I hope you are not going to make fun of me! I
have passed a most miserable week. After the glimpse of heaven you gave
me, that evening--"

She put on an air of mock surprise.

"Did I do that! It was much more than I intended, then. I fear you are
inclined to use extravagant metaphors, Mr. Roseleaf. But, never mind.
You are going away, and I am very, very sorry. However, as you came here
on Millie's account, and not on mine, I suppose I have no right to say
so."

The fair brow of the young man was a mass of wrinkles.

"I can't understand why you speak so lightly," he answered. "You know--I
told you--that I love you--that there is nothing in all the world so
dear to me--that I want your promise to be my wife. I can't go from here
without that consolation. Daisy, I ask you, in all sincerity, to say
that as soon as your father's consent is obtained, you will name a day
when you will marry me."

The smile faded from the girl's lips. Something brought to her mind a
very sad reflection.

"You ask a great deal," she said. "Much more, I think, than you realize.
Until a week ago I was nothing to you. We lived under the same roof, we
took our evening strolls together, we talked like the commonest
acquaintances, and that was all. Then, in a moment, you discovered that
your heart was on fire. I have not ascertained what made the marvellous
change. I am sure you cannot tell yet if it be a genuine and lasting
one. Were I inclined to believe I ever should be willing to go to the
lengths of which you speak, I should assuredly want time for the
maturest reflection. In the first place, I know almost nothing about
you. One would not engage a--a coachman--without more inquiry. How can a
girl promise to trust her entire future to a man with whom she has but a
casual acquaintance? Such things need consideration. I know my father
would say so. And if he heard only the nicest things about you, I doubt
if he would like to have you take me from him--especially now, when his
heart is heavy and he leans so much on my love and care. No, you are in
too great haste."

His impatience grew to boiling heat as he listened. How could she find
so many reasons, and (he was obliged to confess) such sensible ones, to
bring against him?

"There is one thing you _can_ do," he said, with an attitude of deep
dejection. "You can tell me if you love me."

She tossed her head with a feminine movement that was wholly charming.

"Yes, I could tell you that, but it would be a very improper thing,
under the circumstances, provided I was able to give you the answer you
seem to wish. If I did care for you, would I like to say so in definite
words when anything further might turn out to be impossible? A girl
would not wish to have a man that she was never to marry going about
with the recollection that she said, 'I love you.'"

"Then you can say nothing at all?" he asked sadly. "Shall I be uncertain
whether at the end of my term in purgatory I am to be raised to a state
of bliss or dashed into the Inferno?"

She laughed; a delicious little laugh.

"You are getting hyperbolical," she answered. "There are ten thousand
better women than I."

"But I don't want them," pleaded the young man. "Did you ever read the
lines of Jean Ingelow:

    "'Oh so many, many, many
    Maids and yet my heart undone.
    What to me are all or any?
    I have lost--my--one.'"

Daisy replied that the sentiment was very sweet, and added that when a
lover could quote such admirable poetry with accuracy, there was hope
for him. Do what he would, Roseleaf could not make her see that
everything in his future life depended on "one little word" from her.
She persisted that he was misled by the violence of his first
affection, and that if he would only let a month or two pass he would
discover that his pulse would fall off a number of beats to the minute.

"And is that what you want?" he asked, reproachfully. "Would you like to
have me come back two months later, and tell you my love had ceased?"

"Yes, if it was the truth. How much better than to learn it after my
vows had been pledged and I was bound to you for the rest of my days!"

He rose and went with quick steps to her side, catching up her hand and
covering it with kisses. She did her best to stop him, whispering, with
a glance toward the door, that they might be interrupted at any minute.

"By whom!" he retorted, stung at her coldness. "Your sister has gone up
stairs, and there is no one else in the house."

"Hannibal might come in," she said, in a low tone. "He has no way of
knowing that I do not wish to be interrupted."

He grew angry at the mention of that name. But the warning had its
effect and he sat down, nearer to her than before, his heart beating
rapidly.

"I hate the fellow!" he exclaimed bitterly. "It is a good thing I am
going away, or I should strike him some day for his insolence!"

Daisy paled at the vehemence of her companion.

"Has he been insolent to you?" she murmured.

"To me? He would not dare! What angers me is the way he speaks to the
rest of you. He came with your cloak that night, acting as if he was
your master, instead of your servant. I have heard him speak to Mr.
Fern in a way that made me want to kick him! Why does your father bear
it? Why do you? Has Hannibal some mysterious hold on his situation?"

The girl heard him patiently, though the roses did not come at once to
her white cheek.

"I am afraid," she said, when he had finished his tirade, "that you
despise him for his color. It is a prejudice that seems to me--and to my
father--unchristian and uncharitable. Perhaps, in the anxiety to make
Hannibal forget that God gave him a darker skin than ours, we may have
gone to the other extreme, and treated him with too great consideration.
But I think you overstate the case."

Her gentle words smote upon the ears that heard them, and in a moment
Roseleaf was affected by the most lively contrition. Without attempting
to excuse himself he begged her pardon, which she readily granted.

"When do you leave us?" she asked.

"To-morrow morning."

"But you will call--occasionally?"

"If I may."

His tone was so sad that Daisy assured him he ought to have no doubt of
that.

"I understand," she added, "that you have probably helped Millie to a
reputation that she craves above everything, and she ought not to prove
entirely ungrateful. We have enjoyed your stay here, and shall be most
sorry to have you go. I should be glad to think you would honor us with
your company to dinner not less often than once each week."

For the first time a ray of light came into his face.

"Oh, may I?" he cried. "Then I shall not be shut off entirely from
seeing you?"

"No, indeed," she answered. "Father likes you and Mr. Weil too well--you
will bring him, of course. Once a week, at least--if it were twice it
wouldn't do any harm; and if it were three times--"

His face was now one bright beam of light.

"Daisy," he cried. "I believe you do not hate me after all!"

"I hope you never thought I did," she responded. "Why is it that a man
can see no middle ground between positive dislike and marriage? I expect
to like a good many men in the course of my life, but I can only marry a
very few of them."

He was obliged to laugh at this, and to say that she would only marry
_one_, if he had _his_ way. Before they had finished with this subject
Roseleaf was in a state of high good nature, though he had little
apparently upon which to base the rise in his spirits.

"Can't I say something--just a hint, if no more, to your father?" he
asked, getting down again to business.

"Pretty risky!" she answered, sententiously. "He wouldn't give you much
encouragement I fear."

The young man caught eagerly at the word.

"You _fear_!" he echoed. "God bless you, Daisy!"

Bearing in mind what she had previously said about the unlocked doors,
he did not attempt to suit the action to the phrase. But his happy face
spoke volumes.

"You had best say very little to father at present," said Daisy,
soberly. "He is most unhappy."

"I wish I knew what troubled him!" he exclaimed.

"I wish so, too, if you could aid him," she answered, earnestly.

"Who knows but I may?" he asked, with a smile that she hoped would prove
prophetic.




CHAPTER XI.

ARCHIE PAYS ATTENTION.


Roseleaf took rooms at his old lodgings in the city, and set in earnest
about the work of beginning his great novel. He had interviews with Mr.
Gouger, at which he detailed the slight thread of plot which he already
had in mind, profiting by the critic's shrewd suggestions. It was
decided that he should portray, at the beginning, a youth much like
himself, who was to fall in love with an angelically pure maiden. The
outline of their respective characters were to be sketched with care,
and sundry obstacles to their union were to be developed as the story
progressed. Gouger warned his young friend not to write too fast, and to
content himself for the present with delineating the phase of love with
which he had become familiar.

"Later on," he said, "when your hero finds that this girl is not all his
bright fancy painted her--when it is proved beyond a doubt that she has
played him false, that she has another lover--"

Roseleaf turned pale.

"But that will never be!" he interrupted.

"It will, of course--in the story," corrected Gouger. "She will lead him
a race that will make him an enemy to the entire sex, if she is used for
all the dramatic effect possible. People expect to find immaculate
purity in the earlier chapters of a story, as they do in small children.
With the progress of the action they look for something more exciting.
To sketch a seraph who remains one would only be to repeat the failure
you made in your other effort--the one you brought to me the day I met
you first. It is not the glory of heaven that attracts audiences to our
churches, but the dramatic quality of hell. A sermon without a large
spice of the devil in it would be much worse than a rendition of Hamlet
minus the Prince. Put your heroine in the clouds, if you will, at the
beginning. The higher she goes, the greater will be her fall, and the
greater, consequently, your triumph."

The young novelist shivered as he listened to these expressions. How
could he build a heroine on the model of Daisy Fern, and conceive the
possibility that she would ever allow her white robes to touch the
earth? He might have constructed such a plot with Millicent as the
central figure, though that would be by no means easy; but Daisy!
Impossible! He asked the critic if it would not do to send the hero of
the tale to perdition, while leaving his sweetheart immaculate to the
close.

"No," said Gouger, decidedly. "A man's fall is not much of a fall, any
way you put it. The public is not interested in such matters. It demands
a female sacrifice, like some of the ancient gods, and it will not be
appeased with less. I expect you to be new and original in your
treatment of the theme, but the subject itself is as old as fiction. You
have too little imagination, as I have told you before. You must
cultivate that talent. Having conceived your paragon, imagine her placed
under temptations she cannot resist; surround her with an environment
from which she cannot break; place her in situations that leave her no
escape."

Roseleaf shook his head.

"I am afraid I never shall be able to do it," he said.

"Pshaw! Don't talk of failure at this stage of the game. All you have to
do is to introduce upon the scene a thoroughly unprincipled man of good
address, who is fertile in expedients. You will find your model for that
among a dozen of your acquaintances. Why, take Archie Weil, and hold him
in your mind till you are saturated with him."

What did Mr. Gouger mean? That Mr. Weil would actually do these dreadful
things, would in his own person perpetrate the outrage of winning a pure
girl to shame. It seemed childish to ask such a question, and yet such a
meaning could easily be taken from what the critic had said. No, no! All
he could have meant was that Mr. Weil might serve as a figure on which
to lay these sins--that he could be carried in the writer's mind, as a
costumer uses a stuffed frame to hang garments on while in the process
of manufacture.

"Then there is Boggs," added Gouger, with a laugh. "You ought to find
some place for a fellow like him, if only for the comic parts of your
novel, and there must be a little humor in a book that is to suit the
mass. A writer for a magazine said recently with much truth, 'He who
would hit the popular taste must aim low.' I think Boggs could furnish
the cheap fun for an ordinary novel, without too great a wear on the
writer. Go ahead, my boy. Write a half dozen chapters in your own
idyllic way, and then get Archie to take you to a few places where your
mind will be turned to opposite scenes. It takes all sorts of edibles to
suit the modern palate."

So Roseleaf wrote, slowly, patiently, with devotion to his art, until he
had completed five chapters of his story. And Gouger read it and went
into ecstacies, declaring it the best foundation he had ever seen for a
most entrancing romance.

"He has wrought his people up to such a superlative height," said the
critic to Mr. Weil, "that the _chute_ will be simply tremendous! How
simply, how elegantly his sentences flow! If he can handle the necessary
wickedness that must follow, the sale of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' or 'Thou
Shalt Not,' will be eclipsed without the least doubt. But, the question
still is, _can_ he?"

"There's no such question," was the response. "He must, that's the way
to put it. Confound it, he shall! And the next thing for him to do is
to take a few visits with me to the underground regions, where he can
get such slight shocks to his literary system as will enable him to take
up the vein he must work."

During this time Roseleaf did not forget the invitation he had received
to dine with the Ferns. It did him good to see Daisy, although he could
not now get her for a moment to himself. He sighed to her over the
table, and across the parlor, after the party had retired to that part
of the house, and she answered him with little bright smiles that acted
like an emollient on his hurt spirit. He had never found the courage to
beard her father in his den--of wool--and was not even sure that the
affair had reached a stage where anything could be gained by taking such
a step. What he wanted was a word of assurance from Daisy that she would
wait for him till he had made a Name in literature, or proved his
ability in some definite manner. There was no indication that any one
else was in the way; everything pointed to a contrary probability. But
there is nothing so desolate as the heart of a lover whose fair one is
just beyond his reach.

Mr. Weil accompanied Shirley on most of these visits, and knew very well
what was going on. None of the glances exchanged between the young
people were so much their exclusive property as they believed. Had
Archie possessed eyes in the back and sides of his head, he could have
seen little more than he did. While appearing to devote his entire
attention to Mr. Fern and Millicent--principally the former, he found
time to watch Roseleaf and Daisy, and even the negro Hannibal.

He noticed that the servant was no less devoted than formerly to the
youngest member of the household. He saw him hover around her at the
table like a protecting spirit, letting her want for nothing that
thoughtfulness could procure. And he noticed that Daisy seemed as
oblivious of this as she had always been. She accepted these
extraordinary attentions quite as if Hannibal were some automaton,
acting with a set of concealed springs--a mechanism in which there was
nothing of human life or intelligence.

Mr. Fern was the same gentlemanly host as of yore, with the same dark
cloud hanging over him, whatever might be its cause. Courteous by nature
to an exceptional degree he could not assume a gayety he did not feel.
There was some terrible weight bearing him down, some awful incubus of
which he was unable to rid himself. The only person who did not notice
it was Millicent, and the one it troubled most was Daisy, on whose sweet
young face the share she had in her parent's griefs had already begun to
leave its impressions.

Millicent's novel was soon placed in Mr. Gouger's hands, completed. The
original theme was unaltered, but in its new garb of perfect English no
one would have recognized the rejected work. The combination of the
girl's strength of mind and the man's elegance of diction was
successful. The critic recommended its acceptance without a word of
dissent, and Cutt & Slashem even consented, on his suggestion, to
forego the guarantee against loss which they had of late demanded from
all authors whose names were unknown to the reading public.

"I have fixed it for you, Archie," he said, when that gentleman next
made his appearance at the sanctum. "No deposit or guarantee, and ten
per cent. of the retail price for royalty. So take a train to your
inamorata's house and tell her the news."

Mr. Weil did not seem to wholly relish the announcement.

"In the first place," he remarked, "you have no business to speak of
Miss Fern as my inamorata; and in the second you will pay her more than
ten per cent. or you won't get the book to print."

At this, Mr. Gouger, after the manner of all publishers and their
agents, proceeded to show to Mr. Weil that it was perfectly impossible
to pay another cent more than the figure he had named; and before he had
finished he agreed to see the firm and get the amount raised
considerably, provided the sales should exceed five thousand copies. In
short, Mr. Weil secured a very respectable contract for a new author,
and one that was sure to please Miss Fern, if she was in the least
degree reasonable.

"I wish you would hurry up Roseleaf," remarked Gouger, when this matter
was disposed of. "When will you take him down into the depths and let
him see that side of life?"

"I have arranged a journey for to-morrow night," said Weil. "We shall go
to Isaac Leveson's and make an evening of it. Unless things are
different there from usual, he will lay the foundation for all the
wickedness he needs to put into his story."

The critic nodded approval.

"He will probably have a Jew in it, then--a modernized Fagan."

"Yes," said Weil. "And a negro. A tall, well-built negro, who has a
white man for his slave!"




CHAPTER XII.

DINING AT ISAAC'S.


On the following day, when Shirley Roseleaf presented himself at the
Hoffman House, he found Mr. Weil awaiting him in a state of great good
nature.

"Go home and make yourself ready for a dive into the infernal regions,"
he said, merrily. "I am going to take you to a place where the devil
spends his vacation, and show you a set of women as different from those
you have lately met as chalk is from indigo. Be here at nine o'clock
this evening, prepared for the descent."

A vision of subterranean passages crossed the mind of the listener, and
he thought of tall boots and a tarpaulin.

"How shall I dress--roughly, I suppose?" he inquired.

"Certainly not. Put on your swallow tail, and white tie. Vice in these
days wears its best garments. You cannot tell a gambler from a
clergyman by his attire. Dress exactly as if you were going to the
swellest party on Fifth Avenue. The only addition to your toilet will be
a revolver, if you happen to have one handy. If you do not, I have
several and will lend you one."

If he expected to startle the young man he was in error. Roseleaf merely
nodded and said he would take one of the weapons owned by Mr. Weil.

"We shall not use them--there are a thousand chances to one," said
Archie. "New York is like Montana. You remember what the resident said
to the tenderfoot, 'You may be a long time without wantin' a we'p'n in
these parts, but when you do you'll want it d--d sudden.'"

When Roseleaf returned, the hands of his watch indicated the time at
which he had been asked to make his appearance, but Mr. Weil did not
take him immediately to the point of destination. Instead he walked over
to a variety theatre that was then in operation on Twenty-third street,
and after spending a short time in the auditorium guided the young man
into the "wineroom." Here the ladies of the ballet were in the habit of
going when off the stage, for the sake of entertaining the patrons with
their light and frivolous conversation, and inducing them if possible,
to invest in champagne at five dollars the bottle.

Archie was, it appeared, not unknown to the throng that filled this
place, for his name was spoken by several of both sexes as soon as he
entered. He nodded coolly to those who addressed him, and took a seat
at a table with his companion. With a shake of his head he declined the
offers of two or three fairies of the ballet to share the table, and
ordered a bottle of Mumm with the evident intention of drinking it alone
with his friend.

Roseleaf slowly sipped the sparkling beverage. He was cautioned in a
whisper to drink but one glass, as it was necessary that he should keep
a perfectly clear head. Weil remarked in an undertone that he had only
ordered the wine as an excuse for remaining a few minutes.

"I call this 'the slaughter house,'" he added, in a voice still lower.
"Girls are brought here to be murdered. Not to have their throats cut,"
he explained, "but to be killed just as surely, if more slowly. I have
seen them come here for the first time, with good health shining out of
their rosy cheeks, delighted at the unwonted excitement and the amount
of attention the frequenters of the place bestowed. I have watched them
growing steadily paler, having recourse to rouge, the eyes getting
dimmer, the voice growing harsher, the temper becoming more variable.
And then--other fresh faces came in their stead. There are killed, on an
average, twenty girls a year here, I should say; killed to satisfy the
appetites of men, as beeves are killed in Chicago, but not so
mercifully."

The novelist looked into the faces that were nearest to him and thought
he could discern the various grades of which his friend spoke--the new,
the older, the ones whose turn to give way to others would soon come.
All of them were drinking. Most had on the stage dresses they had just
worn or were about to wear in the performance. Some had finished their
parts and were enveloped in street clothes, ready to take their
departure with the first male who asked them. And they were drinking,
drinking, either in little sips or in feverish gulps, as they would at a
later day, when the five-dollar wine would be replaced by five cent beer
or perhaps the drainings of a keg on the sidewalk.

Mr. Walker Boggs soon came into the wine-room and joined the pair at Mr.
Weil's table. He called for a whiskey straight, pushing the champagne
aside with an impatient movement.

"I won't punish my stomach with such stuff, even if it _has_ gone back
on me," he exclaimed. "That will knock out any man who drinks it between
meals."

Mr. Weil assented to this proposition, and to show his full belief in it
filled his own glass again and tossed its contents down his throat.

"What brings you here?" he asked, quizzically.

"Those creatures," replied Boggs, with a motion of his hand toward the
members of the ballet. "They're all that's left me now. _They_ don't
mind the size of my waist. My hold on _them_ is as strong as ever. But
_you_ ought not to be here," he broke in, turning to Roseleaf. "It will
be years before you get to this stage, I hope."

Mr. Weil hastened to explain.

"Shirley is merely observing," said he. "He came at my request. We are
going next to Isaac Leveson's."

Mr. Boggs grew interested.

"So, so! You intend to show him Isaac's to-night?"

"Yes. Isn't it a good idea?"

The stout man shrugged his shoulders as if he had nothing to say on that
point. The movement was essentially a Frenchy one and might have meant
anything.

"Perhaps you would like to go with us," said Archie.

"What do you intend to do there?"

"Tell Mr. Roseleaf all the secrets."

Mr. Boggs stared at the speaker.

"Isaac won't let you," he answered, grimly.

"Won't he? He'll have to. Why, what's the odds? The boy won't give him
away. And if he should--" His voice sank to a whisper.

Mr. Weil then proceeded to explain to his young friend that "Isaac's"
was a peculiar affair, even for Gotham. It had entrances on two streets.
Into one door went the most respectable of people, intent on getting an
exceptionably good dinner, which was always to be had there, cooked in
the French style and elegantly served. At that end of the house there
were several dining-rooms that would hold forty or fifty guests, and
several others made to accommodate family parties of six to twelve. If a
couple happened to stray in and inquire for a room to themselves the
head waiter informed them that it was against the rule of the house to
serve a private dinner to less than four people.

It was evident that the establishment was conducted on the most moral
principles, and in a way to prevent the possibil

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