The Death of the Lion, by Henry James

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Transcribed from the 1915 Martin Secker edition by DavidPrice,best superhero figures for girls email [email protected]

THE DEATH
OF THE LION

BY HENRY JAMES

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER
number five john street adelphi

This edition first published1915

The text follows that of the
Definitive Edition

CHAPTER I.

I had simply, I suppose, a change of heart, and it must havebegun when I received my manuscript back from Mr. Pinhorn. Mr. Pinhorn was my “chief,” as he was called in theoffice: he had the high mission of bringing the paper up. This was a weekly periodical, which had been supposed to bealmost past redemption when he took hold of it.  It was Mr.Deedy who had let the thing down so dreadfully: he was nevermentioned in the office now save in connexion with thatmisdemeanour.  Young as I was I had been in a manner takenover from Mr. Deedy, who had been owner as well as editor;forming part of a promiscuous lot, mainly plant andoffice-furniture, which poor Mrs. Deedy, in her bereavement anddepression, parted with at a rough valuation.  I couldaccount for my continuity but on the supposition that I had beencheap.  I rather resented the practice of fathering allflatness on my late protector, who was in his unhonoured grave;but as I had my way to make I found matter enough for complacencyin being on a “staff.”  At the same time I wasaware of my exposure to suspicion as a product of the oldlowering system.  This made me feel I was doubly bound tohave ideas, and had doubtless been at the bottom of my proposingto Mr. Pinhorn that I should lay my lean hands on NeilParaday.  I remember how he looked at me—quite, tobegin with, as if he had never heard of this celebrity, whoindeed at that moment was by no means in the centre of theheavens; and even when I had knowingly explained he expressed butlittle confidence in the demand for any such stuff.  When Ihad reminded him that the great principle on which we weresupposed to work was just to create the demand we required, heconsidered a moment and then returned: “I see—youwant to write him up.”

“Call it that if you like.”

“And what’s your inducement?”

“Bless my soul—my admiration!”

Mr. Pinhorn pursed up his mouth.  “Is there much tobe done with him?”

“Whatever there is we should have it all to ourselves,for he hasn’t been touched.”

This argument was effective and Mr. Pinhorn responded. “Very well, touch him.”  Then he added:“But where can you do it?”

“Under the fifth rib!”

Mr. Pinhorn stared.  “Where’sthat?”

“You want me to go down and see him?” I asked whenI had enjoyed his visible search for the obscure suburb I seemedto have named.

“I don’t ‘want’ anything—theproposal’s your own.  But you must remember thatthat’s the way we do things now,” said Mr.Pinhorn with another dig Mr. Deedy.

Unregenerate as I was I could read the queer implications ofthis speech.  The present owner’s superior virtue aswell as his deeper craft spoke in his reference to the lateeditor as one of that baser sort who deal in falserepresentations.  Mr. Deedy would as soon have sent me tocall on Neil Paraday as he would have published a“holiday-number”; but such scruples presentedthemselves as mere ignoble thrift to his successor, whose ownsincerity took the form of ringing door-bells and whosedefinition of genius was the art of finding people at home. It was as if Mr. Deedy had published reports without his youngmen’s having, as Pinhorn would have said, really beenthere.  I was unregenerate, as I have hinted, andcouldn’t be concerned to straighten out the journalisticmorals of my chief, feeling them indeed to be an abyss over theedge of which it was better not to peer.  Really to be therethis time moreover was a vision that made the idea of writingsomething subtle about Neil Paraday only the moreinspiring.  I would be as considerate as even Mr. Deedycould have wished, and yet I should be as present as only Mr.Pinhorn could conceive.  My allusion to the sequesteredmanner in which Mr. Paraday lived—it had formed part of myexplanation, though I knew of it only by hearsay—was, Icould divine, very much what had made Mr. Pinhorn nibble. It struck him as inconsistent with the success of his paper thatany one should be so sequestered as that.  And thenwasn’t an immediate exposure of everything just what thepublic wanted?  Mr. Pinhorn effectually called me to orderby reminding me of the promptness with which I had met Miss Brabyat Liverpool on her return from her fiasco in the States. Hadn’t we published, while its freshness and flavour wereunimpaired, Miss Braby’s own version of that greatinternational episode?  I felt somewhat uneasy at thislumping of the actress and the author, and I confess that afterhaving enlisted Mr. Pinhorn’s sympathies I procrastinated alittle.  I had succeeded better than I wished, and I had, asit happened, work nearer at hand.  A few days later I calledon Lord Crouchley and carried off in triumph the mostunintelligible statement that had yet appeared of hislordship’s reasons for his change of front.  I thusset in motion in the daily papers columns of virtuousverbiage.  The following week I ran down to Brighton for achat, as Mr. Pinhorn called it, with Mrs. Bounder, who gave me,on the subject of her divorce, many curious particulars that hadnot been articulated in court.  If ever an article flowedfrom the primal fount it was that article on Mrs. Bounder. By this time, however, I became aware that Neil Paraday’snew book was on the point of appearing and that its approach hadbeen the ground of my original appeal to Mr. Pinhorn, who was nowannoyed with me for having lost so many days.  He bundled meoff—we would at least not lose another.  I’vealways thought his sudden alertness a remarkable example of thejournalistic instinct.  Nothing had occurred, since I firstspoke to him, to create a visible urgency, and no enlightenmentcould possibly have reached him.  It was a pure case ofprofession flair—he had smelt the coming glory as an animalsmells its distant prey.

CHAPTER II.

I may as well say at once that this little record pretends inno degree to be a picture either of my introduction to Mr.Paraday or of certain proximate steps and stages.  Thescheme of my narrative allows no space for these things, and inany case a prohibitory sentiment would hang about my recollectionof so rare an hour.  These meagre notes are essentiallyprivate, so that if they see the light the insidious forces that,as my story itself shows, make at present for publicity willsimply have overmastered my precautions.  The curtain felllately enough on the lamentable drama.  My memory of the dayI alighted at Mr. Paraday’s door is a fresh memory ofkindness, hospitality, compassion, and of the wonderfulilluminating talk in which the welcome was conveyed.  Somevoice of the air had taught me the right moment, the moment ofhis life at which an act of unexpected young allegiance mightmost come home to him.  He had recently recovered from along, grave illness.  I had gone to the neighbouring inn forthe night, but I spent the evening in his company, and heinsisted the next day on my sleeping under his roof.  Ihadn’t an indefinite leave: Mr. Pinhorn supposed us to putour victims through on the gallop.  It was later, in theoffice, that the rude motions of the jig were set to music. I fortified myself, however, as my training had taught me to do,by the conviction that nothing could be more advantageous for myarticle than to be written in the very atmosphere.  I saidnothing to Mr. Paraday about it, but in the morning, after myremove from the inn, while he was occupied in his study, as hehad notified me he should need to be, I committed to paper themain heads of my impression.  Then thinking to commendmyself to Mr. Pinhorn by my celerity, I walked out and posted mylittle packet before luncheon.  Once my paper was written Iwas free to stay on, and if it was calculated to divert attentionfrom my levity in so doing I could reflect with satisfaction thatI had never been so clever.  I don’t mean to deny ofcourse that I was aware it was much too good for Mr. Pinhorn; butI was equally conscious that Mr. Pinhorn had the supremeshrewdness of recognising from time to time the cases in which anarticle was not too bad only because it was too good.  Therewas nothing he loved so much as to print on the right occasion athing he hated.  I had begun my visit to the great man on aMonday, and on the Wednesday his book came out.  A copy ofit arrived by the first post, and he let me go out into thegarden with it immediately after breakfast, I read it frombeginning to end that day, and in the evening he asked me toremain with him the rest of the week and over the Sunday.

That night my manuscript came back from Mr. Pinhorn,accompanied with a letter the gist of which was the desire toknow what I meant by trying to fob off on him such stuff. That was the meaning of the question, if not exactly its form,and it made my mistake immense to me.  Such as this mistakewas I could now only look it in the face and accept it.  Iknew where I had failed, but it was exactly where Icouldn’t have succeeded.  I had been sent down to bepersonal and then in point of fact hadn’t been personal atall: what I had dispatched to London was just a little finickingfeverish study of my author’s talent.  Anything lessrelevant to Mr. Pinhorn’s purpose couldn’t well beimagined, and he was visibly angry at my having (at his expense,with a second-class ticket) approached the subject of ourenterprise only to stand off so helplessly.  For myself, Iknew but too well what had happened, and how a miracle—aspretty as some old miracle of legend—had been wrought onthe spot to save me.  There had been a big brush of wings,the flash of an opaline robe, and then, with a great cool stir ofthe air, the sense of an angel’s having swooped down andcaught me to his bosom.  He held me only till the danger wasover, and it all took place in a minute.  With my manuscriptback on my hands I understood the phenomenon better, and thereflexions I made on it are what I meant, at the beginning ofthis anecdote, by my change of heart.  Mr. Pinhorn’snote was not only a rebuke decidedly stern, but an invitationimmediately to send him—it was the case to say so—thegenuine article, the revealing and reverberating sketch to thepromise of which, and of which alone, I owed my squanderedprivilege.  A week or two later I recast my peccant paperand, giving it a particular application to Mr. Paraday’snew book, obtained for it the hospitality of another journal,where, I must admit, Mr. Pinhorn was so far vindicated as that itattracted not the least attention.

CHAPTER III.

I was frankly, at the end of three days, a very prejudicedcritic, so that one morning when, in the garden, my great man hadoffered to read me something I quite held my breath as Ilistened.  It was the written scheme of anotherbook—something put aside long ago, before his illness, butthat he had lately taken out again to reconsider.  He hadbeen turning it round when I came down on him, and it had grownmagnificently under this second hand.  Loose liberalconfident, it might have passed for a great gossiping eloquentletter—the overflow into talk of an artist’s amorousplan.  The theme I thought singularly rich, quite thestrongest he had yet treated; and this familiar statement of it,full too of fine maturities, was really, in summarised splendour,a mine of gold, a precious independent work.  I rememberrather profanely wondering whether the ultimate production couldpossibly keep at the pitch.  His reading of the fondepistle, at any rate, made me feel as if I were, for theadvantage of posterity, in close correspondence withhim—were the distinguished person to whom it had beenaffectionately addressed.  It was a high distinction simplyto be told such things.  The idea he now communicated hadall the freshness, the flushed fairness, of the conceptionuntouched and untried: it was Venus rising from the sea andbefore the airs had blown upon her.  I had never been sothrobbingly present at such an unveiling.  But when he hadtossed the last bright word after the others, as I had seencashiers in banks, weighing mounds of coin, drop a finalsovereign into the tray, I knew a sudden prudent alarm.

“My dear master, how, after all, are you going to doit?  It’s infinitely noble, but what time it willtake, what patience and independence, what assured, what perfectconditions!  Oh for a lone isle in a tepid sea!”

“Isn’t this practically a lone isle, andaren’t you, as an encircling medium, tepid enough?”he asked, alluding with a laugh to the wonder of my youngadmiration and the narrow limits of his little provincialhome.  “Time isn’t what I’ve lackedhitherto: the question hasn’t been to find it, but to useit.  Of course my illness made, while it lasted, a greathole—but I dare say there would have been a hole at anyrate.  The earth we tread has more pockets than abilliard-table.  The great thing is now to keep on myfeet.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Neil Paraday looked at me with eyes—such pleasant eyesas he had—in which, as I now recall their expression, Iseem to have seen a dim imagination of his fate.  He wasfifty years old, and his illness had been cruel, hisconvalescence slow.  “It isn’t as if Iweren’t all right.”

“Oh if you weren’t all right I wouldn’t lookat you!” I tenderly said.

We had both got up, quickened as by this clearer air, and hehad lighted a cigarette.  I had taken a fresh one, whichwith an intenser smile, by way of answer to my exclamation, heapplied to the flame of his match.  “If Iweren’t better I shouldn’t have thought ofthat!”  He flourished his script in hishand.

“I don’t want to be discouraging, but that’snot true,” I returned.  “I’m sure thatduring the months you lay here in pain you had visitationssublime.  You thought of a thousand things.  You thinkof more and more all the while.  That’s what makesyou, if you’ll pardon my familiarity, so respectable. At a time when so many people are spent you come into your secondwind.  But, thank God, all the same, you’rebetter!  Thank God, too, you’re not, as you weretelling me yesterday, ‘successful.’  Ifyouweren’t a failure what would be the use oftrying?  That’s my one reserve on the subject of yourrecovery—that it makes you ‘score,’ as thenewspapers say.  It looks well in the newspapers, and almostanything that does that’s horrible.  ‘We arehappy to announce that Mr. Paraday, the celebrated author, isagain in the enjoyment of excellent health.’  SomehowI shouldn’t like to see it.”

“You won’t see it; I’m not in the leastcelebrated—my obscurity protects me.  Butcouldn’t you bear even to see I was dying or dead?”my host enquired.

“Dead—passe encore; there’s nothing sosafe.  One never knows what a living artist may do—onehas mourned so many.  However, one must make the worst ofit.  You must be as dead as you can.”

“Don’t I meet that condition in having justpublished a book?”

“Adequately, let us hope; for the book’s verily amasterpiece.”

At this moment the parlour-maid appeared in the door thatopened from the garden: Paraday lived at no great cost, and thefrisk of petticoats, with a timorous “Sherry, sir?”was about his modest mahogany.  He allowed half his incometo his wife, from whom he had succeeded in separating withoutredundancy of legend.  I had a general faith in his havingbehaved well, and I had once, in London, taken Mrs. Paraday downto dinner.  He now turned to speak to the maid, who offeredhim, on a tray, some card or note, while, agitated, excited, Iwandered to the end of the precinct.  The idea of hissecurity became supremely dear to me, and I asked myself if Iwere the same young man who had come down a few days before toscatter him to the four winds.  When I retraced my steps hehad gone into the house, and the woman—the second Londonpost had come in—had placed my letters and a newspaper on abench.  I sat down there to the letters, which were a briefbusiness, and then, without heeding the address, took the paperfrom its envelope.  It was the journal of highest renown,The Empireof that morning.  It regularly came toParaday, but I remembered that neither of us had yet looked atthe copy already delivered.  This one had a great mark onthe “editorial” page, and, uncrumpling the wrapper, Isaw it to be directed to my host and stamped with the name of hispublishers.  I instantly divined that The Empirehadspoken of him, and I’ve not forgotten the odd little shockof the circumstance.  It checked all eagerness and made medrop the paper a moment.  As I sat there conscious of apalpitation I think I had a vision of what was to be.  I hadalso a vision of the letter I would presently address to Mr.Pinhorn, breaking, as it were, with Mr. Pinhorn.  Of course,however, the next minute the voice of The Empirewas in myears.

The article wasn’t, I thanked heaven, a review; it was a“leader,” the last of three, presenting Neil Paradayto the human race.  His new book, the fifth from his hand,had been but a day or two out, and The Empire, alreadyaware of it, fired, as if on the birth of a prince, a salute of awhole column.  The guns had been booming these three hoursin the house without our suspecting them.  The bigblundering newspaper had discovered him, and now he wasproclaimed and anointed and crowned.  His place was assignedhim as publicly as if a fat usher with a wand had pointed to thetopmost chair; he was to pass up and still up, higher and higher,between the watching faces and the envious sounds—away upto the dais and the throne.  The article was“epoch-making,” a landmark in his life; he had takenrank at a bound, waked up a national glory.  A nationalglory was needed, and it was an immense convenience he wasthere.  What all this meant rolled over me, and I fear Igrew a little faint—it meant so much more than I could say“yea” to on the spot.  In a flash, somehow, allwas different; the tremendous wave I speak of had swept somethingaway.  It had knocked down, I suppose, my little customaryaltar, my twinkling tapers and my flowers, and had reared itselfinto the likeness of a temple vast and bare.  When NeilParaday should come out of the house he would come out acontemporary.  That was what had happened: the poor man wasto be squeezed into his horrible age.  I felt as if he hadbeen overtaken on the crest of the hill and brought back to thecity.  A little more and he would have dipped down the shortcut to posterity and escaped.

CHAPTER IV.

When he came out it was exactly as if he had been in custody,for beside him walked a stout man with a big black beard, who,save that he wore spectacles, might have been a policeman, and inwhom at a second glance I recognised the highest contemporaryenterprise.

“This is Mr. Morrow,” said Paraday, looking, Ithought, rather white: “he wants to publish heaven knowswhat about me.”

I winced as I remembered that this was exactly what I myselfhad wanted.  “Already?” I cried with a sort ofsense that my friend had fled to me for protection.

Mr. Morrow glared, agreeably, through his glasses: theysuggested the electric headlights of some monstrous modern ship,and I felt as if Paraday and I were tossing terrified under hisbows.  I saw his momentum was irresistible.  “Iwas confident that I should be the first in the field.  Agreat interest is naturally felt in Mr. Paraday’ssurroundings,” he heavily observed.

“I hadn’t the least idea of it,” saidParaday, as if he had been told he had been snoring.

“I find he hasn’t read the article in TheEmpire,” Mr. Morrow remarked to me. “That’s so very interesting—it’ssomething to start with,” he smiled.  He had begun topull off his gloves, which were violently new, and to lookencouragingly round the little garden.  As a“surrounding” I felt how I myself had already beentaken in; I was a little fish in the stomach of a biggerone.  “I represent,” our visitor continued,“a syndicate of influential journals, no less thanthirty-seven, whose public—whose publics, I maysay—are in peculiar sympathy with Mr. Paraday’s lineof thought.  They would greatly appreciate any expression ofhis views on the subject of the art he so noblyexemplifies.  In addition to my connexion with the syndicatejust mentioned I hold a particular commission from TheTatler, whose most prominent department, ‘Smatter andChatter’—I dare say you’ve often enjoyedit—attracts such attention.  I was honoured only lastweek, as a representative of The Tatler, with theconfidence of Guy Walsingham, the brilliant author of‘Obsessions.’  She pronounced herself thoroughlypleased with my sketch of her method; she went so far as to saythat I had made her genius more comprehensible even toherself.”

Neil Paraday had dropped on the garden-bench and sat there atonce detached and confounded; he looked hard at a bare spot inthe lawn, as if with an anxiety that had suddenly made himgrave.  His movement had been interpreted by his visitor asan invitation to sink sympathetically into a wicker chair thatstood hard by, and while Mr. Morrow so settled himself I felt hehad taken official possession and that there was no undoingit.  One had heard of unfortunate people’s having“a man in the house,” and this was just what wehad.  There was a silence of a moment, during which weseemed to acknowledge in the only way that was possible thepresence of universal fate; the sunny stillness took no pity, andmy thought, as I was sure Paraday’s was doing, performedwithin the minute a great distant revolution.  I saw justhow emphatic I should make my rejoinder to Mr. Pinhorn, and thathaving come, like Mr. Morrow, to betray, I must remain as long aspossible to save.  Not because I had brought my mind back,but because our visitors last words were in my ear, I presentlyenquired with gloomy irrelevance if Guy Walsingham were awoman.

“Oh yes, a mere pseudonym—rather pretty,isn’t it?—and convenient, you know, for a lady whogoes in for the larger latitude.  ‘Obsessions, by MissSo-and-so,’ would look a little odd, but men are morenaturally indelicate.  Have you peeped into‘Obsessions’?” Mr. Morrow continued sociably toour companion.

Paraday, still absent, remote, made no answer, as if hehadn’t heard the question: a form of intercourse thatappeared to suit the cheerful Mr. Morrow as well as anyother.  Imperturbably bland, he was a man ofresources—he only needed to be on the spot.  He hadpocketed the whole poor place while Paraday and I werewool-gathering, and I could imagine that he had already got his“heads.”  His system, at any rate, was justifiedby the inevitability with which I replied, to save my friend thetrouble: “Dear no—he hasn’t read it.  Hedoesn’t read such things!” I unwarily added.

“Things that are toofar over the fence,eh?”  I was indeed a godsend to Mr. Morrow.  Itwas the psychological moment; it determined the appearance of hisnote-book, which, however, he at first kept slightly behind him,even as the dentist approaching his victim keeps the horribleforceps.  “Mr. Paraday holds with the good oldproprieties—I see!”  And thinking of thethirty-seven influential journals, I found myself, as I foundpoor Paraday, helplessly assisting at the promulgation of thisineptitude.  “There’s no point on whichdistinguished views are so acceptable as on thisquestion—raised perhaps more strikingly than ever by GuyWalsingham—of the permissibility of the largerlatitude.  I’ve an appointment, precisely in connexionwith it, next week, with Dora Forbes, author of ‘The OtherWay Round,’ which everybody’s talking about. Has Mr. Paraday glanced at ‘The Other WayRound’?”  Mr. Morrow now frankly appealed tome.  I took on myself to repudiate the supposition, whileour companion, still silent, got up nervously and walkedaway.  His visitor paid no heed to his withdrawal; butopened out the note-book with a more fatherly pat. “Dora Forbes, I gather, takes the ground, the same as GuyWalsingham’s, that the larger latitude has simply got tocome.  He holds that it has got to be squarely faced. Of course his sex makes him a less prejudiced witness.  Butan authoritative word from Mr. Paraday—from the point ofview of hissex, you know—would go right round theglobe.  He takes the line that we haven’tgotto face it?”

I was bewildered: it sounded somehow as if there were threesexes.  My interlocutor’s pencil was poised, myprivate responsibility great.  I simply sat staring, nonethe less, and only found presence of mind to say: “Is thisMiss Forbes a gentleman?”

Mr. Morrow had a subtle smile.  “It wouldn’tbe ‘Miss’—there’s a wife!”

“I mean is she a man?”

“The wife?”—Mr. Morrow was for a moment asconfused as myself.  But when I explained that I alluded toDora Forbes in person he informed me, with visible amusement atmy being so out of it, that this was the “pen-name”of an indubitable male—he had a big red moustache. “He goes in for the slight mystification because the ladiesare such popular favourites.  A great deal of interest isfelt in his acting on that idea—which isclever,isn’t it?—and there’s every prospect of itsbeing widely imitated.”  Our host at this momentjoined us again, and Mr. Morrow remarked invitingly that heshould be happy to make a note of any observation the movement inquestion, the bid for success under a lady’s name, mightsuggest to Mr. Paraday.  But the poor man, without catchingthe allusion, excused himself, pleading that, though greatlyhonoured by his visitor’s interest, he suddenly felt unwelland should have to take leave of him—have to go and liedown and keep quiet.  His young friend might be trusted toanswer for him, but he hoped Mr. Morrow didn’t expect greatthings even of his young friend.  His young friend, at thismoment, looked at Neil Paraday with an anxious eye, greatlywondering if he were doomed to be ill again; but Paraday’sown kind face met his question reassuringly, seemed to say in aglance intelligible enough: “Oh I’m not ill, butI’m scared: get him out of the house as quietly aspossible.”  Getting newspaper-men out of the house wasodd business for an emissary of Mr. Pinhorn, and I was soexhilarated by the idea of it that I called after him as he leftus: “Read the article in The Empireand you’llsoon be all right!”

CHAPTER V.

“Delicious my having come down to tell him of it!”Mr. Morrow ejaculated.  “My cab was at the door twentyminutes after The Empirehad been laid on mybreakfast-table.  Now what have you got for me?” hecontinued, dropping again into his chair, from which, however, hethe next moment eagerly rose.  “I was shown into thedrawing-room, but there must be more to see—his study, hisliterary sanctum, the little things he has about, or otherdomestic objects and features.  He wouldn’t be lyingdown on his study-table?  There’s a great interestalways felt in the scene of an author’s labours. Sometimes we’re favoured with very delightful peeps. Dora Forbes showed me all his table-drawers, and almost jammed myhand into one into which I made a dash!  I don’t askthat of you, but if we could talk things over right there wherehe sits I feel as if I should get the keynote.”

I had no wish whatever to be rude to Mr. Morrow, I was muchtoo initiated not to tend to more diplomacy; but I had a quickinspiration, and I entertained an insurmountable, an almostsuperstitious objection to his crossing the threshold of myfriend’s little lonely shabby consecrated workshop. “No, no—we shan’t get at his life thatway,” I said.  “The way to get at his life isto—But wait a moment!”  I broke off and wentquickly into the house, whence I in three minutes reappearedbefore Mr. Morrow with the two volumes of Paraday’s newbook.  “His life’s here,” I went on,“and I’m so full of this admirable thing that Ican’t talk of anything else.  The artist’slife’s his work, and this is the place to observehim.  What he has to tell us he tells us with thisperfection.  My dear sir, the best interviewer is the bestreader.”

Mr. Morrow good-humouredly protested.  “Do you meanto say that no other source of information should be open tous?”

“None other till this particular one—by far themost copious—has been quite exhausted.  Have youexhausted it, my dear sir?  Had you exhausted it when youcame down here?  It seems to me in our time almost whollyneglected, and something should surely be done to restore itsruined credit.  It’s the course to which the artisthimself at every step, and with such pathetic confidence, refersus.  This last book of Mr. Paraday’s is full ofrevelations.”

“Revelations?” panted Mr. Morrow, whom I hadforced again into his chair.

“The only kind that count.  It tells you with aperfection that seems to me quite final all the author thinks,for instance, about the advent of the ‘largerlatitude.’”

“Where does it do that?” asked Mr. Morrow, who hadpicked up the second volume and was insincerely thumbing it.

“Everywhere—in the whole treatment of hiscase.  Extract the opinion, disengage the answer—thoseare the real acts of homage.”

Mr. Morrow, after a minute, tossed the book away. “Ah but you mustn’t take me for areviewer.”

“Heaven forbid I should take you for anything sodreadful!  You came down to perform a little act ofsympathy, and so, I may confide to you, did I.  Let usperform our little act together.  These pages overflow withthe testimony we want: let us read them and taste them andinterpret them.  You’ll of course have perceived foryourself that one scarcely does read Neil Paraday till one readshim aloud; he gives out to the ear an extraordinary full tone,and it’s only when you expose it confidently to that testthat you really get near his style.  Take up your book againand let me listen, while you pay it out, to that wonderfulfifteenth chapter.  If you feel you can’t do itjustice, compose yourself to attention while I produce foryou—I think I can!—this scarcely less admirableninth.”

Mr. Morrow gave me a straight look which was as hard as a blowbetween the eyes; he had turned rather red, and a question hadformed itself in his mind which reached my sense as distinctly asif he had uttered it: “What sort of a damned fool areyou?”  Then he got up, gathering together hishat and gloves, buttoning his coat, projecting hungrily all overthe place the big transparency of his mask.  It seemed toflare over Fleet Street and somehow made the actual spotdistressingly humble: there was so little for it to feed onunless he counted the blisters of our stucco or saw his way to dosomething with the roses.  Even the poor roses were commonkinds.  Presently his eyes fell on the manuscript from whichParaday had been reading to me and which still lay on thebench.  As my own followed them I saw it looked promising,looked pregnant, as if it gently throbbed with the life thereader had given it.  Mr. Morrow indulged in a nod at it anda vague thrust of his umbrella.  “What’sthat?”

“Oh, it’s a plan—a secret.”

“A secret!”  There was an instant’ssilence, and then Mr. Morrow made another movement.  I mayhave been mistaken, but it affected me as the translated impulseof the desire to lay hands on the manuscript, and this led me toindulge in a quick anticipatory grab which may very well haveseemed ungraceful, or even impertinent, and which at any rateleft Mr. Paraday’s two admirers very erect, glaring at eachother while one of them held a bundle of papers well behindhim.  An instant later Mr. Morrow quitted me abruptly, as ifhe had really carried something off with him.  To reassuremyself, watching his broad back recede, I only grasped mymanuscript the tighter.  He went to the back door of thehouse, the one he had come out from, but on trying the handle heappeared to find it fastened.  So he passed round into thefront garden, and by listening intently enough I could presentlyhear the outer gate close behind him with a bang.  I thoughtagain of the thirty-seven influential journals and wondered whatwould be his revenge.  I hasten to add that he wasmagnanimous: which was just the most dreadful thing he could havebeen.  The Tatlerpublished a charming chattyfamiliar account of Mr. Paraday’s “Home-life,”and on the wings of the thirty-seven influential journals itwent, to use Mr. Morrow’s own expression, right round theglobe.

CHAPTER VI.

A week later, early in May, my glorified friend came up totown, where, it may be veraciously recorded he was the king ofthe beasts of the year.  No advancement was ever more rapid,no exaltation more complete, no bewilderment moreteachable.  His book sold but moderately, though the articlein The Empirehad done unwonted wonders for it; but hecirculated in person to a measure that the libraries might wellhave envied.  His formula had been found—he was a“revelation.”  His momentary terror had beenreal, just as mine had been—the overclouding of hispassionate desire to be left to finish his work.  He was farfrom unsociable, but he had the finest conception of being letalone that I’ve ever met.  For the time, none theless, he took his profit where it seemed most to crowd on him,having in his pocket the portable sophistries about the nature ofthe artist’s task.  Observation too was a kind of workand experience a kind of success; London dinners were allmaterial and London ladies were fruitful toil.  “Noone has the faintest conception of what I’m tryingfor,” he said to me, “and not many have read threepages that I’ve written; but I must dine with themfirst—they’ll find out why when they’vetime.”  It was rather rude justice perhaps; but thefatigue had the merit of being a new sort, while thephantasmagoric town was probably after all less of a battlefieldthan the haunted study.  He once told me that he had had nopersonal life to speak of since his fortieth year, but had hadmore than was good for him before.  London closed theparenthesis and exhibited him in relations; one of the mostinevitable of these being that in which he found himself to Mrs.Weeks Wimbush, wife of the boundless brewer and proprietress ofthe universal menagerie.  In this establishment, aseverybody knows, on occasions when the crush is great, theanimals rub shoulders freely with the spectators and the lionssit down for whole evenings with the lambs.

It had been ominously clear to me from the first that in NeilParaday this lady, who, as all the world agreed, was tremendousfun, considered that she had secured a prime attraction, acreature of almost heraldic oddity.  Nothing could exceedher enthusiasm over her capture, and nothing could exceed theconfused apprehensions it excited in me.  I had aninstinctive fear of her which I tried without effect to concealfrom her victim, but which I let her notice with perfectimpunity.  Paraday heeded it, but she never did, for herconscience was that of a romping child.  She was a blindviolent force to which I could attach no more idea ofresponsibility than to the creaking of a sign in the wind. It was difficult to say what she conduced to butcirculation.  She was constructed of steel and leather, andall I asked of her for our tractable friend was not to do him todeath.  He had consented for a time to be of india-rubber,but my thoughts were fixed on the day he should resume his shapeor at least get back into his box.  It was evidently allright, but I should be glad when it was well over.  I had aspecial fear—the impression was ineffaceable of the hourwhen, after Mr. Morrow’s departure, I had found him on thesofa in his study.  That pretext of indisposition had not inthe least been meant as a snub to the envoy of TheTatler—he had gone to lie down in very truth.  Hehad felt a pang of his old pain, the result of the agitationwrought in him by this forcing open of a new period.  Hisold programme, his old ideal even had to be changed.  Saywhat one would, success was a complication and recognition had tobe reciprocal.  The monastic life, the pious illumination ofthe missal in the convent cell were things of the gatheredpast.  It didn’t engender despair, but at least itrequired adjustment.  Before I left him on that occasion wehad passed a bargain, my part of which was that I should make itmy business to take care of him.  Let whoever wouldrepresent the interest in his presence (I must have had amystical prevision of Mrs. Weeks Wimbush) I should represent theinterest in his work—or otherwise expressed in hisabsence.  These two interests were in their essence opposed;and I doubt, as youth is fleeting, if I shall ever again know theintensity of joy with which I felt that in so good a cause I waswilling to make myself odious.

One day in Sloane Street I found myself questioningParaday’s landlord, who had come to the door in answer tomy knock.  Two vehicles, a barouche and a smart hansom, weredrawn up before the house.

“In the drawing-room, sir?  Mrs. WeeksWimbush.”

“And in the dining-room?”

“A young lady, sir—waiting: I think aforeigner.”

It was three o’clock, and on days when Paradaydidn’t lunch out he attached a value to these appropriatedhours.  On which days, however, didn’t the dear manlunch out?  Mrs. Wimbush, at such a crisis, would haverushed round immediately after her own repast.  I went intothe dining-room first, postponing the pleasure of seeing how,upstairs, the lady of the barouche would, on my arrival, pointthe moral of my sweet solicitude.  No one took such aninterest as herself in his doing only what was good for him, andshe was always on the spot to see that he did it.  She madeappointments with him to discuss the best means of economisinghis time and protecting his privacy.  She further made hishealth her special business, and had so much sympathy with my ownzeal for it that she was the author of pleasing fictions on thesubject of what my devotion had led me to give up.  I gaveup nothing (I don’t count Mr. Pinhorn) because I hadnothing, and all I had as yet achieved was to find myself also inthe menagerie.  I had dashed in to save my friend, but I hadonly got domesticated and wedged; so that I could do little morefor him than exchange with him over people’s heads looks ofintense but futile intelligence.

CHAPTER VII.

The young lady in the dining-room had a brave face, blackhair, blue eyes, and in her lap a big volume. “I’ve come for his autograph,” she said when Ihad explained to her that I was under bonds to see people for himwhen he was occupied.  “I’ve been waiting halfan hour, but I’m prepared to wait all day.”  Idon’t know whether it was this that told me she wasAmerican, for the propensity to wait all day is not in generalcharacteristic of her race.  I was enlightened probably notso much by the spirit of the utterance as by some quality of itssound.  At any rate I saw she had an individual patience anda lovely frock, together with an expression that played among herpretty features like a breeze among flowers.  Putting herbook on the table she showed me a massive album, showily boundand full of autographs of price.  The collection of fadednotes, of still more faded “thoughts,” of quotations,platitudes, signatures, represented a formidable purpose.

I could only disclose my dread of it.  “Most peopleapply to Mr. Paraday by letter, you know.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t answer.  I’vewritten three times.”

“Very true,” I reflected; “the sort ofletter you mean goes straight into the fire.”

“How do you know the sort I mean?”  Myinterlocutress had blushed and smiled, and in a moment she added:“I don’t believe he gets many like them!”

“I’m sure they’re beautiful, but he burnswithout reading.”  I didn’t add that I hadconvinced him he ought to.

“Isn’t he then in danger of burning things ofimportance?”

“He would perhaps be so if distinguished menhadn’t an infallible nose for nonsense.”

She looked at me a moment—her face was sweet andgay.  “Do youburn without readingtoo?”—in answer to which I assured her that ifshe’d trust me with her repository I’d see that Mr.Paraday should write his name in it.

She considered a little.  “That’s very well,but it wouldn’t make me see him.”

“Do you want very much to see him?”  Itseemed ungracious to catechise so charming a creature, butsomehow I had never yet taken my duty to the great author soseriously.

“Enough to have come from America for thepurpose.”

I stared.  “All alone?”

“I don’t see that that’s exactly yourbusiness, but if it will make me more seductive I’llconfess that I’m quite by myself.  I had to come aloneor not come at all.”

She was interesting; I could imagine she had lost parents,natural protectors—could conceive even she had inheritedmoney.  I was at a pass of my own fortunes when keepinghansoms at doors seemed to me pure swagger.  As a trick ofthis bold and sensitive girl, however, it became romantic—apart of the general romance of her freedom, her errand, herinnocence.  The confidence of young Americans was notorious,and I speedily arrived at a conviction that no impulse could havebeen more generous than the impulse that had operated here. I foresaw at that moment that it would make her my peculiarcharge, just as circumstances had made Neil Paraday.  Shewould be another person to look after, so that one’s honourwould be concerned in guiding her straight.  These thingsbecame clearer to me later on; at the instant I had scepticismenough to observe to her, as I turned the pages of her volume,that her net had all the same caught many a big fish.  Sheappeared to have had fruitful access to the great ones of theearth; there were people moreover whose signatures she hadpresumably secured without a personal interview.  Shecouldn’t have worried George Washington and FriedrichSchiller and Hannah More.  She met this argument, to mysurprise, by throwing up the album without a pang.  Itwasn’t even her own; she was responsible for none of itstreasures.  It belonged to a girl-friend in America, a younglady in a western city.  This young lady had insisted on herbringing it, to pick up more autographs: she thought they mightlike to see, in Europe, in what company they would be.  The“girl-friend,” the western city, the immortal names,the curious errand, the idyllic faith, all made a story asstrange to me, and as beguiling, as some tale in the ArabianNights.  Thus it was that my informant had encumberedherself with the ponderous tome; but she hastened to assure methat this was the first time she had brought it out.  Forher visit to Mr. Paraday it had simply been a pretext.  Shedidn’t really care a straw that he should write his name;what she did want was to look straight into his face.

I demurred a little.  “And why do you require to dothat?”

“Because I just love him!”  Before I couldrecover from the agitating effect of this crystal ring mycompanion had continued: “Hasn’t there ever been anyface that you’ve wanted to look into?”

How could I tell her so soon how much I appreciated theopportunity of looking into hers?  I could only assent ingeneral to the proposition that there were certainly for everyone such yearnings, and even such faces; and I felt the crisisdemand all my lucidity, all my wisdom.  “Oh yes,I’m a student of physiognomy.  Do you mean,” Ipursued, “that you’ve a passion for Mr.Paraday’s books?”

“They’ve been everything to me and a little morebeside—I know them by heart.  They’ve completelytaken hold of me.  There’s no author about whomI’m in such a state as I’m in about NeilParaday.”

“Permit me to remark then,” I presently returned,“that you’re one of the right sort.”

“One of the enthusiasts?  Of course Iam!”

“Oh there are enthusiasts who are quite of thewrong.  I mean you’re one of those to whom an appealcan be made.”

“An appeal?”  Her face lighted as if with thechance of some great sacrifice.

If she was ready for one it was only waiting for her, and in amoment I mentioned it.  “Give up this crude purpose ofseeing him!  Go away without it.  That will be farbetter.”

She looked mystified, then turned visibly pale. “Why, hasn’t he any personal charm?”  Thegirl was terrible and laughable in her bright directness.

“Ah that dreadful word ‘personally’!”I wailed; “we’re dying of it, for you women bring itout with murderous effect.  When you meet with a genius asfine as this idol of ours let him off the dreary duty of being apersonality as well.  Know him only by what’s best inhim and spare him for the same sweet sake.”

My young lady continued to look at me in confusion andmistrust, and the result of her reflexion on what I had just saidwas to make her suddenly break out: “Look here,sir—what’s the matter with him?”

“The matter with him is that if he doesn’t lookout people will eat a great hole in his life.”

She turned it over.  “He hasn’t anydisfigurement?”

“Nothing to speak of!”

“Do you mean that social engagements interfere with hisoccupations?”

“That but feebly expresses it.”

“So that he can’t give himself up to his beautifulimagination?”

“He’s beset, badgered, bothered—he’spulled to pieces on the pretext of being applauded.  Peopleexpect him to give them his time, his golden time, whowouldn’t themselves give five shillings for one of hisbooks.”

“Five?  I’d give five thousand!”

“Give your sympathy—give your forbearance. Two-thirds of those who approach him only do it to advertisethemselves.”

“Why it’s too bad!” the girl exclaimed withthe face of an angel.  “It’s the first time Iwas ever called crude!” she laughed.

I followed up my advantage.  “There’s a ladywith him now who’s a terrible complication, and who yethasn’t read, I’m sure, ten pages he everwrote.”

My visitor’s wide eyes grew tenderer.  “Thenhow does she talk—?”

“Without ceasing.  I only mention her as a singlecase.  Do you want to know how to show a superlativeconsideration?  Simply avoid him.”

“Avoid him?” she despairingly breathed.

“Don’t force him to have to take account of you;admire him in silence, cultivate him at a distance and secretlyappropriate his message.  Do you want to know,” Icontinued, warming to my idea, “how to perform an act ofhomage really sublime?”  Then as she hung on my words:“Succeed in never seeing him at all!”

“Never at all?”—she suppressed a shriek forit.

“The more you get into his writings the lessyou’ll want to, and you’ll be immensely sustained bythe thought of the good you’re doing him.”

She looked at me without resentment or spite, and at the truthI had put before her with candour, credulity, pity.  I wasafterwards happy to remember that she must have gathered from myface the liveliness of my interest in herself.  “Ithink I see what you mean.”

“Oh I express it badly, but I should be delighted ifyou’d let me come to see you—to explain itbetter.”

She made no response to this, and her thoughtful eyes fell onthe big album, on which she presently laid her hands as if totake it away.  “I did use to say out West that theymight write a little less for autographs—to all the greatpoets, you know—and study the thoughts and style a littlemore.”

“What do they care for the thoughts and style? They didn’t even understand you.  I’m notsure,” I added, “that I do myself, and I dare saythat you by no means make me out.”

She had got up to go, and though I wanted her to succeed innot seeing Neil Paraday I wanted her also, inconsequently, toremain in the house.  I was at any rate far from desiring tohustle her off.  As Mrs. Weeks Wimbush, upstairs, was stillsaving our friend in her own way, I asked my young lady to let mebriefly relate, in illustration of my point, the little incidentof my having gone down into the country for a profane purpose andbeen converted on the spot to holiness.  Sinking again intoher chair to listen she showed a deep interest in theanecdote.  Then thinking it over gravely she returned withher odd intonation: “Yes, but you do see him!” I hadto admit that this was the case; and I wasn’t so preparedwith an effective attenuation as I could have wished.  Sheeased the situation off, however, by the charming quaintness withwhich she finally said: “Well, I wouldn’t want him tobe lonely!”  This time she rose in earnest, but Ipersuaded her to let me keep the album to show Mr. Paraday. I assured her I’d bring it back to her myself. “Well, you’ll find my address somewhere in it on apaper!” she sighed all resignedly at the door.

CHAPTER VIII.

I blush to confess it, but I invited Mr. Paraday that very dayto transcribe into the album one of his most characteristicpassages.  I told him how I had got rid of the strange girlwho had brought it—her ominous name was Miss Hurter and shelived at an hotel; quite agreeing with him moreover as to thewisdom of getting rid with equal promptitude of the bookitself.  This was why I carried it to Albemarle Street nolater than on the morrow.  I failed to find her at home, butshe wrote to me and I went again; she wanted so much to hear moreabout Neil Paraday.  I returned repeatedly, I may brieflydeclare, to supply her with this information.  She had beenimmensely taken, the more she thought of it, with that idea ofmine about the act of homage: it had ended by filling her with agenerous rapture.  She positively desired to do somethingsublime for him, though indeed I could see that, as thisparticular flight was difficult, she appreciated the fact that myvisits kept her up.  I had it on my conscience to keep herup: I neglected nothing that would contribute to it, and herconception of our cherished author’s independence became atlast as fine as his very own.  “Read him, readhim—thatwill be an education in decency,” Iconstantly repeated; while, seeking him in his works even as Godin nature, she represented herself as convinced that, accordingto my assurance, this was the system that had, as she expressedit, weaned her.  We read him together when I could findtime, and the generous creature’s sacrifice was fed by ourcommunion.  There were twenty selfish women about whom Itold her and who stirred her to a beautiful rage. Immediately after my first visit her sister, Mrs. Milsom, cameover from Paris, and the two ladies began to present, as theycalled it, their letters.  I thanked our stars that none hadbeen presented to Mr. Paraday.  They received invitationsand dined out, and some of these occasions enabled Fanny Hurterto perform, for consistency’s sake, touching feats ofsubmission.  Nothing indeed would now have induced her evento look at the object of her admiration.  Once, hearing hisname announced at a party, she instantly left the room by anotherdoor and then straightway quitted the house.  At anothertime when I was at the opera with them—Mrs. Milsom hadinvited me to their box—I attempted to point Mr. Paradayout to her in the stalls.  On this she asked her sister tochange places with her and, while that lady devoured the greatman through a powerful glass, presented, all the rest of theevening, her inspired back to the house.  To torment hertenderly I pressed the glass upon her, telling her howwonderfully near it brought our friend’s handsomehead.  By way of answer she simply looked at me in chargedsilence, letting me see that tears had gathered in hereyes.  These tears, I may remark, produced an effect on meof which the end is not yet.  There was a moment when I feltit my duty to mention them to Neil Paraday, but I was deterred bythe reflexion that there were questions more relevant to hishappiness.

These question indeed, by the end of the season, were reducedto a single one—the question of reconstituting so far asmight be possible the conditions under which he had produced hisbest work.  Such conditions could never all come back, forthere was a new one that took up too much place; but some perhapswere not beyond recall.  I wanted above all things to seehim sit down to the subject he had, on my making hisacquaintance, read me that admirable sketch of.  Somethingtold me there was no security but in his doing so before the newfactor, as we used to say at Mr. Pinhorn’s, should renderthe problem incalculable.  It only half-reassured me thatthe sketch itself was so copious and so eloquent that even at theworst there would be the making of a small but complete book, atiny volume which, for the faithful, might well become an objectof adoration.  There would even not be wanting critics todeclare, I foresaw, that the plan was a thing to be more thankfulfor than the structure to have been reared on it.  Myimpatience for the structure, none the less, grew and grew withthe interruptions.  He had on coming up to town begun to sitfor his portrait to a young painter, Mr. Rumble, whose littlegame, as we also used to say at Mr. Pinhorn’s, was to bethe first to perch on the shoulders of renown.  Mr.Rumble’s studio was a circus in which the man of the hour,and still more the woman, leaped through the hoops of his showyframes almost as electrically as they burst into telegrams and“specials.”  He pranced into the exhibitions ontheir back; he was the reporter on canvas, the Vandyke up todate, and there was one roaring year in which Mrs. Bounder andMiss Braby, Guy Walsingham and Dora Forbes proclaimed in chorusfrom the same pictured walls that no one had yet got ahead ofhim.

Paraday had been promptly caught and saddled, accepting withcharacteristic good-humour his confidential hint that to figurein his show was not so much a consequence as a cause ofimmortality.  From Mrs. Wimbush to the last“representative” who called to ascertain his twelvefavourite dishes, it was the same ingenuous assumption that hewould rejoice in the repercussion.  There were moments whenI fancied I might have had more patience with them if theyhadn’t been so fatally benevolent.  I hated at allevents Mr. Rumble’s picture, and had my bottled resentmentready when, later on, I found my distracted friend had beenstuffed by Mrs. Wimbush into the mouth of another cannon.  Ayoung artist in whom she was intensely interested, and who had noconnexion with Mr. Rumble, was to show how far he could make himgo.  Poor Paraday, in return, was naturally to writesomething somewhere about the young artist.  She played hervictims against each other with admirable ingenuity, and herestablishment was a huge machine in which the tiniest and thebiggest wheels went round to the same treadle.  I had ascene with her in which I tried to express that the function ofsuch a man was to exercise his genius—not to serve as ahoarding for pictorial posters.  The people I was perhapsangriest with were the editors of magazines who had introducedwhat they called new features, so aware were they that the newestfeature of all would be to make him grind their axes bycontributing his views on vital topics and taking part in theperiodical prattle about the future of fiction.  I made surethat before I should have done with him there would scarcely be acurrent form of words left me to be sick of; but meanwhile Icould make surer still of my animosity to bustling ladies forwhom he drew the water that irrigated their socialflower-beds.

I had a battle with Mrs. Wimbush over the artist sheprotected, and another over the question of a certain week, atthe end of July, that Mr. Paraday appeared to have contracted tospend with her in the country.  I protested against thisvisit; I intimated that he was too unwell for hospitality withouta nuance, for caresses without imagination; I begged he mightrather take the time in some restorative way.  A sultry airof promises, of ponderous parties, hung over his August, and hewould greatly profit by the interval of rest.  Hehadn’t told me he was ill again that he had had a warning;but I hadn’t needed this, for I found his reticence hisworst symptom.  The only thing he said to me was that hebelieved a comfortable attack of something or other would set himup: it would put out of the question everything but theexemptions he prized.  I’m afraid I shall havepresented him as a martyr in a very small cause if I fail toexplain that he surrendered himself much more liberally than Isurrendered him.  He filled his lungs, for the most part;with the comedy of his queer fate: the tragedy was in thespectacles through which I chose to look.  He was consciousof inconvenience, and above all of a great renouncement; but howcould he have heard a mere dirge in the bells of hisaccession?  The sagacity and the jealousy were mine, and histhe impressions and the harvest.  Of course, as regards Mrs.Wimbush, I was worsted in my encounters, for wasn’t thestate of his health the very reason for his coming to her atPrestidge?  Wasn’t it precisely at Prestidge that hewas to be coddled, and wasn’t the dear Princess coming tohelp her to coddle him?  The dear Princess, now on a visitto England, was of a famous foreign house, and, in her gildedcage, with her retinue of keepers and feeders, was the mostexpensive specimen in the good lady’s collection.  Idon’t think her august presence had had to do withParaday’s consenting to go, but it’s not impossiblehe had operated as a bait to the illustrious stranger.  Theparty had been made up for him, Mrs. Wimbush averred, and everyone was counting on it, the dear Princess most of all.  Ifhe was well enough he was to read them something absolutelyfresh, and it was on that particular prospect the Princess hadset her heart.  She was so fond of genius in anywalkof life, and was so used to it and understood it so well: she wasthe greatest of Mr. Paraday’s admirers, she devouredeverything he wrote.  And then he read like an angel. Mrs. Wimbush reminded me that he had again and again given her,Mrs. Wimbush, the privilege of listening to him.

I looked at her a moment.  “What has he read toyou?” I crudely enquired.

For a moment too she met my eyes, and for the fraction of amoment she hesitated and coloured.  “Oh all sorts ofthings!”

I wondered if this were an imperfect recollection or only aperfect fib, and she quite understood my unuttered comment on hermeasure of such things.  But if she could forget NeilParaday’s beauties she could of course forget my rudeness,and three days later she invited me, by telegraph, to join theparty at Prestidge.  This time she might indeed have had astory about what I had given up to be near the master.  Iaddressed from that fine residence several communications to ayoung lady in London, a young lady whom, I confess, I quittedwith reluctance and whom the reminder of what she herself couldgive up was required to make me quit at all.  It adds to thegratitude I owe her on other grounds that she kindly allows me totranscribe from my letters a few of the passages in which thathateful sojourn is candidly commemorated.

CHAPTER IX.

“I suppose I ought to enjoy the joke of what’sgoing on here,” I wrote, “but somehow itdoesn’t amuse me.  Pessimism on the contrary possessesme and cynicism deeply engages.  I positively feel my ownflesh sore from the brass nails in Neil Paraday’s socialharness.  The house is full of people who like him, as theymention, awfully, and with whom his talent for talking nonsensehas prodigious success.  I delight in his nonsense myself;why is it therefore that I grudge these happy folk their artlesssatisfaction?  Mystery of the human heart—abyss of thecritical spirit!  Mrs. Wimbush thinks she can answer thatquestion, and as my want of gaiety has at last worn out herpatience she has given me a glimpse of her shrewd guess. I’m made restless by the selfishness of the insincerefriend—I want to monopolise Paraday in order that he maypush me on.  To be intimate with him is a feather in my cap;it gives me an importance that I couldn’t naturally pretendto, and I seek to deprive him of social refreshment because Ifear that meeting more disinterested people may enlighten him asto my real motive.  All the disinterested people here arehis particular admirers and have been carefully selected assuch.  There’s supposed to be a copy of his last bookin the house, and in the hall I come upon ladies, in attitudes,bending gracefully over the first volume.  I discreetlyavert my eyes, and when I next look round the precarious joy hasbeen superseded by the book of life.  There’s asociable circle or a confidential couple, and the relinquishedvolume lies open on its face and as dropped under extremecoercion.  Somebody else presently finds it and transfersit, with its air of momentary desolation, to another piece offurniture.  Every one’s asking every one about it allday, and every one’s telling every one where they put itlast.  I’m sure it’s rather smudgy about thetwentieth page.  I’ve a strong impression, too, thatthe second volume is lost—has been packed in the bag ofsome departing guest; and yet everybody has the impression thatsomebody else has read to the end.  You see therefore thatthe beautiful book plays a great part in our existence.  Whyshould I take the occasion of such distinguished honours to saythat I begin to see deeper into Gustave Flaubert’s dolefulrefrain about the hatred of literature?  I refer you againto the perverse constitution of man.

“The Princess is a massive lady with the organisation ofan athlete and the confusion of tongues of a valet deplace.  She contrives to commit herself extraordinarilylittle in a great many languages, and is entertained andconversed with in detachments and relays, like an institutionwhich goes on from generation to generation or a big buildingcontracted for under a forfeit.  She can’t have apersonal taste any more than, when her husband succeeds, she canhave a personal crown, and her opinion on any matter is rusty andheavy and plain—made, in the night of ages, to last and betransmitted.  I feel as if I ought to ‘tip’ somecustode for my glimpse of it.  She has been told everythingin the world and has never perceived anything, and the echoes ofher education respond awfully to the rash footfall—I meanthe casual remark—in the cold Valhalla of her memory. Mrs. Wimbush delights in her wit and says there’s nothingso charming as to hear Mr. Paraday draw it out.  He’sperpetually detailed for this job, and he tells me it has apeculiarly exhausting effect.  Every one’sbeginning—at the end of two days—to sidleobsequiously away from her, and Mrs. Wimbush pushes him again andagain into the breach.  None of the uses I have yet seen himput to infuriate me quite so much.  He looks very fagged andhas at last confessed to me that his condition makes himuneasy—has even promised me he’ll go straight homeinstead of returning to his final engagements in town.  Lastnight I had some talk with him about going to-day, cutting hisvisit short; so sure am I that he’ll be better as soon ashe’s shut up in his lighthouse.  He told me that thisis what he would like to do; reminding me, however, that thefirst lesson of his greatness has been precisely that hecan’t do what he likes.  Mrs. Wimbush would neverforgive him if he should leave her before the Princess hasreceived the last hand.  When I hint that a violent rupturewith our hostess would be the best thing in the world for him hegives me to understand that if his reason assents to theproposition his courage hangs woefully back.  He makes nosecret of being mortally afraid of her, and when I ask what harmshe can do him that she hasn’t already done he simplyrepeats: ‘I’m afraid, I’m afraid! Don’t enquire too closely,’ he said last night;‘only believe that I feel a sort of terror. It’s strange, when she’s so kind!  At any rate,I’d as soon overturn that piece of priceless Sèvresas tell her I must go before my date.’  It soundsdreadfully weak, but he has some reason, and he pays for hisimagination, which puts him (I should hate it) in the place ofothers and makes him feel, even against himself, their feelings,their appetites, their motives.  It’s indeedinveterately against himself that he makes his imaginationact.  What a pity he has such a lot of it!  He’stoo beastly intelligent.  Besides, the famousreading’s still to come off, and it has been postponed aday to allow Guy Walsingham to arrive.  It appears thiseminent lady’s staying at a house a few miles off, whichmeans of course that Mrs. Wimbush has forcibly annexed her. She’s to come over in a day or two—Mrs. Wimbush wantsher to hear Mr. Paraday.

“To-day’s wet and cold, and several of thecompany, at the invitation of the Duke, have driven over toluncheon at Bigwood.  I saw poor Paraday wedge himself, bycommand, into the little supplementary seat of a brougham inwhich the Princess and our hostess were already ensconced. If the front glass isn’t open on his dear old back perhapshe’ll survive.  Bigwood, I believe, is very grand andfrigid, all marble and precedence, and I wish him well out of theadventure.  I can’t tell you how much more and moreyour attitude to him, in the midst of all this, shines out bycontrast.  I never willingly talk to these people about him,but see what a comfort I find it to scribble to you!  Iappreciate it—it keeps me warm; there are no fires in thehouse.  Mrs. Wimbush goes by the calendar, the temperaturegoes by the weather, the weather goes by God knows what, and thePrincess is easily heated.  I’ve nothing but myacrimony to warm me, and have been out under an umbrella torestore my circulation.  Coming in an hour ago I found LadyAugusta Minch rummaging about the hall.  When I asked herwhat she was looking for she said she had mislaid something thatMr. Paraday had lent her.  I ascertained in a moment thatthe article in question is a manuscript, and I’ve aforeboding that it’s the noble morsel he read me six weeksago.  When I expressed my surprise that he should havebandied about anything so precious (I happen to know it’shis only copy—in the most beautiful hand in all the world)Lady Augusta confessed to me that she hadn’t had it fromhimself, but from Mrs. Wimbush, who had wished to give her aglimpse of it as a salve for her not being able to stay and hearit read.

“‘Is that the piece he’s to read,’ Iasked, ‘when Guy Walsingham arrives?’

“‘It’s not for Guy Walsingham they’rewaiting now, it’s for Dora Forbes,’ Lady Augustasaid.  ‘She’s coming, I believe, earlyto-morrow.  Meanwhile Mrs. Wimbush has found out about him,and is actively wiring to him.  She says he also must hearhim.’

“‘You bewilder me a little,’ I replied;‘in the age we live in one gets lost among the genders andthe pronouns.  The clear thing is that Mrs. Wimbushdoesn’t guard such a treasure so jealously as shemight.’

“‘Poor dear, she has the Princess to guard! Mr. Paraday lent her the manuscript to look over.’

“‘She spoke, you mean, as if it were the morningpaper?’

“Lady Augusta stared—my irony was lost onher.  ‘She didn’t have time, so she gave me achance first; because unfortunately I go to-morrow toBigwood.’

“‘And your chance has only proved a chance to loseit?’

“‘I haven’t lost it.  I remembernow—it was very stupid of me to have forgotten.  Itold my maid to give it to Lord Dorimont—or at least to hisman.’

“‘And Lord Dorimont went away directly afterluncheon.’

“‘Of course he gave it back to my maid—orelse his man did,’ said Lady Augusta.  ‘I daresay it’s all right.’

“The conscience of these people is like a summersea.  They haven’t time to look over a pricelesscomposition; they’ve only time to kick it about thehouse.  I suggested that the ‘man,’ fired with anoble emulation, had perhaps kept the work for his own perusal;and her ladyship wanted to know whether, if the thingshouldn’t reappear for the grand occasion appointed by ourhostess, the author wouldn’t have something else to readthat would do just as well.  Their questions are toodelightful!  I declared to Lady Augusta briefly that nothingin the world can ever do so well as the thing that does best; andat this she looked a little disconcerted.  But I added thatif the manuscript had gone astray our little circle would havethe less of an effort of attention to make.  The piece inquestion was very long—it would keep them three hours.

“‘Three hours!  Oh the Princess will getup!’ said Lady Augusta.

“‘I thought she was Mr. Paraday’s greatestadmirer.’

“‘I dare say she is—she’s so awfullyclever.  But what’s the use of being aPrincess—’

“‘If you can’t dissemble your love?’ Iasked as Lady Augusta was vague.  She said at any rateshe’d question her maid; and I’m hoping that when Igo down to dinner I shall find the manuscript has beenrecovered.”

CHAPTER X.

“It has notbeen recovered,” I wrote earlythe next day, “and I’m moreover much troubled aboutour friend.  He came back from Bigwood with a chill and,being allowed to have a fire in his room, lay down a while beforedinner.  I tried to send him to bed and indeed thought I hadput him in the way of it; but after I had gone to dress Mrs.Wimbush came up to see him, with the inevitable result that whenI returned I found him under arms and flushed and feverish,though decorated with the rare flower she had brought him for hisbutton-hole.  He came down to dinner, but Lady Augusta Minchwas very shy of him.  To-day he’s in great pain, andthe advent of ces dames—I mean of Guy Walsingham and DoraForbes—doesn’t at all console me.  It does Mrs.Wimbush, however, for she has consented to his remaining in bedso that he may be all right to-morrow for the listeningcircle.  Guy Walsingham’s already on the scene, andthe Doctor for Paraday also arrived early.  I haven’tyet seen the author of ‘Obsessions,’ but of courseI’ve had a moment by myself with the Doctor.  I triedto get him to say that our invalid must go straight home—Imean to-morrow or next day; but he quite refuses to talk aboutthe future.  Absolute quiet and warmth and the regularadministration of an important remedy are the points he mainlyinsists on.  He returns this afternoon, and I’m to goback to see the patient at one o’clock, when he next takeshis medicine.  It consoles me a little that he certainlywon’t be able to read—an exertion he was already morethan unfit for.  Lady Augusta went off after breakfast,assuring me her first care would be to follow up the lostmanuscript.  I can see she thinks me a shocking busybody anddoesn’t understand my alarm, but she’ll do what shecan, for she’s a good-natured woman.  ‘So arethey all honourable men.’  That was precisely whatmade her give the thing to Lord Dorimont and made Lord Dorimontbag it.  What use hehas for it God only knows. I’ve the worst forebodings, but somehow I’m strangelywithout passion—desperately calm.  As I consider theunconscious, the well-meaning ravages of our appreciative circleI bow my head in submission to some great natural, some universalaccident; I’m rendered almost indifferent, in fact quitegay (ha-ha!) by the sense of immitigable fate.  Lady Augustapromises me to trace the precious object and let me have itthrough the post by the time Paraday’s well enough to playhis part with it.  The last evidence is that her maid didgive it to his lordship’s valet.  One would suppose itsome thrilling number of The Family Budget.  Mrs.Wimbush, who’s aware of the accident, is much less agitatedby it than she would doubtless be were she not for the hourinevitably engrossed with Guy Walsingham.”

Later in the day I informed my correspondent, for whom indeedI kept a loose diary of the situation, that I had made theacquaintance of this celebrity and that she was a pretty littlegirl who wore her hair in what used to be called a crop. She looked so juvenile and so innocent that if, as Mr. Morrow hadannounced, she was resigned to the larger latitude, hersuperiority to prejudice must have come to her early.  Ispent most of the day hovering about Neil Paraday’s room,but it was communicated to me from below that Guy Walsingham, atPrestidge, was a success.  Toward evening I became conscioussomehow that her superiority was contagious, and by the time thecompany separated for the night I was sure the larger latitudehad been generally accepted.  I thought of Dora Forbes andfelt that he had no time to lose.  Before dinner I receiveda telegram from Lady Augusta Minch.  “Lord Dorimontthinks he must have left bundle intrain—enquire.”  How could I enquire—if Iwas to take the word as a command?  I was too worried andnow too alarmed about Neil Paraday.  The Doctor came back,and it was an immense satisfaction to me to be sure he was wiseand interested.  He was proud of being called to sodistinguished a patient, but he admitted to me that night that myfriend was gravely ill.  It was really a relapse, arecrudescence of his old malady.  There could be no questionof moving him: we must at any rate see first, on the spot, whatturn his condition would take.  Meanwhile, on the morrow, hewas to have a nurse.  On the morrow the dear man was easier,and my spirits rose to such cheerfulness that I could almostlaugh over Lady Augusta’s second telegram: “LordDorimont’s servant been to station—nothingfound.  Push enquiries.”  I did laugh, I’msure, as I remembered this to be the mystic scroll I had scarcelyallowed poor Mr. Morrow to point his umbrella at.  Fool thatI had been: the thirty-seven influential journals wouldn’thave destroyed it, they’d only have printed it.  Ofcourse I said nothing to Paraday.

When the nurse arrived she turned me out of the room, on whichI went downstairs.  I should premise that at breakfast thenews that our brilliant friend was doing well excited universalcomplacency, and the Princess graciously remarked that he wasonly to be commiserated for missing the society of MissCollop.  Mrs. Wimbush, whose social gift never shonebrighter than in the dry decorum with which she accepted thisfizzle in her fireworks, mentioned to me that Guy Walsingham hadmade a very favourable impression on her Imperial Highness. Indeed I think every one did so, and that, like the money-marketor the national honour, her Imperial Highness wasconstitutionally sensitive.  There was a certain gladness, aperceptible bustle in the air, however, which I thought slightlyanomalous in a house where a great author lay criticallyill.  “Le roy est mort—vive le roy”: I wasreminded that another great author had already stepped into hisshoes.  When I came down again after the nurse had takenpossession I found a strange gentleman hanging about the hall andpacing to and fro by the closed door of the drawing-room. This personage was florid and bald; he had a big red moustacheand wore showy knickerbockers—characteristics all thatfitted to my conception of the identity of Dora Forbes.  Ina moment I saw what had happened: the author of “The OtherWay Round” had just alighted at the portals of Prestidge,but had suffered a scruple to restrain him from penetratingfurther.  I recognised his scruple when, pausing to listenat his gesture of caution, I heard a shrill voice lifted in asort of rhythmic uncanny chant.  The famous reading hadbegun, only it was the author of “Obsessions” who nowfurnished the sacrifice.  The new visitor whispered to methat he judged something was going on he oughtn’t tointerrupt.

“Miss Collop arrived last night,” I smiled,“and the Princess has a thirst for theinédit.”

Dora Forbes lifted his bushy brows.  “MissCollop?”

“Guy Walsingham, your distinguishedconfrère—or shall I say your formidablerival?”

“Oh!” growled Dora Forbes.  Then he added:“Shall I spoil it if I go in?”

“I should think nothing could spoil it!” Iambiguously laughed.

Dora Forbes evidently felt the dilemma; he gave an irritatedcrook to his moustache.  “ShallI go in?”he presently asked.

We looked at each other hard a moment; then I expressedsomething bitter that was in me, expressed it in an infernal“Do!”  After this I got out into the air, butnot so fast as not to hear, when the door of the drawing-roomopened, the disconcerted drop of Miss Collop’s publicmanner: she must have been in the midst of the largerlatitude.  Producing with extreme rapidity, Guy Walsinghamhas just published a work in which amiable people who are notinitiated have been pained to see the genius of a sister-novelistheld up to unmistakeable ridicule; so fresh an exhibition does itseem to them of the dreadful way men have always treatedwomen.  Dora Forbes, it’s true, at the present hour,is immensely pushed by Mrs. Wimbush and has sat for his portraitto the young artists she protects, sat for it not only in oilsbut in monumental alabaster.

What happened at Prestidge later in the day is of coursecontemporary history.  If the interruption I had whimsicallysanctioned was almost a scandal, what is to be said of thatgeneral scatter of the company which, under the Doctor’srule, began to take place in the evening?  His rule wassoothing to behold, small comfort as I was to have at theend.  He decreed in the interest of his patient anabsolutely soundless house and a consequent break-up of theparty.  Little country practitioner as he was, he literallypacked off the Princess.  She departed as promptly as if arevolution had broken out, and Guy Walsingham emigrated withher.  I was kindly permitted to remain, and this was notdenied even to Mrs. Wimbush.  The privilege was withheldindeed from Dora Forbes; so Mrs. Wimbush kept her latest capturetemporarily concealed.  This was so little, however, herusual way of dealing with her eminent friends that a couple ofdays of it exhausted her patience, and she went up to town withhim in great publicity.  The sudden turn for the worse herafflicted guest had, after a brief improvement, taken on thethird night raised an obstacle to her seeing him before herretreat; a fortunate circumstance doubtless, for she wasfundamentally disappointed in him.  This was not the kind ofperformance for which she had invited him to Prestidge, let aloneinvited the Princess.  I must add that none of the generousacts marking her patronage of intellectual and other merit havedone so much for her reputation as her lending Neil Paraday themost beautiful of her numerous homes to die in.  He tookadvantage to the utmost of the singular favour.  Day by dayI saw him sink, and I roamed alone about the empty terraces andgardens.  His wife never came near him, but I scarcelynoticed it: as I paced there with rage in my heart I was too fullof another wrong.  In the event of his death it would fallto me perhaps to bring out in some charming form, with notes,with the tenderest editorial care, that precious heritage of hiswritten project.  But where was that precious heritage andwere both the author and the book to have been snatched fromus?  Lady Augusta wrote me that she had done all she couldand that poor Lord Dorimont, who had really been worried todeath, was extremely sorry.  I couldn’t have thematter out with Mrs. Wimbush, for I didn’t want to betaunted by her with desiring to aggrandise myself by a publicconnexion with Mr. Paraday’s sweepings.  She hadsignified her willingness to meet the expense of all advertising,as indeed she was always ready to do.  The last night of thehorrible series, the night before he died, I put my ear closer tohis pillow.

“That thing I read you that morning, youknow.”

“In your garden that dreadful day?  Yes!”

“Won’t it do as it is?”

“It would have been a glorious book.”

“It isa glorious book,” Neil Paradaymurmured.  “Print it as itstands—beautifully.”

“Beautifully!” I passionately promised.

It may be imagined whether, now that he’s gone, thepromise seems to me less sacred.  I’m convinced thatif such pages had appeared in his lifetime the Abbey would holdhim to-day.  I’ve kept the advertising in my ownhands, but the manuscript has not been recovered. It’s impossible, and at any rate intolerable, to suppose itcan have been wantonly destroyed.  Perhaps some hazard of ablind hand, some brutal fatal ignorance has lighted kitchen-fireswith it.  Every stupid and hideous accident haunts mymeditations.  My undiscourageable search for the losttreasure would make a long chapter.  Fortunately I’vea devoted associate in the person of a young lady who has everyday a fresh indignation and a fresh idea, and who maintains withintensity that the prize will still turn up.  Sometimes Ibelieve her, but I’ve quite ceased to believe myself. The only thing for us at all events is to go on seeking andhoping together; and we should be closely united by this firm tieeven were we not at present by another.

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