"Well, for instance, this," responded the critic: "You attempt to depict the sensations of love, though you have never had a pa.s.sion. 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 ma.n.u.script. 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 t.i.tian 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 auth.o.r.ess 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.