"And when are you going to do it?"
"As soon as the book comes back from the next publisher."
Then he sat down to breakfast; and afterwards, without resting, he finished the pot-boiler, and took it to the editor. After a due interval he went again, trembling and faint with anxiety. He had sold only one book-review, and he was using Corydon"s money again. People who hated him had predicted that he would do just that, and he had answered that he would die first!
He came home, radiant with delight. "He says he"ll take it!"
he proclaimed. "Only I"ve got to do a new ending for the fourth installment--he wants something more exciting. So I"m going to have the countess caught in a burning tower!"
And he wrote that, and went yet again, and came home with a hundred dollars b.u.t.toned tightly in his inside vest-pocket. He was like a man who has escaped from a dungeon. The field was clear before him at last!
His manifesto was going out to the world!
BOOK V
THE BAIT IS SEIZED
_They sat, gazing down the slope of the little vale. She was turning idly the pages of the book, and she read to him--
"Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!-- Only, methinks, some loss of habit"s power Befalls me wandering through this upland dim.
Once pa.s.s"d I blindfold here, at any hour; Now seldom come I, since I came with him."
"It was here we first read the poem," he said. "Every spot brings back some line of it."
"Even the old oak-tree where we used to sit," she smiled--
"Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!"_
Section 1. Thyrsis was half hoping that the next publisher would decline the ma.n.u.script; and he was only mildly stirred when he got a letter saying that although the publisher could not make an offer for the book, one of his readers was so much interested in it that he would like to have a talk with the author. Thyrsis replied that he was willing; and to his surprise he learned that the reader was none other than that Prof.
Osborne, who in the university had impressed upon him his ignorance of the art of writing.
He paid a call at the professor"s home, and they had a long talk. There was nothing said about their former interview. Evidently the other recognized that Thyrsis had succeeded in making good his claim to be allowed to hew his own way; and Thyrsis was content with that tacit surrender.
They talked about the book. The professor first a.s.sured him that it would not sell, and then went on to explain to him why; and so they came to a grapple.
"The thing is sincere, perhaps even exalted," said Prof. Osborne; "but it"s overstrained and exaggerated."
"But isn"t it alive?" asked Thyrsis.
The other pondered; he always spoke deliberately, choosing his words with precision. "Some people might think so," he said. "For myself, I have never known any such life."
"But what"s that got to do with it?" cried Thyrsis.
"It has much to do with it--for me. One has to judge by what one knows--"
"But can"t one be taught?"
The professor meditated again. "I have lived forty-five years," he said, "and you have lived less than half that. I imagine that I have read more, studied more, thought more than you. Yet you ask me to submit myself to your teaching!"
"No, no!" cried Thyrsis, eagerly. "It is not as if it were a matter of learning--of scholarship--of knowledge of the world. There is an intensity of experience that is not dependent upon time; in the things of the imagination--in matters of inspiration--surely one does not have to be old or learned."
"That might be true," admitted the other, hesitatingly.
"You read the poetry of Keats or Sh.e.l.ley, for instance. They were as young as I am when they wrote it, and yet you do not refuse to acknowledge its worth. Is it just because they are dead, and their poems are cla.s.sics?"
So these two wrestled it out. Thyrsis could bring the other to the point of acknowledging that there might be genius in his work, but he could not bring him to the point of _doing_ anything about it. The poet went away, seeing the situation quite clearly. Prof. Osborne was an instructor; it was his business to know; and if he should abdicate before one of his pupils, then what would become of authority? He had certain models, which he set before his cla.s.s; these models const.i.tuted literature. If anyone might disregard them and proceed to create new models according to his own lawless impulse--then what anarchy would reign in a cla.s.sroom! Under such circ.u.mstances, it was remarkable that the professor had even been willing to admit of doubts; as Thyrsis walked home he clenched his hands and whispered to himself, "I"ll get that man some day!"
Section 2. The road now lay clear before Thyrsis, and accordingly he set grimly to work. He had his doc.u.ment printed upon a long slip of paper, and got several packages for Corydon to address. And one evening they took them out and dropped them into the mailbox. "And now we"ll see!" he said.
They soon saw. When he came in for lunch the next day, Corydon came to the door, in great excitement. "S-sh!" she whispered. "There"s a reporter here!"
"A reporter!" he echoed.
"Yes--a woman."
"What does she want?"
"She wants an interview about the book."
"Where is she from?"
"She"s from the "Morning Howl". She"s read the circular."
"But I never sent it there!"
"I know; but she says a friend gave it to her. She knows all about it."
So Thyrsis went in, like a lamb to the slaughter. He was new to interviews, and he yielded to the graces of the friendly and sympathetic lady. Yes, he would be glad to tell about his book; and about where and how he had written it, and all the hopes he had based upon it.
"And your wife tells me you"ve just been married!" said the lady, with a winning smile, and she proceeded to question him about this. They had become good friends by that time, and Thyrsis told her many things that he would not have told save to a charming lady. And then she asked for his picture, explaining that she could give so much more s.p.a.ce to the "story" if she had one. And then she begged for a picture of Corydon, and was deeply hurt that she could not have it.
She prolonged the interview for an hour or so, and came back again and again in the effort to get this picture of Corydon. Finally she rose to go; but out in the hall, as she was bidding them good-bye, she suddenly exclaimed that she had left her gloves, and went back and got them, and then hurried away. And it was not until an hour or two later that Thyrsis made the horrible discovery that the photograph of Corydon which had stood upon his bureau was standing upon his bureau no longer!
So next morning, there were their two photographs upon the second page of the "Morning Howl", and a two-column headline:
"YOUTHFUL GENIUS OFFERS HIMSELF FOR SALE!"
Thyrsis rushed through this article, writhing with horror and dismay.
The woman had made him into what they called a "human interest" feature.
There was very little about his book, but there was much about the picturesque circ.u.mstances under which he had written it. There was a description of their personal appearance--of Corydon"s sweet face and soulful black eyes, and of his broad forehead and sensitive lips. There was also a complete description of their domestic _menage_, including the chafing-dish and the odor of lamb-chops. There was a highly diverting account of how they had "eloped" with only eight dollars in the world; together with all the agonies of their parents, as imagined by the sympathetic lady.