"Why," said Philip, half amused at the conceit and yet complimented by the recognition of his talent, "I don"t know anything about railroads --how they are run, cost of building, prospect of traffic, engineering difficulties, all that--nothing whatever."
"So much the better. It is a literary work I want, not a brag about the road or a description of its enterprise. You just take the line as your scene. Let the story run on that. The company, don"t you see, must not in any way be suspected with having anything to do with it, no mention of its name as a company, no advertis.e.m.e.nt of the road on a fly-leaf or cover. Just your own story, pure and simple."
"But," said Philip, more and more astonished at this unlooked-for expansion of the literary field, "I could not embark on an enterprise of such magnitude."
"Oh," said Mr. Ault, complacently, "that will be all arranged. Just a pleasure trip, as far as that goes. You will have a private car, well stocked, a photographer will go along, and I think--don"t you? a water-color artist. You can take your own time, stop when and where you choose--at the more stations the better. It ought to be profusely ill.u.s.trated with scenes on the line--yes, have colored plates, all that would give life and character to your story. Love on a Special, some such t.i.tle as that. It would run like oil. I will arrange to have it as a serial in one of the big magazines, and then the book would be bound to go. The company, of course, can have nothing to do with it, but I can tell you privately that it would rather distribute a hundred thousand copies of a book of good literature through the country than to encourage the railway truck that is going now.
"I shouldn"t wonder, Mr. Burnett, if the public would be interested in having the Puritan Nun take that kind of a trip." And Mr. Ault ended his explanation with an interrogatory smile.
Philip hesitated a moment, trying to grasp the conception of this business use of literature. Mr. Ault resumed:
"It isn"t anything in the nature of an advertis.e.m.e.nt. Literature is a power. Why, do you know--of course you did not intend it--your story has encouraged the Peac.o.c.k Inn to double its accommodations, and half the farmhouses in Rivervale are expecting summer boarders. The landlord of the Peac.o.c.k came to see me the other day, and he says everything is stirred up there, and he has already to enlarge or refuse application."
"It is very kind in you, Mr. Ault, to think of me in that connection, but I fear you have over-estimated my capacity. I could name half a dozen men who could do it much better than I could. They know how to do it, they have that kind of touch. I have been surprised at the literary ability engaged by the great corporations."
Mr. Ault made a gesture of impatience. "I wouldn"t give a d.a.m.n for that sort of thing. It is money thrown away. If I should get one of the popular writers you refer to, the public would know he was hired. If you lay your story out there, n.o.body will suspect anything of the sort. It will be a clean literary novel. Not travel, you understand, but a story, and the more love in it the better. It will be a novelty. You can run your car sixty miles an hour in exciting pa.s.sages, everything will work into it. When people travel on the road the pictures will show them the scenes of the story. It is a big thing," said Mr. Ault in conclusion.
"I see it is," said Philip, rising at the hint that his time had expired.
"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Ault, for your confidence in me. But it is a new idea. I will have to think it over."
"Well, think it over. There is money in it. You would not start till about midsummer. Good-day."
A private car! Travel like a prince! Certainly literature was looking up in the commercial world. Philip walked back to his publishers with a certain elasticity of step, a new sense of power. Yes, the power of the pen. And why not? No doubt it would bring him money and spread his name very widely. There was nothing that a friendly corporation could not do for a favorite. He would then really be a part of the great, active, enterprising world. Was there anything illegitimate in taking advantage of such an opportunity? Surely, he should remain his own master, and write nothing except what his own conscience approved. But would he not feel, even if no one else knew it, that he was the poet-laureate of a corporation?
And suddenly, as he thought how the clear vision of Evelyn would plunge to the bottom of such a temptation, he felt humiliated that such a proposition should have been made to him. Was there nothing, n.o.body, that commercialism did not think for sale and to be trafficked in?
Nevertheless, he wrote to Alice about it, describing the proposal as it was made to him, without making any comment on it.
Alice replied speedily. "Isn"t it funny," she wrote, "and isn"t it preposterous? I wonder what such people think? And that horrid young pirate, Ault, a patron of literature! My dear, I cannot conceive of you as the Pirate"s Own. Dear Phil, I want you to succeed. I do want you to make money, a lot of it. I like to think you are wanted and appreciated, and that you can get paid better and better for what you do. Sell your ma.n.u.scripts for as good a price as you can get. Yes, dear, sell your ma.n.u.scripts, but don"t sell your soul."
XX
Did Miss McDonald tell Evelyn of her meeting with Philip in Central Park?
The Scotch loyalty to her service would throw a doubt upon this. At the same time, the Scotch affection, the Scotch sympathy with a true and romantic pa.s.sion, and, above all, the Scotch shrewdness, could be trusted to do what was best under the circ.u.mstances. That she gave the least hint of what she said to Mr. Burnett concerning Evelyn is not to be supposed for a moment. Certainly she did not tell Mrs. Mavick. Was she a person to run about with idle gossip? But it is certain that Evelyn knew that Philip had given up his situation in the office, that he had become a reader for a publishing house, that he had definitely decided to take up a literary career. And somehow it came into her mind that Philip knew that this decision would be pleasing to her.
According to the a.n.a.logy of other things in nature, it would seem that love must have something to feed on to sustain it. But it is remarkable upon how little it can exist, can even thrive and become strong, and develop a power of resistance to hostile influences. Once it gets a lodgment in a woman"s heart, it is an exclusive force that transforms her into a heroine of courage and endurance. No arguments, no reason, no considerations of family, of position, of worldly fortune, no prospect of immortal life, nothing but doubt of faith in the object can dislodge it.
The woman may yield to overwhelming circ.u.mstances, she may even by her own consent be false to herself, but the love lives, however hidden and smothered, so long as the vital force is capable of responding to a true emotion. Perhaps nothing in human life is so pathetic as this survival in old age of a youthful, unsatisfied love. It may cease to be a pa.s.sion, it may cease to be a misery, it may have become only a placid sentiment, yet the heart must be quite cold before this sentiment can cease to stir it on occasion--for the faded flower is still in the memory the bloom of young love.
They say that in the New Education for women love is not taken into account in the regular course; it is an elective study. But the immortal principle of life does not care much for organization, and says, as of old, they reckon ill who leave me out.
In the early season at Newport there was little to distract the attention and much to calm the spirit. Mrs. Mavick was busy in her preparation for the coming campaign, and Evelyn and her governess were left much alone, to drive along the softly lapping sea, to search among the dells of the rocky promontory for wild flowers, or to sit on the cliffs in front of the gardens of bloom and watch the idle play of the waves, that chased each other to the foaming beach and in good-nature tossed about the cat-boats and schooners and set the white sails shimmering and dipping in the changing lights. And Evelyn, drinking in the beauty and the peace of it, no doubt, was more pensive than joyous. Within the last few months life had opened to her with a suddenness that half frightened her.
It was a woman who sat on the cliffs now, watching the ocean of life, no longer a girl into whose fresh soul the sea and the waves and the air, and the whole beauty of the world, were simply responsive to her own gayety and enjoyment of living. It was not the charming scene that held her thought, but the city with its human struggle, and in that struggle one figure was conspicuous. In such moments this one figure of youth outweighed for her all that the world held besides. It was strange.
Would she have admitted this? Not in the least, not even to herself, in her virgin musings; nevertheless, the world was changed for her, it was more serious, more doubtful, richer, and more to be feared.
It was not too much to say that one season had much transformed her. She had been so ignorant of the world a year ago. She had taken for granted all that was abstractly right. Now she saw that the conventions of life were like sand-dunes and barriers in the path she was expected to walk.
She had learned for one thing what money was. Wealth had been such an accepted part of her life, since she could remember, that she had attached no importance to it, and had only just come to see what distinctions it made, and how it built a barrier round about her. She had come to know what it was that gave her father position and distinction; and the knowledge had been forced upon her by all the obsequious flattery of society that she was, as a great heiress, something apart from others. This position, so much envied, may be to a sensitive soul an awful isolation.
It was only recently that Evelyn had begun to be keenly aware of the circ.u.mstances that hedged her in. They were speaking one day as they sat upon the cliffs of the season about to begin. In it Evelyn had always had unalloyed, childish delight. Now it seemed to her something to be borne.
"McDonald," the girl said, abruptly, but evidently continuing her line of thought, "mamma says that Lord Montague is coming next week."
"To be with us?"
"Oh, no. He is to stay with the Danforth-Sibbs. Mamma says that as he is a stranger here we must be very polite to him, and that his being here will give distinction to the season. Do you like him?" There was in Evelyn still, with the penetration of the woman, the naivete of the child.
"I cannot say that he is personally very fascinating, but then I have never talked with him."
"Mamma says he is very interesting about his family, and their place in England, and about his travels. He has been in the South Sea Islands. I asked him about them. He said that the natives were awfully jolly, and that the climate was jolly hot. Do you know, McDonald, that you can"t get anything out of him but exclamations and slang. I suppose he talks to other people differently. I tried him. At the reception I asked him who was going to take Tennyson"s place. He looked blank, and then said, "Er--I must have missed that. What place? Is he out?""
Miss McDonald laughed, and then said, "You don"t understand the cla.s.ses in English life. Poetry is not in his line. You see, dear, you couldn"t talk to him about politics. He is a born legislator, and when he is in the House of Lords he will know right well who is in and who is out. You mustn"t be unjust because he seems odd to you and of limited intelligence. Just that sort of youth is liable to turn up some day in India or somewhere and do a mighty plucky thing, and become a hero. I dare say he is a great sportsman."
"Yes, he quite warmed up about shooting. He told me about going for yak in the snow mountains south of Thibet. b.l.o.o.d.y cold it was. Nasty beast, if you didn"t bring him down first shot. No, I don"t doubt his courage nor his impudence. He looks at me so, that I can"t help blushing. I wish mamma wouldn"t ask him."
"But, my dear, we must live in the world as it is. You are not responsible for Lord Montague."
"And I know he will come," the girl persisted in her line of thought.
"When he called the day before we came away, he asked a lot of questions about Newport, about horses and polo and golf, and all that, and were the roads good. And then, "Do you bike, Miss Mavick?"
"I pretended not to understand, and said I was still studying with my governess and I hadn"t got all the irregular verbs yet. For once, he looked quite blank, and after a minute he said, "That"s very good, you know!" McDonald, I just hate him. He makes me so uneasy."
"But don"t you know, child," said Miss McDonald, laughing, "that we are required to love our enemies?"
"So I would," replied the girl, quickly, "if he were an enemy and would keep away. Ah, me! McDonald, I want to ask you something. Do you suppose he would hang around a girl who was poor, such a sweet, pretty, dear creature as Alice Maitland, who is a hundred times nicer than I am?"
"He might," said Miss McDonald, still quizzically. "They say that like goes to like, and it is reported that the Duke of Tewkesbury is as good as ruined."
"Do be serious, McDonald." The girl nestled up closer to her and took her hand. "I want to ask you one question more. Do you think--no, don"t look at me, look away off at that sail do you-think that, if I had been poor, Mr. Burnett would have seen me only twice, just twice, all last season?"
Miss McDonald put her arm around Evelyn and clasped the little figure tight. "You must not give way to fancies. We cannot, as life is arranged, be perfectly happy, but we can be true to ourselves, and there is scarcely anything that resolution and patience cannot overcome. I ought not to talk to you about this, Evelyn. But I must say one thing: I think I can read Philip Burnett. Oh, he has plenty of self-esteem, but, unless I mistake him, nothing could so mortify him as to have it said that he was pursuing a girl for the sake of her fortune."
"And he wouldn"t!" cried the girl, looking up and speaking in an unsteady voice.
"Let me finish. He is, so I think, the sort of man that would not let any fortune, or anything else, stand in the way when his heart was concerned. I somehow feel that he could not change--faithfulness, that is his notion. If he only knew--"
"He never shall! he never shall!" cried the girl in alarm--"never!"
"And you think, child, that he doesn"t know? Come! That sail has been coming straight towards us ever since we sat here, never tacked once.
That is omen enough for one day. See how the light strikes it. Come!"
The Newport season was not, after all, very gay. Society has become so complex that it takes more than one Englishman to make a season. Were it the business of the chronicler to study the evolution of this lovely watering-place from its simple, unconventional, animated days of natural hospitality and enjoyment, to its present splendid and palatial isolation of a society--during the season--which finds its chief satisfaction in the rivalry of costly luxury and in an atmosphere of what is deemed aristocratic exclusiveness, he would have a theme attractive to the sociologist. But such a n.o.ble study is not for him. His is the humble task of following the fortunes of certain individuals, more or less conspicuous in this astonishing flowering of a democratic society, who have become dear to him by long acquaintance.
It was not the fault of Mrs. Mavick that the season was so frigid, its glacial stateliness only now and then breaking out in an illuminating burst of festivity, like the lighting-up of a Montreal ice-palace. Her s.p.a.cious house was always open, and her efforts, in charity enterprises and novel entertainments, were untiring to stimulate a circulation in the languid body of society.