"This thing" (he brought his fist down on it), "when I've finished
with it, won't be Wrackham: it'll be all me."
"That's to say you'll be identified with him?"
"Identified--crucified--scarified with him. You don't suppose they'd
spare me? I shall be every bit as--as impossible as he is."
"You can see all that, and yet you're going through with it?"
"I can see all that, and yet I'm going through with it."
"And they say," I remarked gently, "that the days of chivalry are
dead."
"Oh, rot," he said. "It's simply that--she's worth it."
Well, he was at it for weeks. He says he never worked at anything as
he worked at his Charles Wrackham. I don't know what he made of him,
he wouldn't let me see. There was no need, he said, to anticipate
damnation.
In the meantime, while it pended, publishers, with a dreadful
eagerness, were approaching him from every side. For Wrackham (what
was left of him) was still a valuable property, and Burton's name,
known as it was, had sent him up considerably, so that you can see
what they might have done with him. There had been a lot of
correspondence, owing to the incredible competition, for, as this
was the last of him, there was nothing to be said against the open
market; still, it was considered that his own publishers, if they
"rose" properly, should have the first claim. The sum, if you'll
believe me, of five thousand had been mentioned. It was indecently
large, but Burton said he meant to screw them up to it. He didn't
mind how high he screwed them; _he_ wasn't going to touch a penny of
it. That was his attitude. You see the poor fellow couldn't get it
out of his head that he was doing something unclean.
It was in a fair way of being made public; but as yet, beyond an
obscure paragraph in the _Publishers' Circular_, nothing had
appeared about it in print. It remained an open secret.
Then Furnival got hold of it.
Whether it was simply his diabolic humor, or whether he had a
subtler and profounder motive (he says himself he was entirely
serious; he meant to make Burton drop it); anyhow, he put a
paragraph in his paper, in several papers, announcing that Grevill
Burton was engaged simultaneously on the "Life and Letters of Ford
Lankester" and the "Personal Reminiscences" of Mr. Wrackham.
Furnival did nothing more than that. He left the juxtaposition to
speak for itself, and his paragraph was to all appearances most
innocent and decorous. But it revived the old irresistible comedy of
Charles Wrackham; it let loose the young demons of the press. They
were funnier about him than ever (as funny, that is, as decency
allowed), having held themselves in so long over the obituary
notices.
And Furnival (there I think his fine motive _was_ apparent) took
care to bring their ribald remarks under Burton's notice. Furny's
idea evidently was to point out to Burton that his position was
untenable, that it was not fitting that the same man should deal
with Mr. Wrackham and with Ford Lankester. He _had_ to keep himself
clean for him. If he didn't see it he must be made to see.
He did see it. It didn't need Furnival to make him. He came to me
one evening and told me that it was impossible. He had given it up.
"Thank God," I said.
He smiled grimly. "God doesn't come into it," he said. "It's
Lankester I've given up."
"You haven't!" I said.
He said he had.
He was very cool and calm about it, but I saw in his face the marks
of secret agitation. He had given Lankester up, but not without a
struggle. I didn't suppose he was wriggling out of the other thing,
he said. He couldn't touch Lankester after Wrackham. It was
impossible for the same man to do them both. It wouldn't be fair to
Lankester or his widow. He had made himself unclean.
I assured him that he hadn't, that his motive purged him utterly,
that the only people who really mattered were all in the secret;
they knew that it was Antigone who had let him in for Wrackham; they
wouldn't take him and his Wrackham seriously; and he might be sure
that Ford Lankester would absolve him. It was high comedy after
Lankester's own heart, and so on. But nothing I said could move him.
He stuck to it that the people in the secret, the people I said
mattered, didn't matter in the least, that his duty was to the big
outside public for whom Lives were written, who knew no secrets and
allowed for no motives; and when I urged on him, as a final
consideration, that he'd be all right with _them_, _they_ wouldn't
understand the difference between Charles Wrackham and Ford
Lankester, he cried out that that was what he meant. It was his
business to make them understand. And how could they if he
identified himself with Wrackham? It was almost as if he identified
Lankester----
Then I said that, if that was the way he looked at it, his duty was
clear. He must give Wrackham up.
"Give up Antigone, you mean," he said.
He couldn't.