Mr. Rattray's proposal occurred as soon after the close
of the season as he was able to find time to devote the
amount of attention to it which he felt it required. He
put it off deliberately till then, fearing that it might
entail a degree of mental agitation on his part that
would have an undesirable reflex action upon the paper.
Mr. Rattray had never been really attracted toward
matrimony before, although he had taken, in a discussion
in the columns of the _Age_ upon the careworn query, "Is
Marriage a Failure?" a vigorous negative side under
various pen-names which argued not only inclination, but
experience. He felt, therefore, that he could not possibly
predicate anything of himself under the circumstances,
and that it would be distinctly the part of wisdom to
wait until there was less going on. Mr. Rattray had an
indefinite idea that in case of a rejection he might find
it necessary to go out of town for some weeks to pull
himself together again--it was the traditional course--and
if such an exigency occurred before July the office would
go to pieces under the pressure of events. So he waited,
becoming every day more enthusiastically aware of the
great advantage of having Miss Bell permanently connected
with the paper under supervision which would be even more
highly authorized than an editor's, and growing at the
same time more thoroughly impressed with the unusual
character of her personal charm. Elfrida was a "find" to
Mr. Arthur Rattray from a newspaper point of view--a
find he gave himself credit for sagaciously recognizing,
and one which it would be expedient to obtain complete
possession of before its market value should become known.
And it was hardly possible for Mr. Rattray to divest
himself of the newspaper point of view in the consideration
of anything which concerned him personally. It struck
him as uniquely fortunate that his own advantage and that
of the _Age_ should tally, as it undoubtedly might in
this instance; and that, for Arthur Rattray, was putting
the matter in a rather high, almost disinterested
connection.
It is doubtful whether to this day Mr. Rattray fully
understands his rejection, it was done so deftly, so
frankly, yet with such a delicate consideration for his
feelings. He took it, he assured himself afterward,
without winking; but it is unlikely that he felt
sufficiently indebted to the manner of its administration,
in congratulating himself upon this point. It may be,
too, that he left Miss Bell with the impression that her
intention never to marry was not an immovable one, given
indefinite time and indefinite abstention, on his part,
from alluding to the subject. Certainly he found himself
surprisingly little cast down by the event, and more
resolved than ever to make the editor-in-chief admit that
Elfrida's contributions were "the brightest things in
the paper," and act accordingly. He realized, in the
course of time, that he had never been very confident of
any other answer; but nothing is more certain than that
it acted as a curious stimulus to his interest in Elfrida's
work. He found a co-enthusiast in Golightly Ticke, and
on more than one occasion they agreed that something,
must be done to bring Miss Bell before the public, to
put within her reach the opportunity of the success she
deserved, which was of the order Mr. Rattray described
as "screaming."
"So far as the booming is concerned," said Mr. Rattray
to Mr. Ticke, "I will attend to that; but there must be
something to boom. We can't sound the loud tocsin on a
lot of our own paras. She must do something that will go
between two covers."
The men were talking in Golightly's room over easeful
Sunday afternoon cigars; and as Rattray spoke they heard
a light step mount the stairs. "There she is now,"
replied Ticke. "Suppose we go up and propose it to her?"
"I wish I knew what to suggest," Rattray returned; "but
we might talk it over with her--when she's had time to
take off her bonnet."
Ten minutes later Elfrida was laughing at their ambitions.
"A success?" she exclaimed. "Oh yes! I mean to have a
success--one day! But not yet--oh no! First I must learn
to write a line decently, then a paragraph, then a page.
I must wait, oh, a very long time--ten years perhaps.
Five, anyway."
"Oh, if you do that," protested Golightly Ticke, "it will
be like decanted champagne. A success at nineteen--"
"Twenty-one," corrected Elfrida.
"Twenty-one if you like--is a sparkling success. A
success at thirty-one is--well, it lacks the accompaniments."
"You are a great deal too exacting, Miss Bell," Rattray
put in; "those things you do for us are charming, you
know they are."
"You are very good to say so. I'm afraid they're only
frivolous scraps."
"My opinion is this," Rattray went on sturdily. "You
only want material. Nobody can make bricks without
straw--to sell--and very few people can evolve books out
of the air that any publisher will look at it. You get
material for your scraps, and you treat it unconventionally,
so the scraps supply a demand. It's a demand that's
increasing every day--for fresh, unconventional matter.
Your ability to treat the scraps proves your ability to
do more sustained work if you could find it. Get the
material for a book, and I'll guarantee you'll do it
well."
Elfrida looked from one to the other with bright eyes.
"What do you suggest?" she said, with a nervous little
laugh. She had forgotten that she meant to wait ten years.
"That's precisely the difficulty," said Golightly, running
his fingers through his hair.
"We must get hold of something," said Rattray. "You've
never thought of doing a novel?"
Elfrida shook her head decidedly. "Not now," she said.
"I would not dare. I haven't looked at life long
enough--I've had hardly any experience at all. I couldn't
conceive a single character with any force or completeness.
And then for a novel one wants a leading idea--the plot,
of course, is of no particular consequence. Rather I
should say plots have merged into leading ideas; and I
have none."
"Oh, distinctly!" observed Mr. Ticke finely. "A plot is
as vulgar at this end of the century as a--as a dress
improver, to take a feminine simile."
Rattray looked seriously uncomprehending, and slowly
scratched the back of his hand. "Couldn't you find a
leading idea in some of the modern movements," he asked
--"in the higher education of women, for instance, or
the suffrage agitation?"
"Or University Extension, or Bimetallism, or Eight Hours'
Labor, or Disestablishment!" Elfrida laughed. "No, Mr.
Rattray, I don't think I could.
"I might do some essays," she suggested.
Rattray, tilting his chair back, with his forefingers in
the arm-holes of his waistcoat, pursed his lips "We
couldn't get them read," he said. "It takes a
well-established reputation to carry essays. People will
stand them from a Lang or a Stevenson or that 'Obiter
Dicta' fellow--not from an unknown young lady."
Elfrida bit her lip. "Of course I am not any of those."
"Miss Bell has done some idyllic verse," volunteered
Golightly.
The girl looked at him with serious reprobation. "I did
not give you permission to say that," she said gravely.
"No--forgive me!--but it's true, Rattray." He searched
in his breast pocket and brought out a diminutive
pocket-book. "May I show those two little things I copied?"
he begged, selecting a folded sheet of letter-paper from
its contents. "This is serious, you know, really. We must
go into all the chances."
Elfrida had a pang of physical distress.
"Oh," she said hastily, "Mr. Rattray will not care to
see those. They weren't written for the _Age_, you know,"
she added, forcing a smile.
But Rattray declared that he should like it above all
things, and looked the scraps gloomily over. One Elfrida
had called "A Street Minstrel." Seeing him unresponsive,
Golightly read it gracefully aloud.
"One late November afternoon
I sudden heard a gentle rune.
"I could not see whence came the song,
But, tranced, stopped and listened long;
"And that drear month gave place to May,
And all the city slipped away.
"The coal-carts ceased their din,--instead
I heard a bluebird overhead;
"The pavements, black with dismal rain,
Grew greenly to a country lane.
"Plainly as I see you, my friend,
I saw the lilacs sway and bend,
"A blossoming apple-orchard where
The chimneys, fret the foggy air,
"And wide mown fields of clover sweet
Sent up their fragrance at my feet,
"And once again dear Phyllis sat
The thorn beneath, and trimmed her hat.
* * * * * * * *
"Long looked I for my wizard bard--
I found him on the boulevard.
"And now my urban hearth he cheers,
Singing all day of sylvan years,
"Right thankful for the warmer spot--
A cricket, by July forgot!"
Ticke looked inquiringly at Rattray when he had finished.
Elfrida turned away her head, and tapped the floor
impatiently with her foot.
"Isn't that dainty?" demanded Golightly.
"Dainty enough," Rattray responded, with a bored air.
"But you can't read it to the public, you know. Poetry
is out of the question. Poetry takes genius."
Golightly and Elfrida looked at each other sympathetically.
Mr. Ticke's eyes said, "How hideously we are making you
suffer," and Elfrida's conveyed a tacit reproach.
"Travels would do better," Rattray went on. "There's no
end of a market for anything new in travels. Go on a
walking tour through Spain, by yourself, disguised as a
nun or something, and write about what you see."
Elfrida flushed with pleasure at the reckless idea. A
score of situations rose before her thrilling, dangerous,
picturesque, with a beautiful nun in the foreground. "I
should like it above all things," she said, "but I have
no money."
"I'm afraid it would take a good deal," Rattray returned.
"That's a pity."
"It disposes of the question of travelling, though, for
the present," and Elfrida sighed with real regret.
"It's your turn, Ticke. Suggest something," Rattray went
on. "It must be unusual and it must be interesting. Miss
Bell must do something that no young lady has done before.
That much she must concede to the trade. Granting that,
the more artistically she does it the better."
"I should agree to that compromise," said Elfrida eagerly.
"Anything to be left with a free hand."
"The book should be copiously illustrated," continued
Rattray, "and the illustrations should draw their interest
from you personally."
"I don't think I should mind that."
Her imagination was busy at a bound with press criticisms,
pirated American editions, newspaper paragraphs describing
the color of her hair, letters from great magazines asking
for contributions. It leaped with a fierce joy at the
picture of Janet reading these paragraphs, and knowing,
whether she gave or withheld her own approval, that the
world had pronounced in favor of Elfrida Bell. She wrote
the simple note with which she would send a copy to
Kendal, and somewhere in the book there would be things
which he would feel so exquisitely that--The cover should
have a French design and be the palest yellow. There was
a moment's silence while she thought of these things,
her knee clasped in her hands, her eyes blindly searching
the dull red squares of the Llassa prayer-carpet.
"Rattray," said Golightly, with a suddenness that made
both the others look up expectantly, "could Miss Bell do
her present work for the _Age_ anywhere?"
"Just now I think it's mostly book reviews--isn't it?--and
comments on odds and ends in the papers of interest to
ladies. Yes--not quite so well out of London; but I dare
say it could be done pretty much anywhere, reasonably
near."
"Then," replied Golightly Ticke, with a repressed and
guarded air, "I think I've got it."