"What is the matter, my dear? I gave you Harviss's second cheque the
other day--"
Her tears arrested him. "Don't be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really
believe your success has turned his head."
"The boy--what boy? My success--? Explain yourself, Susan!"
"It's only that Jack has--has borrowed some money--which he can't
repay. But you mustn't think him altogether to blame, Samuel. Since the
success of your book he has been asked about so much--it's given the
children quite a different position. Millicent says that wherever they
go the first question asked is, 'Are you any relation of the author of
"The Vital Thing"?' Of course we're all very proud of the book; but it
entails obligations which you may not have thought of in writing it."
The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on the
study-table which he had just successfully defended from the camera of
the _Inglenook_. He took up an envelope bearing the name of a popular
weekly paper.
"I don't know that the _Inglenook_ would help much," he said, "but I
suppose this might."
Mrs. Linyard's eyes glowed with maternal avidity.
"What is it, Samuel?"
"A series of 'Scientific Sermons' for the Round-the-Gas-Log column of
_The Woman's World_. I believe that journal has a larger circulation
than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion."
He had not even asked the extent of Jack's indebtedness. It had been so
easy to relieve recent domestic difficulties by the timely production
of Harviss's two cheques, that it now seemed natural to get Mrs.
Linyard out of the room by promising further reinforcements. The
Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss's suggestion that he should
follow up his success by a second volume on the same lines. He had
sworn not to lend more than a passive support to the fraud of "The
Vital Thing"; but the temptation to free himself from Mrs. Linyard
prevailed over his last scruples, and within an hour he was at work on
the Scientific Sermons.
The Professor was not an unkind man. He really enjoyed making his
family happy; and it was his own business if his reward for so doing
was that it kept them out of his way. But the success of "The Vital
Thing" gave him more than this negative satisfaction. It enlarged his
own existence and opened new doors into other lives. The Professor,
during fifty virtuous years, had been cognizant of only two types of
women: the fond and foolish, whom one married, and the earnest and
intellectual, whom one did not. Of the two, he infinitely preferred the
former, even for conversational purposes. But as a social instrument
woman was unknown to him; and it was not till he was drawn into the
world on the tide of his literary success that he discovered the
deficiencies in his classification of the sex. Then he learned with
astonishment of the existence of a third type: the woman who is fond
without foolishness and intellectual without earnestness. Not that the
Professor inspired, or sought to inspire, sentimental emotions; but he
expanded in the warm atmosphere of personal interest which some of his
new acquaintances contrived to create about him. It was delightful to
talk of serious things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal
without being domestic.
Even in this new world, where all subjects were touched on lightly, and
emphasis was the only indelicacy, the Professor found himself
constrained to endure an occasional reference to his book. It was
unpleasant at first; but gradually he slipped into the habit of hearing
it talked of, and grew accustomed to telling pretty women just how "it
had first come to him."
Meanwhile the success of the Scientific Sermons was facilitating his
family relations. His photograph in the _Inglenook_, to which the lady
of the note-book had succeeded in appending a vivid interview, carried
his fame to circles inaccessible even to "The Vital Thing"; and the
Professor found himself the man of the hour. He soon grew used to the
functions of the office, and gave out hundred-dollar interviews on
every subject, from labour-strikes to Babism, with a frequency which
reacted agreeably on the domestic exchequer. Presently his head began
to figure in the advertising pages of the magazines. Admiring readers
learned the name of the only breakfast-food in use at his table, of the
ink with which "The Vital Thing" had been written, the soap with which
the author's hands were washed, and the tissue-builder which fortified
him for further effort. These confidences endeared the Professor to
millions of readers, and his head passed in due course from the
magazine and the newspaper to the biscuit-tin and the chocolate-box.