The editor of _Every Evening_ gave Ray his manuscript back. He had
evidently no expectation that Ray could have any personal feeling about
it, or could view it apart from the interests of the paper. He himself
betrayed no personal feeling where the paper was concerned, and he
probably could have conceived of none in Ray.
“I don’t think it will do for us,” he said. “It is a good story, and I
read it all through, but I don’t believe it would succeed as a serial.
What do you think, yourself?”
“I?” said Ray. “How could I have an unprejudiced opinion?”
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You know what we want; we’ve talked it
over enough; and you ought to know whether this is the kind of thing.
Anyhow, it’s within your province to decide. I don’t think it will do,
but if you think it will, I’m satisfied. You must take the
responsibility. I leave it to you, and I mean business.”
Ray thought how old Kane would be amused if he could know of the
situation, how he would inspect and comment it from every side, and try
to get novel phrases for it. He believed himself that no author had
ever been quite in his place before; it was like something in Gilbert’s
operas; it was as if a prisoner were invited to try himself and
pronounce his own penalty. His chief seemed to see no joke in the
affair; he remained soberly and somewhat severely waiting for Ray’s
decision.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Ray. “I don’t think it would do for
_Every Evening_. Even if it would, I should doubt the taste of working
in something of my own on the reader at the beginning.”
“I shouldn’t care for that,” said the chief, “if it were the thing.”
Ray winced, but the chief did not see it. Now, as always, it was merely
and simply a question of the paper. He added carelessly:
“I should think such a story as that would succeed as a book.”
“I wish you would get some publisher to think so.”
The chief had nothing to say to that. He opened his desk and began to
write.
In spite of the rejected manuscript lying on the table before him, Ray
made out a very fair day’s work himself, and then he took it up town
with him. He did not go at once to his hotel, but pushed on as far as
Chapley’s, where he hoped to see Peace before she went home, and ask how
her father was getting on; he had not visited Hughes for several weeks;
he made himself this excuse. What he really wished was to confront the
girl and divine her thoughts concerning himself. He must do that, now;
but if it were not for the cruelty of forsaking the old man, it might
be the kindest and best thing never to go near any of them again.
He had the temporary relief of finding her gone home when he reached
Chapley’s. Mr. Brandreth was there, and he welcomed Ray with something
more than his usual cordiality.
“Look here,” he said, shutting the door of his little room. “Have you
got that story of yours where you could put your hand on it easily?”
“I can put my hand on it instantly,” said Ray, and he touched it.
“Oh!” Mr. Brandreth returned, a little daunted. “I didn’t know you
carried it around with you.”
“I don’t usually--or only when I’ve got it from some publisher who
doesn’t want it.”
“I thought it had been the rounds,” said Mr. Brandreth, still uneasily.
“Oh, it’s an editor, this time. It’s just been offered to me for serial
use in _Every Evening_, and I’ve declined it.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Brandreth smiled in mystification.
“Exactly what I say.” Ray explained the affair as it had occurred. “It
makes me feel like Brutus and the son of Brutus rolled into one. I’m
going round to old Kane, to give the facts away to him. I think he’ll
enjoy them.”
“Well! Hold on! What did the chief say about it?”
“Oh, he liked it. Everybody likes it, but nobody wants it. He said he
thought it would succeed as a book. The editors all think that. The
publishers think it would succeed as a serial.”
Ray carried it off buoyantly, and enjoyed the sort of daze Mr. Brandreth
was in.
“See here,” said the publisher, “I want you to leave that manuscript
with me.”
“Again?”
“Yes. I’ve never read it myself yet, you know.”
“Take it and be happy!” Ray bestowed it upon him with dramatic effusion.
“No, seriously!” said Mr. Brandreth. “I want to talk with you. Sit down,
won’t you? You know the first time you were in here, I told you I was
anxious to get Chapley & Co. in line as a publishing house again; I
didn’t like the way we were dropping out and turning into mere jobbers.
You remember.”
Ray nodded.
“Well, sir, I’ve never lost sight of that idea, and I’ve been keeping
one eye out for a good novel, to start with, ever since. I haven’t found
it, I don’t mind telling you. You see, all the established reputations
are in the hands of other publishers, and you can’t get them away
without paying ridiculous money, and violating the comity of the trade
at the same time. If we are to start new, we must start with a new man.”
“I don’t know whether I’m a new man or not,” said Ray, “if you’re
working up to me. Sometimes I feel like a pretty old one. I think I
came to New York about the beginning of the Christian era. But _A Modern
Romeo_ is as fresh as ever. It has the dew of the morning on it
still--rubbed off in spots by the nose of the professional smeller.”
“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, “it’s new enough for all practical purposes.
I want you to let me take it home with me.”
“Which of the leading orchestras would you like to have accompany you to
your door?” asked Ray.
“No, no! Don’t expect too much!” Mr. Brandreth entreated.
“I don’t expect anything,” Ray protested.
“Well, that’s right--that’s the only business basis. But if it _should_
happen to be the thing, I don’t believe you’d be personally any happier
about it than I should.”
“Oh, thank you!”
“I’m not a fatalist”--
“But it would look a good deal like fatalism.”
“Yes, it would. It would look as if it were really intended to be, if it
came back to us now, after it had been round to everybody else.”
“Yes; but if it was fated from the beginning, I don’t see why you didn’t
take it in the beginning. I should rather wonder what all the bother had
been for.”
“You might say that,” Mr. Brandreth admitted.
Ray went off on the wave of potential prosperity, and got Kane to come
out and dine with him. They decided upon Martin’s, where the dinner
cost twice as much as at Ray’s hotel, and had more the air of being a
fine dinner; and they got a table in the corner, and Ray ordered a
bottle of champagne.
“Yes,” said Kane, “that is the right drink for a man who wishes to spend
his money before he has got it. It’s the true gambler’s beverage.”
“You needn’t drink it,” said Ray. “You shall have the _vin ordinaire_
that’s included in the price of the dinner.”
“Oh, I don’t mind a glass of champagne now and then, after I’ve brought
my host under condemnation for ordering it,” said Kane.
“And I want to let my heart out to-night,” Ray pursued. “I may not have
the chance to-morrow. Besides, as to the gambling, it isn’t I betting on
my book; it’s Brandreth. I don’t understand yet why he wants to do it.
To be sure, it isn’t a great risk he’s taking.”
“I rather think he _has_ to take some risks just now,” said Kane,
significantly. He lowered his soft voice an octave as he went on. “I’m
afraid that poor Henry, in his pursuit of personal perfectability, has
let things get rather behindhand in his business. I don’t blame him--you
know I never blame people--for there is always a question as to which is
the cause and which is the effect in such matters. My dear old friend
may have begun to let his business go to the bad because he had got
interested in his soul, or he may have turned to his soul for refuge
because he knew his business had begun to go to the bad. At any rate,
he seems to have found the usual difficulty in serving God and Mammon;
only, in this case Mammon has got the worst of it, for once: I suppose
one ought to be glad of that. But the fact is that Henry has lost heart
in business; he doesn’t respect business; he has a bad conscience; he
wants to be out of it. I had a long talk with him before he went into
the country, and I couldn’t help pitying him. I don’t think his wife and
daughter even will ever get him back to New York. He knows it’s rather
selfish to condemn them to the dulness of a country life, and that it’s
rather selfish to leave young Brandreth to take the brunt of affairs
here alone. But what are you to do in a world like this, where a man
can’t get rid of one bad conscience without laying in another?”
In his pleasure with his paradox Kane suffered Ray to fill up his glass
a second time. Then he looked dissatisfied, and Ray divined the cause.
“Did you word that quite to your mind?”
“No, I didn’t. It’s too diffuse. Suppose we say that in our conditions
no man can do right without doing harm?”
“That’s more succinct,” said Ray. “Is it known at all that they’re in
difficulties?”
Kane smoothly ignored the question. “I fancy that the wrong is in
Henry’s desire to cut himself loose from the ties that bind us all
together here. Poor David has the right of that. We must stand or fall
together in the pass we’ve come to; and we cannot helpfully eschew the
world except by remaining in it.” He took up Ray’s question after a
moment’s pause. “No, it isn’t known that they’re in difficulties, and I
don’t say that it’s so. Their affairs have simply been allowed to run
down, and Henry has left Brandreth to gather them up single-handed. I
don’t know that Brandreth will complain. It leaves him unhampered, even
if he can do nothing with his hands but clutch at straws.”
“Such straws as the _Modern Romeo_?” Ray asked. “It seems to me that _I_
have a case of conscience here. Is it right for me to let Mr. Brandreth
bet his money on my book when there are so many chances of his losing?”
“Let us hope he won’t finally bet,” Kane suggested, and he smiled at the
refusal which instantly came into Ray’s eyes. “But if he does, we must
leave the end with God. People,” he mused on, “used to leave the end
with God a great deal oftener than they do now. I remember that I did,
myself, once. It was easier. I think I will go back to it. There is
something very curious in our relation to the divine. God is where we
believe He is, and He is a daily Providence or not, as we choose. People
used to see His hand in a corner, or a deal, which prospered them,
though it ruined others. They may be ashamed to do that now. But we
might get back to faith by taking a wider sweep and seeing God in our
personal disadvantages--finding Him not only in luck but in bad luck.
Chance may be a larger law, with an orbit far transcending the range of
the little statutes by which fire always burns, and water always finds
its level.”
“That is a better Hard Saying than the other,” Ray mocked. “‘I’ faith an
excellent song.’ Have some more champagne. Now go on; but let us talk of
_A Modern Romeo_.”
“We will drink to it,” said Kane, with an air of piety.