University of Virginia Library

2. II

FOUR hours later she came, as it were, to herself, to find that she sat lax in her place, with open, upturned palms, and eyes vacantly fixed upon the opposite wall. "The Last Dryad," read to the final word, was tumbled in a heap upon the floor. It was past her luncheon-hour. Her cheeks flamed; her hands were cold and moist; and her heart beat thick and slow, clogged, as it were, by its own heaviness.

But the lapse of time was naught to her, nor the fever that throbbed in her head. Her world, like a temple of glass, had come down dashing about her. The future, which had beckoned her onward,—a fairy in the path wherein her feet were set,—was gone, and at the goal of her ambition and striving she saw suddenly a stranger stand, plucking down the golden apples that she so long and passionately had desired.

For "The Last Dryad" was her own, her very, very own and cherished "Patroclus."

That the other author had taken the story from a different view-point, that his treatment varied, that the approach was his own, that the wording was his own, produced not the least change upon the final result. The idea, the motif, was identical in each; identical in every particular, identical in effect, in suggestion. The two tales were one. That was the fact, the unshakable fact, the block of granite that a malicious fortune had flung athwart her little pavilion of glass.

At first she jumped to the conclusion of chicanery. At first there seemed no other explanation. "He stole it," she cried, rousing vehemently from her inertia—"mine—mine. He stole my story."

But common sense prevailed in the end. No, there was no possible chance for theft. She had not spoken of "Patroclus" to any one but Trevor. Her manuscript draft had not once left her hands. No; it was a coincidence, nothing more—one of those fateful coincidences with which the scientific and literary worlds are crowded. And he, this unknown Vickers, this haphazard genius of Ash Fork, Arizona, had the prior claim. Her "Patroclus" must remain unwritten. The sob caught and clutched at her throat at last.

"Oh," she cried in a half-whisper—"oh, my chance, my hopes, my foolish little hopes! And now this! To have it all come to nothing—when I was so proud, so buoyant—and Mr. Trevor and all! Oh, could anything be more cruel!"

And then, of all moments, ex machina, Harold Vickers's card was handed in.

She stared at it an instant, through tears, amazed and incredulous. Surely some one was playing a monstrous joke upon her to-day. Soon she would come upon the strings and false bottoms and wigs and masks of the game. But the office-boy's contemplation of her distress was real. Something must be done. The whole machine of things could not indefinitely hang thus suspended, inert, waiting her pleasure.

"Yes," she exclaimed all at once. "Very well; show him in"; and she had no more than gathered up the manuscript of "The Last Dryad" from the floor when its author entered the room.

He was very young,—certainly not more than twenty-three,—tall, rather poorly dressed, an invalid, beyond doubt, and the cough and the flush on the high cheek-bone spelled the name of the disease. The pepper-and-salt suit, the shoe-string cravat, and the broad felt hat were frankly Arizona. And he was diffident, constrained, sitting uncomfortably on the chair as a mark of respect, smiling continually, and, as he talked, throwing in her name at almost every phrase:

"No, Miss Beltis; yes, Miss Beltis; quite right, Miss Beltis."

His embarrassment helped her to her own composure, and by the time she came to question him as to his book and the reasons that brought him from Ash Fork to New York, she had herself in hand.

"I have received an unimportant government appointment in the Fisheries Department," he explained, "and as I was in New York for the week I thought I might—not that I wished to seem to hurry you, Miss Beltis—but I thought I might ask if you had come to—to my little book yet."

In five minutes of time Rosella knew just where Harold Vickers was to be placed, to what type he belonged. He was the young man of great talent who, so far from being discovered by the outside world, had not even discovered himself. He would be in two minds as yet about his calling in life, whether it was to be the hatching of fish or the writing of "Last Dryads." No one had yet taken him in hand, had so much as

spoken a word to him. If she told him now that his book was a ridiculous failure, he would no doubt say—and believe—that she was quite right, that he had felt as much himself. If she told him his book was a little masterpiece, he would be just as certain to tell himself, and with equal sincerity, that he had known it from the first.

He had offered his manuscript nowhere else as yet. He was as new as an overnight daisy, and as destructible in Rosella's hands.

"Yes," she said at length, "I have read your manuscript." She paused a moment, then: "But I am not quite ready to pass upon it yet."

He was voluble in his protestations.

"Oh, that is all right," she interrupted. "I can come to the second reading in a day or two. I could send you word by the end of the week."

"Thank you, Miss Beltis." He paused awkwardly, smiling in deprecatory fashion. "Do you—from what you have seen of it—read of it—do you—how does it strike you? As good enough to publish—or fit for the waste-basket?"

Ah, why had this situation leaped upon her thus unawares, and all unprepared! Why had she not been allowed time, opportunity, to fortify herself! What she said now would mean so much. Best err, then, on the safe side; and which side was that? Her words seemed to come of themselves, and she almost physically felt herself withdraw from the responsibility of what this other material Rosella Beltis was saying.

"I don't know," said the other Rosella. "I should not care to say—so soon. You see—there are so many manuscripts. I generally trust to the first impression on the second reading." She did not even hear his answer, but she said, when he had done speaking, that even in case of an unfavorable report there were, of course, other publishers.

But he answered that the judgment of such a house as the Conants would suffice for him. Somehow he could not peddle his story about New York. If the Conants would not take his work, nobody would.

And that was the last remark of importance he made. During the few remaining moments of his visit they spoke of unessentials, and before she was aware he had gone away, leaving with her a memorandum of his address at the time.