Linn Boyd Porter

When Miss Millicent Fern entered the office of Lawrence Gouger, as detailed in the preceding chapter, it will be remembered that she found that gentleman and his friend, Archie Weil, with their hats in their hands. The fact was that Mr. Weil had but just entered the room, and that Mr. Gouger had accepted an invitation to take lunch with him, an arrangement that was by no means an infrequent one between them. The entrance of Miss Fern, and the subsequent proceedings, compelled the literary critic to go out alone, as has been seen. When he returned he found Mr. Weil still there.

"Haven't you been to lunch yet!" exclaimed Mr. Gouger.

"I have not been out of this office," was the reply, "and all appetite for anything to eat has left me. Lawrence, that is one of the most interesting girls I ever met."

Mr. Gouger pursed up his lips, and uttered an impatient, "Pah!" He then remarked that Mr. Weil had a habit of finding such a quality in the latest women of his acquaintance.

"What does she amount to?" he asked. "An overgrown schoolgirl, who did not half learn her lessons. Read that MSS. she left here, and get disillusionized in short order. Why, she doesn't even know how to spell, and her periods and commas are in a hopeless tangle."

His companion eyed him quizzically.

"Are periods and commas, even a correct spelling of the English language, the only things you can see in a bright, handsome girl?" he demanded. "For shame, Lawrence! You are a dried-up old mummy. Your senses are numb. A lively wind will come in at the keyhole some day and blow you out of that chimney."

Mr. Gouger heaved a sigh, as if to say that discussion with such a nonsensical fellow was useless, and took his seat at his desk, where an unfinished pile of MSS. awaited his reading.

"She's given me leave to take her story home," said Mr. Weil, with a mischievous expression.

The critic stared at his friend.

"Given it to you?" he repeated. "How did that happen?"

"I asked her for it, naturally. You were so severe on the poor child, that I couldn't help putting in a cheering word. We talked of the whole business, and she was willing I should see if my opinion agreed with yours."

"Your opinion!" echoed Gouger, testily. "What is that worth? But take the stuff, if you want it, and when you are done, send it to her; it will make less rubbish in this confounded hole. One thing I'll tell you, though, in advance. You'll never be able to make sense of it, unless you get some one to straighten it out."

"That's all right," replied the other. "After I have read it through, I am going to Miss Fern's house, where she will read it to me."

Mr. Gouger started from his chair.

"You don't mean that!" he exclaimed.

"But I do. She asked me, and I'm going. I understand that it's a rather bold tale, and I can conceive nothing more entertaining than to hear that kind of thing from the red lips of such a pretty piece of flesh and blood as has just left here."

There was an uneasy expression on the face of the critic as he heard these words. He liked Weil, although they were as different in their natures as two men could well be. He wanted to please him, but the aspect of this affair was not agreeable.

"Look here, Archie," he said, earnestly, "there are some things that I can't permit, you know. My office must not be made a starting-place for one of your lawless adventures. You met Miss Fern here. Now, I protest against your going to her house, pretending that you are interested in that novel, when your real purpose is of a much more questionable kind."

Mr. Weil put on the air of one whose feelings are lacerated by an unjust suspicion.

"My dear Lawrence—" he began.

"That's all right," growled the critic. "I may or may not be your 'dear Lawrence,' but I know you like—like a book," he added, hitting by accident on a very excusable simile. "You are an old dog that is not likely to learn new tricks. I shall send this MSS. back to Miss Fern, myself, enclosing a letter warning her to have nothing to do with you."

A laugh escaped the lips of Archie Weil at this proposition.

"If you knew the feminine mind half as well as you do modern literature," he answered, "you would see how little that would avail. I have met Miss Fern and made a distinctly favorable impression. Her address is in my pocket, and I have received a pressing invitation to call. If you choose to send the MSS. by another messenger you will relieve me of the task of carrying a bundle, but you will accomplish nothing more."

Mr. Gouger's mouth opened in astonishment at the evident advantage which his friend had gained in so short a time.

"You must have convinced her that your literary opinions are of value," he said, presently. "If I write that you are a charletan and entirely unworthy of attention, what will happen then?"

The smiling gentleman opposite crossed his hands over his left knee, and did not delay his answer.

"I will tell you," he said. "In the same mail she will receive a letter from me, warning her that a certain party, who has given an adverse judgment on her writings, may attempt to influence her against others more likely to decide in her favor. She will be told that, having rejected a book, this certain party does not wish any one else to print it. Send the severest note you can construct, Lawrence. I have few talents, but I know how to write letters."

The critic could hardly believe that fate had thrown so many cords around his neck in the brief space of one hour, but the more he thought the more he became convinced that his best course was to shut his eyes.

"Well, gang your gait," he said, after a long pause, during which the look of triumph deepened on his companion's face. "You will have to answer for your own sins. But I'll tell you one thing, that may save your time. Women who write racy novels are almost without exception remarkably correct in their own lives."

Mr. Weil inquired if his friend was certain of this, and there was a suspicion of disappointment in his tone.

"Absolutely," said Mr. Gouger, refreshing his memory. "I can think of a dozen instances to prove the point. There is Lelia DantÉ, for instance, who writes like a—like a—well, you know how she writes. She sticks to her mother's apron strings like a four-year-old child. They never are seen apart, I am told. Then there is Mrs. Helen Walker Wilbur, the poetess. We have a volume of her verse that is positively combustible from its own heat. The sheets had to be run off the press soaked in water to keep them from igniting. The room was full of steam all the time the work was going on. Warm! I should say so! Now, that woman is vain, and she dresses foolishly, and she does odd things for the sake of being talked about—but nobody questions her loyalty to her husband. You would think by some of her poems that an East Indian regiment would not suffice for her, and yet she is the straightest wife on Manhattan Island. Oh, I know so many cases. You remember that girl who wrote, 'Love's Extremities,' a work as passionate as Sappho. She is a little Quaker-like maiden,[A] who dresses and talks like a sister of one of the Episcopal guilds. These women are on fire at the brain only. They would repel a physical advance with more indignation than those endowed with less esthetic perceptions. So, see Miss Fern as much as you like. Should you attempt anything improper you will prove the truth of my assertions."

[Note A: Now dead, alas!—A. R.]

Mr. Weil changed the knee he had been nursing, but the quiet smile did not leave his countenance.

"What an inconsistent fellow you are, Lawrence," he said. "I could convict you of a hundred errors of logic. Do you remember telling Mr. Roseleaf that a man should have a passion before he attempts to depict one."

"And I say so still," retorted Gouger. "You don't call the ravings of these poetesses and female novelists real life, do you? You know the actual lover isn't content with kissing the hair and the feet of his divinity! There is more about women's feet in these poems and novels than all the rest of their anatomy put together. And what is a woman's foot? Did you ever see one that was pretty—that you wanted to put to your lips?"

"Yes," interrupted Archie, dreamily, "once. At Capri. She was fifteen. Her feet were pink, like a shell. She was walking along the shore in the early evening."

"With the dirt of the soil on them!" exclaimed Mr. Gouger, in disgust.

"No, she had just emerged from her bath. The sand there was clean as a carpet, cleaner, in fact. Gods! They were exquisite!"

The critic uttered an exclamation.

"I waste time talking to you," he said, sharply. "You are like the rest of the imaginative crowd. It is a pity you were not gifted with the divine afflatus, that you could have added your volumes to the nonsense they print."

"And which you are always glad to get," interpolated Mr. Weil.

"Because it will sell. Cutt & Slashem are in this business to make money, and my thoughts must be directed to the saleable quality of the manuscripts submitted. If I was running the concern, though, I would touch the mooney, maundering mess. It makes my flesh creep, sometimes, to read it."

Archie Weil uttered another of his winsome laughs.

"How would you like to be a serpent," he asked, "and have your flesh creep all the time? But before we dismiss this matter of Miss Fern, I want you to clear your mind, if you can, of the haunting suspicions you always have when a woman is concerned. You know there are concerns in the city who would print her book, with a proper amount paid down, if it had neither sense, syntax nor orthography. If she wants it fixed up, I can find tailors to help her out; and if her papa wants it on the market, why shouldn't he be able to get it there? Now, let us talk a little about Roseleaf."

Mr. Gouger brightened at the change of subject. His interest in Mr. Roseleaf was genuine, and he had already learned that Archie had formed a sort of copartnership with the novelist, in the hope of making his future work a success. While the critic could not be said to have any real faith in the arrangement, it certainly interested him.

"What strange freak will you take to next?" he asked. "And do you really expect to make a novelist out of that young man?"

Mr. Weil's eyes had a twinkle in them.

"Didn't you say, yourself, that it could be done?" he inquired. "If I have made any mistake in my investment, I shall charge the loss to you."

The critic reflected a minute.

"I'm not so certain it can't be done," he said. "But that's quite different from investing money in it, as you are doing. A man wants pretty near a certainty before he puts up the stuff."

"You greedy fellow!" exclaimed Weil. "Will you never think of anything but gain? I have to spend about so much money every year, in a continual attempt to amuse myself, and it might as well be this way as another. I have a document, signed and solemnly sealed, by which I am to back him against the field in the interest of romantic and realistic literature, and in return he is to give me a third of the net profits of his writings. I don't know that I have done so badly. Perhaps you may live to see Cutt & Slashem pay us a handsome sum in royalties."

Mr. Gouger looked oddly at his friend, whose face was perfectly serious.

"What are you going to begin with?" he asked.

"Love, of course. It is the ABC, as well as the XYZ of the whole business."

"What kind of love?"

"The best that can be got," replied Weil, now laughing in spite of himself. "The very finest quality in the market. Oh, we shall do this up brown, I tell you."

"What have you done so far?" asked Gouger.

"You want to know it all, eh?" responded Mr. Weil. "I don't think I am justified in letting you too deeply into our secrets. However, you are too honorable to betray us, and so here goes: I have instructed my protegÉ that he must fall violently under the tender passion before next Saturday night."

"With a lady whom you have selected, of course?"

"By no means. He must catch his own sweethearts."

Mr. Gouger played with his watchchain.

"And this is Tuesday," he commented. "Do you think he will succeed?"

"He must," laughed Weil. "It's like the case of the boy who was digging out the woodchuck. 'The minister's coming to dinner.'"

"You might at least have got an introduction for him," said Gouger, reflectively.

"Not I. There's nothing in our agreement that puts such a task on me. Besides, there's no romance in an introduction. He would write a story as prosy as one of Henry James' if he started off like that."

Mr. Gouger nodded his head slowly.

"That would be something to avoid at all hazards," he assented.

And at this juncture, to the surprise of both the parties to this conversation, the young man of whom they were speaking entered the room.

"I was telling Mr. Gouger of our agreement," said Mr. Weil, as soon as the greetings were over. "How do you get along? Have you discovered your heroine yet?"

Mr. Roseleaf answered, with an air of timidity, in the negative.

"I don't quite know where to find one," he said.

Mr. Weil spread out his arms to their fullest capacity.

"There are thirty millions of them in the United States alone," he exclaimed. "Out of that number you ought to find a few whom you can study. What a pity that I cannot write! I would go out of that door and in ten minutes I would have a subject ready for vivisection."

The younger man raised his eyebrows slightly.

"But, that kind of a woman—would be what you would want—the kind that would let you talk to her on a mere street acquaintance!"

Mr. Weil leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs.

"Oh, yes," he said. "She would do for a beginning. Don't imagine that none of these easy going girls are worth the attention of a novelist. Sometimes they are vastly more interesting than the bread and butter product of the drawing rooms. It won't do, in your profession, to ignore any sort of human being."

Roseleaf breathed a sigh as soft as his name.

"You were right, Mr. Gouger," he said, turning to that gentleman. "I do not know anything. I have judged by appearances, and I now see that truth cannot be learned in that way."

"All the better!" broke in Archie. "The surest progress is made by the man who has learned his deficiencies. You remember the hare and the tortoise. I have read somewhere that the race is not always to the swift. You must treat your fellow men and women as if you had just arrived on this earth from the planet Mars. You must dig through the strata of conventionality to the virgin soil beneath. The great human passions are lust and avarice, though they take a thousand forms, in many of which they have more polite names. For instance, the former, when kept within polite boundaries, is usually known as Love. As Avarice makes but a sorry theme for the romantic writer, Love is the subject that must principally claim your attention. All the world loves a lover, while the miser is despised even by those who cringe beneath the power of his gold. Study the women, my lad, and when you know them thoroughly begin your great novel in earnest."

Roseleaf listened with rapt attention.

"And the men?" he asked.

"The men," was the quick reply, "are too transparent to require study. It is the women, with their ten million tricks to cajole and wheedle us, that afford the best field for your efforts."

Mr. Gouger, who had never been known to take so much time from his work during business hours, tried to begin his reading, but without success. When at his usual occupation he would not have been disturbed by the conversation of a room full of people, so preoccupied was he with what he had to do; but on this occasion he was too much entertained with his companions to do anything but hear them through.

"Is there no such thing as unselfish love—in a woman—love that sacrifices itself for its object?" asked Roseleaf, with a trace of anxiety in his tone.

"M——m, possibly," drawled Mr. Weil. "A female animal with young sometimes evinces the possession of that sort of thing, and women may have touches of it on occasions. That will be a good point for you to remember when you are deeper in your investigations. However, I ought not to fill your head with ideas of my own. I think what we most desire in our friend," he added, turning to the critic, "is complete originality."

The young man shifted his feet nervously.

"Pardon me," he said, "would it not be well to talk with people and learn their impressions? Then I can compare these with my own experiences, when they come. You would not send a blind man out on the street unled."

Archie Weil laughed deliciously.

"You are ingenious, when you should only be ingenuous," he replied. "You do not act at all like the young man from Mars that I have in mind. Perhaps, nevertheless, you are not wholly wrong, for even my traveler from that planet might have to ask his way to the nearest town. Supposing you had just reached the earth, and had met me with a thousand questions. What could I answer that would be of any use?"

Mr. Roseleaf reflected a moment.

"You could tell me your idea of a perfect woman," he suggested.

"Well, I will," said Weil, glancing meaningly at Mr. Gouger. "The perfect woman is about nineteen years of age. She is neither very light nor very dark. Her eyes are hazel, with a touch of gray in them. She measures, say, five feet, four inches in height, and—about—twenty-two inches around the waist. She has a plump arm, not too fleshy, a well-made leg, a head set on her shoulders with enough neck to give it freedom and grace of movement, but not sufficient to warrant comparison with a swan, or even a goose. Her hands match her feet, being not too slender nor too dainty. Her hips are medium, but not bulging. She weighs in the vicinity of a hundred and twenty-five pounds. And her hair—there is but one color for a woman's hair—is Titian red."

The young man had taken out his note-book and rapidly sketched this list of attractions.

"Every woman cannot have Titian hair," remarked Mr. Gouger. "Would you condemn one with all the other attributes on account of missing that?"

"I would, decidedly," was the reply, "when it is obtained so easily. I think it only costs two dollars a bottle, for the finest shade. Have you written it all down, Mr. Roseleaf?"

The young man ran over his notes.

"I have it—all but the hair," he said. "Of course I could not forget that."

"Very well. And this hair must be long enough, but not too long, remember, for everything unduly accentuated spoils a woman. It should hang about five inches below the waist, when unfastened, and be thick enough to make a noticeable coil. There should be sufficient to hide her face and her lover's when he takes her in his arms."

Mr. Roseleaf started slightly.

"Then she should have a lover?" he remarked, curiously.

"Undoubtedly. Else why the hair and the arms, and the five feet four! It is a woman's business to be loved and to make herself lovable. When you have found this woman, if she has no lover, you will be expected to officiate in that capacity. If she has one, you must supplant him as soon as possible. And when you have fallen desperately, ravingly in love with such a creature, you will not have to come to me for further advice."

The young man surveyed the speaker with the utmost gravity.

"Have you ever been in love?" he inquired.

"Never."

"Why?"

"It was not necessary; I did not intend to write novels," said Archie, with a laugh. "But, come, we have bothered Lawrence enough. Let us go."

He took the package containing Miss Fern's story, and sauntered out, paying no attention to the peculiar glances that his friend, the critic, threw at him as he was leaving.