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 The Great God Success :a novel /by John 
 
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THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS 
 
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1 li e Great 
 
 God Success 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 By 
 
 JOHN GRAHAM ^^6^. Jo 
 
 (DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS) 
 
 t 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
^?.o\^M-'^ 
 
 Copyright, iqoi, 
 By Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 A il rights reserved 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV, 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX, 
 
 The Candidate from Yale . . i 
 The City Editor Reconsiders . i6 
 A Park Row Celebrity . . 26 
 In the Edge of Bohemia . . 34 
 
 Alice 48 
 
 In a Bohemian Quicksand . . 61 
 A Little Candle Goes Out . 73 
 A Struggle for Self-Control , 82 
 Ambition Awakens , . .89 
 The Eternal Masculine . . 98 
 
 Trespassing 116 
 
 Making the Most of a Month , 125 
 Reckoning with Danvers , .136 
 The News-Record Gets a New 
 
 Editor 155 
 
 Yellow Journalism . . .164 
 Mr. Stokely is Tactless . .178 
 A Woman and a Warning . .189 
 Howard Explains His Machine , 198 
 "I Must Be Rich." . . ,213 
 
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IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XX. Illusion 222 
 
 XXI. Wavering 234 
 
 XXII. The Shenstone Episode . . 245 
 
 XXIII. Expanding and Contracting . 254 
 
 XXIV. "Mr. Valiant-for-Truth." . . 265 
 XXV. The Promised Land . . .272 
 
 XXVI. In Possession 280 
 
 XXVII. The Harvest 286 
 
 XXVIII. Success 296 
 
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The Great God Success. 
 
 THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. 
 
 " On your college paper, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No, I never wrote even a letter to the editor." 
 
 " Took prizes for essays ? " 
 
 " No, I never wrote if I could help it." 
 
 " But you like to write ? " 
 
 " I'd like to learn to write." 
 
 " You say you are two months out of college — wiiAt 
 college?" 
 
 " Yale." 
 
 " Hum — I thought Yale men went into something 
 commercial ; law or banking or railroads. ' Leave 
 hope of fortune behind, ye who enter here ' is over 
 the door of this profession." 
 
 " I haven't the money-making instinct." C, 
 
 " We pay fifteen dollars a week at the start." 
 
 " Couldn't you make it twenty ? " 
 
 The Managing Editor of the News-Record turned 
 slowly in his chair until his broad chest was full-front 
 toward the young candidate for the staff. He lowered 
 
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2 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 his florid face slowly until his double chin swelled 
 out over his low " stick-up " collar. Then he grad- 
 ually raised his eyelids until his amused blue eyes 
 were looking over the tops of his glasses, straight into 
 Howard's eyes. 
 
 " Why ? " he asked. " Why should we ? " 
 
 Howard's grey eyes showed embarrassment and he 
 flushed to the line of his black hair which was so 
 smoothly parted in the middle. " Well — ^you sec — 
 the fact is — I need twenty a week. My expenses are 
 arranged on that scale. I'm not clever at money 
 matters. I'm afraid I'd get in a mess with only 
 fifteen." 
 
 " My dear young man," said Mr. King, " I started 
 here at fifteen dollars a week. And I had a wife ; 
 and the first baby was coming." 
 
 " Yes, but your wife was an energetic woman. She 
 ^ stood right beside you and worked too. Now I have 
 only myself." 
 
 Mr. King raised his eyebrows and became a rosier 
 red. He was evidently preparing to rebuke this 
 audacious intrusion into his private affairs by a 
 stranger whose card had been handed to him not ten 
 minutes before. But Howard's tone and manner were 
 simple and sincere. And they happened to bring into 
 Mr. King's mind a rush of memories of his youth and 
 his wife. She had married him on faith. They had 
 
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THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. 3 
 
 come to New York fifteen years before, he to get a 
 place as reporter on the News-Record, she to start a 
 boarding-house ; he doubting and trembling, she with 
 courage and confidence for two. He leaned back in 
 his chair, closed his eyes and opened the book of 
 memory at the place where the leaves most easily fell 
 apart : 
 
 He is coming home at one in the morning, worn 
 out, sick at heart from the day's bufietings. As he 
 puts his key into the latch, the door opens. There 
 stands a handsome girl ; her face is flushed ; her eyes 
 are bright ; her lips are held up for him to kiss ; she 
 shows no trace of a day that began hours before his 
 and has been a succession of exasperations and humili- 
 ations against which her sensitive nature, trained in 
 the home of her father, a distinguished up-the-state 
 Judge, gives her no protection, " Victory," she 
 whispers, her arms about his neck and her head upon 
 his coat collar. " Victory ! We are seventy-two 
 cents ahead on the week, and everything paid up ! " 
 
 Mr. King opened his eyes — they had been closed 
 less than five seconds. "Well, let it be twenty — 
 though just why I'm sure I don't know. And we'll 
 give you a four weeks' trial. When will you begin ? " 
 
 " Now," answered the young man, glancing about 
 the room. " And I shall try to show that I appreciate 
 your consideration, whether I deserve it or not,"^ 
 
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4 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 It was a large bare room, low of ceiling. Across 
 one end were five windows overlooking from a great 
 height the tempest that rages about the City Hall 
 day and night with few lulls and no pauses. Mr. 
 King's roll-top desk was at the first window. Under 
 each of the other windows was a broad flat table desk 
 — for copy-readers. At the farthest of these sat the 
 City Editor — thin, precise-looking, with yellow skin, 
 hollow cheeks, ragged grey-brown moustache, ragged 
 scant grey-brown hair and dark brown eyes. He 
 looked nervously tired and, because brown was his 
 prevailing shade, dusty. He rose as Mr. King came 
 with young Howard. 
 
 " Here, Mr. Bowring, is a young man from Yale. 
 He wishes you to teach him how to write. Mr. How- 
 ard, Mr. Bowring. I hope you gentlemen will get on 
 comfortably together." 
 
 Mr. King went back to his desk. Mr. Bowring and 
 Howard looked each at the other. Mr. Bowring 
 smiled, with good-humour, without cordiality. " Let 
 me see, where shall we put you ? " And his glance 
 wandered along the rows of sloping table-desks — those 
 nearer the windows lighted by daylight ; those farther 
 away, by electric lamps. Even on that cool, breezy 
 August afternoon the sunlight and fresh air did not 
 penetrate far into the room. 
 
 " Do you see the young man with the beautiful fair 
 
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THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. 5 
 
 moustache," said Mr. Bowring, " toiling away in his 
 shirt-sleeves — there ? " 
 
 " Near the railing at the entrance? " 
 
 " Precisely. I think I will put you next him." 
 Mr. Bowring touched a button on his desk and 
 presently an office boy — a mop of auburn curls, a pert 
 face and gangling legs in knickerbockers — hurried up 
 with a " Yes, Sir ? " 
 
 " Please tell Mr. Kittredge that I would like to 
 speak to him and — please scrape your feet along the 
 floor as little as possible." 
 
 The boy smiled, walking away less as if he were try- 
 ing to terrorize park pedestrians by a rush on roller 
 skates. Kittredge and Howard were made acquainted 
 and went toward their desks together. " A few 
 moments — if you will excuse me — and I'm done," said 
 Kittredge motioning Howard into the adjoining chair 
 as he sat and at once bent over his work. 
 
 Howard watched him with interest, admiration and 
 envy. The reporter was perhaps twenty-five years 
 old — fair of hair, fair of skin, goodlooking in a pretty 
 way. His expression was keen and experienced yet 
 too self-complacent to be highly intelligent. He was 
 rapidly covering sheet after sheet of soft white paper 
 with bold, loose hand-writing. Howard noticed that 
 at the end of each sentence he made a Httle cross with 
 a circle about it, and that he began each paragraph 
 
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6 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 with a paragraph sign. Presently he scrawled a big 
 double cross in the centre of the sheet under the last 
 line of writing and gathered up his sheets in the num- 
 bered order. " Done, thank God," he said. " And I 
 hope they won't butcher it." 
 
 " Do you send it to be put in type ? " asked How- 
 ard. 
 
 ' " No," Kittredge answered with a faint smile. " I 
 hand it in to Mr. Bowring — the City Editor, you 
 know. And when the copyreaders come at six, it will 
 be turned over to one of them. He reads it, cuts it 
 down if necessary, and writes headlines for it. Then 
 it goes upstairs to the composing room — see the box, 
 the little dumb-waiter, over there in the wall ? — well, 
 it goes up by that to the floor above where they set 
 the type and make up the forms." 
 
 " I'm a complete ignoramus," said Howard, " I 
 hope you'll not mind my trying to find out things. I 
 hope I shall not bore you." 
 
 " Glad to help you, I'm sure. I had to go through 
 this two years ago when I came here from Princeton." 
 
 Kittredge " turned in " his copy and returned to his 
 seat beside Howard, 
 
 " What were you writing about, if I may ask ? " in- 
 quired Howard. 
 
 "About some snakes that came this morning in a 
 ' tramp ' from South America. One of them, a boa 
 
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THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. ^ 
 
 constrictor, got loose and coiled around a windlass. 
 The cook was passing and it caught him. He fainted 
 with fright and the beast squeezed him to death. It's 
 a fine story — lots of amusing and dramatic details. I 
 wrote it for a column and I think they won't cut it. I 
 hope not, anyhow. I need the money," 
 
 " You are paid by the column ? " 
 
 " Yes. I'm on space — what they call a space 
 writer. If a man is of any account here they gradu- 
 ally raise him to twenty-five dollars a week and then 
 put him on space. That means that he will make any- 
 where from forty to a hundred a week, or perhaps 
 more at times. The average for the best is about 
 eighty." 
 
 " Eighty dollars a week," thought Howard. " Fifty- 
 two times eighty is forty-one hundred and sixty. 
 Four thousand a year, counting out two weeks for 
 vacation." To Howard it seemed wealth at the limit 
 of imagination. If he could make so much as that ! — 
 he who had grave doubts whether, no matter how 
 hard he worked, he would ever wrench a living from 
 the world. 
 
 Just then a seedy young man with red hair and a 
 red beard came through the gate in the railing, nodded 
 to Kittredge and went to a desk well up toward the 
 daylight end of the room. 
 
 " That's the best of 'em all," said Kittredge in alow 
 
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8 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 tone. " His name is Sewell. He's a Harvard man — 
 Harvard and Heidelberg. But drink ! Ye gods, how 
 he does drink! His wife died last Christmas — practi- 
 cally starvation. Sewell disappeared — frightful bust. 
 A month afterward they found him under an assumed 
 name over on Blackwell's Island, doing three months 
 for disorderly conduct. He wrote a Christmas carol 
 while his wife was dying. It began " Merrily over the 
 Snow " and went on about light hearts and youth and 
 joy and all that — you know, the usual thing. When 
 he got the money, she didn't need it or anything else 
 in her nice quiet grave over in Long Island City. So 
 he ' blew in ' the money on a wake." 
 
 Sewell was coming toward them. Kittredge called 
 out : " Was it a good story, Sam ? " 
 
 " Simply great ! You ought to have seen the 
 room. Only the bed and the cook-stove and a few 
 dishes on a shelf — everything else gone to the pawn- 
 shop. The man must have killed the children first. 
 They lay side by side on the bed, each with its hands 
 folded on its chest — suppose the mother did that ; 
 and each little throat was cut from ear to ear — suppose 
 the father did that. Then he dipped his paint brush 
 -in the blood and daubed on'the wall in big scrawling 
 letters: ' There is no God ! ' Then he took his wife 
 in his arms, stabbed her to the heart and cut his own 
 throat. And there they lay, his arms about her, his 
 
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THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. 9 
 
 cheek against hers, dead. It was murder as a fine art. 
 Gad, I wish I could write." 
 
 Kittredge introduced Howard — "a Yale man — just 
 ca.'i-.c uu Llie paper." 
 
 " Entering the profession ? Well, they say of the 
 other professions that there is always room at the top. 
 Journalism is just the reverse. The room is all at the 
 bottom — easy to enter, hard to achieve, impossible to 
 leave. It is all bottom, no top." Sewell nodded, 
 smiled attractively in spite of his swollen face and his 
 unsightly teeth, and went back to his work, 
 
 " He's sober," said Kittredge when he was out of 
 hearing, " so his story is pretty sure to be the talk of 
 Park Row to-morrow." 
 
 Howard was astonished at the cheerful, businesslike 
 point of view of these two educated and apparently 
 civilised young men as to the tragedies of life. He 
 had shuddered at Kittredge's story of the man 
 squeezed to death by the snake. Sewell's story, so 
 graphically outlined, filled him with horror, made it 
 a struggle for him to conceal his feelings. 
 
 " I suppose you must see a lot of frightful things," 
 he suggested. 
 
 " That's our business. You soon get used to it, just 
 as a doctor does. You learn to look at life from the 
 purely professional standpoint. Of course you must 
 feel in order to write. But you must not feel so 
 
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10 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 keenly that you can't write. You have to remembei' 
 always that you're not there to cheer or sympathise or 
 have emotions, but only to report, to record. You tell 
 what your eyes see. You'll soon get so thau- you ~iS4j^ 
 and will make good stories out of your own calama- 
 ties." 
 
 " Is that a portrait of the editor ? " asked Howard, 
 pointing to a grimed oil-painting, the only relief to 
 the stretch of cracked and streaked white wall except 
 a few ragged maps. 
 
 " That — oh, that is old man Stone — the ' great con- 
 denser.' He's there for a double purpose, as an 
 example of what a journalist should be and as a warn- 
 ing of what a journalist comes to. After twenty 
 years of fine work at crowding more news in good 
 English into one column than any other editor could 
 get in bad English into four columns, he was dis- 
 charged for drunkenness. Soon afterwards he walked 
 off the end of a dock one night in a fog. At least it 
 was said that there was a fog and that he was drunk. 
 I have my doubts." 
 
 " Cheerful ! I have not been in the profession an 
 hour but I have already learned something very 
 valuable." 
 
 " What's that ? " asked Kittredge, " that it's a good 
 profession to get out of ? " 
 
 " No. But that bad habits will not help a man to a 
 
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THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. n 
 
 career in journalism any more than in any other pro. 
 fession." 
 
 "Career?" smiled Kittredge, resenting Howard's 
 good-humoured irony and putting on a supercilious 
 look that brought out more strongly the insignificance 
 of his face. " Journalism is not a career. It is either 
 a school or a cemetery. A man may use it as a step- 
 ping-stone to something else. But if he sticks to it, 
 he finds himself an old man, dead and done for to all 
 intents and purposes years before he's buried." 
 
 " I wonder if it doesn't attract a great many men 
 who have a little talent and fancy that they have 
 much. I wonder if it does not disappoint their vanity 
 rather than their merit." 
 
 " That sounds well," replied Kittredge, " and there's 
 some truth in it. But, believe me, journalism is the 
 dragon that demands the annual sacrifice of youth. 
 It will have only youth. Why am I here.? Why are 
 you here ? Because we are young, have a fresh, a new 
 point of view. As soon as we get a little older, we 
 shall be stale and, though still young in years, we must 
 step aside for young fellows with new ideas and a new 
 point of view." 
 
 " But why should not one have always new ideas, 
 always a new point of view ? Why should one expect 
 to escape the penalties of stagnation in journalism 
 when one can't escape them in any other profession ? " 
 
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12 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " But who has new ideas all the time ? The average 
 successful man has at most one idea and makes a 
 whole career out of it. Then there are the tempta. 
 tions." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 Kittredge flushed slightly and answered in a more 
 serious tone : 
 
 " We must work while others amuse themselves or 
 sleep. We must sleep while others are at work. 
 That throws us out of touch with the whole world of 
 respectability, and regularity. When we get done at 
 night, wrought up by the afternoon and evening of 
 this gambling with our brains and nerves as the 
 stake, what is open to us ? " 
 
 " That is true," said Howard. " There are the all- 
 night saloons and — the like." 
 
 " And if we wish society, what society is open to 
 us? What sort of young women are waiting to enter- 
 tain us at one, two, three o'clock in the morning? 
 Why, I have not made a call in a year. And I have 
 not seen a respectable girl of my acquaintance in at 
 least that time, except once or twice when I happened 
 to have assignments that took me near Fifth Avenue 
 in the afternoon." 
 
 " Mr. Kittredge, Mr. Bowring wishes to speak to 
 you," an ofifice boy said and Kittredge rose. As he 
 went, he put his hand on Howard's shoulder and said: 
 
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THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. 13 
 
 " No, I am getting out of it as fast as ever I can. 
 I'm writing books." 
 
 " Kittredge," thought Howard, " I wonder, is this 
 Henry Jennings Kittredge, whose stories are on all 
 the news stands? " He saw an envelope on the floor 
 at his feet. The address was " Henry Jennings Kit- 
 tredge, Esq." 
 
 When Kittredge came back for his coat, Howard 
 said in a tone of frank admiration : " Why, I didn't 
 know you were the Kittredge that everybody is talk- 
 ing about. You certainly have no cause for complaint." 
 
 Kittredge shrugged his shoulders. "At fifteen 
 cents a copy, I have to sell ten thousand copies before 
 I get enough to live on for four months. And you'd 
 be surprised how much reputation and how little 
 money a man can make out of a book. Don't be dis- 
 tressed because they keep you here with nothing to 
 do but wonder how you'll have the courage to face 
 the cashier on pay day. It's the system. Your 
 chance will come." 
 
 It was three days before Howard had a chance. 
 On a Sunday afternoon the Assistant City Editor 
 who was in charge of the City Desk for the day sent 
 him up to the Park to write a descriptive story of the 
 crowds. "Try to get a new point of view," he said, 
 " and let yourself loose. There's usually plenty of 
 room in Monday's paper." 
 
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14 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Howard wandered through the Central Park for 
 two hours, struggling for the " new point of view " of 
 the crowds he saw there — these monotonous millions, 
 he thought, lazily drinking at a vast trough of country 
 air in the heart of the city. He planned an article 
 carefully as he dined alone at the Casino. He went 
 down to the office early and wrote diligently — about 
 two thousand words. When he had finished, the 
 Night City Editor told him that he might go as there 
 would be nothing more that night. 
 
 He was in the street at seven the next morning. 
 As he walked along with a News-Record, bought at 
 the first news-stand, he searched every page : first, 
 the larger " heads " — such a long story would call for 
 a " big head ; " then the smaller " heads " — they may 
 have been crowded and have had to cut it down ; then 
 the single-line " heads " — surely they found a " stick- 
 ful " or so worth printing. 
 
 . At last he found it. A dozen items in the smallest 
 type, agate, were grouped under the general heading 
 " City Jottings " at the end of an inside column of an 
 inside page. The first of these City Jottings was two 
 lines in length : - 
 
 " The millions were in the Central Park yesterday, lazily drink- 
 ing at that vast trough of country air in the heart of the city." 
 
 As he entered the ofifice Howard looked appealingly 
 and apologetically at the boy on guard at the railing 
 
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THE CANDIDATE FROM YALE. 15 
 
 and braced himself to receive the sneering frown of 
 the City Editor and to bear the covert smiles of his 
 fellow reporters. But he soon saw that no one had 
 observed his mighty spring for a foothold and his 
 ludicrous miss and fall. 
 
 " Had anything in yet ? " Kittredge inquired casu- 
 ally, late in the afternoon. 
 
 " I wrote a column and a half yesterda3rjand I found 
 two lines among the City Jottings," replied Howard, 
 reddening but laughing. 
 
 " The first story I wrote was cut to three lines but 
 they got a libel suit on it." 
 
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II. 
 
 THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS. 
 
 At the end of six weeks, the City Editor called 
 Howard up to the desk and asked him to seat himself. 
 He talked in a low tone so that the Assistant City 
 Editor, reading the newspapers at a near-by desk, 
 could not hear. 
 
 " We like you, Mr. Howard." Mr. Bowring spoke 
 slowly and with a carefulness in selecting words that 
 indicated embarrassment. " And we have been im- 
 pressed by your earnestness. But we greatly fear 
 that you are not fitted for this profession. You write 
 well enough, but you do not seem to get the news- 
 paper — the news — idea. So we feel that in justice to 
 you and to ourselves we ought to let you know where 
 you stand. If you wish, we shall be glad to have you 
 remain with us two weeks longer. Meanwhile you 
 can be looking about you. I am certain that you will 
 succeed somewhere, in some line, sooner or later. 
 But I think that the newspaper profession is a waste 
 of your time." 
 
 Howard had expected this. Failure after failure, 
 his articles thrown away or re-written by the copy- 
 
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THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS. \^ 
 
 readers, had prepared him for the blow. Yet it 
 crushed him for the moment. His voice was not 
 steady as he replied : 
 
 " No doubt you are right. Thank you for taking the 
 trouble to study my case and tvil me so soon." 
 
 " Don't hesitate to stay on for the two weeks," Mr. 
 Bowring continued. " We can make you useful to us. 
 And you can look about to much better advantage 
 than if you were out of a place." 
 
 " I'll stay the two weeks," Howard said, " unless I 
 find something sooner." 
 
 " Don't be more discouraged than you can help," 
 said Mr. Bowring, " You may be very grateful before 
 long for finding out so early what many of us — I my- 
 self, I fear — find out after years and — when it is too 
 late." 
 
 Always that note of despair ; always that pointing 
 to the motto over the door of the profession : " Aban- 
 don hope, ye who enter here." What was the ex- 
 planation ? Were these men right ? Was he wrong 
 in thinking that journalism offered the most splendid 
 of careers — the development of the mind and the 
 character : the sharpening of all the faculties ; the 
 service of truth and right and human betterment, in 
 daily combat with injustice and error and falsehood ; 
 the arousing and stimulating of the drowsy minds of 
 the masses of mankind ? 
 
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i8 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Howard looked about at the men who held on 
 where he was slipping. " Can it be," he thought, 
 "that I cannot survive in a profession where the 
 poorest are so poor in intellect and equipment ? Why- 
 am I so dull that I cannot catch the trick ? " 
 
 He set himself to study newspapers, reading them 
 line by line, noting the modes of presenting facts, the 
 arrangement of headlines, the order in which the 
 editors put the several hundred items before the eyes 
 of the reader — what they displayed on each page and 
 why; how they apportioned the space. With the 
 energy of unconquerable resolution he applied him- 
 self to solving for himself the puzzle of the press — 
 the science and art of catching the eye and holding 
 the attention of the hurrying, impatient public. 
 
 He learned much. He began to develop the news- 
 instinct, that subtle instant realisation of what is 
 interesting and what is not interesting to the public 
 , mind. But the time was short ; a sense of impending 
 calamity and the lack of self-confidence natural to 
 inexperience made it impossible for him effectively to 
 use his new knowledge in the few small opportunities 
 which Mr. Bowring gave him. With only six days of 
 his two weeks left, he had succeeded in getting into 
 the paper not a single item of a length greater than 
 two sticks. He slept little ; he despaired not at all ; 
 but he was heart-sick and, as he lay in his bed in the 
 
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THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS. 19 
 
 little hall-room of the furnished-room house, he often 
 envied women the relief of tears. What he endured 
 will be appreciated only by those who have been bred 
 in sheltered homes ; who have abruptly and alone 
 struck out for themselves in the ocean of a great city 
 without a single lesson in swimming ; who have felt 
 themselves seized from below and dragged downward 
 toward the deep-lying feeding-grounds of Poverty and 
 Failure. 
 
 " Buck up, old man," said Kittredge to whom he 
 told his bad news after several days of hesitation and 
 after Kittredge had shown him that he strongly sus- 
 pected it. " Don't mind old Bowring. You're sure 
 to get on, and, if you insist upon the folly, in this 
 profession. I'll give you a note to Montgomery — he's 
 City Editor over at the Wor/d-shop — and he'll take 
 you on. In some ways you will do better there. 
 You'll rise faster, get a wider experience, make more 
 money. In fact, this shop has only one advantage. 
 It does give a man peace of mind. It's more like a 
 club than an office. But in a sense that is a draw- 
 back. I'll give you a note to-night. You will be at 
 work over there to-morrow." 
 
 " I think I'll wait a few days," said Howard, his 
 tone corresponding to the look in his eyes and the 
 compression of his resolute mouth. 
 
 The next day but one Mr. Bowring called him up 
 
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20 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 to the City Desk and gave him a newspaper-clipping 
 which read : 
 
 " Bald Peak, September 29— Willie Dent, the three-year-old baby 
 of John Dent, a farmer living two miles from here, strayed away 
 into the mountains yesterday and has not been seen since. His 
 dog, a cur, went with him. Several hundred men are out search- 
 ing. It has been storming, and the mountains are full of bears 
 and wild cats." 
 
 " Yes, I saw this in the Herald" said Howard. 
 
 " Will you take the train that leaves at eleven to. 
 night and get us the story — if it is not a ' fake,' as I 
 strongly suspect. Telegraph your story if there is 
 not time for you to get back here by nine to-morrow 
 night." 
 
 " Of course it's a fake, or at least a wild exaggera- 
 tion," thought Howard as he turned away. " If Bow- 
 ring had not been all but sure there was nothing in it, 
 he would never have given it to me." 
 
 He was not well, his sleepless nights having begun 
 to tell even upon his powerful constitution. The rest 
 of that afternoon and all of a night without sleep in 
 the Pullman he was in a depth of despond. He had 
 been in the habit of getting much comfort out of an 
 observation his father had made to him just before he 
 died : " Remember that ninety per cent of these four- 
 teen hundred million human beings are uncertain 
 where to-morrow's food is to come from, Be prudent 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS. 21 
 
 but never be afraid." But just then he could get no 
 consolation out of this maxim of grim cheer. He 
 seemed to himself incompetent and useless, a pre- 
 destined failure. " What is to become of me ? " he 
 kept repeating, his heart like lead and his mind fum- 
 bling about in a confused darkness. 
 
 At Bald Peak he was somewhat revived by the cold 
 mountain air of the early morning. As he alighted 
 upon the station platform he spoke to the baggage- 
 master standing in front of the steps. 
 
 " Was the little boy of a man named Dent lost in 
 the mountains near here ? " 
 
 " Yes — three days ago," replied the baggage-man. 
 
 " Have they found him yet ? " 
 
 " No — nor never will alive — that's my opinion." 
 
 Howard asked for the nearest livery-stable and 
 within twenty minutes was on his way to Dent's farm. 
 His driver knew all about the lost child. Two hun- 
 dred men were still searching. "And Mrs. Dent, 
 she's been sittin' by the window, list'nin' day and 
 night. She won't speak nor eat and she ain't shed a 
 tear. It was her only child. The men come in sayin' 
 it ain't no use to hunt any more, an' they look at her 
 an' out they goes ag'in." 
 
 Soon the driver pointed to a cottage near the road. 
 The gate was open ; the grass and the flower-beds 
 were trampled into a morass. The door was thrown 
 
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22 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 wide and several women were standing about the 
 threshold. At the window within view of the road 
 and the mountains sat the mother — a young woman 
 with large brown eyes, and clear-cut features, refined, 
 beautified, exalted by suffering. Her look was that 
 of one listening for a faint, far away sound upon 
 which hangs the turn of the balances to joy or to 
 despair. 
 
 That morning two of the searchers went to the 
 northeast into the dense and tangled swamp woods 
 between Bald Peak and Cloudy Peak — the wildest 
 wilderness in the mountains. The light barely pen- 
 etrates the foliage on the brightest days. The ground 
 is rough, sometimes precipitous, closely covered with 
 bushes and tangled creepers. 
 
 The two explorers, almost lost themselves, came at 
 
 last to the edge of a swamp surrounded by cedars. 
 
 They half-crawled, half-climbed through the low trees 
 
 and festooning creepers to the edge of a clear bit of 
 
 pen, firm ground. 
 
 In the middle was a cedar tree. Under it, seated 
 upon the ground, was the lost boy. His bare, brown 
 legs, torn and bleeding, were stretched straight in 
 front of him. His bare feet were bruised and cut. 
 His gingham dress was torn and wet and stained. 
 His small hands were smears of dirt and blood. He 
 
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THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS. 23 
 
 was playing with a tin can. He had put a stone into 
 it and was making a great rattling. The dog was 
 running to and fro, apparently enjoying the noise. 
 The little boy's face was tear-stained and his eyes 
 were swollen. But he was not crying just then and 
 laughter lurked in his thin, fever-flushed face. 
 
 As the men came into view, the dog began to bark 
 angrily, but the boy looked a solemn welcome. 
 
 " Want mamma," he said. " I'se hungry." 
 
 One of the men picked him up — the gingham dress 
 was saturated. 
 
 " You're hungry ? " asked the man, his voice chok- 
 ing. 
 
 " Yes. An' I'se so wet. It wained and wained." 
 Then the child began to sob. " It was dark," he 
 whispered, " an' cold. I want my mamma." 
 
 It was an hour's tedious journey back to Dent's by 
 the shortest route. At the top of the hill those near 
 the cottage saw the boy in the arms of the man who 
 had found him. They shouted and the mother sprang 
 out of the house and came running, stumbling down 
 the path to the gate. She caught at the gate-post 
 and stood there, laughing, screaming, sobbing. 
 
 " Baby ! Baby ! " she called. 
 
 The little boy turned his head and stretched out 
 his thin, blood-stained arms. She ran toward him and 
 snatched him from the young farmer. 
 
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24 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Hungry, mamma," he sobbed, hiding his face on 
 her shoulder. 
 
 ********* 
 
 Howard wrote his story on the train, going down to 
 New York. It was a straightforward chronicle of just 
 what he had seen and heard. He began at the begin- 
 ning — the little mountain home, the family of three, 
 the disappearance of the child. He described the 
 perils of the mountains, the storm, the search, the 
 wait, the listening mother, scene by scene, ending 
 with mother and child together again and the dog 
 racing around them, with wagging tail and hanging 
 tongue. He wrote swiftly, making no changes, with- 
 out a trace of his usual self-consciousness in composi- 
 tion. When he had done he went into the restaurant 
 car and dined almost gaily. He felt that he had failed 
 again. How could he hope to tell such a story? 
 But he was not despondent. He was still under the 
 spell of that intense human drama with its climax of 
 joy. His own concerns seemed secondary, of no con- 
 sequence. 
 
 He reached the office at half-past nine, handed in 
 his "copy " and went away. He was in bed at half- 
 past ten and was at once asleep. At eleven the next 
 morning a knocking awakened him from a sound 
 sleep that had restored and refreshed him. " A mes- 
 senger from the office," was called through the door 
 
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THE CITY EDITOR RECONSIDERS. 25 
 
 in answer to his inquiry. He took the note from the 
 boy and tore it open : 
 
 " My dear Mr. Howard : Thank you for the splendid story 
 you gave us last night. It is one of the best, if not the best, we 
 have had the pleasure of publishing in years. Your salary has 
 been raised to twenty-five dollars a week. 
 
 " Congratulations. You have ' caught on ' at last. I'm glad 
 to take back what I said the other day. 
 
 " Henry C. Bowring." 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
III. 
 
 A PARK ROW CELEBRITY. 
 
 KiTTREDGE was the first to congratulate him when 
 he reached the office. " Everybody is talking about 
 your story," he said. " I must say I was surprised 
 when I read it. I had begun to fear that you would 
 never catch the trick — for, with most of us writing is 
 only a trick. But now I see that you are a born 
 writer. Your future is in your own hands." 
 
 " You think I can learn to write ? " 
 
 " That is the sane way to put it. Yes, I know that 
 you can. If you'll only not be satisfied with the 
 results that come easy, you will make a reputation. 
 Not a mere Park Row reputation, but the real thing." 
 
 Howard got flattery enough in the next few days 
 to turn a stronger head than was his at twenty-two. But 
 a few partial failures within a fortnight sobered him 
 and steadied him. His natural good sense made him 
 take himself in hand. He saw that his success had 
 been to a great extent a happy accident ; that to 
 repeat it, to improve upon it he must study life, study 
 the art of expression. He must keep his senses open 
 to impression. He must work at style, enlarge his 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
A PARK ROW CELEBRITY. 2^ 
 
 vocabulary, learn the use of words, the effect of vary- 
 ing combinations of words both as to sound and as to 
 meaning,. " I must learn to write for the people," he^ 
 thought, " -^nd that means to write the most difificult^ 
 of all styles." 
 
 He was, then and always, one of those who like 
 others and are liked by them, yet never seek company 
 and so are left to themselves. As he had no money 
 to spare and a deep aversion to debt, he was not 
 tempted into joining in the time-wasting dissipations 
 that were now open to him. He worked hard at his 
 profession and, when he left the office, usually went 
 direct to his rooms to read until far into the morning. 
 He was often busy sixteen hours out of the twenty- 
 four. His day at reporting was long — from noon un- 
 til midnight, and frequently until three in the morn- 
 ing. But the work was far different from the grind 
 which is the lot of the young men striving in other 
 professions or in business. It was the most fascinating 
 work imaginable for an intelligent, thirsty mind — the 
 study of human nature under stress of the great 
 emotions. 
 
 His mode of thought and his style made Mr. Bow- 
 ring and Mr. King give him much of this particular 
 kind of reporting. So he was always observing love, 
 hate, jealousy, revenge, greed. He saw these passions 
 in action in the lives of people of all kinds and con- 
 
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28 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 ditions. And he saw little else. The reporter is a 
 historian. And history is, as Gibbon says, for the 
 most part " a record of the crimes, follies and mis- 
 fortunes of mankind." 
 
 For many a man this has been a ruinous, one-sided 
 development. Howard was saved by his extremely 
 intelligent, sympathetic point of view. He saw the 
 whole of each character, each conflict that he was sent 
 to study. If the point of the story was the good side 
 of human nature — some act of generosity or self- 
 sacrifice — he did not exaggerate it into godlike heroism 
 but adjusted it in its proper prospective by bringing 
 out its human quality and its human surroundings. 
 If the main point was violence or sordidness or base- 
 ness, he saw the characteristics which relieved and 
 partially redeemed it. His news-reports were accounts 
 of the doings not of angels or devils but of human 
 beings, accounts written from a thoroughly human 
 standpoint. 
 
 Here lay the cause of his success. In all his better 
 stories — for he often wrote poor ones — there was the 
 atmosphere of sincerity, of realism, the marks of an 
 acute observer, without prejudice and with a justifiable 
 leaning toward a belief in the fundamental worth of 
 humanity. Where others were cynical he was just. 
 Where others were sentimental, he had sincere, health- 
 ful sentiment. Where others were hysterical, he 
 
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A PARK ROW CELEBRITY. 29 
 
 calmly and accurately described, permitting the trag- 
 edy to reveal itself instead of burying it beneath high- 
 heaped adjectives. Simplicity of style was his aim 
 and he was never more delighted by any compliment 
 than by one from the chief political reporter. 
 
 " That story of yours this morning," said this 
 reporter whose lack as a writer was more than com- 
 pensated by his ability to get intimately acquainted 
 with public men, " reads as if a child might have writ- 
 ten it. I don't see how you get such effects without 
 any style at all. You just let your story tell itself.'-' 
 
 " Well, you see," replied Howard, " I am writing 
 for the masses, and fine writing would be wasted upon 
 them." 
 
 "You're right," said Jackman, "we don't need 
 literature on this paper — long words, high-sounding 
 phrases and all that sort of thing. What we want is 
 just plain, simple English that goes straight to the 
 point." 
 
 " Like Shakespeare's and Bunyan's," suggested 
 Kittredge with a grin. 
 
 " Shakespeare ? Fudge ! " scoffed Jackman. " Why 
 he couldn't have made a living as a space-writer on a 
 New York newspaper." 
 
 " No, I don't think he would have staid long in 
 Park Row," replied Kittredge with a subtlety of 
 meaning that escaped Jackman. 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
30 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 ********* 
 
 A few days before New Year's the Managing Editor 
 looked up and smiled as Howard was passing his desk. 
 
 " How goes it ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, not so badly," Howard answered, " but I am 
 a good deal depressed at times," 
 
 " Depressed ? Nonsense ! You've got everything 
 — youth, health and freedom. And by the way, you 
 are going on space the first of the year. Our rule is a 
 year on salary before space. But we felt that it was 
 about time to strengthen the rule by making an ex- 
 ception. ' 
 
 Howard stammered thanks and went away. This 
 piece of news, dropped apparently so carelessly by 
 Mr. King, meant a revolution in fortune for him. 
 It was the transition from close calculation on twenty- 
 five dollars a week to wealth beyond his most fanci- 
 ful dreams of six months ago. Not having the 
 money-getting instinct and being one of those who 
 compare their work with the best instead of with the 
 inferior, Howard never felt that he was " entitled to a 
 living." He had a lively sense of gratitude for the 
 money return for his services which prudence pres- 
 ently taught him to conceal. 
 
 " Space " meant to him eighty dollarg a week at 
 least — circumstances of ease. So vast a sum did it 
 seem that he began to consider the problem of invest- 
 
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A PARK ROW CELEBRITY. 31 
 
 merit. " I have been not badly off on twenty-five 
 dollars a week," he thought. " With, well, say forty 
 dollars a week I shall be able to satisfy all my wants. 
 I can save at least forty a week and that will mean an 
 independence with a small income by the time I am 
 thirty-four." 
 
 But — a year after he was put " on space " he was 
 still just about even with his debts. He seemed to 
 himself to be living no better and it was only by care- 
 ful counting-up that he could see how that dream of 
 independence had eluded him. A more extensive 
 wardrobe, a little better food, a more comfortable 
 suite of rooms, an occasional dinner to some friends, 
 loans to broken-down reporters, and the mysteriously 
 vanished two thousand dollars was accounted for. 
 
 Howard tried to retrench, devised small ingenious 
 schemes for saving money, lectured himself severely 
 and frequently for thus trifling away his chance to be 
 a free man. But all in vain. He remained poor; and, 
 whenever he gave the matter thought, which was not 
 often, gloomy forebodings as to the future oppressed 
 him. " I shall find myself old," he thought, " with 
 nothing accomplished, with nothing laid by. I shall 
 be an old drudge." He understood the pessimistic 
 tone of his profession. All about him were men like 
 himself — leading this gambler's life of feverish ex- 
 citement and evanescent achievement, earning com- 
 
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32 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 fortable incomes and saving nothing, looking forward 
 to the inevitable time of failing freshness and shat- 
 tered nerves and declining income. 
 
 He spasmodically tried to write stones for the 
 magazines, contrived plots for novels and plays, wrote 
 first chapters, first scenes of first acts. But the ex- 
 actions of newspaper life, the impossibility of con- 
 tinuous effort at any one piece of work and his natural 
 inertia — he was inert but neither idle nor lazy — com- 
 bined to make futile his efforts to emancipate himself 
 from hand-to-mouth journalism. 
 
 He had been four years a reporter and was almost 
 twenty-six years old. He was known throughout his 
 profession in New York, although he had never signed 
 an article. One remarkable *' human interest " story 
 after another had forced the knowledge of his abilities 
 upon the reporters and editors of other newspapers. 
 And he was spoken of as one of the best and in some 
 respects the best " all round reporter " in the city. 
 This meant that he was capable to any emergency — 
 that, whatever the subject, he could write an accurate, 
 graphic, consecutive and sustained story and could 
 get it into the editor's hands quickly. 
 
 Indeed he possessed facility to the perilous degree. 
 What others achieved only after long toil, he achieved 
 without effort. This was due chiefly to the fact that 
 he never relaxed but was at all times the journalist, 
 
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A PARK ROW CELEBRITY. 33 
 
 reading voraciously newspapers, magazines and the 
 best books, and using what he read ; observing con- 
 stantly and ever trying to see something that would 
 make " good copy " ; turning over phrases in his 
 mind to test the value of words both as to sound and 
 as to meaning. He was an incessantly active man. 
 His great weakness was the common weakness — 
 failure to concentrate. In Park Row they regarded 
 him as a brilliant success. Brilliant he was. But a 
 success he was not. He knew that he was a brilliant 
 failure — and not very brilliant. 
 
 " Why is it ? " he asked himself again and again in 
 periods of reaction from the nervous strain of some 
 exciting experience. " Shall I never seize any of 
 these chances that are always thrusting themselves at 
 me ? Shall I always act like a Neapolitan beggar ? 
 Will the stimulus to ambition never come ? " 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
IV. 
 
 IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 
 
 Howard lived in Washington Square, South. He 
 had gone to a " furnished-room house " there because 
 it was cheap. He staid because he was comfortable 
 and was without a motive for moving. 
 
 It was the centre of the most varied life in New 
 York. To the north lay fashion and wealth, to the 
 east and west, respectability and moderate means ; to 
 the south, poverty and squalor, vice and crime. All 
 could be seen and heard from the windows of his 
 sitting room. In the evenings toward spring he 
 looked out upon a panorama of the human race such 
 as is presented by no other city in the world and by 
 no other part of that city. Within view were Ameri- 
 cans of all kinds, French and Germans, Italians and 
 Austrians, Spaniards and Moors, Scandinavians and 
 negroes, born New Yorkers and born citizens of most 
 of the capitals of civilisation and semi-barbarism. 
 There were actresses, dancers, shop girls, cocottes ; 
 touts, thieves, confidence-men, mission workers ; artists 
 and students from the musty University building, 
 tramps and drunkards from the " barrel-houses " and 
 
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IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 35 
 
 " stale-beer shops ; " and, across the square to the 
 north, representatives of New York's oldest and most 
 noted families. To the west were apartment houses 
 whence stiff, prim bookkeepers, floor-walkers, clerks 
 and small shop-keepers issued with their families on 
 Sundays, bound for church. There were other apart- 
 ment houses — the most of them to the south — whence 
 in the midnight hours came slattern servants and reck- 
 less looking girls in loose wrappers and high-heeled 
 slippers, pitcher in hand, bound for the nearest saloon. 
 
 After dusk from early spring until late fall a multi- 
 tude of interesting sounds mingled with the roar of 
 the elevated trains to the west and south and the 
 rumble of carriages in " the Avenue " to the nortL 
 Howard, reading or writing at his window on his 
 leisure days, heard the young men and young women 
 laughing and shouting and making love under the 
 trees where the Washington Arch glistened in the 
 twilight. Late: came the songs — " I want you, my 
 honey, yes I do," or " Lu, Lu, how I love my Lu ! ", 
 or some other of the current concert-hall jingles. 
 Many figures could be seen flitting about in the shad- 
 ows. Usually these figures were in pairs ; usually one 
 was in white ; usually at her waist-line there was a 
 black belt that continued on until it was lost in the 
 other and darker figure. 
 
 Scraps of a score of languages — curses, jests, terms 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
36 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 of endearment— would float up to him. Then came 
 the hours of comparative silence, with the city breath- 
 ing softly and regularly, with the moon hanging low 
 and the pale arch rising above the dark trees like a 
 giant ghost. There would be an occasional drunken 
 shout or shriek ; a riotous roar of song from some 
 staggering reveller making company for himself on 
 the journey home ; the heavy step of the policeman. 
 Or perhaps the only sound to disturb the city's sleep 
 would be that soft tread, timid as a mouse's, stealthy 
 as a jackal's — the tread of a lonely woman with drag- 
 gled silk skirt and painted cheeks and eyes burning 
 into the darkness, and a heart as bitter and as sad as 
 no money, no home, no friends, no hope can make it. 
 
 Once he threw a silver dollar from his window to 
 the sidewalk well in front of her. She did not see it 
 flash downward but she heard it ring .upon the walk. 
 She rushed forward and twice kicked it away from 
 her in her frenzy to get it. When her bare hand — or 
 was it a claw ? — at last closed upon it, she gave a low 
 scream, looked slyly and fearfully about, then ran as 
 if death were at her heels. 
 
 Soon after Howard was put " on space" he took the 
 best suite of rooms in the house. It was a strange 
 company which Mrs. Sands had gathered under her 
 roof. Except Howard there was no one, not even 
 Mrs, Sands herself, who did not have so much past 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 37 
 
 that there was little left for future. Indeed, perhaps 
 none of these storm-tossed or wrecked human craft 
 had had more of a past than Mrs. Sands. There was 
 no mistaking the significance of those deep furrows 
 filled with powder and plastered with paint, those 
 few hairs tinted and frizzed. But like all persons 
 with real pasts Mrs. Sands and her lodgers kept the 
 veil tightly drawn. They confessed to no yesterdays 
 and they did not dare think of to-morrow. They were 
 incuriously awaiting the impulse which was sure to 
 come, sure to thrust them on downward. 
 
 A new lodger at Mrs. Sand's usually took the best 
 rooms that were to be had. Then, sometimes slowly, 
 sometimes swiftly, came the retreat upward until a 
 cubby-hole under the eaves was reached. Finally 
 came precipitate and baggageless departure, often 
 with a week or two of lodging unpaid. The next 
 pause, if pause there was, would be still nearer the 
 river-bed or the Morgue. 
 
 One morning when he had been living in Washing- 
 ton Square, South, about three years, Howard was 
 dressing hurriedly, the door of his sitting-room acci- 
 dentally ajar. Through the crack he saw some one 
 stooping over the serving tray which he had himself 
 put outside his door when he had finished breakfast. 
 He looked more closely. It was " the clergyman " 
 from up under the eaves — an unfrocked priest, thin to 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
38 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 emaciation, misery written upon his face even more 
 deeply than weakness. He hastily bundled the bones 
 of two chops and a bit of bread into a stained and 
 torn handkerchief, and sprang away up the stairs 
 toward his little hole at the roof. 
 
 Howard was in a hurry and so put off for the time 
 action upon the natural impulse. When he came 
 back at midnight, there was soon a knock at his door. 
 He opened it and invited in the man at the threshold 
 — a tall, strongly built, erect German, with a dissipated 
 handsome face, heavily scarred from university duels. 
 
 " Pardon me for disturbing you," said the German. 
 His speech, his tone, his manner, left no doubt as to 
 his breeding though they raised the gravest doubts as 
 to his being willing to give a true account of why he 
 had become a tenant in that lodging house. 
 
 " Will you have a cigarette and some whiskey ? " 
 inquired Howard. 
 
 The German's glance lit and lingered upon the 
 bottle of Scotch on the table. " Concentrated, double- 
 distilled friendship," said he as he poured out his 
 drink. 
 
 " But a friend that drives all others away," smiled 
 Howard. 
 
 " I have found it of a very Jealous disposition," 
 replied the German with a careless shrug of the shoul- 
 ders and a lifting of the eyebrows. " But at least this 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 39 
 
 friend has the grace to stay after it has driven the 
 others away." 
 
 " To stay until the last piece of silver is gone." 
 
 " But what more does one expect of a friend ? 
 Besides, we are overlooking one friend — the one who 
 helped our clerical fellow-lodger of the attic out of 
 his troubles to-day." 
 
 "His luck has turned?" 
 
 " Permanently. He shot himself this afternoon." 
 
 "And only this morning I made up my mind to try 
 to help him," said Howard regretfully. 
 
 " You could not have hoped to succeed so well. 
 His case needed something more than temporary 
 expedient. But, to come to the point, I had a 
 slight acquaintance with him. He left a note for me 
 — mailed it just before he shot himself. In it he 
 asked that I insert a personal in the Herald. Unfor- 
 tunately I have not the money. I thought that 
 you as a journalist might be able to suggest some- 
 thing." 
 
 The German held out a slip of cheap writing paper 
 on which was written : " Helen — when you see this it 
 will be over — L." 
 
 " A good story," was Howard's first thought, his 
 news-instinct alert. And then he remembered that it 
 was not for him to tell. " I will attend to this for you 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
40 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Thank you," said the German, helping himself to 
 the whiskey. " Have you seen the new lodgers ? " 
 
 "Those in the room behind me? Yes. I saw 
 them at the front door as I came in." 
 
 " They're a queer pair — the youngest I've seen in 
 this house. I've been wondering what tempest 
 wrecked them on this forlorn coast so early in the 
 voyage." 
 
 " Why wrecked ? " 
 
 " My dear sir, we are all — except you — wrecks here, 
 all unseaworthy at least." 
 
 " One of them was quite pretty, I thought," said 
 Howard, " the slender one with the black hair." 
 
 " They are not mates. The other girl is of a differ- 
 ent sort. She's more used to this kind of life, at least 
 to poverty. I fancy Miss Black-Hair looks on it as a 
 lark. But she'll find out the truth by the time she 
 has mounted another story." 
 
 " Here, to go up means to go down," Howard said, 
 weary of the conversation and wishing that the Ger- 
 man would leave. 
 
 " They say that they're sisters," the German went 
 on, again helping himself to the whiskey ; " They say 
 they have run away from home because of a step- 
 mother and that they are going to earn their own 
 living. But they won't. They spend the nights rac- 
 ing about with a gang of the young wretches of this 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 41 
 
 neighbourhood. They won't be able to stand getting 
 up early for work. And then " 
 
 The German blew out a huge cloud of cigarette 
 smoke, shrugged his shoulders and added : " Miss 
 Black-Hair may get on up town presently. But I 
 doubt it. The Tenderloin rarely recruits from down 
 here." 
 
 The bottle was empty and the German bowed him- 
 self out. As the night was hot, Howard opened the 
 door a few moments afterward. At the other end of 
 the short hall light was streaming through the open 
 door of the room the two girls had taken. Before he 
 could turn, there was a shadow and " Miss Black- 
 Hair " was standing in her doorway. 
 
 " Oh," she began, " I thought " 
 
 Howard paused, looking at her. She was above the 
 medium height — tall for a woman — and slender. Her 
 loose wrapper, a little open at her round throat, clung 
 to her, attracting attention to all the lines of her form. 
 Her hair was indeed black, jet black, waving back 
 ,from her forehead in a line of curving and beautiful 
 irregularity. Her skin was clear and dark. There 
 were deep circles under her eyes, making them look 
 unnaturally large, pathetically weary. In repose her 
 face was childish and sadly serious. When she smiled 
 she looked older and pert, but no happier. 
 
 " I thought," she continued with the pert, self- 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
42 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 confident smile, " that you were my sister Nellie. 
 I'm waiting for her." 
 
 " You're in early to-night," said Howard, the circles 
 under her eyes reminding him of what the German 
 had told him. 
 
 " I haven't slept much for a week," the girl replied, 
 " I'm nearly dead. But I won't go to bed till Nellie 
 comes." 
 
 Howard was about to turn when she went on : " We 
 agreed always to stay together. She broke it to- 
 night. My fellow got too fresh, so I came home. 
 She said she'd come too. That was an hour ago and 
 she isn't here yet." 
 
 " Isn't she rather young to be out alone at this 
 time?" 
 
 Howard could hardly have told why he continued 
 the conversation. He certainly would not, had she 
 been less beautiful or less lonely and childish. At his 
 remark about her sister's youth she laughed with an 
 expression of cunning at once amusing and pitiful. 
 
 " She's a year older than me," she said, " and I 
 guess I can take care of myself. Still she hasn't 
 much sense. She'll get into trouble yet. She doesn't 
 understand how to manage the boys when they're too 
 fresh." 
 
 " But you do, I suppose?" suggested Howard. 
 
 " Indeed I do," with a quick nod of her small 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 43 
 
 graceful head, " I know what I'm about. My mother 
 taught me a few things." 
 
 " Didn't she teach your sister also ? " 
 
 " Miss Black-Hair " dropped her eyes and flushed a 
 little, looking like a child caught in a lie. "Of 
 course," she said after a pause. 
 
 " How long have you been without your mother ? " 
 
 " I've been away from home four months. But I 
 saw her in the street yesterday. She didn't see me 
 though." 
 
 " Then you've got a step-father? " 
 
 " No, I haven't. Nellie told that to Mrs. Sands. 
 But it's not so. You know Nellie's not my sister?" 
 
 " I fancied not from what you said a moment ago." 
 
 " No, she used to be nurse girl in our family. We 
 just say we're sisters. I wish she'd come. I'm tired 
 of standing. Won't you come in ? " 
 
 She went into her room, her manner a frank and 
 simple invitation. Howard hesitated, then went just 
 inside the door and half sat, half leaned upon the high 
 roll of the lounge. The room was cheaply furnished, 
 the lounge and a closed folding bed almost filling it. 
 Upon the mantel, the bureau and the little table were 
 a few odds and ends that stamped it a woman's room. 
 A street gown of thin pale-blue cloth was thrown 
 over a rocking chair. As the girl leaned back in this 
 chair with her face framed in the pale-blue of the gown. 
 
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44 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 she looked tired and sad and beautiful and very young. 
 
 " If Nellie doesn't look out, I'll go away and live 
 alone," she said, and the accompanying unconscious 
 look of loneliness touched Howard. 
 
 " You might go back home." 
 
 " You don't know my home or you wouldn't say 
 that. You don't know my father." She had got 
 upon the subject of herself, and, once in that road she 
 kept it with no thought of turning out. " He can't 
 treat me as he treats mother. Why, he goes away and 
 stays for days. Then he comes home and quarrels with 
 her all the time. They never both sit through a meal. 
 One or the other flares up and leaves. He generally 
 whipped me when he got very mad — just for spite." 
 
 " But there's your mother." 
 
 " Yes. She doesn't like my going away. But I 
 can't stand it. Papa wpuldn't let me go anywhere or 
 let anybody come to see me. He says everybody's 
 bad. I guess he's about right. Only he doesn't in- 
 clude himself." 
 
 " You seem to have a poor opinion of people." 
 
 " Well, you can't blame me." She put on her wise 
 look of experience and craft. " I've been away, living 
 with Nellie for four months and I've seen no good to 
 speak of. A girl doesn't get a fair chance." 
 
 "But you've got work?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. We both stayed down in a restaurant. 
 
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IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 45 
 
 Nellie's got a place as waiter. That's the best she 
 could do. The man said I was good-looking and 
 would catch trade. So he made me cashier. I get 
 six dollars a week to Nellie's three. But it's a bad 
 place. The men are always slipping notes in my 
 hand when they give me their checks. Then the 
 boss, he's always bothering around." 
 
 " But you don't have to work hard ? " 
 
 " From nine till four. We get our lunch free. I 
 pay three dollars on the room and Nellie pays one." 
 
 If Howard had not seen many such problems in 
 economics before, he would have been astonished at 
 any one even hoping to be able to get two meals a day, 
 clothing and carfare out of two or three dollars a 
 week. As it was, he only wondered how long a girl 
 who had been used at least to comfort would endure 
 this. " It's easy for the other girl," he thought, " be- 
 cause she's used to it. But this one — " and he 
 decided that the " trouble " would begin as soon as 
 her clothing was worn out. 
 
 He noticed that she was pulling at the third finger 
 of her right hand where she would have worn rings if 
 she had had any. " You've had to pawn your rings ? " 
 he ventured. 
 
 She looked at him startled. " Did Nellie tell you ? " 
 she asked. 
 
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46 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " No," he replied, " I saw that you were missing 
 your rings and suspected the rest." 
 
 " Yes ; that's so. I've pawned all my jewelry ex- 
 cept a bracelet. Nellie can't get along on her three 
 dollars. She eats too much." 
 
 " I should think you'd rather be at home." 
 
 "As I told you before," she said impatiently, 
 " anything's better than home. Besides, I'm pretty 
 well off. I go where I please, stay out as late as I 
 please and have all the company I want. At home 
 I'd have to be in bed at ten o'clock." 
 
 There was a sound at the front door down in the 
 darkness. The girl started from the chair, listened, 
 then exclaimed : " There she comes now. And it's 
 two o'clock ! " 
 
 Howard took the hint, smiled and said : " Well, 
 good-night. I'll see you again." 
 
 " Good-night," the girl answered absently. 
 
 From his room Howard heard Nellie coming up the 
 stairs. " You're a nice one ! " came in " Miss Black- 
 Hair's " indignant voice, " Where have you been ? 
 Where did you and Jack go ? " 
 
 The answer came in a sob — " Oh, Alice, you'll 
 never forgive me ! " 
 
 Their door closed upon the two girls but Howard 
 could still hear Nellie's voice tearful, pleading. There 
 was the sound of some one falling heavily upon the 
 
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IN THE EDGE OF BOHEMIA. 47 
 
 lounge, then sobs and cries of "Oh! Oh!" As 
 Howard went into his bedroom, he could hear the 
 voices still more plainly through the thin wall. He 
 caught the words only once. " Miss Black-Hair," her 
 voice shaking with anger, exclaimed : " Nellie Baker, 
 you are a wicked girl, I shall go away." 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
ALICE. 
 
 Several nights later Howard came upon Alice at 
 the front door, where a young man was detaining her 
 in a lingering good-bye. Another night as he was 
 passing her room he saw her stretched upon the floor, 
 her head supported by her elbows and an open book 
 in front of her. She looked so childlike that Howard 
 paused and said : " What is it — a fairy story ? " 
 
 " No, it's a love story," she replied, just glancing at 
 him with a faint smile and showing that she did not 
 wish to be interrupted. The same night as he was 
 going to bed he heard the angry voices of the two 
 girls. A week later, toward the end of July, he 
 found Alice sitting on the front stoop, when he came 
 from dinner. She was obviously in the depths of the 
 " blues." Her eyes, the droop of the corners of her 
 mouth, even the colour of her skin indicated anxiety 
 and depression. She looked so forlorn that he said 
 gently : "Wouldn't you Hke to walk in the Square? " 
 
 She rose at once. " Yes, I guess so." They 
 
 crossed to the green. She was wearing the pale-blue 
 
 gown and it fitted her well. Neither in the gown nor 
 
 in the big hat with its coquettish flowers nodding over 
 
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ALICE. 49 
 
 the brim was there much of fashion. But there was a 
 certain distinction in her walk and her manner of 
 wearing her clothes ; and to a pretty face and a grace- 
 ful form was added the charm of youth, magnetic 
 youth. 
 
 " Do you want to walk ? " she asked, lassitude in 
 her voice. 
 
 " No, let us sit," he said, and they went to a bench 
 near the arch. It was twilight. The children were 
 still romping and shouting. Many fat elderly women — 
 mothers and grandmothers — were solemnly marching 
 about, talking in fat, elderly voices. 
 
 " You have the blues ? " asked Howard, thinking it 
 might make her feel better to talk of her troubles. 
 " If I were your doctor, I should prescribe a series of 
 good cries." 
 
 " I don't cry," said the girl. " Sometimes I wish I 
 could. Nellie cries and gets over things. I feel 
 awful inside and sick and my eyes burn. But I can't 
 cry." 
 
 " You're too young for that." 
 
 " Oh, in some ways I'm young ; again, I'm not. I 
 hate everybody this evening." 
 
 " What's the matter ? Has Nellie deserted you ? " 
 
 "She? Not much. I had to tell her to go "— 
 this with a joyless little laugh — " she quit work and 
 wouldn't behave herself. So now I'm going op alone," 
 
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50 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " And you won't go home ? " 
 
 " Never in the world," she said with almost fierce 
 energy ; then some thought made her laugh in the same 
 way as before. Howard decided that she had not told 
 him everything about her home life, even though she 
 had rattled on as if there were nothing to conceal. 
 He sat watching her, she looking straight before her, 
 her small bare hands clasped in her lap. He was 
 pitying her keenly— this child, at once stunted and 
 abnormally developed, this stray from one of the classes 
 that keeps their women sheltered ; and here she was 
 adrift, without any of those resources of experience 
 which assist the girls of the tenements. 
 
 Her features were small, sensitive, regular. Her 
 eyes were brown with lines of reddish gold raying 
 from the pupils. Her chin and mouth were firm 
 enough, yet suggested weakness through the passions. 
 Her clear skin had the glow of youth and health upon 
 its smooth surface. She was certainly beautiful and 
 she certainly had magnetism. 
 
 " What do you think is going to become of you?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " I don't know," she said, after a deep sigh. " A 
 girl doesn't have a fair chance. I don't seem to be 
 able to have any fun without getting into trouble. I 
 don't know what to think. It's all so black. I wish 
 I was dead." 
 
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ALICE. 51 
 
 Her dreary tone put the deepest pathos into her 
 words. Howard had seen despondency in youth before 
 — had felt it himself. But there had always been a 
 certain lightness in it. Here was a mere child who 
 evidently thought, and thought with reason, that there 
 was no hope for her ; and her despair was not a pass- 
 ing cloud or storm, but a settled conviction. 
 
 " There doesn't seem to be any chance for a young 
 girl," she repeated as if that phrase summed up all 
 that was weighing upon her. And Howard feared that 
 she, was right. Even the readiest of all commodities, 
 advice, failed him. " What can she do ? " he thought. 
 " If she has no home, worth speaking of " — then he 
 went on aloud : 
 
 " Haven't you friends ? " 
 
 She laughed again with that slight moving of the 
 lips and with eyes mirthless. " Who wants me for a 
 friend ? Nobody 'd think I was respectable. And I 
 guess I'm not so very. There's Nellie and her — 
 friends. Oh, the girls join in with the men to drag 
 other girls down. But I won't do that. I don't care 
 what becomes of me — except that." 
 
 " Why ? " he asked, curious for her explanation of 
 this aversion. 
 
 " I don't know why," she replied. " There doesn't 
 seem to be any good reason. I've thought I would 
 several times. And then-^well, I just couldn't." 
 
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52 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Howard turned the subject and tried to draw hef 
 out of this mood. They sat there for several hours 
 and became well acquainted. He found that she had an 
 intelligent way of looking at things, that she observed 
 closely, and that she appreciated and understood far 
 more than he had expected. 
 
 It was the beginning of a series of evenings spent 
 together. He took her with him on many of his 
 assignments and they often dined together at " Le 
 Chat Noir " or the " Restaurant de Paris," or " The 
 Manhattan " over in Second Avenue. Late in June 
 she bought a new gown — a pale-grey with ribbons and 
 hat to match. Howard was amused at the anxious 
 expression in her gold-brown eyes as she waited for 
 his opinion. And when he said : " Well, well, I never 
 saw you look so pretty," she looked much prettier 
 with a slight colour rising to tint the usual pallor of 
 her cheeks. 
 
 One Sunday he came home in the afternoon and 
 found her helping the maid at straightening his rooms. 
 As he lay on the lounge smoking he watched her 
 lazily. She handled his books with a great deal of 
 awe. She opened one of them and sat on the floor 
 in the childlike way she often had. She read several 
 sentences aloud. It was a tangle of technical words 
 on the subject of political economy. 
 
 " What do you have such stupid things around 
 
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ALICE. 53 
 
 for?" she said, smiling and rising. She began to 
 arrange the books and papers on the table. He was 
 looking at her but thinking of something else when 
 he became conscious that she had got suddenly white 
 to the lips. He jumped to his feet. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he asked, "are you gofng 
 to faint?" 
 
 Her eyes were shining as with fever out of a ghostly 
 face. Her lips trembled as she answered : " Oh it's 
 nothing. I do this often." She went slowly into the 
 back room where the maid was. In a few minutes 
 she returned, apparently as usual. She flitted about 
 uneasily, taking up now one thing, now another in a 
 purposeless, nervous way. 
 
 " I never was in here before," she said. " You've 
 got lots of pretty things. Whose pictui-e is this ? " 
 
 " That ? Oh, my sister-in-law out in Chicago." 
 
 Howard did not then understand why she became 
 so gay, why her eyes danced with happiness, why as 
 soon as she went into the hall she began to sing and 
 .kept it up in her own room, quieting down only to 
 burst forth again. He did not even especially note 
 the swift change, the, for her, extraordinary mood of 
 high spirits. It was about this time that their rela- 
 tions began to change. 
 
 Howard had thought of her, or had thought that 
 he thought of her, only as a lonely and desolate child. 
 
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54 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 to be taught so far as he was capable of teaching and 
 she of learning. He was conscious of her extreme 
 youth and of the impassable gulf of thought and taste 
 between them. He did not take her feelings into 
 account at all. It never occurred to him that this 
 part of friend and patron which he was playing was 
 not safe for him, not just and right toward her. 
 
 One night he took her to a ball at the Terrace 
 Garden — a respectable, amusing affair " under the 
 auspices of the Young-German-American-Shooting- 
 Society." The next day a reporter for the Sun whom 
 he knew slightly said to him with a grin he did not 
 like : " Mighty pretty little girl you're taking about 
 with you, Howard. Where'd you pick her up?" 
 
 Howard reddened, angry with himself for redden- 
 ing, angry with the Sun man for his impudence, 
 ashamed that he had put himself and Alice in such a 
 position. But the incident brought the matter of his 
 relation with her sharply and clearly before his mind 
 and conscience. 
 
 "This must stop," he said to himself; "it must 
 stop at once. It is unjust to her. And it is dragging 
 me into an entanglement." 
 
 But the mischief had been done. She loved him. 
 And with the confidence of youth and inexperience, 
 she was disregarding all the obstacles, was giving her- 
 self up to the dream that he would presently love her 
 
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ALICE. 55 
 
 in return, with the end as in the story books. Indeed 
 love stories became her constant companions. Where 
 she once read them for amusement, she now read 
 them as a Christian reads his Bible — for instruction, 
 inspiration, faith, hope and courage. 
 
 One evening in July — it was in the week of Inde- 
 pendence Day — Howard's windows and door were 
 thrown wide to get the full benefit of whatever stir 
 there might be in the air. He was sprawled upon the 
 lounge, the table drawn close and upon it a lamp 
 shedding a dim light through the room but enough 
 near by to let him read. He had dropped his book 
 and was thinking whether a stroll in the Square in 
 the moonlight would repay the trouble of moving. 
 There were steps in the hall and then, peeping round 
 the door-frame was the face of his young neighbour. 
 
 " Hello," he said, "I thought you were out some- 
 where. Come in." 
 
 " No, I'm going to bed," she answered, nevertheless 
 gradually edging into the room. She was wearing a 
 loose wrapper of flowered silk, somewhat worn and 
 never very fine. Her black hair hung in a long thick 
 braid to her waist and she looked even younger than 
 usual. 
 
 " Where have you been all evening? " asked How- 
 ard. 
 
 " Oh, I've been up to see a friend. She lives in 
 
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S6 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Harlem, and she wants rAe to come and live with 
 her." 
 
 "Are you going?" Howard inquired, noting that 
 he was interested and not pleased. " The house 
 wouldn't seem natural without you." 
 
 She gave him a quick, gratified glance and, advanc- 
 ing further into the room, sat upon the arm of the 
 big rocking-chair. " She gave me a good talking to," 
 she went on with a smile. " She told me I ought not 
 to live alone at my age. She said I ought to live 
 with her and meet some friends of hers. She said 
 maybe I'd find a nice fellow to marry." 
 
 Howard thought over this as he smoked and at last 
 said in an ostentatiously judicial tone : " Well, I think 
 she's right. I don't see what else there is to do. You 
 can't live on down here alone always. What's become 
 of Nellie ? " 
 
 " Nellie's got to be a bad girl," said Alice with a 
 blush and a dropping of the eyes. " She's in Four- 
 teenth Street every night. She says she doesn't care 
 what happens to her. I saw her last night and she 
 wanted me to come with her. She says it's of no use 
 for me to put on airs. She says I've got no friends 
 and I might as well join her sooner as later." 
 
 " Well ? " Howard was keeping his eyes carefully 
 away from hers. 
 
 " Oh, I sha'n't go with her. As long as a girl has 
 
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ALICE. 57 
 
 got anything at all to live for, she doesn't want that. 
 Besides I'd rather go to the East River," 
 
 " Browning's a serious matter," said Howard with a 
 smile and with banter in his tone. 
 
 " Yes, it is," said the girl seriously, " I've thought 
 of it. And I don't believe I could." 
 
 " Then you'd better go with your friend and get 
 married." 
 
 " I don't want to get married," she replied, shaking 
 her head slowly from side to side. 
 
 " That's what all the girls say," laughed Howard. 
 
 " But of course you will. It's the only thing to do." 
 
 " Then why don't you get married ? " asked Alice, 
 
 tracing one of the flowers in her wrapper with her 
 
 slim, brown forefinger. 
 
 " I couldn't if I would and I wouldn't if I could." 
 "Oh, you could get a nice girl to marry you, I'm 
 sure," she said, the colour rising faintly toward her 
 long, downcast lashes. 
 
 " But who would get the money? It takes money 
 to keep a nice girl." 
 
 " Oh, not much," said Alice earnestly, yet with a 
 queer hesitation in her voice. " You oughtn't to 
 marry those extravagant girls. I've read about them 
 and I think they don't make very good wives, real 
 wives to save money and — and care." 
 
 " You seem to know a good deal about these things 
 
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S8 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 for your age," said Howard, much amused and show- 
 ing it. 
 
 " I don't care," she persisted, " you ought to get 
 married." 
 
 Howard felt that this was the time to clear the girl's 
 mind of any " notions " she might have got. He 
 would be very clever, very adroit. He would not let 
 her suspect that he had any idea of her thoughts. 
 Indeed he was not perfectly certain that he had. But 
 he would gently and frankly tell her the truth. 
 
 " I shall never get married," he said, sitting up and 
 talking as one who is discussing a case which he 
 understands thoroughly yet has no personal interest 
 in. " I haven't the money and I haven't the desire. I 
 am what they would call a confirmed bachelor. I 
 wouldn't marry any girl who had not been brought up 
 as I have been. We should be unhappy together 
 unsuited each to the other. She would soon hate me. 
 Besides, I wish to be free. I care more for freedom 
 than I ever shall for any human being. As I am now, 
 so I shall always be, a wandering fellow without 
 ties. It is not a pleasant prospect for old age. But 
 I have made up my mind to it and I shall never 
 marry." 
 
 The girl's hands had dropped limp into her lap ; 
 her face was down so that he could barely see the 
 burning blush which overspread it. 
 
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ALICE. 59 
 
 " You don't mean that," she said in a voice that 
 was queer and choked. 
 
 " Oh yes, I do, little girl," he answered, intending 
 to smile when she should look up. 
 
 When she did lift her eyes, his smile could not 
 come. For her face was grey and her lips bloodless 
 and from her eyes looked despair. Howard glanced 
 away instantly. With rude hand he had suddenly 
 toppled into the dust this child's dream-castle of love 
 and happiness which he had himself helped her build. 
 He felt like a criminal. But partly from a sense of 
 duty, chiefly from the cowardice of self-preservation, 
 he made no effort to lighten her suffering. 
 
 " I should only prolong it," he thought, " only make 
 matters worse. " To-morrow — perhaps." 
 
 If she had been worldly wise, even if she had not 
 been so completely absorbed in her worship of him 
 that her woman-instincts were dormant, she would 
 herself have found hope. But she had not a suspicion 
 that these strong words of apparent finality were 
 spoken to give himself courage, to keep him from 
 obeying the impulse to respond to the appeal of her 
 youth to his, her aloneness to his, her passion to his. 
 She believed him literally. 
 
 There was a long silence. He heard her move, 
 heard a suppressed cry and glanced toward her again. 
 
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6o THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 She was darting from the room. A second later her 
 door crashed. He started up and after her, hesitated, 
 returned to his book — but not to his reading. 
 
 Toward noon the next day, he passed her room on 
 his way out. The door was wide open ; none of her 
 belongings was in sight ; the maid was sweeping 
 energetically. She paused when she saw him. 
 
 " Miss Alice left this morning," she said, " and the 
 room's been let to another party." 
 
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VI. 
 
 IN A BOHEMIAN QUICKSAND. 
 
 Howard could have got her new address; and for 
 many weeks habit, at first steadily, afterward inter- 
 mittently, teased him to look her up. He was amazed 
 at her hold upon him. At times the longing for her 
 was so intense that he almost suspected himself of 
 being in love with her. 
 
 " I escaped from that none too soon," he congrat- 
 ulated himself. " It wasn't nearly so one-sided as I 
 thought." 
 
 He had never been gregarious. Thus far he had 
 not had a single intimate friend, man or woman. He 
 knew many people and knew them well. They liked 
 him and some of them sought his friendship. These 
 were often puzzled because it was easy to get ac- 
 quainted with him, impossible to know him inti- 
 mately. 
 
 The explanation of this combination of openness 
 and reserve, friendliness and unapproachableness, was 
 that his boyhood and youth had been spent wholly 
 among books. That life had trained him not to look 
 to others for amusement, sympathy or counsel, but to 
 
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62 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 depend upon himself. As his temperament was open 
 and good-natured and sympathetic, he was as free from 
 enemies and enmities as he was from friends and 
 friendships. 
 
 Women there had been — several women, a success- 
 ion of idealizations which had dispersed in the strong 
 light of his common sense. He had never disturbed 
 himself about morals in what he regarded as the limi- 
 ted sense. He always insisted that he was free ; and 
 he was careful only of his personal pride and of taking 
 no advantage of another. What he had said to Alice 
 about marriage was true — as to his intentions, at 
 least. A poor woman, he felt, he could not marry ; a 
 rich woman, he felt, he would not marry. And he 
 cared nothing about marriage because he was never 
 lonely, never leaned or wished to lean upon another, 
 abhorred the idea of any one leaning upon him ; be- 
 cause he regarded freedom as the very corner-stone of 
 his scheme of life. 
 
 The nearest he had come to companionship was 
 with Alice. With the other women whom he had 
 known in various degrees from warmth to white-heat, 
 there had been interruptions, no such constant freedom 
 of access, no such intermingling of daily life. Her he 
 had seen at all hours and in all circumstances. She 
 never disturbed him but was ready to talk when he 
 wished to listen, listened eagerly when he talked. 
 
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IN A BOHEMIAN QUICKSAND. 63 
 
 and was silent and beautiful and restful to look at 
 when he wished to indulge in the dissipation of mental 
 laziness. 
 
 'As she loved him, she showed him only the best 
 that there was in her and showed it in the most at- 
 tractive of all lights. 
 
 While he was still wavering or fancying that he was 
 wavering, the Managing Editor sent him to " do " a 
 great strike-riot in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. 
 He was there for three weeks, active day and night, 
 interested in the new phases of life — the mines and the 
 miners, the display of fierce passions, the excitement, 
 the peril. 
 
 When he returned to New York, Alice had ceased 
 to tempt him. 
 
 ********* 
 
 One midnight in the early spring he was in his sit- 
 ting room, reading and a little bored. There came a 
 knock at the door. He hoped that it was some one 
 bringing something interesting or coming to propose 
 . a search for something interesting. " Come in," he 
 said with welcome in his voice. The door opened. 
 It was Alice. 
 
 She was dressed much as she had been the first time 
 he talked with her — a loose, clinging wrapper open at 
 the throat. There was a change in her face — a change 
 for the better but also for the worse. She looked 
 
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64 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 more intelligent, more of a woman. There was more 
 sparkle in her eyes and in her smile. But — Howard 
 saw instantly the price she had paid. As the German 
 had suggested, she had '' got on up town." 
 
 She was pulling at the long broad blue ribbons of 
 her negligee. Her hands were whiter and her pink 
 finger nails had had careful attention. She smiled, 
 enjoying his astonishment. " I have come back," 
 she said. 
 
 Howard came forward and took her hand. " I'm 
 glad, very glad to see you. For a minute I thought I 
 was dreaming." 
 
 " Yes," she went on, " I'm in my old room. I came 
 this afternoon. I must have been asleep, for I didn't 
 hear you come in." 
 
 " I hope it isn't bad luck that has flung you back 
 here." 
 
 " Oh, no. I've been doing very well. I've been 
 saving up to come. And when I had enough to last 
 me through the summer, I — I came." 
 
 " You've been at work ? " 
 
 She dropped her eyes and flushed. And her fingers 
 played more nervously with her ribbons. 
 
 " You needn't treat me as a child any longer," she 
 said at last in a low voice ; " I'm eighteen now and — 
 well, I'm not a child." 
 
 Again there was a long pause. Howard, watching 
 
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IN A BOHEMIAN QUICKSAND. 65 
 
 her downcast face, saw her steadying her expression to 
 meet his eyes. When she looked, it was straight at 
 him — appeal but also defiance. 
 
 " I don't ask anything of you," she said, " we are 
 both free. And I wanted to see you. I was sick of 
 all those others — up there. I've never had — had — 
 this out of my mind. And I've come. And I can 
 see you sometimes. I won't be in the way." 
 
 Howard went over to the window and stared out 
 into the lights and shadows of the leafy Square. 
 When he turned again she had lighted and was smok- 
 ing one of his cigarettes. 
 
 "Well," he said smiling down at her, " Why not ? 
 Put on a street gown and we'll go out and get supper 
 and talk it over." 
 
 She sprang up, her face alight. She was almost 
 running toward the door. Midway she stopped, 
 turned and came slowly back. She put one of her 
 arms upon his shoulder — a slender, cool, smooth, 
 white arm with the lace of the wide sleeve slipping 
 away from it. She turned her face up until her mouth, 
 like a ^rosebud, was very near his lips. There was 
 appeal in her eyes. 
 
 " I'm very, very glad to see you," Howard said as 
 he kissed her. 
 
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66 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 And so Howard's life was determined for the next 
 four years. 
 
 He worked well at his profession. He read a great 
 deal. He wrote fiction and essays in desultory 
 fashion and got a few things printed in the magazines. 
 He led a life that was a model of regularity. But he 
 knew the truth — that Alice had ended his career. 
 
 He was content. Ambition had always been vague 
 with him and now his habit of following the line of 
 least resistance had drifted him into this mill-pond. 
 Sometimes lie would give himself up to bitter self- 
 reproach, disgusted that he should be so satisfied, so 
 non-resisting in a lot in every way the reverse of that 
 which he had marked out for himself. If he had been 
 chained he might, probably would, have broken away. 
 But Alice never attempted to control him. His will 
 was her law. She was especially shrewd about money 
 matters, so often the source of disputes and estrange- 
 ments. Two months after she reappeared, she pro- 
 posed that they take an apartment together. 
 
 " I saw one to-day in West Twelfth Street at seventy 
 dollars a month," she said, " and I'm sure I could 
 manage it so that you would be much better off than 
 you are now." 
 
 He viewed this plan with suspicion. It definitely 
 committed him to a mode of life which he had always 
 regarded as degrading both to the man and the wo- 
 
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IN A BOHEMIAN QUICKSAND. 67 
 
 man and as certain of a calamitous ending. So he 
 made excuses for delay, fully intending never to yield. 
 But although Alice did not speak of her plan again, 
 he found himself more and more attracted by it, 
 caught himself speculating about various apartments 
 he happened to see as he went about the streets. She 
 must have been conscious of what was going on in his 
 mind ; for when, a month after she had spoken, he 
 said abruptly : " Where was that apartment you 
 saw ? " she went straight on discussing the details as 
 if there had been no interval. She was ready to act. 
 
 The apartment was taken in her name — Mrs. Cam- 
 mack, the " Mrs." being necessary to account for him. 
 They selected the furniture together, he as interested 
 as she and very pleased to find that she had the same 
 good taste in those matters that she had in dress. 
 She took all the troubles and annoyances upon her- 
 self. When she invited him to assist in the arrange- 
 ment, it was in matters that amused him and at times 
 when she was sure he had nothing else to do. It is 
 not strange that he got a wholly false idea of the diffi- 
 culties of setting up an establishment. 
 
 After a month of selecting and discussing, of plea- 
 sure in the new experience, pleasurein Alice's enthusi- 
 asm and excitement and happiness, he found himself 
 master of five attractive and comfortable rooms, his 
 clothing, his books, all his belongings properly ar- 
 
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68 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 ranged. The door was opened for him by a cleanlook- 
 ing coloured maid, with a tiny white cap on her head. 
 
 As he looked around and then at the beautiful face 
 with the wistful, gold-brown eyes so anxiously follow- 
 ing his wandering glance, he was very near to loving 
 her. Indeed, he was like a husband who has left out 
 that period of passionate love which extends into 
 married life until it gives place to boredom, or to dis- 
 like, or to some such sympathetic affection as he 
 felt for Alice. " It is just this that holds me," he 
 thought, in his infrequent moods of dissatisfaction. 
 " If we quarrelled or if there were any deep feeling on 
 my side, I should not be in this mess. I should be " — 
 Well, where would he be ? " Probably worse off," he 
 usually added. 
 
 Certainly he could not have been freer, for she 
 never questioned him ; and, if she was ever uneasy or 
 jealous when he came in late — for him — without telling 
 her where he had been, she never showed it. She 
 had no friends, and he often wondered how she passed 
 the time when he was not with her. Whenever he 
 inquired he got the same answer : She had been busy- 
 ing herself with their home; she had been planning 
 to save money or to make him more comfortable ; she 
 had been reading to improve her mind and to enable 
 herself to start him talking on subjects that inter- 
 ested him. 
 
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IN A BOHEMIAN QUICKSAND. 69 
 
 No matter how unexpectedly he looked in upon 
 her life or her mind, he found — himself. 
 
 One day she said to him — it was after two years of 
 this life : " Something is worrying you. Is it about 
 me ? You look at me so queerly at times." 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " It is about you. Tell me, 
 Miss Black- Hair, do you never think of getting old ? " 
 
 " No," she smiled. " I shall wait until I am twenty- 
 five before I begin to think of that." 
 
 " But don't you see that this sort of thing must 
 stop sometime? It is unjust to you. When I think 
 of it, I reproach myself for permitting us to get into it." 
 
 " I am happy," she said, looking straight at him, 
 terror in her eyes. 
 
 " But you have no friends ? " 
 
 " Who has ? And what do I want with friends ? " 
 
 " But don't you see, I can't introduce you to any- 
 body. I can't talk about you to the people I know. 
 I am always having to explain you away, always hav- 
 ing to act as if I were ashamed of this, my real life. 
 At times I. am Anglo-Saxon enough to be really 
 ashamed of it. And I ought to be and am ashamed 
 of myself." 
 
 " Don't let's talk about it. You and I understand. 
 Why should we bother about the rest of the world ? " 
 
 " No, we must talk about it. I have been going 
 over it carefully. We must — must be married." 
 
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^o THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 He laid his hand upon hers. She blushed deeply 
 and Iqw^d her head. A tear dropped upon the 
 front of her gown and hung glittering in the meshes 
 of the white lace. She crept into his arms and buried- 
 her face upon his shoulder and sobbed. He had 
 never seen her even look like tears before. 
 
 " We must be married," he repeated, patting her 
 on the shoulder. 
 
 She shook her head in negation. 
 
 " Yes," he said firmly, mentally noting that this 
 was the very first time he had ever caught her in a 
 pretense. 
 
 " No." Her tone was as firm as his. She lifted 
 her head and put her cheek against his. " It makes 
 me very proud that you ask it. But — I — I do not " 
 
 " Do not— what ? " 
 
 " I do not want — I will not — risk losing you." 
 
 " But you won't lose me. You will have me more 
 than ever." 
 
 " Some men — yes. But not you." 
 
 " And why not I, O Wisdom ? " 
 
 "Because — because — do you think I have watched 
 
 you all this time, without learning something about 
 
 you ? The way to keep you is to leave you free. I 
 
 , do not want your name. I do not want your friends 
 
 I do not want to be respectable. I want — just you." 
 
 " But are we not as good as married now ? " 
 
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IN A BOHEMIAN QUICKSAND. 71 
 
 "Yes — that's it. And I want it to keep on. I 
 never cared for anybody until I saw you. I shall 
 never care for anybody else. I never shall try. I 
 want you as long as I can have you. And then " 
 
 " And then," Howard laughed or rather, pretended 
 to laugh, " and then, ' Oh, dig me a grave both wide 
 and deep, wide and deep.' How like twenty-years-old 
 that is." 
 
 She seemed not to hear his jest and presently went 
 on: "Do you remember the evening before I left, 
 down there at Mrs. Sands's ? " 
 
 " The night you proposed to me ? " Howard said, 
 pulling her ear. 
 
 She smiled faintly and continued : " I thought it 
 all out that night. I intended to come back just as I 
 did. I went deliberately. I " 
 
 Howard put his hand over her lips. 
 
 " O, I am not going to tell anything," said she, 
 evading his fingers. " Only this — that I understood 
 you then, understood just why you would never 
 marry. Not so clearly as I understand it now, but 
 still I — understood. And you have been teaching me 
 ever since, teaching me manners, teaching me how to 
 read and think and talk. And more than all, you've 
 taught me your way of looking at life." 
 
 Howard held her away from him and studied her 
 face, surprise in his eyes. " Isn't it strange ? " he said. 
 
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72 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Here I've been seeing you day after day all this 
 time, have had a chance to know you better than I 
 ever knew any one in my life, have had you very near 
 to me day and night. And just now, as I look at you, 
 I see the real you for the first time in two years." 
 
 " I have been wondering when you would look at 
 me again," said Alice with a small, sly smile. 
 
 " Why, you are a woman grown. Where is the 
 little girl I knew, the little girl who used to look up 
 to me?" 
 
 " Oh, she's gone these two years. She proposed to 
 you and, when you refused her, she — died," 
 
 " Yes — we must be married," Howard went on. 
 " Why not ? It is more convenient, let us say." 
 
 Alice shook her head and put her cheek against his 
 again and clasped his fingers in hers. " No, my 
 instinct is against it. Some day — perhaps. But not 
 now, not now. I want you. I want only you. We 
 are together out here — out beyond the pale. Inside, 
 others would come in and — and surely come between 
 us. I want no others — none." 
 
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VII. 
 
 A LITTLE CANDLE GOES OUT. 
 
 Howard was now thirty years old. Park Row had 
 long ceased talking of him as a " coming man." 
 While his style of writing was steadily improving, he 
 wrote with no fixed aim, wrote simply for the day, for 
 the newspaper which dies with the day of its date. 
 Some of his acquaintances wondered why a man of 
 such ability should thus stand still. The less observ- 
 ant spoke of him as an impressive example of the 
 " journalistic blight." Those who looked deeper saw 
 the truth — a dangerous facility, a perilous inertia, a fatal 
 entanglement. Facility enabled him to earn a good 
 living with ease, working as he chose. Inertia pre- 
 vented him from seeking opportunities for advance- 
 ment. Entanglement shut him off from the men and 
 women of his own kind who would have thrust oppor- 
 tunities upon him and compelled him. 
 
 Howard himself saw this clearly in his occasional 
 moods of self-criticism. But as he saw no remedy, he 
 raged intermittently and briefly, and straightway 
 relapsed. Vanity supplied him with many excuses 
 and consolations. Was he not one of the best report- 
 ers in the profession ? Where was there another, 
 
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74 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 where indeed in any profession were there many of 
 -hi^ age, making five thousand a year ? Was he not 
 always improving his mind ? Was he not more and 
 more careful in his personal habits ? Was he not 
 respected by all who knew him ; looked upon as a 
 successful man ; regarded by those with whom he 
 came in daily contact as a leader in the profession, a 
 model for style, a marvel for facility and versatility 
 and for the quantity of good "copy" he could turn 
 out in a brief time ? But with all the soothings of 
 vanity he never could quite hide from himself that his 
 life was a failure up to that moment. 
 
 "Why try to lie to myself?" he thought. "It's 
 never a question of what one has done but always of 
 what one could have and should have done. I am 
 thirty and I have been marking time for at least four 
 years. Preparing by study and reading ? Yes, but 
 not preparing for anything." 
 
 On the whole he was glad that Alice had refused 
 to marry him. Her reason was valid. But there was 
 another which he thought she did not see. He was 
 deceived as to the depth of her insight because he 
 did not watch her closely. He had no suspicion how 
 many, many times, in their moments of demonstra- 
 tiveness, she listened for those words which never 
 came, listened and turned away to hide from him the 
 disappointment in her eyes. 
 
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A LITTLE CANDLE GOES OUT. 75 
 
 He did not love her — and she knew it. She did not 
 inspire ambition in him — and she knew it. She 
 simply kept him comfortable and contented. She 
 simply prevented his amatory instincts from gathering 
 strength vigorously to renew that ^earch which men 
 and women keep up incessantly until they find what 
 they seek. She knew this also but never permitted 
 herself to see it clearly. 
 
 He was pleased with her but not proud of her. 
 He was not exactly ashamed of his relation with her 
 but — well, he never relaxed his precautions for keep- 
 ing it conventionally concealed. He still had a room 
 at his club and occupied it occasionally. He laughed 
 at himself, despised himself in a gentle, soothing way- 
 But he excused himself to himself with earnestness 
 despite his sarcasms at his own expense. And for 
 the most of the time he was content — so well, so 
 comfortably content that if his mind had not been so 
 nervously active he would have taken on the form and 
 look of settled middle-life. 
 
 There was just the one saving quality — his mental 
 alertness. All his life he had had insatiable intellectual 
 curiosity. It had kept him from wasting his time at 
 play when he was a boy. It had kept him from 
 plunging deeply into dissipation when youth was hot in 
 his veins. It was now keeping him from the sluggard's 
 fate. 
 
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76 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 On the last day of January — six weeks after his thirti- 
 eth birthday — he came home earlier than usual, as they 
 were going to the theatre and were to dine at seven. 
 He found Alice in bed and the doctor sitting beside her. 
 
 " You'll have to get some one else to go with you, 
 I'm afraid," she said with good-humoured resignation, 
 a trifle over-acted. " My cold is worse and the doctor 
 says I must stay in bed." 
 
 "Nothing serious?" Howard asked anxiously, for 
 her cheeks were flaming. 
 
 " Oh, no. Just the cold. And I am taking care of 
 myself." 
 
 He accompanied the doctor to the door of the 
 apartment. At the threshold the doctor whispered : 
 " Make some excuse and come to my office. I wish to 
 see you particularly." 
 
 He grew pale. " Don't let her see," urged the 
 doctor. He went back to Alice, sick at heart. " I 
 must go out and arrange for some one else to do the 
 play for me," he said. " I shall spend the evening 
 with you.'' 
 
 She protested, but faintly. He went to the doctor's 
 office. 
 
 " She must go south at once," he began, after looking 
 at Howard steadily and keenly. '' Nothing can save 
 her life. That may prolong it." 
 
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A LITTLE CANDLE GOES OUT. ^^ 
 
 Howard seemed not to understand. 
 
 " She must go to-morrow or she'll be gone forever 
 in ten days." 
 
 " Impossible," Howard said in a dull, dazed tone, t 
 
 " At once, I tell you — at once." 
 
 "Impossible," Howard repeated. He was saying 
 to himself, " And only this afternoon I wished I were 
 free and wondered how I could free myself." He 
 laughed strangely. 
 
 " Impossible," he said again. And again he 
 laughed. The room swam around. He stood up. 
 " Impossible ! " he said a fourth time, almost shouting 
 it. And he struck the doctor full in the face, reeled 
 and fell headlong to the floor. When he recovered 
 consciousness he was lying on a lounge, the doctor's 
 assistant standing beside him. 
 
 " I must go to her," he exclaimed and sat up. He 
 saw the doctor a few feet away, holding a cloth odorous 
 of arnica to his cheek. Howard remembered and 
 began, " I beg your pardon," — The doctor interrupted 
 with : " Not at all. I've had many queer experiences 
 but never one like that." But Howard had ceased to 
 hear. He was staring vacantly at the floor, repeating 
 to himself, " And I wished to be free. And I am to 
 be free." 
 
 "You must go back to her. Take her south to- 
 morrow. Asheville is the best place." 
 
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78 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Howard was on his way to the door. " We shall 
 go by the first train," he said. 
 
 " Pardon me for telling you so abruptly," said the 
 doctor, following him. " But I saw that you weren't — 
 that is I couldn't help noticing that you and she were 
 — And usually the man in such cases — well, my sym- 
 pathy is for the woman." 
 
 " Do you think a man voluntarily lives with a woman 
 because he hates her? " Howard asked, with an angry 
 sneer. He bowed coldly and was gone. 
 
 As he looked at Alice he saw that it was of no use 
 to try to deceive her. " We must go South in the 
 morning," he almost whispered, taking her hand and 
 kissing it again and again, slowly and gently. 
 
 The next day but one they were at Asheville and two 
 weeks later Howard could not hide from himself that 
 she would soon be gone. 
 
 Her bed was drawn up to the open window and she 
 was propped with pillows. A mild breeze was flooding 
 the room with the odours of the pine forests and the 
 gardens. She looked out, dilated her nostrils and her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Beautiful ! " she murmured. " It is so easy to die 
 here." 
 
 She put out her hand and laid it in his. 
 
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A LITTLE CANDLE GOES OUT. 79 
 
 " I want you, my Alice." He was looking into her 
 eyes and she into his. " I need you. I can't do 
 without you." 
 
 She smiled with an expression of happiness. " Is it 
 wrong," she asked, " to take pleasure in another's 
 pain? I see that you are in pain, that you suffer. 
 And, oh, it makes me happy, so happy." 
 
 " Don't," he begged. " Please don't." 
 
 " But listen," she went on. " Don't you see why ? 
 Because I — because I love you. There," she was 
 smiling again. " I promised myself I never, never 
 would say it first. And I've broken my word." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " For nearly four years — all the years I've really 
 lived — I have had only one thought — my love for 
 you. But I never would say it, never would say ' I 
 love you,' because I knew that you did not love me." 
 
 He was beginning to speak but she lifted her hand 
 to his lips. Then she put it back in his and pushed 
 her fingers up his coat-sleeve until they were hidden, 
 ; resting upon his bare arm. 
 
 " No, you did not." Her voice was low and the 
 words came slowly. " But since we came here, you 
 have loved me. If I were to get well, were to go 
 back, you would not. Ah, if you knew, if you only 
 knew how I have wanted your love, how I have lain 
 awake night after night, hour after hour, whispering 
 
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80 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 under my breath ' I love you. I love you. Why do 
 you not love me ? ' " 
 
 Howard put his head down so that his face was hid 
 from her in her lap. 
 
 " After the doctor had talked to me a few minutes, 
 had asked me a few questions," she went on, " I knew. 
 And I was not sorry. It was nearly over, anyhow, 
 dear. Did you know it ? I often wondered if you 
 did. Yes, I saw many little signs. I wouldn't admit 
 it to myself until this illness came. Then I confessed 
 it to myself. And I was not sorry we were to part 
 this way. But I did not expect " — and she drew a 
 long breath — " happiness ! " 
 
 " No, no," he protested, lifting his face and looking 
 at her. She drank in the expression of his eyes — the 
 love, the longing, the misery — as if it had been a 
 draught of life. 
 
 "Ah, you make me so happy, so happy. How 
 much I owe to you. Four long, long, beautiful years. 
 How much ! How much ! And at last — love ! " 
 
 There was silence for several minutes. Then he 
 spoke : " I loved you from the first, I believe. Only 
 I never appreciated you. I was so self-absorbed. And 
 you — you fed my vanity, never insisted upon your- 
 self." 
 
 " But we have had happiness. And no one, no one, 
 no one will ever be to you what I have been." 
 
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A LITTLE CANDLE GOES OUT. 8i 
 
 " I love you." Howard's voice had a passionate 
 earnestness in it that carried conviction. " The light 
 goes out with you." 
 
 " With this little candle ? No, no, dear — my dear. 
 You will be a great man. You will not forget ; but 
 you will go on and do the things that I'm afraid I 
 didn't help, maybe hindered, you in trying to do. 
 And you will keep a little room in your heart, a very 
 little room. And I shall be in there. And you'll 
 open the door every once in a while and come in and 
 take me in your arms and kiss me. And I think — 
 yes, I feel that — that I shall know and thrill." 
 
 Her voice sank lower and lower and then her eyes 
 closed, and presently he called the nurse. 
 
 The next day he rose from his bed, just at the con- 
 necting door between his room and hers, and looked 
 in at her. The shades were drawn and only a faint 
 light crept into the room. He thought he saw her 
 stir and went nearer. 
 
 " Why, they've made you very gay this morning," 
 he laughed, "with the red ribbons at your neck." 
 
 There was no answer. He came still nearer. The 
 red ribbons were long streamers of blood. She was 
 dead. 
 
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VIII. 
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR SELF-CONTROL. 
 
 He left her at Asheville as she wished — " where I 
 have been happiest and where I wish you to think of 
 me." On the train coming north he reviewed his 
 past and made his plans for the future. 
 
 As to the past he had only one regret — that he had 
 not learned to appreciate Alice until too late. He felt 
 that his failure to advance had been due entirely to 
 himself — to his inertia, his willingness to seize any pre- 
 text for refraining from action. As to the, future — 
 work, work with a purpose. His mind must be fully 
 and actively occupied. There must be no leisure, for 
 leisure meant paralysis. 
 
 At the Twenty-third Street ferry-house he got into 
 a hansom and gave the address of " the flat." He did 
 not note where he was until the hansom drew up at 
 the curb. He leaned forward and looked at the house 
 — at their windows with the curtains which she had 
 draped so gracefully, which she and he had selected 
 at Vantine's one morning. How ofterf|^he had seen 
 her standing between those curtains, looking out for 
 
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A STRUGGLE FOR SELF-CONTROL. 83 
 
 him, her blue-black hair waving back from her fore- 
 head so beautifully and her face ready to smile so 
 soon as ever she should catch sight of him. 
 
 He leaned back and closed his eyes. The blood 
 was pounding through his temples and his eyeballs 
 seemed to be scalding under the lids. 
 
 " Never again," he moaned. " How lonely it is." 
 
 The cabman lifted the trap. " Here we are, sir." 
 
 " Yes — in a moment." Where should he go ? But 
 what did it matter? "To a hotel," he said. "The 
 nearest." 
 
 " The Imperial ? " 
 
 " That will do — ^yes — go there." 
 
 He resolved never to return to " the flat." On the 
 following day he sent for the maid and arranged the 
 breaking up. He gave her everything except his 
 personal belongings and a few of Alice's few posses- 
 sions — those he could keep, and those which he must 
 destroy because he could not endure the thought of 
 any one having them. 
 
 At the office all understood his mourning; Jjut no 
 one, not even Kittredge, knew him well enough to 
 intrude beyond gentler looks and tones. Kittredge 
 had written a successful novel and was going abroad 
 for two years of travel and writing. Howard took his 
 rooms in the Royalton. They dined together a few 
 nights before he sailed. 
 
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84 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " And now," said Kittredge, " I'm my own master. 
 Why, I can't begin to fill the request for ' stuff.' I 
 can go where I please, do as I please. At last I shall 
 work. For I don't call the drudgery done under com- 
 pulsion work." 
 
 " Work ! " Howard repeated the word several times 
 absently. Then he leaned forward and said with what 
 was for him an approach to the confidential : " What 
 a mess I have been making of my life ! What waste ! 
 What folly ! I've behaved like a child, an impulsive, 
 irresponsible child. And now I must get to work, 
 really to work." 
 
 " With your talents a year or so of work would free 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, I'm free." Howard hesitated and flushed. 
 "Yes, I'm free," he repeated bitterly. "We are all 
 free except for the shackles we fasten upon ourselves 
 and can unlock for ourselves. I don't agree with you 
 that earning one's daily bread is drudgery." 
 
 "Well, let's see you work — work for something defi- 
 nite. Why don't you try for some higher place on 
 the paper — correspondent at Washington or London 
 — no, not London, for that is a lounging job which 
 would ruin even an energetic man. Why not try for 
 the editorial staff? They ought to have somebody 
 upstairs who takes an interest in something besides 
 politics." 
 
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A STRUGGLE FOR SELF-CONTROL, 85 
 
 " But doesn't a man have to write what he doesn't 
 believe ? You know how Segur is always laughing at 
 the protection editorials he writes, although he is a 
 free-trader." 
 
 " Oh, there must be many directions in which the 
 paper is free to express honest opinions." 
 
 Howard began that very night. As soon as he 
 reached his club where he was living for a few days he 
 sat down to the file of the News-Record and began to 
 study its editorial style and method. He had learned 
 a great deal before three o'clock in the morning and 
 had written a short editorial on a subject he took 
 from the news. In the morning he read his article 
 again and decided that with a few changes — adjectives 
 cut out, long sentences cut up, short sentences made 
 shorter and the introduction and the conclusion omit- 
 ted — it would be worth handing in. With the cor- 
 rected article in his hand he knocked at the door of 
 the editor's room. 
 
 It was a small, plainly furnished office — no carpet, 
 three severe chairs, a revolving book case with a bat- 
 tered and dusty bust of Lincoln on it, a table strewn 
 with newspaper cuttings. Newspapers from all parts 
 of the world were scattered about the floor. At the 
 table sat the editor, Mr. Malcolm, whom Howard had 
 never before seen. 
 
 He was short and slender, with thin white hair and 
 
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86 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 a smooth, satirical face, deeply wrinkled and un- 
 healthily pale. He was dressed in black but wore a 
 string tie of a peculiarly lively shade of red. His 
 most conspicuous feature was his nose — long, narrow, 
 pointed, sarcastic. 
 
 " My name is Howard," began the candidate, all but 
 stammering before Mr. Malcolm's politely uninterested 
 glance, " and I come from downstairs." 
 
 " Oh — so you are Mr. Howard. I've heard of you 
 often. Will you be seated ? " 
 
 " Thank you — no. I've only brought in a little article 
 I thought I'd submit for your page. I'd like to write 
 for it and, if you don't mind, I'll bring in an article 
 occasionally." 
 
 " Glad to have it. We like new ideas ; and a new 
 pen, a new mind, ought to produce them. If you 
 don't see your articles in the paper, you'll know what 
 has happened to them. If you do, paste them on space 
 slips and send them up by the boy on Thursdays." 
 Mr. Malcolm nodded and smiled and dipped his pen 
 in the ink-well. 
 
 The editorial appeared just as Howard wrote it. He 
 read and reread it, admiring the large, handsome 
 editorial type in which it was printed, and deciding 
 that it was worthy of the excellent place in the 
 column which Mr. Malcolm had given it. He wrote 
 another that very day ancf sent it up by the boy. He 
 
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A STRUGGLE FOR SELF-CONTROL. 87 
 
 found it in his desk the next noon with " Too ab- 
 stract — never forget that you are writing for a news- 
 paper " scrawled across the last page in blue pencil. 
 
 In the two following months Howard submitted 
 thirty-five articles. Three were published in the main 
 as he wrote them, six were " cut " to paragraphs, one 
 appeared as a letter to the editor with " H " signed to 
 it. The others disappeared. It was not encouraging, 
 but Howard kept on. He knew that if he stopped 
 marching steadily, even though hopelessly, toward a 
 definite goal, a heavy hand would be laid upon his 
 shoulder to drag him away and fling him down upon 
 a grave. 
 
 As it was, desperately though he fought to refrain 
 from backward glances, he was now and again taken 
 off his guard. A few of her pencil marks on the margin 
 of a leaf in one of his books ; a gesture, a little 
 mannerism of some woman passing him in the street — 
 and he would be ready to sink down with weariness 
 and loneliness, like a tired traveller in a vast desert. 
 
 He completely lost self-control only once. It was 
 a cold, wet May night and everything had gone against 
 him that day. He looked drearily round his rooms 
 as he came in. How stiff, how forbidding, how des- 
 ert they seemed ! He threw himself into a big chair. 
 
 " No friends," he thought, " no one that cares a rap 
 whether I live or die, suffer or am happy. Nothing to 
 
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88 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS, 
 
 care for. Why do I go on ? What's the use if one 
 has not an object — a human object?" 
 
 And their Hfe together came flooding back — her 
 eyes, her kisses, her attentions, her passionate love for 
 him, so pervasive yet so unobtrusive ; the feeling of 
 her smooth, round arm about his neck ; her way of 
 pressing close up' to him and locking her fingers in his ; 
 the music of her voice, singing her heartsong to him 
 yet never putting it into words 
 
 He stumbled over to the divan and stretched himself 
 out and buried his face in the cushions. " Come back ! " 
 he sobbed. " Come back to me, dear." And then he 
 cried, as a man cries — without tears, with sobs choking 
 up into his throat and issuing in moans. 
 
 " Curious," he said aloud when the storm was over 
 and he was sitting up, ashamed before himself for his 
 weakness, " who would have suspected me of this ? " 
 
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IX. 
 
 AMBITION AWAKENS. 
 
 Howard was now thirty-two. He was still trying 
 for the editorial staff; but in the last month only five 
 of his articles had been printed to twenty-three 
 thrown away. A national campaign was coming on 
 and the News-Record was taking a political stand that 
 seemed to him sound and right. For the first time he 
 tried political editorials. 
 
 The cause aroused his passion for justice, for demo- 
 cratic equality and the abolition of privilege. He had 
 something to say and he succeeded in saying it 
 vigorously, effectively, with clearness and modera- 
 tion of statement. How to avoid hysteria ; how to set 
 others on fire instead of only making of himself a fiery 
 spectacle ; how to be earnest, yet calm ; how to be 
 satirical yet sincere ; how to be interesting, yet direct 
 — these were his objects, pursued with incessant toil- 
 ing, rewriting again and again, recasting of sentences, 
 careful balancing of words for exact shades of meaning. 
 
 " I shall never learn to write," had been his complaint 
 of himself to himself for years. And in these days it 
 
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90 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 seemed to him that he was farther from a good style 
 than ever. His standards had risen, were rising; he 
 feared that his power of accomplishment was failing. 
 Therefore his heart sank and his face paled when an 
 ofifice boy told him that Mr. Malcolm wished to see him. 
 
 " I suppose it's to tell me not to annoy him with 
 any more of my attempts," he thought. " Well, any- 
 way, I've had the benefit of the work. I'll try a novel 
 next." 
 
 " Take a seat," said Mr. Malcolm with an absent 
 nod. " Just a moment, if you please." 
 
 On a chair beside him was the remnant of what had 
 been a huge up-piling of newspapers — the exchanges 
 that had come in during the past twenty-four hours. 
 The Exchange Editor had been through them and 
 Mr. Malcolm was reading " to feel the pulse of the 
 country " and also to make sure that nothing of 
 importance had been overlooked. 
 
 On the floor were newspapers by the score, thrown 
 about tumultuously. Mr. Malcolm would seize a paper 
 from the unread heap, whirl it open and send his 
 glance and his long pointed nose tearing down one 
 column and up another, and so from page to. page. It 
 took less than a minute for him to finish and fling 
 away great sixteen page dailies, A few seconds suf- 
 ficed for the smaller papers. Occasionally he took his 
 long shears and with a skilful twist cut out a piece 
 
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AMBITION AWAKENS. 91 
 
 from the middle of a page and laid it and the shears 
 upon the table with a single motion. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Howard." Malcolm sent the last paper 
 to increase the chaos on the floor and faced about in 
 his revolving chair. " How would you like to come up 
 here?" 
 
 Howard looked at him in amazement. " You 
 
 mean 
 
 " We want you to join the editorial staff. Mr. 
 Walker has married him a rich wife and is going 
 abroad to do literary work, which means that he is 
 going to do nothing. Will you come ? " 
 
 " It is what I have been working for." 
 
 " And very hard you have worked." Mr. Malcolm's 
 cold face relaxed into a half-friendly, half-satirical 
 smile. " After you'd been sending up articles for a 
 fortnight, I knew you'd make it. You went about it 
 systematically. An intelligent plan, persisted in, is 
 hard to beat in this world of laggards and hap-hazard 
 strugglers." 
 
 " And I was on the point of giving up — that is, giving 
 up this particular ambition," Howard confessed. 
 
 " Yes, I saw it in your articles — a certain pessimism 
 and despondency. You show your feelings plainly, 
 young man. It is an excellent quality — but dangerous. 
 A man ought to make his mind a machine working 
 evenly without regard to his feelings or physical con- 
 
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92 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 dition. The night my oldest child died — I was editor 
 of a country newspaper — I wrote my leaders as 
 usual. I never had written better. You can be 
 absolute master inside, if you will. You can learn 
 to use your feelings when they're helpful and to shut 
 them off when they hinder." 
 
 " But don't you think that temperament " 
 
 " Temperament — that's one of the subtlest forms of 
 self-excuse. However, the place is yours. The 
 salary is a hundred and twenty-five a week — an 
 advance of about twelve hundred a year, I believe, 
 on your average downstairs. Can you begin soon ? " 
 
 " Immediately," said Howard, " if the City Editor is 
 satisfied." 
 
 An office boy showed him to his room — a mere 
 hole-in-the-wall with just space for a table-desk, a 
 small table, a case of shelves for books of reference, 
 and two chairs. The one window overlooked the 
 lower end of Manhattan Island — the forest of business 
 buildings peaked with the Titan-tenements of fi- 
 nancial New York. Their big, white plumes of smoke 
 and steam were waving in the wind and reflecting 
 in pale pink the crimson of the setting sun. 
 
 Howard had his first taste of the intoxication of 
 triumph, his first deep inspiration of ambition. He 
 recalled his arrival in New York, his timidity', his 
 dread lest he should be unable to make a living — 
 
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AMBITION AWAKENS. 93 
 
 " Poor boy," they used to say at home, " he will have 
 to be supported. He is too mUch of a dreamer." 
 He remembered his explorations of those now familiar 
 streets — how acutely conscious he had been that they 
 were paved with stone, walled with stone, roofed with 
 a stony sky, peopled with faces and hearts of stone. 
 How miserably insignificant he had felt ! 
 
 And all these years he had been almost content to 
 be one of the crowd, like them exerting himself 
 barely enough to provide himself with the essentials 
 of existence. Like them, he had given no real 
 thought to the morrow. And now, with comparatively 
 little labour, he had put himself in the way to become 
 a master, a director of the enormous concentrated 
 energies summed up in the magic word New York. 
 
 The key to the situation was — work, incessant, self- 
 improving, self-developing. " And it is the key to 
 happiness also," he thought. " Work and sleep — the 
 two periods of unconsciousness of self — are the two 
 periods of happiness." 
 
 His aloofness freed him from the temptations of 
 distraction. He knew no women. He did not put 
 himsel-f in the way of meeting them. He kept away 
 from theatres. He sunk himself in a routine of labour 
 which, viewed from the outside, seemed dull and 
 monotonous. Viewed from his stand-point of ac- 
 quisition, of achievement, it was just the reverse. 
 
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94 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 The mind soon adapts itself to and enjoys any mental 
 routine which exercises it. The only difficulty is in 
 forming the habit of the routine. 
 
 Howard was greatly helped by his natural bent 
 toward editorial writing. The idea of discussing im- 
 portant questions each day with a vast multitude as an 
 audience stirred his imagination and aroused his in- 
 stincts for helping on the great world-task of elevating 
 the race. This enthusiasm pleased and also amused 
 his cynical chief. 
 
 " You believe in things ? " Malcolm said to him 
 after they had become well acquainted. " Well, it is 
 an admirable quality — but dangerous. You will need 
 careful editing. Your best plan is to give yourself up 
 to your belief while you are writing — then to edit 
 yourself in cold blood. That is the secret of success, 
 of great success in any line, business, politics, a 
 profession — enthusiasm, carefully revised and edited." 
 
 " It is difficult to be cold blooded when one is in 
 earnest." 
 
 " True," Malcolm answered, " and there is the 
 danger. My own enthusiasms are confined to the im- 
 portant things — food, clothing and shelter. It seems 
 to me that the rest is largely a matter of taste, training 
 and time of life. But don't let me discourage you. I 
 only suggest that you may have to guard against 
 believing so intensely that you produce the impression 
 
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AMBITION AWAKENS. 95 
 
 of being an impracticable, a fanatic. Be cautious 
 always ; be especially cautious when you are cocksure 
 you're right. Unadulterated truth always arouses 
 suspicion in the unaccustomed public. It has the 
 alarming tastelessness of distilled water." 
 
 Howard was acute enough to separate the wisdom 
 from the cynicism of his chief. He saw the lesson of 
 moderation. " You have failed, my very able chief," 
 he said to himself, " because you have never believed 
 intensely enough to move you to act. You have 
 attached too much importance to the adulteration — 
 the folly and the humbug. And here you are, still 
 only a critic, destructive but never constructive." 
 
 At first his associates were much amused by his 
 intensity. But as he learned to temper and train his 
 enthusiasm they grew to respect both his ability and 
 his character. Before a year had passed they were 
 feeling the influence of his force — his trained, in- 
 formed mind, made vigorous by principles and ideals. 
 
 Malcolm had the keen appreciation of a broad mind 
 for this honest, intelligent energy. He used the 
 editorial " blue-pencil " for alteration and condensation 
 with the hand of a master. He cut away Howard's 
 crudities, toned down and so increased his intensity, 
 and pointed it with the irony and satire necessary to 
 make it carry far and penetrate easily. 
 
 Malcolm was at once giving Howard a reputation 
 
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96 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 greater than he deserved and training him to deserve 
 it. 
 
 ********* 
 
 In the office next to Howard's sat Segur, a bachelor 
 of forty-five who took life as a good-humoured jest 
 and amused his leisure with the New Yorkers who 
 devote a life of idleness to a nervous flight from bore- 
 dom. Howard interested Segur who resolved to try 
 to draw him out of- his seclusion. 
 
 " I'm having some people to dinner at the Waldorf 
 on Thursday," he said, looking in at the door. 
 " Won't you join us ? " 
 
 " I'd be glad to," replied Howard, casting about 
 for an excuse for declining. " But I'm afraid I'd ruin 
 you«<dinner. I haven't been out for years. I've been 
 too bu^y to make friends or, rather, acquaintances." 
 
 "A great mistake. You ought to see more of 
 people." 
 
 " Why ? Can they tell me anything that I can't 
 learn from newspapers or books more accurately and 
 without wasting so much time ? I'd like to know 
 the interesting people and to see them in their 
 interesting moments. But I can't afford to hunt for 
 them through the wilderness of nonentities and wait 
 for them to become interesting." 
 
 " But you get amusement, relaxation. Then too, 
 it's first-hand study of life." 
 
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AMBITION AWAKENS. 97 
 
 " I'm not sure of that. Yawning is not a very 
 attractive kind of relaxation, is it ? And as for study 
 of life, eight years of reporting gave me more of that 
 than I could assimilate. And it was study of realities, 
 not of pretenses. As I remember them, ' respectable ' 
 people are all about the same, whether in their vices 
 or in their virtues. They are cut from a few familiar, 
 ' old reliable ' patterns. No, I don't think there is 
 much to be learned from respectability on dress 
 parade." 
 
 " You'll be amused on Thursday. You must come. 
 I'm counting on you." 
 
 Howard accepted — cordially as he could not refuse 
 decently. Yet he had a presentiment or a shyness or 
 an impatience at the interruption of his routine which 
 reproached him for accepting with insistence and 
 persistence. 
 
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X. 
 
 THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 
 
 It was the first week in November, and in those days 
 " everybody " did not stay in the country so late as 
 now. There were many New Yorkers in the crowd 
 of out-of-town people at the Waldorf. Howard was 
 attracted, fascinated by the scene — carefully-groomed 
 men and women, the air of gaiety and ease, the flowers, 
 the music, the lights, the perfumes. At a glance it 
 seemed a dream of life with evil and sorrow and pain 
 banished. 
 
 " No place for a working man," thought he, " at 
 least not for my kind of a working man. It appeals 
 too sharply to the instincts for laziness and luxury." 
 
 He was late and stood in the entrance to the palm- 
 garden, looking about for Segur. Soon he saw him 
 waving from a table near the wall under the music- 
 alcove. 
 
 " The oysters are just coming," said Segur. " Sit 
 over there between Mrs. Carnarvon and Miss Trevor. 
 They are cousins, Howard, so be cautious what you say 
 to one about the other. Oh, here is Mr. Berersford." 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 9; 
 
 The others knew each other well ; Howard knew 
 them only as he had seen their names in the " fash- 
 ionable intelligence " columns of the newspapers. 
 Mrs. Carnarvon was a small thin woman in a black 
 velvet gown which made her thinness obtrusive and 
 attractive or the reverse according as one's taste is 
 toward or away from attenuation. Her eyes were 
 a dull, greenish grey, her skin brown and smooth and 
 tough from much exposure in the hunting field. Her 
 cheeks were beginning to hang slightly, so that one 
 said : " She is pretty, but she will soon not be." Her 
 mouth proclaimed strong appetites — not unpleas- 
 antly since she was good-looking. 
 
 Miss Trevor was perhaps ten years younger than 
 her cousin, not far from twenty-four. She had a criti- 
 cal, almost amused yet not unpleasant way of looking 
 out of unusually clear blue-green eyes. Her hair was 
 of an ordinary shade of dark brown, but fine and thick 
 and admirably arranged to set off her long, sensitive, 
 high bred features. Her chin and mouth expressed 
 decision and strong emotions. 
 
 There was a vacant chair between Segur and Berers- 
 ford and it was presently filled by a fat, middle-aged 
 woman, neither blonde nor brunette, with a large, 
 serene face. Upon it was written a frank confession 
 that she had never in her life had an original thought 
 capable of creating a ripple of interest. She was 
 
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loo THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Mrs. Sidney, rich, of an " old " family —in the New 
 York meaning of the word " old " — both by marriage 
 and by birth, much courted because of her position and 
 because she entertained a great deal both in town and 
 at a large and hospitable country house. 
 
 The conversation was lively and amused, or seemed 
 to amuse, all. It was purely personal — about Kittie 
 and Nellie and Jim and Peggie and Amy and Bob; 
 about the sayings and doings of a few dozen people 
 who constituted the intimates of these five persons. 
 
 Mrs. Carnarvon turned to the silent Howard at last 
 and began about the weather. 
 
 " Horrible in the city, isn't it ?" 
 
 " Well, perhaps it is," replied Howard. " But I 
 fancied it delightful. You see I have not lived any- 
 where but New York for so long that I am hardly 
 capable to judge." 
 
 " Why everybody says we have the worst climate in 
 the world." 
 
 " Far be it from me to contradict everybody. But 
 for me New York has the ideal climate. Isn't it the 
 best of any great city in the world ? You see, we have 
 the air of the sea in our streets. And when the sun 
 shines, which it does more days in the year than in any 
 other great city, the effect is like champagne — or 
 rather, like the effect champagne looks as if it ought 
 to have." 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. loi 
 
 " I hate champagne," said Mrs. Carnarvon. " Marian, 
 you must not drink it; you know you mustn't." 
 This to Miss Trevor who was lifting the glass to 
 her lips. She drank a little of the champagne, then 
 set the glass down slowly. 
 
 " What you said made me want to drink it," she 
 said to Howard. " I was glad to hear your lecture on 
 the weather. I had never thought of it before, but 
 New York really has a fine climate. And only this 
 afternoon I let that stupid Englishman — Plymouth — 
 you've met him ? No ? — Well, at any rate, he was de- 
 nouncing our climate and for the moment I forgot 
 about London." 
 
 " Frightful there, isn't it, after October and until 
 May ? " 
 
 "Yes, and the air is usually stale even in the late 
 spring. When it's warm, it's sticky. And when it's 
 cold, it's raw." 
 
 " You are a New Yorker ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Trevor faintly, and for an instant 
 ; showing surprise at his ignorance. " That is, I spend 
 part of the winter here — like all New Yorkers." 
 
 "All?" 
 
 " Oh, all except those who don't count, or rather, 
 who merely count." 
 
 "How do you mean?" Howard was taking ad- 
 vantage of her looking into her plate to smile with a 
 
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102 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 suggestion of irony. She happened to glance up and 
 so caught him. 
 
 " Oh," she said, smiling with frank irony at him, 
 " I mean all those people — the masses, I think they're 
 called — the people who have to be fussed over and 
 reformed and who keep shops and — and all that." 
 
 " The people who work, you mean ? " 
 
 " No, I mean the people you never meet about any- 
 where, the people who read the newspapers and come 
 to the basement door." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I understand." Howard was laughing. 
 "Well, that's one way of looking at life. Of course 
 it's not my way." 
 
 " What is your way ? " 
 
 " Why, being one of those who count only in the 
 census, I naturally take a view rather different from 
 yours. Now I should say that your people don't 
 count. You see, I am most deeply interested in people 
 who read newspapers." 
 
 "Oh, you write for the papers, like Jim Segur? 
 What do you write ? " 
 
 " What they call editorials." 
 
 "You are an editor?" 
 
 " Yes and no. I am one of the editors who does not 
 edit but is edited." 
 
 " It must be interesting," said Miss Trevor, vaguely. 
 
 " More interesting than you imagine. But then 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 103 
 
 all work is that. In fact work is the only permanently 
 interesting thing in life. The rest produces dissatis- 
 faction and regret." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not so very dissatisfied. Yet I don't work." 
 
 " Are you quite sure ? Think how hard you work 
 
 at being fittad for gowns, at going about to dinners 
 
 and balls and the like, at chasing foxes and anise seed 
 
 bags and golf balls." 
 
 " But that is not work. It is amusing myself." 
 " Yes, you think so. But you forget that you are 
 doing it in order that all these people who don't count 
 may read about it in the papers and so get a little 
 harmless relaxation." 
 
 " But we don't do it to get into the papers." 
 " Probably not. Neither did this — what is it here 
 in my plate, a lamb chop ? — this lamb gambol about 
 and keep itself in condition to form a course at 
 Segur's dinner. But after all, wasn't that what it was 
 really for ? Then think how many people you support 
 by your work." 
 
 " You make me feel like a day-labourer." 
 " Oh, you're a much harder worker than any day 
 labourer. And the saddest part of it to me is that 
 you work altogether for others. You give, give and 
 get in return nothing but a few flattering glances, a 
 few careless pats on the back of your vanity. I 
 should hate to work so hard for so little." 
 
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I04 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 "But what would you do?" Miss Trevor was 
 looking at him, interested and amused. 
 
 " Well, I'd work for myself. I'd insist on a return, 
 on getting back something equivalent or near it. I'd 
 insist on having my mind improved, or having my 
 power or my reputation advanced." 
 
 " I was only jesting when I said that about people 
 not counting." 
 
 " Altogether ? " 
 
 " No, not altogether. I don't care much about the 
 masses. They seem to me to be underbred, of a dif- 
 ferent sort. I hate doing things that are useful and I 
 hate people that do useful things — in a general way, I 
 mean." 
 
 "That is doubtless due to defective education," 
 said Howard, with a smile that carried off the thrust 
 as a jest. 
 
 " Is that the way you'd describe a horror of con- 
 tact with — well, with unpleasant things ? " Miss 
 Trevor was serious. 
 
 " But is it that ? Isn't it just an unconscious affec- 
 tation, taken up simply because all the people about 
 you think that way — if one can call the process 
 thinking? You don't think, do you, that it is a sign 
 of superiority to be narrow, to be ignorant, to be out 
 of touch with the great masses of one's fellow-beings, 
 to play the part of a harlequin or a ballet-girl on the 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 105 
 
 stage of life ? I understand how a stupid ass can 
 flitter away his one chance to live in saying and 
 hearing and doing silly things. But ought not an 
 intelligent person try to enjoy life, try to get some- 
 thing substantial out of it, try to possess himself of 
 its ideas and emotions ? Why should one play the 
 fool simply because those about one are incapable of 
 playing any other part ? " 
 
 " I'm surprised that you are here to-night. Still, I 
 suppose you'll give yourself absolution on the plea 
 that one must dine somewhere." 
 
 " But I'm not wasting my time. I'm learning. I'm 
 observing a phase of life. And I'm seeing the latest 
 styles in women's gowns and " 
 
 " Is that important — styles, I mean ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose that my kind of people, the work- 
 ing classes, would spend so much time and thought 
 in making anything that was not important ? There 
 is nothing more important." 
 
 " Then you don't think we women are wasting time 
 ^when we talk about dress so much ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, it is an evidence of your superior 
 sagacity. Women talk trade, ' shop,' as soon as they 
 get away from the men. They talk men and dress — 
 fish and nets." 
 
 Berersford heard the word fish and interrupted. 
 
 " Do you go South next month, Marian ? " 
 
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io6 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Yes — about the fifteenth." Miss Trevor explained 
 to Howard : " Bobby — Mr. Berersford here — always 
 fishes in Florida in January." 
 
 The conversation again became general and per- 
 sonal. Howard knew none of the people of whom 
 they were talking and all that they said was of the 
 nature of gossip. But they talked in a sparkling way, 
 using good English, speaking in agreeable voices with 
 a correct accent, and indulging in a great deal of 
 malicious humour. 
 
 As they separated Mrs. Sidney, to whom Howard 
 had not spoken during the evening, said to Segur: 
 " You must bring Mr. Howard on Sunday afternoon." 
 
 " Will you drop Marian at the house for me ? " 
 Mrs. Carnarvon asked her. " I want to go on to 
 Edith's." 
 
 Segur went with Mrs. Sidney and Marian to 
 their carriage. "Who is Mr. Howard?" Mrs. Sidney 
 said, and Miss Trevor drew nearer to hear the answer. 
 
 " One of the editorial writers down on the paper 
 and a very clever one — none better. He works hard 
 and is desperately serious and a regular hermit." 
 
 " I think he's very handsome — don't you, Marian ? " 
 
 " I found him interesting," said Miss Trevor. 
 
 Howard thought a great deal about Miss Trevor 
 that night, and she was still in his head the next day. 
 " This comes of never seeing women," he said to him- 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 107 
 
 self. " The first girl I meet seems the most beauti- 
 ful I ever saw, and the most intellectual. And, when 
 I think it over, what did she say that was startling ? " 
 
 Nevertheless he went with Segur the next Sunday 
 to Mrs. Sidney's great house in the upper Avenue 
 overlooking the Park. 
 
 " Why do I come here ? " he asked himself. " It is 
 a sheer waste of time. Mrs. Sidney can do me no 
 good, or I her. It must be the hope of seeing Miss 
 Trevor." 
 
 When the gaudy and be-powdered flunkey held 
 back the heavy curtains of the salon to announce him 
 and Segur, he saw Miss Trevor on a low chair absently 
 staring into the fire. Yet when he had spoken to 
 Mrs. Sidney and turned toward her she at once 
 stretched out her hand with a slight smile. Some 
 others came in and Howard was free to talk to her. 
 He sat looking at her steadily, admiring her almost 
 perfect profile, delicate yet strong. 
 
 "And what have you been doing since I saw you?" 
 Miss Trevor asked. 
 
 " Writing little pieces about politics for the paper," 
 replied Howard. 
 
 " Politics? I detest it. It is all stealing and calling 
 names, isn't it ? And something dreadful is always 
 going to happen if somebody or other isn't elected, 
 or is elected, to something or other. And then, whether 
 
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io8 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 he is or not, nothing happens. I should think the men 
 who have been so excited and angry and alarmed 
 would feel very cheap. But they don't. And the next 
 time they carry on in just the same ridiculous way." 
 
 " Politics is like everything else — interesting if you 
 understand what it is all about. But like everything 
 else, you can't understand it without a little study at 
 first. It's a pity women don't take an interest. If 
 they did the men might become more reasonable and 
 sane about it than they are now. But you — what 
 have you been doing ? " 
 
 " I — oh, industriously superintending the making of 
 my new nets." Marian laughed and Howard was 
 flattered. "And also, well, riding in the Park every 
 morning. But I never do anything interesting. I 
 simply drift." 
 
 " That's so much simpler and more satisfactory than 
 threshing and splashing about as I do. It seems so 
 fussy and foolish and futile. I wish — that is, some- 
 times I wish — that I had learned to amuse myself in 
 some less violent and exhausting way." 
 
 " Marian — I say, Marian," called Mrs. Sidney. " Has 
 Teddy come down ? " 
 
 Miss Trevor coloured slightly as she answered : " No, 
 he comes a week Wednesday. He's still hunting." 
 
 "Hunting," Howard repeated when Mrs. Sidney was 
 again busy with the others. " Now there is a kind of 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 109 
 
 work that never bothers a man's brains or sets him to 
 worrying. I wish I knew how to amuse myself in 
 some such way." 
 
 " You should go about more." 
 
 " Go— where ? " 
 
 " To see people." 
 
 " But I do see a great many people. I'm always 
 seeing them — all day long." 
 
 "Yes — but that is in a serious way. I mean go 
 where you will be amused — to dinners for instance." 
 
 '' I don't dare. I can't work at work ajid also work 
 at play. I must work at one or the other all the time. 
 I can do nothing without a definite object. I can't be 
 just a little interested in anything or anybody. With 
 me it is no interest at all or else absorption until 
 interest is exhausted." 
 
 "Then if you were interested in a woman, let us say, 
 you'd be absorbed until you found out all there was, 
 and then you'd — take to your heels." 
 
 " But she might always be new. She might interest 
 me more and more. Anyhow I fancy that she would 
 weary of me long before I wearied of her. I think 
 women usually weary first. Men are very monotonous. 
 We are as vain as women, if not vainer, without 
 their capacity for concealing it. And vanity makes 
 one think he does not need to exert himself to 
 please." 
 
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no THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " But why do people usually say that it is the men 
 that are difficult to hold ? ' 
 
 " Because the men hold the women, not through the 
 kind of interest we are talking about, but through 
 another kind — quite different. Women are so lazy 
 and so dependent — dependent upon men for homes, 
 for money, for escort even." 
 
 Miss Trevor was flushing, as if the fire were too hot — 
 at least she moved a little farther away from it. " Your 
 ideal woman would be a shop-girl, I should say from 
 what you've told me," 
 
 -1 " Perhaps — in the abstract. I really do think that if 
 I were going to marry, I should look about for a 
 working-girl, a girl that supported herself. How can 
 a man be certain of the love of a woman who is 
 dependent upon him ? I should be afraid she was only 
 tolerating me as a labour-saving device." 
 
 Miss Trevor laughed. " There certainly is no vanity 
 in that remark," she said. " Now I can't imagine 
 most of the men I know thinking that." 
 
 " It's only theory with me. In practice doubtless I 
 should be as self-complacent as any other man." 
 
 They left Mrs. Sidney's together and Howard walked 
 down the Avenue with her. It seemed a wonder- 
 ful afternoon — the air dazzling, intoxicating. He was 
 filled with the joy of living and was glad this particu- 
 lar tall, slender, distinguished-looking girl was there to 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. in 
 
 make his enjoyment perfect. They were gay with 
 the delight of being young and in health and attrac- 
 tive physically and mentally each to the other. 
 They looked each at the other a great deal, and more 
 and more frankly. 
 
 " Am I never to see you again ? " he asked as he 
 rang the bell for her. 
 
 " I believe Mrs. Carnarvon is going to invite you to 
 dine here Thursday night." 
 
 " Thank you," said Howard. 
 
 Miss Trevor coloured. But she met his glance 
 boldly and laughed. Howard wondered why her 
 laugh was defiant, almost reckless. 
 
 ********* 
 
 He saw Segur at the club after dinner that same 
 night. " And how do you like Miss Trevor? " Segur 
 began as the whiskey and carbonic were set before 
 them. 
 
 " A very attractive girl," said Howard. 
 
 " Yes — so a good many men have thought in the 
 last five years. She's marrying Teddy Danvers in the 
 spring, I believe. At any rate it's generally looked 
 on as settled. Teddy's a good deal of a' chump.' But 
 he's a decent fellow — good-looking, good-natured, 
 domestic in his tastes, and nothing but money." 
 
 Howard was smiling to himself. He understood 
 Miss Trevor's sudden consciousness of the nearnesft^f 
 
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112 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 the fire, her flush when Mrs. Sidney asked about 
 " Teddy," and the recklessness in her parting laugh. 
 
 " Well, Teddy's in luck," he said aloud. 
 
 " Not so sure of that. She's quite capable of lead- 
 ing him a dance if he bores her. And bore her he 
 will. But that is nothing new. This town is full of it." 
 
 "Full of what?" 
 
 " Of weary women — weary wives. The men are 
 hobby-riders. They have just one interest and that 
 usually small and dull — stocks or iron or real estate or 
 hunting or automobiles. Our women are not like the 
 English women — stupid, sodden. They are alive, 
 acute. They wish to be interested. Their husbands 
 bore them. So — well, what is the natural temptation 
 to a lazy woman in search of an interest ? " 
 
 " It's like Paris— like Frarice ? " 
 
 " Yes, something. Except that perhaps our women 
 are more sentimental, not fond of intrigue for its own 
 sake — at least, not as a rule." 
 
 " Doesn't interest them deeply enough, I suppose. 
 It's the American blood coming out — the passion for 
 achievement. They want a man of whom they can 
 be proud, a man who is doing something interesting 
 and doing it well." 
 
 " I doubt that," replied Segur shrugging his shoul- 
 ders. " When a woman loves a man, she wants to 
 absorb him." 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 113 
 
 Howard soon went away to his rooms for a long 
 evening of undisturbed thought about Teddy Dan- 
 vers's fiancee — the first temptation that had entered 
 his loneliness since Alice died. 
 
 In the few weeks of her illness and the few months 
 immediately following her death, he had been at his 
 very best. He was able to see her as she was and to 
 appreciate her. ; He was living in the clear pure air of 
 the Valley of the Great Shadow where all things 
 appear in their true relations and true proportions. 
 But only there was it possible for the gap between 
 him and Alice to close — that gap of which she was 
 more acutely conscious than he, and which she made 
 wider far than it really was by being too humble with 
 him, too obviously on her knees before him. Such 
 superiority as she thought he possessed is not in 
 human nature ; but neither is it in human nature to 
 refuse worship, to refuse to pose upon a pedestal if the 
 opportunity presses. 
 
 In the three years between her death and his meet- 
 ing Marian, the eternal masculine had been secretly 
 gaining Strength to resume its pursuit of the eternal 
 feminine. And the eternal feminine was certainly 
 most alluringly personified in this beautiful, graceful 
 girl, at once appreciative and worthy of appreciation. 
 
 Perhaps she appealed most strongly to Howard in 
 her vivid suggestion of the open air — of health and 
 
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114 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 strength and nature. He had been leading a cloistered 
 existence and his blood had grown sluggish. She 
 gave him the sensation that a prisoner gets when he 
 catches a glimpse from his barred window of the fields 
 and the streams radiating the joy of life and free- 
 dom. And Marian was of his own kind — like the 
 women among whom he had been brought up. She 
 satisfied his idea of what a " lady " should be, but at the 
 same time she was none the less a woman to him — a 
 woman to love and to be loved ; to give him sympathy, 
 companionship ; to inspire him to overcome his weak- 
 nesses by striving to be worthy of her ; to bring into 
 his life that feminine charm without which a man's 
 life must be cold and cheerless. 
 
 He knew that he could not marry her, that he had 
 no right to make love to her, that it was unwise to go 
 near her again. But he had no power to resist the 
 temptation. And even in those days he had small re- 
 gard for the means when the end was one upon which 
 he had fixed his mind. " Why not take what I can 
 get ? " he thought, as he dreamed of her. " She's 
 engaged — her future practically settled. Yes, I'll be 
 as happy as she'll let me." And he resumed his 
 idealising. 
 
 At his time of life idealisation is still not a difficult 
 or a long process. And in this case there was an 
 ample physical basis for it — and far more of a mental 
 
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THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 115 
 
 basis than young imagination demands. He took the 
 draught she so frankly offered him ; he added a love 
 potion of his own concocting, and drank it off. 
 He was in love. 
 
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XL 
 
 TRESPASSING. 
 For the first time since he had been in newspaper 
 work, Howard came to the office the next day in a 
 long coat and a top hat. He left early and went for 
 a walk in the Avenue. But Miss Trevor was neither 
 driving nor walking. He repeated this excursion the 
 next afternoon with better success. At Fortieth 
 Street he saw her and her cousin half a block ahead 
 of him. He walked slowly and examined her. She 
 was satisfactory from the aigrette in her hat to her 
 heels — a long, narrow, graceful figure, dressed with 
 the expensive simplicity characteristic of the most 
 intelligent class of the women of New York and 
 Paris. She walked as if she were accustomed to walk- 
 ing. Mrs. Carnarvon had that slight hesitation, almost 
 stumble, which indicates the woman who usually 
 drives and never walks if she can avoid it. As they 
 paused at the crowded crossing of Forty-second Street 
 he joined them. When Mrs. Carnarvon found that 
 he was " just out for the air " she left them, to go 
 home — in Forty-seventh Street, a few doors east of 
 the Avenue. 
 
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TRESPASSING. li; 
 
 " Come back to tea with her," she said as she nod- 
 ded to Howard. 
 
 " We have at least an hour." Howard was looking 
 at Miss Trevor with his happiness dancing in his eyes. 
 " Why shouldn't we go to the Park ? " 
 
 " I believe it's not customary," objected Miss 
 Trevor in a tone that made the walk in the Park a 
 certainty. 
 
 " I'm glad to hear that. I don't care to do cus- 
 tomary things as a rule." 
 
 " I see that you don't." 
 
 " Do you say so because I show what I am think- 
 ing so plainly that you can't help seeing it — and 
 don't in the least mind ?" 
 
 " Why shouldn't you be glad to be alive and to be 
 seeing me this fine winter day ? " 
 
 " Why indeed ! " Howard looked at her from head 
 to foot and then into her eyes. 
 
 " We are not in the Park yet." Miss Trevor ac- 
 companied her hint with a laugh and added : " I feel 
 reckless to-day." 
 
 " You mean you forget that there is any to-mor- 
 row. T have shut out to-morrow ever since I saw 
 you." 
 
 "And yesterday?" She noted that he coloured 
 slightly, but continued to look at her, his eyes sad. 
 "But there is a to-morrow," she went on. 
 
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ii8 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Yes — my woric, my career is my to-morrow and 
 yours is " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "Your engagement, of course." 
 
 Miss Trevor flushed, but Howard was smiling and 
 she did not long resist the contagion. 
 
 " My to-morrow," he continued, " is far more 
 menacing than yours. Yours is just an ordinary, 
 every-day, cut-and-dried affair. Mine is full of doubts 
 and uncertainties with the chances for failure and dis- 
 appointment. If I can turn my back on my to-morrow, 
 surely you can waive yours for the moment ? " 
 
 " But why are you so certain that I wish to ? " 
 
 " Instinct. I could not be so happy as I am with 
 you if you were not content to have me here." 
 
 They spoke little until they were well within the 
 Park. There they turned down a by-path and took 
 the walk skirting the lower lake. Miss Trevor looked 
 at Howard with a puzzled expression. 
 
 " I never met any one like you," she said. " I have 
 always felt so sure of myself. You take me off my 
 feet. I feel as if I did not know where I was going 
 and — didn't much care. And that's the worst of it." 
 
 " No, the best of it. You are a star going com- 
 fortably through your universe in a fixed orbit. You 
 maintain your exact relations with your brother and 
 sister stars. You keep all your engagements, you 
 
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TRESPASSING. ii^ 
 
 never wobble in your path — everything exact, mathe- 
 matical. And up darts a wild-haired, impetuous comet, 
 a hurrying, bustling, irregular wanderer coming from 
 you don't know where, going you don't know whither. 
 We pass very near each to the other. The social 
 astronomers may or may not note a little variation 
 in your movement — a very little, and soon over. 
 They probably will not note the insignificant meteor 
 that darted close up to you — close enough to get his 
 poor face sadly scorched and his long hair cruelly 
 singed — and then hurried sadly away. And " 
 
 " And — what ? Isn't there any more to the story ? " 
 Marian's eyes were shining with a light which she was 
 conscious had never been there before. 
 
 "And — and " Howard stopped and faced her. 
 
 His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of his 
 overcoat. He looked at her in a way that made the 
 colour fly from her face and then leap back again. 
 "And — I love you." 
 
 " Oh " — Marian said, hiding her face in her white 
 muff. "Oh." 
 
 " I don't wish to touch you," he went on, " I just 
 wish to look at you — so tall, so straight, so — so alive, 
 and to love you and be happy." Then he laughed 
 and turned. " But you'll catch cold. Let us walk on." 
 
 " So you are trying to make a career ? " she asked 
 after a few minutes ' silence. 
 
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I20 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 *' Yes — trying — or, rather, I was. And shall again 
 when you have gone your way and I mine." 
 
 Marian was amazed at herself. Every tradition, 
 every instinct of her life was being trampled by this 
 unknown whom she had just met. And she was 
 assisting in the trampling. In fact it was difficult 
 for her to restrain herself from leading in the icon- 
 oclasm. She looked at him in wonder and delighted 
 terror. 
 
 " Why do you look at me in that way ? " he said, 
 turning his head suddenly. 
 
 " Because you are stronger than I — and I am afraid 
 —yet I— well— I like it." 
 
 " It is not I that is stronger than you, nor you that 
 are stronger than I. It is a third that is stronger than 
 both of us. I need not mention the gentleman's 
 name?" 
 
 " It is not necessary. But I'd like to hear you pro- 
 nounce it. At least I did a moment ago." 
 
 " I'll not risk repetition. I've been thinking of 
 what might have been." 
 
 " What ? " Marian laughed a little, rather satiri- 
 cally. " A commonplace engagement and a common- 
 place wedding and a commonplace honeymoon leading 
 into a land of commonplace disillusion and yawning 
 — or worse ? " 
 
 " Not unlikely. But since we're only dreaming 
 
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TRESPASSING. 121 
 
 why not dream more to our taste ? Now as I look at 
 your strong, clear, ambitious profile, I can dream of a 
 career made by two working as one, working cheerfully 
 day in and day out, fair and foul weather, working with 
 the certainty of success as the crown." 
 
 " But failure might come." 
 
 " It couldn't. We wouldn't work for fame or for 
 riches or for any outside thing. We would work to 
 make ourselves wiser and better and more worthy 
 each of the other and both of our great love." 
 
 Again they were walking in silence. 
 
 " I am so sad," Marian said at last. " But I am so 
 happy too. What has come over me ? But — you 
 will work on, won't you ? And you will accomplish 
 everything. Yes, I am sure you will." 
 
 " Oh, I'll work — in my own way. And I'll get a 
 good deal of what I want. But not everything. You 
 say you can't understand yourself. No more can I 
 understand myself. I thought my purpose fixed. I 
 knew that I had nothing to do with marrying and 
 giving in marriage, so I kept away from danger. And 
 here, as miraculously as if a thunderbolt had dropped 
 from this open winter sky, here is — you." 
 
 They were in the Avenue again — " the awakening," 
 Howard said as the flood of carriages rolled about 
 them. 
 
 " You will win," she repeated, when they were 
 
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122 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 almost at Forty-seventh Street. "You will be 
 famous." 
 
 " Probably not. The price for fame may be too 
 big." 
 
 " The price ? But you are willing to work ? " 
 
 " Work — yes. But not to lie, not to cheat, not to 
 exchange self-respect for self-contempt — at least, I 
 think, I hope not." 
 
 "But why should that be necessary? " 
 
 " It may not be if I am free — free to meet every 
 situation as it arises, with no responsibility for others 
 resting upon me in the decision. If I had a wife, how 
 could I be free ? I might be forced to sell myself — 
 not for fame but for a bare living. Suppose choice 
 between freedom with poverty and comfort with self- 
 contempt were put squarely at me, and I a married 
 man. She would decide, wouldn't she ?" 
 
 " Yes, and if she were the right sort of a woman, 
 decide instantly for self-respect." 
 
 " Of course — if I asked her. But do you imagine 
 that when a man loves a woman he lets her know?" 
 
 " It would be a crime not to let her know." 
 
 " It would be a greater crime to put her to the test 
 — if she were a woman brought up, say, as you have 
 been." 
 
 "How can you say that? How can you so over- 
 estimate the value of mere incidentals? " 
 
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TRESPASSING. 123 
 
 " How can I ? Because I have known poverty — 
 have known what it was to look want in the face. 
 Because I have seen women, brought up as you have 
 been, crawhng miserably about in the sloughs of 
 poverty. Because I have seen the weaknesses of 
 human nature and know that they exist in me — yes, 
 and in you, for all your standing there so strong and 
 arrogant and self-reliant. It is easy to talk of misery 
 when one does not understand it. It is easy to be the 
 martyr of an hour or a day. But to drag into a sordid 
 and squalid martyrdom the woman one loves — well, the 
 man does not live who would do it, if he knew what I 
 know, had seen what I have seen. No, love is a luxury 
 of the rich and the poor and the steady-going. It is 
 not for my kind, not for me." 
 
 They were pausing at Mrs. Carnarvon's door. 
 " I shall not come in this afternoon," he said. 
 " But to-morrow — if I don't come in to-day, don't 
 you think it will be all right for me to come 
 then?" 
 
 " I shall expect you," she said. 
 
 The talk of those who had come in for tea seemed 
 artificial and flat. She soon went up-stairs, eager to 
 be alone. Mechanically she went to her desk to write 
 her customary daily letter to Danvers. She looked 
 vacantly at the pen and paper, and then she remem- 
 bered why she was sitting there. 
 
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124 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " You are a traitor," she said to her reflection in the 
 mirror over the desk. " But you will pay for your 
 treason. Has not one a right to that for which she is 
 willing to pay ? " 
 
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XII. 
 
 MAKING THE MOST OF A MONTH. 
 
 To be sure of a woman a man must be confident 
 either of his own powers or of her absolute frankness 
 and honesty. It was self-assurance that made Edward 
 Danvers blindly confident of Marian. 
 
 His father, a man with none but selfish uses for his 
 fellow men, had given him a pains-taking training as a 
 vigilant guard for a great fortune. His favourite 
 maxim was, "Always look for motives." And he 
 once summed up his own character and idea of life by 
 saying : " I often wake at night and laugh as I think 
 how many men are lying awake in their beds, schem- 
 ing to get something out of me for nothing." 
 
 There could be but one result of such an education 
 by such an educator. Danvers was acutely suspicious, 
 saved from cynicism and misanthropy by his vanity 
 only. He was the familiar combination of credulity 
 and incredulity, now trusting not at all and again 
 trusting with an utter incapacity to judge. Had he 
 been far more attractive personally, he might still 
 have failed to find genuine affection. To be liked for 
 one's self alone or even chiefly is rarely the lot of any 
 human being who has a possession that is all but 
 
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126 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 universally coveted — wealth or position or pov/er or 
 beauty. 
 
 Danvers and Marian had known each the other from 
 childhood. And she perhaps came nearer to liking 
 him for himself than did any one else of his acquaint- 
 ance. She was used to his conceit, his selfishness, his 
 meanness and smallness in suspicion, his arrogance, 
 his narrow-mindedness. She knew his good qualities 
 — his kindness of heart, his shamed-face generosity, 
 his honesty, the strong if limited sense of justice which 
 made him a good employer and a good landlord. 
 They had much in common — the same companions, 
 the same idea of the agreeable and the proper, the 
 same passion for out-door life, especially for hunting. 
 He fell in love with her when she came back from two 
 years in England and France, and she thought that 
 she was in love with him. She undoubtedly was 
 fond of him, proud of his handsome, athletic look and 
 bearing, proud of his skill and daring in the hunting 
 field. 
 
 One day — it was in the autumn a year before How- 
 ard met her — they were " in at the death " together 
 after a run across a stiff country that included several 
 dangerous jumps. " You're the only one that can 
 keep up with me," he said, admiring her glowing face 
 and star-like eyes, her graceful, assured seat on a 
 hunter that no one else either cared or dared to ride. 
 
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MAKING THE MOST OF A MONTH. 127 
 
 "You mean you are the only one who can keep up 
 with me" she laughed, preparing for what his face 
 warned her was coming. 
 
 " No I don't; Marian dear. I mean that we ought 
 to go right on keeping up with each other. You 
 won't say no, will you ? " 
 
 Marian was liking him that day — he was looking his 
 best. She particularly liked his expression as he pro- 
 posed to her. She had intended to pretend to refuse 
 him ; instead her colour rose and she said : " No — 
 which means yes. Everybody expects it of us, 
 Teddy. So I suppose we mustn't disappoint them." 
 
 The fact that " everybody " did expect it, the fact 
 that he was the great " catch " in their set, with 
 his two hundred and fifty thousand a year, his good 
 looks and his good character — these were her real 
 reasons, with the first dominant. But she did not 
 admit it to herself then. At twenty-four even the 
 mercenary instinct tricks itself out in a most decep- 
 tive romantic disguise if there is the ghost of an op- 
 portunity. Besides, there was no reason, and no sign 
 of an approaching reason, for the shadow of a sus- 
 picion that life with Teddy Danvers would not be 
 full of all that she and her friends regarded as happi- 
 ness. 
 
 But she would not marry immediately. She was 
 tenacious of her freedom. She was restless, dissatis- 
 
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128 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 fied with herself and not elated by her prospects. 
 She had an excellent mind, reasonable, appreciative, 
 ambitious. Until she " came out " she had spent 
 much time among books ; but as she had had no capable 
 director of her reading, she got from it only a vague 
 sense that there was somewhere something in the way 
 of achievement which she might possibly like to attain 
 if she knew what it was or where to look for it. As 
 she became settled in her place in the routine of 
 social life, as her horizon narrowed to the conventional 
 ideas of her set, this sense of possible and attractive 
 achievement became vaguer. But her restlessness did 
 not diminish. 
 
 " I never saw such an ungrateful girl," was Mrs. 
 Carnarvon's comment upon one of Marian's outbursts 
 of almost peevish fretting. " What do you want ? " 
 
 " That's just it," exclaimed Marian, half-laughing. 
 " What do I want ? I look all about me and I can't 
 see it. Yet I know that there must be something. I 
 think I ought to have been a man. Sometimes I feel 
 like running away — away off somewhere. I feel as if I 
 were getting second-bests, paste substitutes for the 
 real jewels. I feel as I did when I was a child and de- 
 manded the moon. They gave me a little gilt crescent 
 and said : ' Here is a nice little moon for baby ; ' and 
 it made me furious." 
 
 Mrs. Carnarvon looked irritated. " I don't under- 
 
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MAKING THE MOST OF A MONTH. 129 
 
 stand it. You are getting the best of everything. 
 Of course you can't expect to be happy. I don't sup- 
 pose that any one is happy. But all the solid things 
 of life are yours, and you can and should be comfort- 
 able and contented." 
 
 " That's just it," answered Marian indignantly. " I 
 have always been swaddled in cotton wool. I have 
 never been allowed really to feel. I think it is the 
 spirit of revolt in me. Yes, I ought to have been a 
 man. I'm sure that then I could have made life a 
 little less tiresome." 
 
 It was this dissatisfaction that postponed the 
 announcement of the engagement from month to 
 month until a year had slipped away. 
 
 Instead of coming to New York, Danvers went off 
 to Montana for a mountain-lion hunt with two Eng- 
 lishmen who had been staying with him in " The 
 Valley." He would join Marian for the trip South, 
 the engagement would be announced, and the wedding 
 would be in May — such was the arrangement which 
 Marian succeeded in making. It settled everything and 
 at the same time it gave her a month of freedom in New 
 York. She hinted enough of this programme to 
 Howard to enable him to grasp its essential points. 
 
 " A month's holiday," was his comment. They 
 were alone on the second seat of George Browning's 
 coach, driving through the Park. " If we were like 
 
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130 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 those people " — he was looking at a young man and 
 young woman, side by side upon a Park bench, blue 
 with cold but absorbed in themselves and obviously 
 ecstatic. Marian glanced at them with slightly super- 
 cilious amusement and became so interested that she 
 turned her head to follow them with her eyes after 
 the coach had passed. 
 
 " Is he kissing her ? " asked Howard. 
 
 " No — not yet. But I'm sure he will as soon as we 
 have turned the corner." She said nothing for a 
 moment or two, her glance straight ahead and upon 
 vacancy, he admiring the curve of her cheek at the 
 edge of its effective framing of fur. 
 
 " But we are not " She spoke in a low tone, regret- 
 ful, pensive, almost sad. " We are not like them." 
 
 " Oh, yes we are. But — we fancy we are not. We've 
 sold our birthright, our freedom, our independence 
 for— for " 
 
 "Well— what?" 
 
 " Baubles — childish toys — vanities — shadows. 
 Doesn't it show what ridiculous little creatures we 
 human beings are that we regard the most valueless 
 things as of the highest value, and think least of the 
 true valuables. For, tell me, Lady-Whom-I-Love, 
 what is most valuable in the few minutes of this little 
 journey among the stars on the good ship Mother 
 Earth?" 
 
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MAKING THE MOST OF A MONTH. 131 
 
 " But you would not care always as you care now? 
 It would not, could not, last. If we — if we were like 
 those people on the bench back there, we'd go on and 
 — and spoil it all." 
 
 " Perhaps — who can say ? But in some circum- 
 stances couldn't I make you just as happy as — as 
 some one else could ? " 
 
 " Not if you had made me infinitely happier at one 
 time than even you could hope to make me all the 
 time. At least I think not. It would always be — be 
 racing against a record ; we both would be, wouldn't 
 we?" 
 
 Howard looked at her with an expression which 
 transfigured his face and sent the colour flaming to 
 her cheeks. " That being the case," he said, " let us 
 — let us make the record one that will not be forgotten 
 — soon." 
 
 During the month he saw her almost every day. She 
 was most ingenious in arranging these meetings. They 
 were together afternoons and evenings. They were 
 often alone. Yet she was careful not to violate any 
 convention, always to keep, or seem to be keeping, 
 one foot " on the line." Howard threw himself into 
 his infatuation with all his power of concentration 
 He practically took a month's holiday from the ofifice. 
 He thought about her incessantly. He used all his 
 skill with words in making love to her. And she 
 
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132 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 abandoned herself to an equal infatuation with equal 
 absorption. Neither of them spoke of the past or the 
 future. They lived in the present, talked of the 
 present. 
 
 One day she spoke of herself as an orphan. 
 
 " I did not know that," he said. " But then what 
 do I know about you in relation to the rest of the 
 world ? To me you are an isolated act of creation." 
 
 "You must tell me about jourseli." She was 
 looking at him, surprised. " Why, I know nothing at 
 all about you." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you do. You know all that there is to 
 know — all that is important." 
 
 "What?" She was asking for the pleasure of 
 hearing him say it. 
 
 " That I love you — you — all of you — all of you, 
 with all of me." 
 
 Her eyes answered for her lips, which only said 
 
 smilingly : " No, we haven't time to get acquainted — • 
 
 at least not to-day." 
 
 ********* 
 
 She was to start for Florida at ten the next 
 morning. Mrs. Carnarvon was going away to the 
 opera, giving them the last evening alone. Marian 
 had asked this of her point-blank. 
 
 " You are an extraordinarily sensible as well as 
 strong-willed girl, Marian," Mrs. Carnarvon replied. 
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MAKING THE MOST OF A MONTH. 133 
 
 " I can't find it in my heart to blame you for what you're 
 doing. The fact that I haven't even hinted a protest, 
 but have lent myself to your little plots, shows that 
 that young man has hypnotized me also." 
 
 " You needn't disturb yourself, as you know," 
 Marian said gaily. " I'm not hypnotized. I shall not 
 see Mr. Howard again until — after it's all over. 
 Perhaps not then." 
 
 He came to dinner and they were not alone until 
 almost nine. She sat near the open fire among the 
 cushions heaped high upon the little sofa. She had 
 never been more beautiful, and apparently never in a 
 happier mood. They both laughed and talked as if it 
 were the first instead of the last day of their month. 
 Neither spoke of the parting; each avoided all sub- 
 jects that pointed in direction of the one subject of 
 which both thought whenever their minds left the 
 immediate present. As the little clock on the mantle 
 began to intimate in a faint, polite voice the quarter 
 before eleven, he said abruptly, almost brusquely : 
 
 " I feel like a coward, giving you up in this way. 
 Yes — giving you up ; for you have a traitor in your 
 fortress who has offered me the keys, who offers them 
 to me now. But I do not trust you ; and I can't trust 
 myself. The curse of luxury is on you, the curse of 
 ambition on me. If we had found each the other 
 younger ; if I had lived less alone, more in the ordi- 
 
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134 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 nary habit of dependence upon others ; if you had 
 been brought up to live instead of to have all the 
 machinery of living provided and conducted for you 
 — well, it might have been different." 
 
 " You are wrong as to me, right as to yourself. 
 But yours is not the curse of ambition. It is the 
 passion for freedom. It would be madness for you, 
 thinking as you do, even if you could — and you can't." 
 
 He stood up and held out his hand. She did not 
 rise or look at him. 
 
 "Good night," she said at last, putting her hand 
 in his. " Of course I am thinking I shall see you to- 
 morrow. One does not come out of such a dream," 
 • — she looked up at him smiling — " all in a moment." 
 
 " Good night," he smiled back at her. " I shall not 
 open ' the fiddler's bill ' until — until I have to." At 
 the door he turned. She had risen and was kneeling 
 on the sofa, her elbow on its low arm, her chin upon 
 her hand, her eyes staring into the fire. He came 
 toward her. 
 
 " May I kiss you ? " he said. 
 
 "Yes." Her voice was expressionless. 
 
 He bent over and just touched his lips to the back 
 of her neck at the edge of her hair. He thought 
 that she trembled slightly, but her face was set and 
 she did not look toward him. He turned and left 
 her. Half an hour later she heard the bell ring — it 
 
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MAKING THE MOST OF A MONTH. 135 
 
 was Mrs. Carnarvon. She wished to see no one, so 
 she fled through the rear door of the reception room 
 and up the great stairway to lock herself in her 
 boudoir. She sank slowly upon the lounge in front 
 of the fire and closed her eyes. The fire died out and 
 the room grew cold. A warning chilliness made 
 her rise to get ready for bed. 
 
 " No," she said aloud. " It isn't ambition and it 
 isn't lack of love. It's a queer sort of cowardice ; 
 but it's cowardice for all that. He's a coward or he 
 wouldn't have given up. But — I wonder — how am 
 I going to live without him? I need him — more 
 than he needs me, I'm afraid." 
 
 She was standing before her dressing table. On 
 it was a picture of Danvers — handsome, self-satisfied, 
 healthy, unintellectual. She looked at it, gave a 
 little shiver, and with the end of her comb toppled it 
 over upon its face. 
 
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XIII. 
 
 RECKONING WITH DANVERS, 
 
 On that journey south Marian for the first time 
 studied Danvers as a husband in prospect. 
 
 The morning after they left New York, their private 
 car arrived at Savannah. At dark the night before 
 they were rushing through a snow storm raging in a 
 wintry landscape. Now they were looking out upon 
 spring from the open windows. As soon as the train 
 stopped, all except Marian and Danvers left the car to 
 walk up and down the platform. Danvers, standing 
 behind Marian, looked around to make sure that none 
 of the servants was about, then rubbed his hand 
 caressingly and familiarly upon her cheek. 
 
 " Did you miss me ? " he asked. 
 
 Marian could not prevent her head from shrinking 
 from his touch. 
 
 " There's nobody about," Danvers said, reassuringly. 
 But he acted upon the hint and, taking his hand away, 
 came around and sat beside her. 
 
 " Did you miss me ? " he repeated, looking at her 
 with an expression in his frank, manly blue eyes that 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 137 
 
 made her flush at the thought of " treason " past and 
 to come. 
 
 " Did you miss me ? " she evaded. 
 
 " I would have returned long ago if I had not been 
 ashamed," he answered, smiling. " I never thought 
 that I should come not to care for as good shooting 
 as that. You almost cost me my life." 
 
 " Yes ? " Marian spoke absently. She was absorbed 
 in her mental comparison of the two men. 
 
 " I got away from the others and was looking at 
 your picture. They started up a lion and he came 
 straight at me from behind. If he hadn't made a 
 misstep in his hurry and loosened a stone, I guess he 
 would have got me. As it was, I got him." 
 
 " You mean your gun got him." 
 
 " Of course. You don't suppose I tackled him 
 bare-handed." 
 
 " It might have been fairer. I don't see how you 
 can boast of having killed a creature that never 
 bothered you, that you had to go thousands of miles 
 out of your way to find, and that you attacked with a 
 gun, giving him no chance to escape." 
 
 " What nonsense ! " laughed Danvers. " I never 
 expected to hear you say anything like that. Who's 
 been putting such stuff into your head ? " 
 
 Marian coloured. She did not like his tone. She 
 resented the suggestion of the truth that her speech 
 
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138 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 was borrowed. It made her uncomfortable to find 
 herself thus unexpectedly on the dangerous ground. 
 
 " I suppose it must have been tS&t newspaper fel- 
 low Mrs. Carnarvon has taken up. She talked about 
 him for an hour after you left us to go to bed last 
 night." 
 
 " Yes, it was — was Mr. Howard." Marian had 
 recovered herself. " I want you to meet him some 
 time. You'll like him, I'm sure." 
 
 " I doubt it. Mrs. Carnarvon seemed not to know 
 much about him. I suppose he's more or less of an 
 adventurer." 
 
 Marian wondered if this obvious dislike was the 
 result of one of those "strange instincts that sometimes 
 enable men to scent danger before any sign of it 
 appears. 
 
 " Perhaps he is an adventurer," she replied. " I'm 
 sure I don't know. Why should one bother to find 
 out about a passing acquaintance? It is enough to 
 know that he is amusing." 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that. He might make off with 
 the jewels when you had your back turned." 
 
 As soon as she had made her jesting denial of her 
 real lover Marian was ashamed of herself. And Dan- 
 vers' remark, though a jest, cut her. •' What I said 
 about a passing acquaintance was not just or true," 
 she said impulsively and too warmly. " Mr. Howard 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 139 
 
 is not an adventurer. I admire and like him very 
 mucli indeed. I'm proud of his friendship." 
 
 Danvers shrugged his shoulders and looked at her 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " You saw a good deal of this — this friend of yours ? " 
 he demanded, his mouth straightening into a dictato- 
 rial line. 
 
 At this Marian grew haughty and her eyes flashed : 
 " Why do you ask ? " she inquired, her tone danger- 
 ously calm. 
 
 " Because I have the right to know." He pointed 
 to the diamond on her third finger. 
 
 " Oh — that is soon settled." Marian drew off the 
 ring and held it out to him. " Really, Teddy, I think 
 you ought to have waited a little longer before insist- 
 ing so fiercely on your rights." 
 
 " Don't be absurd, Marian." Danvers did not take 
 the ring but fixed his eyes upon her face and changed 
 his tone to friendly remonstrance. " You know the 
 ring doesn't mean anything. It's your promise that 
 counts. And honestly don't you think your promise 
 does give me the right to ask you about your new 
 friends when you speak of them, of one of them, in — 
 in such a way ? " 
 
 " I don't intend to deceive you," she said, turning 
 the ring around slowly on her finger. " I didn't 
 
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140 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 know how to tell you. I suppose the only way to 
 speak is just to speak." 
 
 " Do you think you are in love with this man, 
 Marian ? " 
 
 She nodded, then after a long pause, said, "Yes, 
 Teddy, I love him." 
 
 " But I thought " 
 
 " And so did I, Teddy. But he came, and I — well 
 I couldn't help it." 
 
 As he did not speak, she looked at him. His face 
 was haggard and white and in his eyes which met hers 
 frankly there was suffering. 
 
 " It wasn't my fault, Teddy," Marian laid her hand 
 on his arm, "at least, not altogether. I might have 
 kept away and I didn't." 
 
 " Oh, I don't blame you. I blame him." 
 
 " But it wasn't his fault. I — I — encouraged him." 
 
 " Did he know that we were engaged? " 
 
 " Yes," reluctantly. 
 
 "The scoundrel! I suspected that he was rotten 
 somewhere." 
 
 "You are unjust to him. I have not told you 
 properly." 
 
 " Did he tell you that he cared for you ? " 
 
 "Yes — but he didn't try to get me to break my 
 engagement." 
 
 " So much the more a scoundrel, he. Tell me, 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 141 
 
 Marian — come to your senses and tell me — what in 
 the devil did he hang about you for and make love to 
 you, if he didn't want to marry you? Would an 
 honest man, a decent man, do that ? " = 
 
 Marian's face confessed assent. 
 
 " I should think you would have seen what sort of 
 a fellow he is. I should think you would despise 
 him." 
 
 " Sometimes it seems to me that I ought to. But I 
 always end by despising myself — and — and — it makes 
 no difference in the way I feel toward him." 
 
 " I think I would do well to look him up and give 
 him a horse-whipping. But you'll get over him, Mar- 
 ian. I am astonished at your cousin. How could 
 she let this go on ? But then, she's crazy about him 
 too. 
 
 Marian smiled miserably. " I've owned up and you 
 ought to congratulate yourself on so luckily getting 
 rid of such an untrustworthy person as I." 
 
 " Getting rid of you ? " Danvers looked at her 
 defiantly. " Do you think I'm going to let you go on 
 and ruin yourself on an impulse? Not much! I 
 hold you to your promise. You'll come round all 
 right after you've been away from this fellow for a 
 few days. You'll be amazed at yourself a week from 
 now." 
 
 " You don't understand, Teddy." Marian wished 
 
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142 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 him to see once for all that, whatever might be the 
 future for her and Howard, there was no future for 
 her and him. " Don't make it so hard for me to tell 
 you." 
 
 " I don't want to hear any more about it now, Mar- 
 ian. I can't stand it — I hardly know what I'm saying 
 — wait a few days — let's go on as we have been — here 
 they come." 
 
 The others of the party came bustling into the car 
 and the train started. For the rest of the journey 
 Danvers avoided her, keeping to the smoking room 
 and the game of poker there. Marian could neither 
 read nor watch the landscape. She did not know 
 whether to be glad or sorry that she had told him. 
 She hated to think that she had inflicted pain and she 
 could not believe, in spite of what she had seen in his 
 eyes, that his feeling in the matter was more than 
 jealousy and wounded vanity. 
 
 " He doesn't really care for me," she thought. "It's 
 his pride that is hurt. He will flare out at me and 
 break it off. I do hope he'll get angry. It will make 
 it so much easier for me." 
 
 Late in the afternoon she took Mrs. Carnarvon into 
 her confidence. " I've told Teddy," she said. 
 
 " I might have kngwn ! " exclaimed her cousin. 
 " What on earth made you do that ? " 
 
 " I don't know — perhaps shame." 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 143 
 
 " Shame — trash ! Your life is going to be a fine 
 turmoil if you run to Teddy with an account of every 
 little mild flirtation you happen to have. Of all the 
 imbeciles, the most imbecile is the woman who con- 
 fesses." 
 
 " But how could I marry him when " 
 
 " When you don't love him ? " 
 
 " No — I might have done that. I like him. But, 
 when I love another man." 
 
 " It does make a difference. But you ought to be 
 able to foresee that you'll get over Howard in a few 
 weeks " 
 
 " Precisely what Teddy said." 
 
 " Did he ? I'm surprised at his having so much 
 sense. For, if you'll forgive me, I don't think Teddy 
 will ever set New York on fire — at least, he's — well, he 
 has the makings of an ideal husband. And has he 
 broken it off? " 
 
 " No. He wouldn't have it." 
 
 " Really ? Well he is in love. Most men in his 
 position — able to get any girl he wants — would have 
 thrown up the whole business. Yes, he .must be 
 awfully in love." 
 
 " Do you think that ? " Marian's voice spoke dis- 
 tress but she felt only satisfaction. " Oh, I hope not 
 — that is, I'd like to think he cared a great deal and at 
 the same time I don't want to hurt him." 
 
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144 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 "Don't fret yourself about these two men. Just 
 go on thinking as you please. You'll be surprised 
 how soon Howard will fade." Mrs. Carnarvon smiled 
 satirically at some thought — perhaps a memory. 
 " You're a good deal of a goose, my dear, but you are 
 a great deal more of a woman. That's why I feel 
 sure that Teddy will win." 
 
 With such an opportunity — with the field clear 
 and the woman half-remorseful over her treachery, 
 half-indignant at the man who had shown himself so 
 weak and spiritless — a cleverer or a less vain man than 
 Danvers would have triumphed easily. And for the 
 first week he did make progress. He acted upon the 
 theory that Marian had been hypnotized and that 
 the proper treatment was to ignore her delusion and 
 to treat her with assiduous but not annoying consider- 
 ation. He did not pose as an injured or jealous 
 lover. He was the friend, always at her service, 
 always thinking out plans for her amusement. He 
 made no reference -to their engagement or to How- 
 ard. 
 
 Several people of their set were at the hotel and 
 Marian was soon drifting back into her accustomed 
 modes of thought. The wider horizon which she 
 fancied Howard had shown her was growing dim and 
 hazy. The horizon which he had made her think 
 narrow was beginning again to seem the only one. 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 145 
 
 This meant Danvers ; but he was not acute enough to 
 understand her and to follow up his advantage. 
 
 One morning as he was walking up and down under 
 the palms, waiting for Mrs. Carnarvon and Marian, 
 Mrs. Fortescue called him. She was a cold, rather 
 handsome woman. In her eyes was the expression 
 that always betrays the wife or the mistress who 
 loathes the man she lives with, enduring him only 
 because he gives her that which she most wants — ■ 
 money. She had one fixed idea — to marry her 
 daughter " well," that is, to money. 
 
 " Can you join us to-day, Teddy ? " she asked. 
 '■ We need one more man." 
 
 " I'm waiting for Mrs. Carnarvon and Marian," he 
 explained. 
 
 " Oh, of course." Mrs. Fortescue smiled. " What 
 a nice girl she is — so clever, so — so independent. I 
 admired her immensely for deciding to marry that 
 poor, obscure young fellow. I like to see the young 
 people romantic." 
 
 Danvers flushed angrily and pulled at his mustache. 
 He tried to smile. " We've teased her about it a 
 good deal," he said, "but she denies it." 
 
 " I suppose they aren't ready to announce the 
 engagement yet," Mrs. Fortescue suggested. " I sup- 
 pose they are waiting until he betters his position a 
 
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146 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 little. It's never a good idea to have too long a time 
 between the announcement and the marriage." 
 
 " Perhaps that is it." Danvers tried to look indiffer- 
 ent but his eyes were sullen with jealousy. 
 
 " I always rather thought that you and Marian were 
 going to make a match of it," continued Mrs. Fortes- 
 cue. Just then her daughter came down the walk. 
 She was fashionably dressed in white and blue that 
 brought out all the loveliness of her golden hair and 
 violet eyes and faintly-coloured, smooth fair skin. 
 Danvers had not seen her since she "came out," and 
 was dazzled by her radiance. 
 
 They say that every man must be a little in love 
 with every pretty woman he sees. And Danvers at 
 once gave Ellen Fortescue her due. She sat silent 
 beside her mother, looking the personification of inno- 
 cence, purity and poetry. Her mother continued 
 subtly to poison Danvers against Marian, to make him 
 feel that she had not appreciated him, that she had 
 trifled with him, that she had not treated him as his 
 dignity and importance merited. When she and Mrs. 
 Carnarvon appeared, he joined them tardily, after hav- 
 ing made an arrangement with the Fortescues for the 
 next day. 
 
 That evening he danced several times with Ellen 
 Fortescue and adopted the familiar lover's tactics — 
 he set about making. Marian jealous. He scored the 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 147 
 
 customary success. When she went to bed she lay 
 for several hours looking out into the moonlight, rag- 
 ing against the Fortescues and against Danvers. The 
 mere fact that a man whom she regarded as hers was 
 permitting himself to show marked attention to 
 another woman would have been sufficient. But in 
 addition, Marian was perfectly aware of the material 
 advantages of this particular man. She did not want 
 to marry him ; at least she was of that mind at the 
 moment. But she might change her mind. Certainly, 
 if there was to be any breaking off, she wished it to 
 be of her doing. She did not fancy the idea of him 
 departing joyfully. 
 
 She was far too wise to show that she saw what was 
 going on. She praised Miss Fortescue to Danvers 
 with apparent frankness and insisted on him devoting 
 more time to her. Danvers persisted in his scheme 
 boldly for a week and then, just as Marian was despair- 
 ing and was casting about for another plan of cam- 
 paign, he gave in. They were sitting apart in the 
 shadow near one of the windows of the ball-room. 
 He had been sullen all the evening, almost rude. 
 
 " How much longer are you going to keep me in 
 suspense ? " he burst out angrily. 
 
 " In suspense ? " 
 
 " You know what I mean. I think I've been very 
 patient." 
 
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148 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " You mean our engagement ? " Marian was look, 
 ing at him, repelled by his expression, his manner, the 
 tciie of his voice, his whole mood. 
 
 " Yes — I want your decision." 
 
 " I have not changed." 
 
 "You still love that — that newspaper fellow?" 
 
 " No, I don't mean that." Marian felt her irritation 
 against Danvers suddenly vanish and in its place a 
 sense of relief and of calmness. " I mean toward you. 
 It won't do, Teddy. We shall get on well as friends. 
 But I can't think of you in — in that way." 
 
 Mrs. Fortescue had so swollen his vanity that he 
 was astounded at Marian's decision. He rapidly 
 went over in his mind all the advantages he offered as 
 a husband, and then looked at her as if he thought her 
 beside herself. 
 
 " Look here, Marian," he protested. " You can't 
 mean it. Why, it's all settled that we are to marry. 
 It would be madness for you to break it off. I can 
 give you everything — everything. And he can't give 
 you anything." Then with fatal tactlessness : " He 
 won't even give you the little that he can, according 
 to your own story." 
 
 " Yes, it's madness, isn't it, Teddy, to refuse you — 
 fascinating you, who can give everything. But that's 
 just it. You have too much. You overwhelm me. 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 149 
 
 I should feel like a cheat, taking so much and giving 
 so little." 
 
 " Don't," he begged, his self-complacence and su- 
 periority all gone. " Don't mind my blundering, 
 please, dear. I want you. I can't say it. I haven't 
 any gift of words. But you've known me all my life 
 and you know that I love you. I've set my heart on 
 it, Mary Ann," — it was the name he used to tease her 
 with when they were children playing together — 
 " You won't go back on me now, will you ?" 
 
 " I wish I could do as you wish, Teddy." Marian 
 was forgetful of everything but the unhappiness she 
 was causing this friend of so many, many years and of 
 so many, many memories. " But I can't — I can't." 
 
 " Marry me, dear, anyhow. You will care afterward." 
 Marian was silent and Danvers hoped. " You know 
 all about me. I'll not give you any surprises. I 
 shan't bother you. And I'll make you happy." 
 
 " No," she said firmly. " You mustn't ask it. I'll 
 tell you why. I have thought of marrying you re- 
 gardless of this. Only last night I thought of it — 
 finally, went over the whole thing. Listen, Teddy — if 
 I were married to you — and if he should come — and 
 he would come sooner or later — if he should come and 
 say 'Come with me,' — I'd go — yes, I'm sure I'd go. I 
 can't explain why. But I know that nothing would 
 stand in the way — nothing." 
 
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ISO THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself." Marian 
 shrank from him. She was horrified by the malignant 
 fury that sparkled in his eyes and raged in his voice. 
 " That damned scoundrel is worthy of you and you of 
 him. But I'll get you yet. I never was crossed in 
 anything in my life and I'll not be beaten here." 
 
 " And I thought you were my friend ! " Marian 
 was looking at him, pale, her eyes wide with amaze- 
 ment. " Is it really you ? " 
 
 He laughed insolently. "Yes — you'll see. And 
 he'll see. I'll crush him as if he were an egg shell. 
 And as for you — you perjurer — ^you liar ! " 
 
 He looked at her with coarse contempt, rose and 
 stalked away. Marian sat rigid. She was conscious 
 of the insult. But even that humiliation was not so 
 strong in her mind as the astounding revelation of 
 Danvers. She remembered that even as his eyes blazed 
 hatred at her, he looked at^her, at her neck, her bare 
 arms, with the bafifled desire of brute passion. She 
 did not fully understand the look, but she felt that it 
 was a degradation far greater than his insulting words. 
 
 She slipped, almost skulked to her room, her eyes 
 down, her face in a burning flush, her scarf drawn 
 tightly about her neck. As her door closed behind 
 her, she fell upon her bed and began to sob hysteri- 
 cally. She started up with a scream to find her cousin 
 standing beside her. 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 15 1 
 
 " I'm so sorry. Forgive me." Mrs. Carnarvon's 
 voice had lost its wonted levity. " I saw that you 
 were in trouble and followed. I knocked and I 
 thought I heard you answer. What is it, Marie? 
 May I ask? Can I do anything?" 
 
 Marian drew her down to the bed and buried her 
 face in her lap. " Oh, I feel so unclean," she said. 
 " It was — Teddy. Would you believe it, Jessie, 
 Teddy ! I looked on him as a brother. And he 
 showed me that he was not my friend — that he didn't 
 even love me — that he — oh, I shall never forget the 
 look in his eyes. He made me feel like a — like a 
 thing." 
 
 Mrs. Carnarvon smothered a smile. " Of course 
 Teddy's a brute," she said. " I thought you knew. 
 He's a domesticated brute, like most of the men and 
 some of the women. You'll have to get used to 
 that." 
 
 By refusing to fall in with her mood, Mrs. Carnarvon 
 had gone far toward curing it. Marian stopped sob- 
 bing and presently said : 
 
 "Oh, I know all that. But I didn't expect it from 
 Teddy — and toward me. And — " she shuddered — " I 
 was thinking, actually thinking of marrying him. I 
 wish never to see him again. And he pretended to 
 be my friend ! " 
 
 " And he was, no doubt, until he got you on the 
 
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152 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 brain in another way, in the way he calls love. There 
 isn't any love that has friendship in it." 
 
 " We must go away at once." 
 
 " Unless Teddy saves us the trouble by going first, 
 as I suspect he will." 
 
 " Jessie, he hates me and — and — Mr. Howard." 
 
 " So you talked to him about Howard again, did 
 you?" Mrs. Carnarvon was indignant. "You are 
 old enough to know better, Marian. You carry frank- 
 ness entirely too far. There is such a thing as truth 
 running amuck." 
 
 " He said he would crush Howard. And I believe 
 he really meant it." 
 
 " Teddy is a man who believes in revenges — or 
 thinks he does. His father taught him to keep ac- 
 counts in grievances, and no doubt he has opened an 
 account with Howard. But don't be disturbed about 
 it. His father would have insisted on balancing the 
 account. Teddy will just keep on hating, but won't 
 do anything. He's not underhanded." 
 
 " He's everything that is vile and low." 
 
 " You're quite mistaken, my dear. He's what they 
 call a manly fellow — a little too masculine perhaps, 
 but " 
 
 A knock interrupted and Mrs. Carnarvon, answering 
 it, took from the bell-boy a note for Marian who read 
 it, then handed it to her. Mrs. Carnarvon read : 
 
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RECKONING WITH DANVERS. 153 
 
 " I apologise for the way I said what I did this evening, not for 
 what I said. Because you had forgotten yourself, had played the 
 traitor and the cheat was, perhaps, no excuse for my rudeness. 
 You have fallen under an evil influence. I hope no harm will 
 come to you, for I can't get over my feeling for you. But I have 
 done my best and have not been able to save you. I am going 
 away early in the morning. 
 
 "E. D." 
 
 " Melodramatic, isn't it ? " laughed Mrs. Carnarvon. 
 " So he's off. How furious Martha Fortescue and 
 Ellen will be. But they'll go in pursuit, and they'll 
 get him, A man is never so susceptible as when he's 
 broken-hearted. Well, I must go. Good-night, dear. 
 Don't mope and whine. Take your punishment sen- 
 sibly. You've learned something — if it's only not to 
 tell one man how much you love another." 
 
 " I think I'll go abroad with Aunt Retta next 
 month." 
 
 " A good idea — you'll forget both these men. 
 Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night," answered Marian dolefully, expect- 
 ing to resume her thoughts of Danvers. But, instead, 
 he straightway disappeared from her mijid and she 
 could think only of Howard. She was free now. 
 The one barrier between him and her of which she 
 had been really conscious was gone. And her heart 
 began to ache with longing for him. Why had he 
 
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IS4 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 not written? What was he doing? Did he really 
 love her or was his passion for her only a flash of a 
 strong and swift imagination ? 
 
 No, he loved her — she could not doubt that. 
 But she could not understand his conduct. She felt 
 that she ought to be very unhappy, yet she w'as not. 
 The longer she thought of him and the more she 
 weighed his words and looks, the stronger became her 
 trust in him. " He loves me," she said. " He will 
 come when he can. It may be even harder for him than 
 for me." 
 
 And so, explanation failing — for she rejected every 
 explanation that reflected upon him — she hid and 
 excused him behind that familiar refuge of the doubt- 
 ing, mystery. 
 
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XIV. 
 
 THE NEWS-RECORD GETS A NEW EDITOR. 
 
 A FEW minutes after leaving Marian that last night 
 at Mrs. Carnarvon's, Howard was deep in a mood of 
 self-contempt. He felt that he had faced the crisis 
 like a coward. He despised the weakness which 
 enfeebled him for effort to win her and at the same 
 time made it impossible for him to thrust her from his 
 mind. 
 
 In the working hours his will conquered with the aid 
 of fixed habit and he was able to concentrate upon 
 his editorials. But in his rooms, and especially after 
 the lights were out, his imagination became master, 
 deprived him of sleep and occasionally lifted him to a 
 height of hope in order that it might dash him 
 down the more cruelly upon the rocks of fact. 
 
 At last he was forced to face the situation — in his 
 own evasive fashion. It was impossible to go back. 
 That loneliness which often threatened him after 
 Alice's death had become the permanent condition of 
 his life. " I will work for her," he said. " Until I 
 have made a place for her I dare not claim her. So 
 much I will concede to my weakness. But when I 
 
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iS6 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 have won a position which reasonably assures the future, 
 I shall claim her — no matter what has happened in 
 the meanwhile." 
 
 He would have smiled at this wild resolution had he 
 been in a less distracted state of mind or had he been 
 dealing with any other than a matter of love. But in 
 the circumstances it gave him heart and set him to 
 work with an energy and effectiveness which still 
 further increased Mr. Malcolm's esteem for him. 
 
 " Will you dine with me at the Union Club on 
 Wednesday?" Mr. Malcolm asked one morning in 
 mid-February. " Mr. Coulter and Mr. Stokely are com- 
 ing. I want you to know them better." 
 
 Howard accepted and wondered that he took so little 
 interest. For Stokely and Coulter were the 
 principal stockholders of the News-Record, and with 
 Malcolm formed the triumvirate which directed it in 
 all its departments. Mr. Malcolm held only a few 
 shares of stock, but received what was in the news- 
 paper-world an immense salary — thirty thousand a 
 year. He was at once an able editor and an able 
 diplomatist. He knew how to make the plans of his 
 two associates conform to conditions of news and 
 policy — when to let them use the paper, or, rather, 
 when to use the paper himself for their personal 
 interests ; when and how to induce them to let the 
 paper alone. Through a quarter of a century pf 
 
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NEWS-RECORD GETS A NEW EDITOR. 157 
 
 changing ownerships Malcolm had persisted, chiefly 
 because he had but one conviction — that the post of 
 editor of the News-Record exactly suited him and 
 must remain his at any sacrifice of personal character. 
 
 Howard had met Stokely and Coulter. He liked 
 Stokely who was owner of a few shares more than 
 one-third ; he disliked Coulter who owned just under 
 one-half. 
 
 Stokely was a frank, coarse, dollar-hunter, cheer- 
 fully unscrupulous in a large way, acute, caring not at 
 all for principles of any kind, letting the paper alone 
 most of the time because he was astute enough . 
 to know that in his ignorance of journalism he would' 
 fiurely injure it as a property. 
 
 Coulter was a hypocrite and a snob. Also he 
 fancied he knew how to conduct a newspaper. He 
 was as unscrupulous as Stokely but tried to mask it. 
 
 When Stokely wished the News-Record \.q advocate-, 
 a " job," or steal, or the election of some disreputable / 
 who would work in his interest, he told Malcolm pre- i 
 cisely what he wanted and left the details of the ■ 
 stultification to his experienced adroitness. When ! 
 Coulter wished to "poison the fountain of publicity,"' 
 as Malcolm called the paper's departures from honesty! 
 and right, he approached the subject by stealth, » 
 trying to convince Malcolm that the wrong was not 
 really wrong, but was right unfortunately disguised. 
 
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ijS THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 He would take Malcolm into his confidence by slow 
 and roundabout steps, thus multiplying his difficulties 
 in discharging his " duty." If Coulter's son had not 
 been married to Malcolm's daughter, it is probable that 
 not even his complete subserviency would have enabled 
 him to keep his place. 
 
 " If you hadtold me frankly what you wanted in 
 the first place, Mr. Coulter," he said after an exasper- 
 ating episode in which Coulter's Pharisaic sensitive- 
 ness had resulted in Malcolm's having to " flop " the 
 paper both editorially and in its news columns twice 
 in three days, " we would not have made ourselves 
 ridiculous and contemptible. The public is an ass, 
 but it is an ass with a memory at least three days 
 long. Your stealthiness has made the ass bray at us 
 instead of with and for us. And that is dangerous 
 when you consider that running a newspaper is like 
 running a restaurant — you must please your customers 
 every day afresh." 
 
 Coulter was further difficult because of his anxieties 
 about social position for himself and his family. He 
 was disturbed whenever the News-Record published 
 an item that might offend any of the people whose 
 acquaintance he had gained with so much difficulty, 
 and for whose good will he was willing to sacrifice 
 even considerable money. Personally, but very pri- 
 vately, he edited the News-Record^ s " fashionable intel- 
 
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NEWS-RECORD GETS A NEW EDITOR. 159 
 
 ligence " columns on Sunday and made them an ex- 
 hibit of his own sycophancy and snobbishness which 
 excited the amused disgust of all who were in the 
 secret. 
 
 Malcolm liked Howard, admired him, in a way 
 envied his fearlessness, his earnestness for principles. 
 For years he had had it in mind to retire and write 
 a history of the Civil War period which had been his 
 own period of greatest activity and most intimate 
 acquaintance with the behind-the-scenes of statecraft. 
 Howard's energy, steady application, enthusiasm for 
 journalism and intelligence both as to editorials and 
 as to news made Malcolm look upon him as his 
 natural successor. 
 
 " I think Howard is the man we want," he said to 
 his two associates when he was arranging the dinner. 
 " He has new ideas — just what the paper needs. He 
 is in touch with these recent developments. And above 
 all he has judgment. He knows what not to print, 
 where and how to print what ought to be printed. 
 He is still young and is over-enthusiastic. He has 
 limitations, but he knows them and he is eager and 
 capable to learn," 
 
 It was a " shop " dinner, Howard doing most of 
 the talking, led on by Malcolm. The main point was 
 the " new journalism," as it was called, and how to 
 adapt it to the JVews-Record and the News-Record to it. 
 
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i6o THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Malcolm kept the conversation closely to news and 
 news-ideas, fearing that, if editorial policies were 
 brought in, Howard would make " breaks." He soon 
 saw that his associates were much impressed with 
 Howard, with his judgment, with his knowledge of 
 the details of every important newspaper in the city, 
 with his analysis of the good and bad points in 
 each. 
 
 " I'll drop you at your corner," said he to Howard 
 at the end of the dinner. As they drove up the Ave- 
 nue he began : " How would you like to be the editor 
 of the News-Record f My place, I mean." 
 
 "I don't understand," Howard answered, be- 
 wildered. 
 
 " I am going to retire at once," Malcolm went on. 
 " I've been at it nearly fifty years — ever since I was a 
 boy of eighteen and I've been in charge there almost 
 a quarter of a century. I think I've earned a few 
 years of leisure to work for my own amusement. I'm 
 pretty sure they'll want you to take my place. Would 
 you like it? " 
 
 " I'm not fit for it," Howard said, and he meant it. 
 " I'm only an apprentice. I'm always making blun- 
 ders — but I needn't tell you about that." 
 
 " You can't say that you are not fit until you have 
 tried. Besides, the question is not, are yoti fit? but, 
 is there any one more fit than you ? I confess I don't 
 
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NgWS-RECORD GETS A NEW EDITOR. i6i 
 
 see any one so well equipped, so certain to give the 
 paper all of the best that there is in him." 
 
 " Of course I'd like to try. I can only fail." 
 
 " Oh, you won't fail. But you may quarrel with 
 Stokely and Coulter — especially Coulter. In fact, 
 I'm sure you'll quarrel with them. But if you make 
 yourself valuable enough, you'll probably win out. 
 Only " 
 
 Malcolm hesitated, then went on : 
 
 " I stopped giving advice years ago. But I'll ven- 
 ture a suggestion. Whenever your principles run~^J 
 counter to the policy of the paper, it would be wise to 
 think the matter over carefully before making an issue. 
 Usually there is truth on both sides, much that can ' 
 be said fairly and honestly for either side. Often 
 devotion to principle is a mere prejudice. Often the 
 crowd, the mob, can be better controlled to right ends 
 by conceding or seeming to concede a principle for 
 the time. Don't strike a mortal blow at your own 
 usefulness to good causes by making yourself a hasty 
 martyr to some fancied vital principle that will seem 
 of no consequence the next morning but one after the 
 election." 
 
 "I know, Mr. Malcolm, judgment is all but impossi- 
 ble. And I have been trying to learn what you have 
 been teaching me with your blue pencil, what you 
 now put into words. But there is something in me — 
 
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i62 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 an instinct, perhaps — that forces me on in spite of my- 
 self. I've learned to curb and guide it to-a certain 
 extent, but as long as I am I, I shall never learn to 
 control it. Every man must work out his own salva- 
 tion along his own lines. And with my limitations of 
 judgment, it would be fatal to me, I feel, to study the 
 art of compromise. Where another, broader, stronger, 
 more master of himself and of others, would succeed 
 by compromising, I should fail miserably. I should 
 be lost, compassless, rudderless. I have often envied 
 you your calmness, your ability to see not only 
 to-morrow but the day after. But, if I ever try 
 to imitate you, I shall make a sad mess of my ca- 
 reer." 
 
 As he ended Howard looked uneasily at the old 
 editor, expecting to see that caustic smile with which 
 he preceded and accompanied his sarcasms at 
 " sentimental bosh." But instead, Malcolm's face was 
 melancholy ; and his voice was sad and weary as he 
 answered the young man who was just starting where 
 he had started so many years ago : 
 
 " No doubt you are right. I'm not intending to try 
 to dissuade you from — from the best there is in you. 
 All I mean is that caution, self-examination, self- 
 doubt, calm consideration of the other side — these 
 are as necessary to success as energy and resolute 
 action. All I suggest is that its splendour does not 
 
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NEWS-RECORD GETS A NEW EDITOR. 163 
 
 redeem a splendid folly. Its folly remains its essen- 
 tial characteristic." 
 
 Three weeks later Howard became editor-in-chief 
 of the News-Record. His salary was fifteen thousand 
 a year ; and Stokely and Coulter, acting upon Mal- 
 colm's advice, gave him a " free hand " for one year. 
 They agreed not to interfere during that time unless 
 the circulation or the profits showed a decrease at the 
 end of a quarter. 
 
 The next morning Howard, in the Madison Avenue 
 car on his way to the ofifice, read among the " Inci- 
 dents in Society : " 
 
 Mrs. George Alexander Provost and her niece, Miss Marion 
 Trevor, sailed in the Campania yesterday. They vi^ill return in 
 July for the Newport season. 
 
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XV. 
 
 YELLOW JOURNALISM. 
 
 While several of the New York dailies were cir- 
 culating from two to three hundred thousand copies, 
 the News-Record — the best-written, the most com- 
 plete, and, where the interests of the owners did not 
 interfere, the most accurate — circulated less than one 
 hundred thousand. The Sunday edition had a circular 
 tion of one hundred and fifty thousand where two 
 other newspapers had almost half a million. 
 
 The theory of the News-Record staff was that their 
 journal was too " respectable," too intelligent, to be 
 widely read ; that the " yellow journals " grovelled, 
 " appealed to the mob," drew their vast crowds by the 
 methods of the fakir and the freak. They professed 
 pride in the News-Record's smaller circulation as proof 
 of its freedom from vulgarity and debasement. They 
 looked down upon the journalists of the popular 
 newspapers and posed as the aristocracy of the pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Howard did not assent to these self-complacent 
 excuses. He was democratic and modern, and the 
 aristocratic pose appealed only to his sense of humour 
 
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YELLOW JOURNALISM, 165 
 
 and his suspicions. He believed that the success of 
 the " yellow journals " with the most intelligent, alert 
 and progressive public in the world must be based 
 upon solid reasons of desert, must be in spite of, not 
 because of, their follies and exhibitions of bad taste. 
 He resolved upon a radical departure, a revolution 
 from the policy of satisfying petty vanity and tradition 
 within the office to a policy of satisfying the demands 
 of the public. 
 
 He gave Segur temporary charge of the editorial 
 page, and, taking a desk in the news-room, centred 
 his attention upon news and the news-staff. But he 
 was careful not to agitate and antagonise those whose 
 cooperation was necessary to success. He made only 
 one change in the management ; he retired old Bow- 
 ring on a pension and appointed to the city editorship 
 one of the young reporters — Frank Cumnock. 
 
 He chose Cumnock for this position, in many respects 
 the most important on the staff of a New York 
 daily, because he wrote well, was a judge of good 
 writing, had a minute knowledge of New York and its 
 neighbourhood and, finally and chiefly, because he had 
 a " news-sense " keener than that of any other man on 
 the paper. 
 
 For instance, there was the murder of old Thayer, 
 the rich miser in East Sixteenth Street. It was the 
 sensation in all the newspapers for two weeks. Then 
 
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i66 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 they dropped it as an unsolvable mystery. Cumnock 
 persuaded Mr. Bowring to let him keep on. After 
 five days' work he heard of a deaf and dumb woman 
 who sat every afternoon at a back window of her flat 
 overlooking the back windows of Thayer's house. He 
 had a trying struggle with her infirmity and stupidity, 
 but finally was rewarded. On the afternoon of the 
 murder, in its very hour (which the police had been 
 able to discover), she had seen a man and woman in the 
 bathroom of the Thayer house. Both were agitated 
 and the man washed his hands again and again, care- 
 fully rinsing the bowl afterward. From her descrip- 
 tion Cumnock got upon the track of Thayer's niece 
 and her husband, found the proof of their guilt, had 
 them watched until the News-Record came out with 
 the " beat," then turned them over to the police. 
 
 Also, Cumnock was keen at taking hints of good 
 news-items concealed in obscure paragraphs. The 
 Morris Prison scandal was an example of this. He 
 found in the New England edition of The World a 
 six-line item giving an astonishing death rate for the 
 Morris Prison. He asked the City Editor to assign 
 him to go there ; and within a week thejpress of the 
 entire country was discussing the News-Record' s ex- 
 posure of the barbarities of torture and starvation 
 practised by Warden Johnson and his keepers. 
 
 " We are going to print the news, all the news and 
 
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YELLOW JOURNALISM. 167 
 
 nothing but the news," Howard said to Cumnock. 
 " They've put you here because, so they tell me, you 
 know news no matter how thoroughly it is concealed 
 or disguised. And I assure you that no one shall 
 interfere with you. No favours to anybody ; no use of 
 the news-columns for revenge or exploitation. The 
 only questions a news-item need raise in your mind are : 
 Is it true ? Is it interesting ? Is it printable in a 
 newspaper that will publish anything which a healthy- 
 minded grown-person wishes to read ? " 
 
 "Is that 'straight'?" asked Cumnock. "No fa- 
 vourites? No suppressions ? No exploitations? " 
 
 " ' Straight ' — ' dead straight ' ! And if I were you 
 I'd make this particularly clear to the Wall Street and 
 political men. If anybody " — with stress upon the 
 anybody — " comes to you about this, send him to 
 me. 
 
 Howard was uneasy about the managing editor, Mr. 
 King. But he soon found that his fears were ground- 
 less. Mr. King was without petty vanity, and cordially 
 and sincerely welcomed his control. 
 
 "We look too dull," King began when Howard 
 asked him if he had any changes to suggest. " We 
 need more and bigger headlines, and we need pic- 
 tures." 
 
 " That is it ! " Howard was delighted to find that 
 King and he were in perfect accord. " But we must 
 
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i68 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 not have pictures unless we can have the best. Just 
 at present we can't increase expenses by any great 
 amount. What do you say to trying what we can do 
 with all the news, larger headlines and plenty of 
 leads?" 
 
 " I'm sure we can do better with our class of readers 
 by livening up the appearance of our headlines than 
 we could with second-rate pictures." 
 
 " I hope," Howard said earnestly, " that we won't 
 have to use that phrase — ' our class of readers ' — much 
 longer. Our paper should interest every man and 
 woman able to read. It seems to me that a news- 
 paper's audience should be like that of a good play — 
 the orchestra chairs full and the last seat in the 
 gallery taken. I suppose you know we're not an 
 ' organ ' any longer ? " 
 
 " No, I didn't." Mr. King looked surprised. "Do 
 you mean to say that we're free to print the news ? " 
 
 " Free as freedom. In our news columns we're 
 neither Democrat nor Republican nor Mugwump nor 
 Reform. We have no Wall Street or social connec- 
 tions. We are going to print a newspaper — all the 
 news and nothing but the news." 
 
 Mr. King drummed on his desk softly with the tips 
 of his outstretched fingers. " Hum — hum," he said. 
 " This is news. Well — the circulation'll go up. And 
 that's all I'm interested in." 
 
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YELLOW JOURNALISM. 169 
 
 Howard went about his plans quietly. He avoided 
 every appearance of exerting authority, disturbed not 
 a wheel in the great machine. He made his changes 
 so subtly that those who received the suggestions 
 often came to him a few days afterward, proposing as 
 their own the very plans he had hinted. He was thus 
 cautious partly because of his experience of the vanity 
 of men, their sensitiveness to criticism, their instinc- 
 tive opposition to improvement from without ; partly 
 from his knowledge of the hysteria which raged in the 
 ofifices of the " yellow journals." He wished to avoid 
 an epidemic of that hysteria — the mad rush for sensa- 
 tion and novelty ; the strife of opposing ambitions ; 
 the plotting and counter-plotting of rival heads of de- 
 partments ; the chaos out of which the craziest ideas 
 often emerged triumphant, making the pages of the 
 paper look like a series of disordered dreams. 
 
 He was indifferent to the semblance of authority, to 
 the shadows for which small men are forever strug- 
 gling. What he wanted, all he wanted, was — results. 
 
 The first opposition came from the night editor, 
 who for twenty-six years, his weekly " night off " 
 and his two weeks' vacation in summer excepted, had 
 " made up " the paper — that is to say, had defined, 
 with the advice and consent of the managing editor, 
 the position and order of the various news items. 
 This night editor, Mr. Vroom, was a strenuous con- 
 
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i;© THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 servative. He believed that an editor's duty was 
 done when he had intelligently arranged his paper so 
 that the news was placed before the reader in the 
 order of its importance. Big headlines, attempts at 
 effect with varying sizes of large type and varying 
 column-widths he held to be crowd-catching devices, 
 vulgar and debasing. He had no sympathy with 
 Howard's theory that the first object of a newspaper 
 published in a democratic republic is to catch the 
 crowd, to interest it, to compel it to read, and so to 
 lead it to think. 
 
 " We're on the way to scuffling in the gutter with 
 the ' yellow journals ' for the pennies of the mob," he 
 was saying sarcastically to Mr. King, one afternoon 
 just as Howard joined them. 
 
 Howard laughed. " Not on the way to the gutter, 
 Mr. Vroom. Actually in the gutter, actually scuf- 
 fling." 
 
 "Well, I'm frank to say that I don't like it. A 
 newspaper ought to appeal to the intelligent." 
 
 "To intelligence, yes; to the intelligent, no. At 
 least in my opinion, that is the right theory. We 
 want people to read us because we're intelligent 
 enough to know how to please them, not because 
 they're intelligent enough to overcome the difificulties 
 we put in their way. But let's go out to dinner this 
 evening and talk it over." 
 
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YELLOW JOURNALISM. 171 
 
 They dined together at Mouquin's every night for 
 a week. At the end of that time Vroom, still sarcas- 
 tic and grumbling, was a convert. And a great acces- 
 sion Howard found him. He had sound judgment as 
 to the value of news-items — what demanded first page, 
 the " show-window," because it would interest every- 
 body ; what was worth a line on an inside page be- 
 cause it would interest only a few thousands. He 
 was the most skillful of the News-Record's many good 
 writers of headlines, a master of that, for the news- 
 paper, art of arts — condensed and interesting state- 
 ment, alluring the glancing reader to read on. Also 
 he had an eye for effects with type. " You make 
 every page a picture," Howard said to him. " It is 
 wonderful how you balance your headlines, emphasi- 
 sing the important news yet saving the minor items 
 from obscurity. I should like to see the paper you 
 would make if you had the right sort of illustrations 
 to put in." 
 
 Vroom was amazed at himself. He who had op- 
 posed any "head " which broke the column rule was 
 now so far degenerated into a " yellow journalist" 
 that, when Howard spoke of illustrations, he actually 
 longed to test his skill at distributing them effectively. 
 ******** 
 
 Two months of hard work, tedious, because neces- 
 sarily so indirect, produced a newspaper which was " on 
 
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172 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 the right lines," as Howard understood right lines. 
 And he felt that the time had come to make the 
 necessary radical changes in the editorial page. 
 
 The News-Record had long posed as independent be. 
 cause it supported now one political party and now the 
 other, or divided its support. But this superficial 
 independence was in reality subservience to the finan- 
 cial interests of the two principal owners. They 
 made their newspaper assail Republican or Democratic 
 corruption and misgovernment in city, state or nation, 
 according as their personal interests lay. They used 
 the editorial page and, to even better advantage, the 
 news-columns, in revenging themselves for too heavy 
 levies of blackmail upon their corrupt interests or in 
 securing unjust legislation and privileges. 
 
 Obedient and cynical Mr. Malcolm had made the 
 editorial page corrupt and brilliant— never so effective 
 as when assailing a good cause. The great misfortune 
 of good causes is that they attract so many fatal 
 friends — the superciliously conscientious ; the well- 
 meaning but feeble-minded and blundering ; the most 
 offensive because least deceptive kinds of hypocrites. 
 Mr. Malcolm, as acute as he was intellectually un- 
 scrupulous, well understood how to weaken or to ruin 
 a just cause through these supporters. Sometimes he 
 stood afar off, showering the poisoned arrows of rail- 
 lery and satire. Again he was the plain-spoken friend 
 
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YELLOW JOURNALISM. 173 
 
 of the cause and warned its honest supporters against 
 these " fool friends " whom he pretended to regard as 
 its leaders. Again he played the part of a blind en- 
 thusiast and praised folly as wisdom and urged it on 
 to more damaging activities. 
 
 " We abhor humbug here," he used to say ; and 
 perhaps he did in a measure excuse himself to his con- 
 science with the phrase. But in fact his editorial 
 page was usually a succession of humbugs, of brilliant 
 hypocrisies and cheats perpetrated under the guise of 
 exposing humbug. 
 
 Just as Howard was ready to reverse Malcolm's 
 editorial programme, New York was seized with one of 
 its " periodic spasms of virtue." The city government 
 was, as usual, in the hands of the two bosses who 
 owned the two political machines. One was taking 
 the responsibility and the larger share of the spoils ; 
 the other was maintaining him in power and getting 
 the smaller but a satisfactory share. The alliance 
 between the police and criminal vice had become so 
 open and aggressive under this bi-boss patronage that 
 the people were aroused and indignant. But as they 
 had no capable leaders and no way of selecting leaders, 
 there arose a self-constituted leadership of uptown 
 Phariseeism and sentimentality, planning the "purifi- 
 cation " of the city. 
 
 Every man of sense knowing human nature and the 
 
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174 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 conditions of city life knew that this plan was fore, 
 doomed to ridiculous failure, and that the event would 
 be a popular revulsion against " reform." 
 
 " Why not speak the truth about these vice- 
 hunters? " Howard was discussing the situation v/ith 
 three of his editorial writers — Segur, Huntington and 
 Montgomery. 
 
 " It's mighty dangerous," Montgomery objected. 
 " You will be sticking knives into a sacred Anglo- 
 Saxon hypocrisy." 
 
 " Yes, we'll have all the good people about our 
 ears," said Segur. " We'll be denounced as a defender 
 of depravity, a foe of purity. They'll thunder away 
 at us from every pulpit. The other newspapers will 
 take it up, especially those that expect to sell millions 
 of papers containing accounts of the * exposure ' of the 
 dives and dens." 
 
 "That's good. I hope we shall," said Howard 
 cheerfully. " It will advertise us tremendously." 
 
 The three were better pleased than they would 
 have admitted to themselves by the seeming certainty 
 of Howard's impending undoing. 
 
 " No, gentlemen," Howard said, as they were about 
 to go to their rooms for the day's work. " There's no 
 danger in attacking any hypocrisy. Don't attack 
 beliefs that are universal or nearly universal— at least 
 not openly. But don't be afraid of a hypocrisy be- 
 
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YELLOW JOURNALISM. 175 
 
 cause it is universal. People know that they are 
 hypocrites in respect of it. They may not have the 
 courage publicly to applaud you. But they'll be pri- 
 vately delighted and will admire your courage. We'll 
 try to be discreet and we'll be careful to be truthful. 
 And we'll begin by making these gentlemen show 
 themselves up." 
 
 The next morning the News-Record published a 
 double-leaded editorial. It described the importance 
 of improving political and social conditions in New 
 York ; it went on to note the distinguished names on 
 the committee for the destruction of vice ; it closed 
 with the announcement that on the following day the 
 News-Record wo\i\d publish the views of these eminent 
 reformers upon conditions and remedies. 
 
 The next day he printed the interviews — a collection 
 of curiosities in utopianism, cant, ignorant fanaticism, 
 provincialism, hypocrisy. These appeared strictly as 
 news; for the cardinal principle of Howard's theory 
 of a newspaper was that it had no right to intrude its 
 own views into its news-columns. On the editorial 
 page he riddled the interviews. By adroit quotations, 
 by contrasting one with another, he showed, or rather 
 made the so-called reformers themselves show, that 
 where they were sincere they were in the main silly, 
 and where they were plausible they were in the main 
 insincere ; that every man of them had his own pet 
 
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176 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 scheme for the salvation of wicked New York ; and 
 that they could not possibly accomplish anything 
 more valuable than leading the people on the familiar, 
 aimless, demoralizing excursion through the slums. 
 
 On the following day he" frankly laughed at them 
 as a lot of impracticables who either did not know the 
 patent facts of city life or refused to admit those 
 facts. And he turned his attention to the real problem, 
 a respectable administration for the city — a practical 
 end which could easily be accomplished by practical 
 action. From day to day he kept this up, publishing 
 a splendid series of articles, humorous, witty, satirical, 
 eloquent, bold, with a dominant strain of sincerity 
 and plain common sense. As his associates had pre- 
 dicted, a storm gathered and burst in fury about the 
 News-Record. It was denounced by "leading citi- 
 zens," including many of the clergy. Its " esteemed " 
 contemporaries published and endorsed and amplified 
 the abuse. And its circulation went up at the rate of 
 five thousand a day. 
 
 When the storm was at its height, when the whole 
 town seemed to be agreeing with the angry reformers 
 but was quietly laughing at their folly and hypocrisy, 
 Howard threw his bomb. On a Saturday morning he 
 gave half of his first page with big but severely impar- 
 tial headlines to an analysis of the members of the 
 vice committee — a broadside of facts often hinted but 
 
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YELLOW JOURNALISM. 177 
 
 never before verified and published. First came those 1 
 who owned property and sub-let it for vicious purposes, 
 the property and purpose specified in detail ; then 
 those who were directors in corporations which had got 
 corrupt privileges from the local boss, the privileges 
 being carefully specified, and also the amounts of 
 which they had robbed the city. Last came those 
 who were directors in corporations which had bought 
 from the State-boss injustices and licenses to rob, the 
 specifications given in damning detail. 
 
 His leading editorial was entitled " Why We Don't 
 Have Decent Government," It was powerful in its 
 simplicity, its merciless raillery and irony ; and only 
 at the very end did it contain passion. There, in a 
 few eloquent sentences he arraigned these professed 
 reformers who were growing rich through the boss- 
 system, who were trafficking with the bosses and were 
 now engaged in wrecking the hopes of honesty and 
 decency. On that day the News-Record's circulation 
 went up thirty thousand. The town rang with its 
 "exposure" and the attention of the whole country 
 was arrested. It was one of the historic " beats " of 
 New York journalism. The reputation of the Neivs- 
 Record for fearlessness and truth-telling and news- 
 enterprise was established. At abound it had become 
 the most conspicuous and one of the most powerful 
 journals in New York, 
 
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XVI. 
 
 MR. STOKELY IS TACTLESS. 
 
 Howard, riding in the Park one morning late in 
 the spring, came upon Mrs. Carnarvon, She gave him 
 no chance to evade her, but joined him and accommo- 
 dated her horse's pace to his. 
 
 " And are you still on the News-Record? " she said. 
 " I hope not." 
 
 " Why ? " Howard was smiling, glad to get an out- 
 side view of what he had been doing. 
 
 " Because it's become so sensational. It used to be 
 such a nice paper. And now — gracious, what head- 
 lines ! What attacks on the very best people in the 
 town ! " 
 
 " Dreadful, isn't it ? " laughed Howard. " We've 
 become so depraved that we are actually telling the 
 truth about somebodies instead of only about no- 
 bodies." 
 
 " I might have known that you would sympathise 
 with that sort of thing." Mrs. Carnarvon was teas- 
 ing, yet reproachful. " You always were an anarchist." 
 
 " Is it anarchistic to be no respecter of persons and 
 to put big headlines over big items and little headlines 
 over little items ? " 
 
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MR. STOKELY IS TACTLESS. 179 
 
 " Oh, you know what I mean. You are encouraging 
 the unruly classes." 
 
 " Dear me ! And we thought we were fighting the 
 unruly class. We thought that it was our friends 
 — or rather, your friends — the franchise grabbers 
 and legislature-buyers who won't obey the laws 
 unless the laws happen to suit their convenience. 
 They're the only unruly class I know anything about. 
 I've heard of another kind but I've never been able to 
 find it. And I never hear much about it except 
 when a lot of big rascals are making off weighted down 
 with plunder. They always shout back over their 
 shoulders : ' Don't raise a disturbance or you'll arouse 
 the unruly classes.' " 
 
 Mrs. Carnarvon was laughing. " You put it well," 
 she said, " and I'm not clever enough to answer you. 
 But they all tell me the News-Record has become 
 a dangerous paper, that it's attacking everybody who 
 has anything." 
 
 " Anything he has stolen, yes. But that's all." 
 
 " You can't get me to sympathise with you. I like 
 well-dressed, well-mannered people who speak good 
 English." 
 
 " So do I. That's why I'm doing all in my power 
 to improve the conditions for making more and more 
 people of the sort one likes to talk to and dine 
 with." 
 
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i8o THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Why, I thought you sympathised with the lower 
 classes." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Who has been maligning me to 
 you ? I abhor the lower classes — so much so that I 
 wish to see them abolished." 
 
 " Well, you'll have to blame Marian for misleading 
 me." 
 
 "Miss Trevor? How is she?" Mrs, Carnarvon 
 was looking closely at him, and he was not sure that 
 he succeeded in showing nothing more than friendly 
 interest. 
 
 " Haven't you heard from her? She's in England, 
 visiting in Lancashire. You know her cousin married 
 Lord Cranmore." 
 
 " I saw in the papers several months ago that she was 
 going abroad. I haven't heard a word since." 
 
 Mrs. Carnarvon started to say something, but 
 changed her mind. 
 
 " When is she coming home ? " 
 
 " Not until July. You must come to see us at 
 Newport." 
 
 "Nothing could please me better — if I can get 
 away." 
 
 "I'll send. you an invitation, although you have 
 treated me very badly of late. But I suppose you are 
 usy. 
 
 " Busy ? Isn't a galley slave always busy ? " 
 
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MR. STONELY IS TACTLESS. i8i 
 
 "Are you still writing editorials ? " 
 
 " Yes — and on the fallen News-Record. In fact " 
 
 "Well— what?" 
 
 Howard laughed. "Don't faint," he said. "I'll 
 leave you at once if you wish me to, and I'll never 
 give it away that you once knew me. I'm the editor 
 — the responsible devil for the depravity." 
 
 " How interesting ! " Mrs. Carnarvon was evidently 
 not disturbed. Then the American adoration of suc- 
 cess came out. " I'm so glad you're getting on. I 
 always knew you would. Really, you must come to 
 dinner. I'll invite some of the people you've been 
 attacking. They'll like to look at you, and you will be 
 amused by them. And I don't in the least mind your 
 giving it to them if they bait you, as I did this morn- 
 ing. Will you come ? " 
 
 " If I may leave by ten o'clock. I go down town 
 every night." 
 
 " Why, when do you sleep ? " 
 
 " Not much, these days. Life's too interesting to per- 
 mit of much sleep. I'll make up when it slackens a bit." 
 
 As he was turning his horse, she said : " Marian's 
 address is Claridge's, Brooke Street, Mayfair. If she 
 isn't there, they forward her mail." 
 
 Howard was puzzled. "What made her give me 
 that address?" he thought. " I know she didn't like 
 my seeing so much of Marian. And here she is 
 
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i82 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 practically inviting me to write to her." He could not 
 understand it. " If I were not a ' yellow ' editor and 
 if Marian were not engaged to one of the richest men 
 in New York, I'd say that this lady was encouraging 
 me." He smiled. " Not yet — not just yet." And he 
 cheerfully urged his horse into a canter. 
 
 Mrs. Carnarvon's opinion of the News-Record and 
 its recent performances fairly represented that of 
 the fashionable and the very rich. They read it, as 
 they never did before, because it interested them. 
 They could not deny that what it said was true ; that 
 is, they could not deny it to their own minds, al- 
 though they did vigorously deny it publicly. Those 
 who were attacked directly or indirectly, or expected 
 to be attacked, denounced the paper as an " outrage," 
 a " disgrace to the city," a " specimen of the journal- 
 ism of the gutter." Many who were not in sympathy 
 with the men or the methods assailed thought that 
 its course was " inexpedient," " tended to increase 
 discontent among the lower classes," " weakened the 
 influence of the better classes." Only a few of the 
 " triumphant classes " saw the real value and benefit 
 of the News-Record's frank attacks upon greed and 
 hypocrisy, saw that these attacks were not dangerous 
 or demagogical because they were just and were com- 
 bined with a careful avoidance of encouragement to the 
 lazy, the envious, the incompetent and the ignorant. 
 
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MR. STOKELY IS TACTLESS. 183 
 
 Fortunately for Howard's peace, that eminent New 
 York " multi," Samuel Jocelyn, for whom Coulter had 
 the highest respect, was of this last class. When 
 Howard began, Coulter was at Aiken where Jocelyn 
 had a cottage. He had never been able to make 
 headway with Jocelyn, and Mrs. Jocelyn deigned to 
 give him and Mrs. Coulter only the coldest of cold 
 nods. Just as Coulter had become so agitated by 
 Howard's radical course that he was preparing to go 
 to New York to remonstrate with him, Jocelyn called. 
 
 " I came to thank you for what you are doing with 
 your paper," he said cordially. " It seems to me that 
 all intelligent men who are not blind to their own 
 ultimate interests ought to stand by you. I can't 
 tell you how much I admire your frankness and 
 honesty. And you draw the line just right. You 
 attack plunder, you defend property. Will your wife 
 and you dine with us this evening?" 
 
 Coulter postponed his trip to New York. 
 
 On the last day of the first three months the circula- 
 tion of the News-Record was 147,253 — an increase of 
 42,150 over what it was on the day Howard took 
 charge; its advertising had increased twelve per cent ; 
 its net profits for the quarter were seventy-five thousand 
 dollars as against fifty-seven thousand for the preced- 
 ing quarter. 
 
 " Very good indeed," was Stokely's comment. 
 
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i84 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Another quarter like this," said Howard, " and 
 I'm going to ask you to let me increase expenses a 
 thousand dollars a week to illustrate the paper." 
 
 " We'll talk that over with Coulter. Personally I 
 like this ' yellow-journalism ' — when it's done intelli- 
 gently. I always told Coulter we'd have to come to 
 it. It's only common sense to make a paper easy 
 reading. .Then, too, we can have a great deal more 
 influence — in fact, we have already. I'm getting what 
 I want up at Albany this winter much cheaper." 
 
 Howard winced. " He made me feel like a black- 
 mailer," he said to himself when Stokely had gone. 
 " And I suppose these fellows do look on me as a new 
 Malcolm with up-to-date tricks. Well, they will see, 
 they will see." 
 
 He tried to go on with his work, but Stokely's 
 cynical words persistently interrupted him. Why had 
 he not squarely challenged Stokely then and there? 
 Why had he only winced where a year ago he would 
 have demanded an explanation ? 
 
 He hated to confess it to himself, he made every 
 effort to smother it, but the thought still stared him in 
 the face — " I am not so strong in my ideals of personal 
 character as I was a year ago." 
 
 The fact that his present course was profitable gave 
 him, he felt, more pleasure than the fact that it was 
 right. If the alternative of wealth and power with self* 
 
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MR. STOKELY IS TACTLESS. 185 
 
 abasement or poverty, obscurity with self-respect were 
 put to him now, what would he decide ? Would he give 
 up his prospects, his hopes of Marian and of an easy 
 career ? He was afraid to answer. He contented him- 
 self with one of his habitual evasions — " I will settle 
 that when the time comes. No, Stokely's remark did 
 not make a crisis. If the crisis ever does come, surely 
 I will act like a man. I'll be securer then, more neces- 
 sary to this pair of plunderers, able to make bettef 
 terms for myself. In practical life, it is necessary to 
 sacrifice something in order to succeed." 
 
 But Stokely's words and his own silence and the 
 real reasons for his changing Ideals and for his cow- 
 ardice continued to annoy him. 
 
 Every day he came down town planning for abetter 
 newspaper the next morning than they had ever made 
 before. And his vigour, his enthusiasm permeated the 
 ei^tire office. He went from one news department to 
 another, suggesting, asking for suggestions, praising, 
 criticising judiciously and with the greatest considera- 
 tion for vanity. He talked with the reporters, urging 
 them on by showing keen interest in them and their 
 work, and intimate knowledge of what they were doing. 
 And he dictated every day telegrams to correspond- 
 ents, thanking them for any conspicuously good stor- 
 ies they had telegraphed in, adding something to the 
 
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186 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 compensation of those who were paid by space and 
 made little. 
 
 If his work had not been his amusement the long 
 hours, the constant application, would have broken 
 him down. But he had no interests outside the office 
 and he got his mental recreation by shifting his mind 
 from one department to another. 
 
 In June his salary was increased to twenty-five 
 thousand a year and his last lingering feeling of finan- 
 cial insecurity disappeared. For the first time in his 
 life he felt strong enough to undertake a serious re- 
 sponsibility, to give hostages to fortune without fear 
 of being unable to keep faith. He learned from Mrs. 
 Carnarvon that Marian was returning on the Oceanic 
 on the ninth of July, and he accepted a Saturday-to- 
 Monday invitation to Newport for the twelfth of July. 
 It was from Segur that he got the news that Danvers 
 was in Japan and was not returning until the autunvh- 
 
 On the ninth of J uly, from the window of his office, he 
 saw the Oceanic steam up the bay and up the river to 
 her pier. He sent down a request that the ship-news 
 reporter be sent up as soon as he returned. 
 
 " Is it a good story? " he asked when the reporter, 
 Blackwell, entered. " Was there anybody on board ? " 
 
 " A lot of swell people," the young man answered ; 
 " all the women got up in the latest Paris gowns." 
 
 "Did you notice whether Mrs. Provost came?" 
 
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MR. STOKELY IS TACTLESS. 187 
 
 "Came? Well, rather, with two French maids 
 chattering and chasing after her. And there was a 
 tall girl with her, a stunner, a girl she called ' Marian, 
 my dear.' " 
 
 Howard stopped him with "Thank you. Don't 
 write anything about them." 
 
 " It was the best thing I saw — the funniest." 
 
 " Well — don't use the names." 
 
 Young Blackwell turned to go. " Oh, I see — friends 
 of yours," he smiled. " Very well. I'll keep 'em out." 
 
 Howard flushed and called him back. " Go ahead," 
 he said. " Write just what you were going to. Of 
 course you wouldn't write anything that was not fair 
 and truthful. We don't 'play favourites ' here. For- 
 get what I said." 
 
 And so it came to pass that Mrs. Provost, half 
 pleased, half indignant, said to Miss Trevor as they 
 sat in the drawing room of the Pullman on the way to 
 Newport the next day: "Just look at this, Marian 
 dear, in the horrid News-Record. And it used to be 
 such a nice paper with that slimy Coulter bowing and 
 scraping to everybody." 
 
 " This " was Mrs. Provost and her dogs and her 
 maids and her asides to " Marian dear," described 
 with accuracy and a keen sense of the ludicrous. 
 
 " It's too dreadful," she continued. " There is no 
 such thing as privacy in this country. The news- 
 
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i88 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 papers are making us," with a slight accent on the 
 pronoun, " as common and public as tenement-house 
 people." 
 
 " Yes," Miss Trevor answered absently. " But why 
 read the newspapers ? I never could get interested in 
 them, though I've tried." 
 
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XVII. 
 
 A WOMAN AND A WARNING. 
 
 On the evening of Howard's arrival at Newport, 
 Mrs. Carnarvon was having a few people in to dine. 
 He had just time to dress and so saw no one until he 
 descended to the reception room. 
 
 " You are to take in Marian," said his hostess, going 
 with him to where Miss Trevor was sitting, her back 
 to the door and her attention apparently absorbed by 
 the man facing her. 
 
 " Here's Mr. Howard, Marian," Mrs. Carnarvon 
 interrupted. " Come with me, Willie. Your lady is 
 over here and we're going in directly." 
 
 Marian saw that Howard was looking at her in the 
 straight, frank fashion she remembered and liked so 
 well. " I've come for you," he said. 
 
 " Yes, you are to take me in," she evaded, her look 
 even lamer than her words. 
 
 "You know what I mean." He was smiling, his 
 heart in his eyes, as if the dozen people were not 
 about them, 
 
 " I see you have not changed," she laughed, answer- 
 ing his look in kind. 
 
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190 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 "Changed? I'm revolutionized. I was blind and 
 now I see. I was paralyzed and behold, I walk. I 
 was weak and lo, I am strong — strong enough for 
 two, if necessary." 
 
 " Now, hasn't it occurred to you that I might possi- 
 bly have something to say about my own fate ? " 
 
 "You? Why, you had everything to say. I rea- 
 soned it all out with you. You simply can't add any- 
 thing to the case I made you make out for yourself 
 when I talked it over with you. I made you protest 
 very vigorously." 
 
 " Well, what did I say — that is, what did you make 
 me say? " 
 
 "You said you were engaged — pledged to another 
 — that you could not draw back without dishonour. 
 And I answered that no engagement could bind you 
 to become the wife of a man you did not love ; that 
 no moral code could hold you to such a sin ; that no 
 code of honour could command you to permit a man to 
 degrade himself and you. Then you pleaded that 
 you were not sure you liked my kind of a life, that 
 you feared you wanted wealth and a great establish- 
 ment and social leadership and — and all that." 
 
 " Did I ? " Marian said with exaggerated astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " You did indeed. You were perfectly open with 
 me. You let me see all that part of you v'hich we 
 
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 J:. 
 
A WOMAN AND A WARNING. 191 
 
 try to keep concealed and fancy we are concealing — all 
 that one really feels and wishes and thinks as dis- 
 tinguished from what one fancies he ought to feel and 
 wish and think." 
 
 " I wonder that you cared, after a glance behind 
 that curtain." 
 
 " Oh, but I like what is behind that curtain best of 
 all. The very human things are there. They make 
 me feel so at home." 
 
 Dinner was announced and it was not until the 
 second course that he had a chance to resume. Then 
 he began as if there had been no interval : 
 
 "You said " 
 
 Marian laughed and looked at him — a flash of her 
 luminous blue-green eyes — and was looking away again 
 with her usual expression. " You needn't tell me the 
 rest. It doesn't matter what I said. I've had you 
 with me wherever I went. You never doubted my — 
 my caring, did you ? " 
 
 " No. I couldn't doubt you. If you were the sort 
 of woman a man could doubt, you wouldn't be the 
 sort of woman I could love. And you know it isn't 
 vanity that makes me sure. I often wonder how you 
 happened to care for such a — but I must not attack 
 any one whom you like so well. No, I knew you cared 
 by the same instinct that makes you know that I care 
 for you." 
 
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192 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 "But why did you come?" 
 
 " Because I have won a position for myself, have 
 enough to enable us to live without eternally fretting 
 over money-matters. I feel that I have the right to 
 come. And then I could not be interested to live on, 
 without you ; and I'm willing to face, willing to have 
 you face, whatever may come to us through me. I 
 know that you and I together " 
 
 " Not now — don't — please." Marian wad pale and 
 she was obviously under a great strain. " You 
 see, you knew all about this. But I didn't until you 
 looked at me when Jessie brought you. It makes me 
 ■ — happy — I am so happy. But I must — I can't con- 
 trol myself here." She leaned over as if her napkin 
 had slipped to the floor. " I love you," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 It was Howard's turn to struggle for self-control. 
 " I understand," he said, " why you wished me not to 
 go on. You never said those words to me before — 
 and " 
 
 " Oh, yes I have — many and many a time." 
 
 " With your eyes, but not with your voice — at least 
 not so that I could hear. And — well, it is not easy 
 to look calm and only friendly when every nerve in 
 one's body is vibrating like a violin string under the 
 bow. Yes, let us talk of something else. I've never 
 been acutely conscious of the presence of others when 
 
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A WOMAN AND A WARNING. 193 
 
 I've been with you. To-night I'm in great danger of 
 
 forgetting them altogether." 
 
 " That would be so like you." Marian laughed, 
 
 then raised her voice a little and went on. " Yes, 
 
 your little restaurant in the Rue Louis le Grand was 
 
 gone. There was a dressmaker in its place — Raudinitz. 
 
 She made this. How do you like it ? " 
 " It has the air of — of belonging to you." 
 Marian looked amused. Howard shrugged his 
 
 shoulders. " All roads lead to Rome," he said. 
 
 Carnarvon hung about until the women went to bed, 
 so Howard and Marian had noopportunity to bealone. 
 As soon as he saw his last chance vanish, he went to 
 his own room, to the solitude of its balcony in the 
 shadow of the projecting fagade with the moonlight 
 flooding the rocks and the sea. 
 
 As he sat smoking, the recession came, the reaction 
 from weeks of nervous tension. And with the ebb of 
 the tide entered that Visitor who alone has the 
 privilege of the innermost chamber where lives the 
 man himself, unmasked of all vanity and show and 
 pretense. The visit was not unexpected ; for at every 
 such crisis every one is certain of a call from this Visitor, 
 this merciless critic, plain and rude of speech, rare and 
 reluctant in praise, so mocking in our moments of 
 
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194 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 elation, so cruelly frank about our follies and self, 
 excuses when he comes in our moments of depres- 
 sion. 
 
 " So you are going to marry ? " the Visitor said 
 abruptly. " I thought you had made up your mind 
 on that subject long ago." 
 
 " Love changes a man's point of view," Howard 
 replied, timid and apologetic before this quiet, relent- 
 less other-self. 
 
 " But it doesn't change the facts of life, does it ? 
 It doesn't change character, does it?" 
 
 " I think so. For instance, it has changed me. It 
 has made a man of me. It has been the inspiration of 
 the past year, strengthening me, making me ambitious, 
 energetic. Have I not thought of her all the time, 
 worked for her ? " 
 
 " You have been uncommonly persistent — as you 
 always are when you are thwarted." The Visitor wore 
 a satirical smile. " But a spurt of inspiration is one 
 thing. A wife — responsibility — fetters " 
 
 " Not when one loves." 
 
 " That depends upon the kind of love — and the kind 
 of woman — and the kind of man." 
 
 " Could there be any higher kind of love than 
 ours ? " 
 
 " Most romantic, most high-minded — quite idyllic." 
 The Visitor's tone was gently mocking. " And I don't 
 
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A WOMAN AND A WARNING. 19S 
 
 deny that you may go on loving each the other. But 
 — how does she fit in with your scheme of life ? What 
 does she really know of or care about your ambitions? 
 Why, you had so little confidence in her that you 
 didn't dare to think of marrying her until you had an 
 income which you once would have thought wealth — an 
 income which, by the way, already begins to seem 
 small to you." 
 
 " No, it wasn't lack of confidence in her," protested 
 Howard. " It was lack of confidence in myself." 
 
 " True, that did have something to do with it, I 
 grant you. And that reminds me — what has become 
 of all your cowardice about responsibility?" 
 
 " Oh, I'm changed there." 
 
 "Are you sure? Are you not deceived by this 
 sudden and maybe momentary streak of good luck in 
 your affairs? You have fixed your ambition high — • 
 very high. You wish to make an honest and a 
 useful and a distinguished career. You know 
 you have weaknesses. I needn't remind you — ■ 
 need I — that you have had to fight those weak- 
 nesses ? How could you have won thus far if you had 
 been responsible for others instead of being alone, and 
 certain that the consequences would fall upon your- 
 self only? I want to see you continue to win. I 
 don't want to see you dragged down by extravagance, 
 by love for this woman, by ambition of the kind her 
 
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196 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 friends approve. I don't want to see you — You were 
 silent when Stokely insulted you ! " 
 
 " Love — such love as mine — and for such a woman 
 ■ — and with such love in return — drag down? Impos- 
 sible ! " 
 
 " Not so — not exactly so, though I must say you are 
 plausible. But don't forget that you and she are not 
 starting out to make a career. Don't forget that she 
 is already fixed — her tastes, habits, friendships, 
 associations, ideals already formed. Don't forget that 
 your love is the only bond between you — and that it 
 may drag you toward her mode of life instead of 
 drawing her towards yours. Don't forget that your 
 own associations and temptations are becoming more 
 and more difficult. I repeat, you cringed — yes, 
 cringed — when Stokely insulted you. Why ? " 
 
 Howard was silent. 
 
 "And," the Visitor went on relentlessly, "let me 
 remind you that not only did you give her up without 
 a struggle a few months ago but also she gave you up 
 without a word." 
 
 " But what could she have said ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure. I'm not familiar with ways 
 feminine. But I know — we know — that, if there had 
 not been some reservation in her love, some hesitation 
 about you — unconscious, perhaps, but powerful enough 
 to make her yield — she would not have let you go as 
 she did." Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
A WOMAN AND A WARNING. 197 
 
 " But she did not realise, as I did not, how much 
 our love meant to us." 
 
 "Perhaps — that sounds well. All I ask is, will she 
 help you? Are you really so much stronger than you 
 were only four months ago? Or are you stimulated 
 by success? Suppose that days of disaster, of peril, 
 come ? What then ? " 
 
 " But they will not. I have won a position. I can 
 always command a large salary — perhaps not quite so 
 much but still a large salary." 
 
 " Perhaps — if you don't trouble yourself about 
 principles. But how would it be if you would do 
 nothing, write nothing, except what you think is 
 honest? Would you ask her to face it? Tell me, 
 tell yourself honestly, have you the right to assume a 
 responsibility you may not be able to bear, to invite 
 temptations you may not be able to resist ? " 
 
 There was a long silence. At last Howard stood up 
 and flung his cjgar into the sea. His face was drawn 
 and his eyes burned. 
 
 " God in heaven ! " he cried, " am I not human ? 
 May I not have companionship and sympathy and 
 love ? Must I be alone and friendless and loveless 
 always ? That is not life ; that is not just. I will not ; 
 I will not. I love her — love her — love her. With the 
 best that there is in me, I love her. Am I such a 
 coward that I cannot face even my own weaknesses ? " 
 
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XVIII. 
 HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 
 
 In August Marian and Mrs. Carnarvon came to the 
 Waldorf for two days. Howard had offered to show 
 them how a newspaper is made ; and Mrs. Car- 
 narvon, finding herself bored by too many days of 
 the same few people every day, herself proposed the 
 trip. The three dined in the open air on Sherry's 
 piazza and at eleven o'clock drove down the Avenue, 
 to the east at Washington Square, and through the 
 Bowery. 
 
 " I never saw it before," said Marian, " and I must 
 say I shall not care if I never see it again. Why do 
 people make so much fuss about slums, I wonder ? " 
 
 "Oh, they're so queer, so like another world," sug- 
 gested Mrs. Carnarvon. " It gives you such a delight- 
 ful sensation of sadness. It's just like a not-too-melan- 
 choly play, only better because it's real. Then, too, 
 it makes one feel so much more comfortable and clean 
 and contented in one's own surroundings." 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Jessie." 
 Marian spoke in mock indignation. "The next th'ng 
 
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HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 199 
 
 we know you'll sink to being a patron of the poor and 
 go about enjoying yourself at making them self-con- 
 scious and envious." 
 
 "They're not at all sad down this way," said 
 Howard, "except in the usual inescapable human 
 ways. When they're not hit too hard, they bear up 
 wonderfully. You see, living on the verge of ruin and 
 tumbling over every few weeks get one used to it. 
 It ceases to give the sensation of event." 
 
 Their automobile had turned into Park Row and so 
 reached the News-Record building in Printing House 
 Square. Howard took the two women to the elevator 
 and they shot upward in a car crowded with telegraph 
 messengers, each carrying one or more envelopes, some 
 of them bearing in bold black type the words: 
 " News !— Rush ! " 
 
 " I suppose that is the news for the paper? " Mrs. 
 Carnarvon asked. 
 
 ".A little of it. Our special cable and special news 
 from towns to which we have no direct wire and also 
 the Associated Press reports come this way. But we 
 don't use much Associated Press matter, as it is the 
 same for all the papers." 
 
 " What do you do with it ? " 
 
 " Throw it away. A New York newspaper throws 
 away every night enough to fill two papers and often 
 enough to fill five or six." 
 
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200 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Isn't that very wasteful ? " 
 
 " Yes, but it's necessary. Every editor has his own 
 idea of what to print and what not to print and how 
 much space each news event calls for. It is there 
 that editors show their judgment or lack of it. To 
 print the things the people wish to read in the 
 quantities the people like and in the form the most 
 people can most easily understand — that is success as 
 an editor." 
 
 " No doubt," said Marian, thinking of the low view 
 all her friends took of Howard's newspaper, " if you 
 were making a newspaper to please yourself, you 
 would make a very different one." 
 
 " Oh, no," laughed Howard, " I print what I my- 
 self like ; that is, what I like to find in a newspaper. 
 We print human news made by human beings and in- 
 teresting to human beings. And we don't pretend to 
 be anything more than human. We try never to 
 think of our own idea of what the people ought to read, 
 but always to get at what the people themselves think 
 they ought to read. We are journalists, not news- 
 censors." 
 
 "I must say newspapers do not interest me." 
 Marian confessed it a little diffidently. 
 
 "You are probably not interested," Howard 
 answered, "because you don't care for news. It is a 
 queer passion — the passion for news. The public has 
 
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HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 201 
 
 it in a way. But to see it in its delirium you must 
 come here." 
 
 " This seems quiet enough." Marian looked about 
 Howard's upstairs office. It was silent, and from the 
 windows one could see New York and its rivers and 
 harbour, vast, vague, mysterious, animated yet quiet. 
 
 " Oh, I rarely come here — a few hours a week," 
 Howard replied. " On this floor the editorial writers 
 work." He opened a door leading to a private hall. 
 There were five small rooms. In each sat a coatless 
 man, smoking and writing. One was Segur, and 
 Howard called to him. 
 
 " Are you too busy to look after Mrs. Carnarvon 
 and Miss Trevor for a few minutes ? I must go down- 
 stairs." 
 
 Segur gave some " copy " to a boy who handed him 
 a bundle of proofs and rushed away down a narrow 
 staircase. Howard descended in the elevator, and 
 Segur, who had put on his coat, sat talking to the two 
 women as he looked through the proofs, glancing at 
 each narrow strip, then letting it drop to the floor. 
 
 " You don't mind my working ? " he asked. " I 
 have to look at these things to see if there is any news 
 that calls for editional attention. If I find anything 
 and can think an editorial thought about it, I write it ; 
 and if Howard is in the humour, perhaps the public is 
 permitted to read it." 
 
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202 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Is he severe ? " asked Mrs. Carnarvon. 
 
 " The ' worst ever,' " laughed Segur. " He is very 
 positive and likes only a certain style and won't have 
 anything that doesn't exactly fit his ideas. He's easy 
 to get along with but difficult to work for." 
 
 " I imagine his positiveness is the secret of his 
 success." Marian knew that Segur was half in jest 
 and was fond of Howard. But she couldn't endure 
 hearing him criticised. 
 
 " No. I think he succeeds because he works, 
 pushes straight on, never stops to repair blunders but 
 never makes the same kind of a blunder the second 
 time." 
 
 Segur's eye caught an item that suggested an 
 editorial paragraph. He sat at Howard's desk, thought 
 a moment, scrawled half a dozen lines in a large 
 ragged hand on a sheet of ruled yellow paper, and 
 pressed an electric button. The boy came, handed 
 him another thick bundle of proofs, took the "copy" 
 and withdrew. Just then Howard returned. 
 
 " We'll go down to the news-room," he said. 
 
 The windows of the great news-room were thrown 
 wide. Scores of electric lights made it bright. At 
 the various desks or in the aisles were perhaps fifty 
 men, most of them young, none of them beyond 
 middle age. They were in every kind of clothing 
 from the most fashionable summer attire to an old 
 
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HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 203 
 
 pair of cheap and stained duck trousers, coUarless 
 negligee shirt open all the way down the front and 
 suspenders hanging about the hips. 
 
 Some were writing long-hand ; others were pound- 
 ing away at the typewriter ; others were talking in 
 undertones to " typists " taking dictation to the 
 machine ; others were reading " copy " and altering it 
 with huge blue pencils which made apparently unread- 
 able smears wherever they touched the paper. In and 
 out skurried a dozen ofiSce-boys, responding to calls 
 from various desks, bringing bundles of proofs, thrust- 
 ing copy into boxes which instantly and noisily shot 
 up through the ceiling. 
 
 It was a scene of confusion and furious activity. 
 The face of each individual was calm and his motions 
 by themselves were not excited. But taking all 
 together and adding the tense, strained expression 
 underneath the calm — the expression of the profes- 
 sional gambler — there was a total of active energy 
 that was oppressive. 
 
 " We had a fire below us one night," said Howard. 
 " We are two hundred feet from the street and there 
 were no fire escapes. We all thought it was good-bye. 
 It was nearly half an hour before we found out that 
 the smoke booming up the stairways and into this 
 room had no danger behind it." 
 
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204 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Gracious!" Mrs. Carnarvon shuddered and looked 
 uneasily about. 
 
 " It's perfectly safe," Howard reassured her. 
 " We've arranged things better since then. Besides, 
 that fire demonstrated that the building was fireproof." 
 
 " And what happened ? " asked Miss Trevor. 
 
 " Why, just what you see now. The Managing 
 Editor, Mr. King over there — I'll introduce him to 
 you presently — went up to a group of men standing at 
 one of the windows. They were pretending indifference 
 as they looked down at the crowd which was shouting 
 and tossing its arms in a way that more than suggested 
 pity for us poor devils up here. Well, King said : 
 ' Boys, boys, this isn't getting out a paper.' Every 
 one went back to his work and — and that was all." 
 
 They went on to the room behind the news- 
 room. As Howard opened its heavy door a sound, 
 almost a roar, of clicking instruments and typewriters 
 burst out. Here again were scores of desks with men 
 seated at them, every man with a typewriter and a 
 telegraph instrument before him. 
 
 " These are our direct wires," Howard explained. 
 " Our correspondents in all the big cities, east, west, 
 north and south and in London, are at the other end 
 of these wires. Let me show you." 
 
 Howard spoke to the operator nearest them, 
 " Whom have you got ? " 
 
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HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 205 
 
 " I'm taking three thousand words from Kansas 
 City," he replied. " Washington is on the next wire." 
 " Ask Mr. Simpson how the President is to-night," 
 Howard said to the Washington operator. t 
 
 His instrument clicked a few times and was silent. 
 Almost immediately the receiver began to click and, 
 as the operator dashed the message off on his type- 
 writer the two women read over his shoulder: " Just 
 came from White House. He is no better, probably 
 a little worse because weaker. Simpson." 
 
 "And can you hear just as quickly from London ? " 
 Marian asked. 
 
 " Almost. I'll try. There is always a little delay 
 in transmission from the land systems to the cable 
 system ; and messages have to be telephoned between 
 our ofifice in Trafalgar Square and the cable ofHce 
 down in the city. Let's see, it's five o'clock in the 
 morning in London now. They've been having it hot 
 there. I'll ask about the weather." 
 
 Howard dictated to the man at the London wire : 
 " Roberts, London. How is the weather ? Howard." 
 
 In less than ten minutes the cable-man handed 
 Howard a typewritten slip reading : " News-Record, 
 New York, Howard : Thermometer 97 our ofifice now. 
 Promises hottest day yet. Roberts." 
 
 " I never before realised how we have destroyed 
 distance," said Mrs. Carnarvon. 
 
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2o6 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " I don't think any one but a newspaper editor com- 
 pletely realises it," Howard answered. " As one sits 
 here night after night, sending messages far and wide 
 and receiving immediate answers, he loses all sense of 
 space. The whole world seems to be in his ante- 
 room." 
 
 " I begin to see fascination in this life of yours." 
 Marian's face showed interest to enthusiasm. " This 
 atmosphere tightens one's nerves. It seems to me 
 that in the next moment I shall hear of some thrilling 
 happening." 
 
 " It's listening for the first rumour of the ' about-to-= 
 happen ' that makes newspaper-men so old and yet so 
 young, so worn and yet so eager. Every night, every 
 moment of every night, we are expecting it, hoping 
 for some astounding news which it will test our re- 
 sources to the utmost to present adequately." 
 
 From the news-room they went up to the compos- 
 ing room — a vast hall of confusion, filled with strange, 
 looking machines and half-dressed men and boys. Some 
 were hurrying about with galleys of type, with large 
 metal frames; some were wheeling tables here and 
 there ; scores of men and a few women were seated at 
 the machines. These responded to touches upon 
 their key-boards by going through uncanny internal 
 agitations. Then out from a mysterious somewhere 
 would come a small thin strip of almost hot metal, the 
 
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HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 20; 
 
 width of a newspaper column and marked along one 
 edge with letters printed backwards. 
 
 Up through the floor of this room burst boxes filled 
 with " copy." Boys snatched the scrawled, ragged- 
 looking sheets and tossed them upon a desk. A man 
 seated there cut them into little strips, hanging each 
 strip upon a hook. A line of men filed rapidly past 
 these hooks, snatching each man a single strip and 
 darting away to a machine. 
 
 " It is getting late," said Howard. "The final rush 
 for the first edition is on. They are setting the last 
 ' copy.' " 
 
 "But," Mrs. Carnarvon asked, "how do they ever 
 get the different parts of the different news-items to- 
 gether straight ? " 
 
 " The man who is cutting copy there — don't you see 
 him make little marks on each piece ? Those marks 
 tell them just where their 'take,' as they call it, 
 belongs." 
 
 They went over to the part of the great room where 
 ; there were many tables, on each a metal frame about 
 the size of a page of the newspaper. Some of the 
 frames were filled with type, others were partly empty. 
 And men were lifting into them the galleys of type 
 under the direction of the Night Editor and his staff. 
 As soon as a frame was filled two men began to even 
 the ends of the columns and then to screw up an in- 
 
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2o8 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 side framework which held the type firmly in place. 
 Then a man laid a great sheet of what looked like 
 blotting-paper upon the page of type and pounded it 
 down with a mallet and scraped it with a stiff brush. 
 
 "That is the matrix," said Howard. "See him 
 putting it on the elevator." They looked down the 
 shaft. " It has dropped to the sub-basement," said 
 Howard, " two hundred and fifty feet below us. They 
 are already bending it into a casting-box of the shape 
 of the cylinders on the presses; metal will be poured 
 in and when it is cool, you will have the metal form, 
 the metal impression of the page. It will be fastened 
 upon the press to print from." 
 
 They walked back through the room which was 
 now in almost lunatic confusion — forms being locked ; 
 galleys being lifted in ; editors, compositors, boys, 
 rushing to and fro in a fury of activity. Again the 
 phenomenon of the news-room, the individual faces 
 calm but their tense expressions and their swift mo- 
 tions making an impression of almost irrational ex- 
 citement. 
 
 " Why such haste ? " asked Marian. 
 
 " Because the paper must be put to press. It must 
 contain the very latest news and it must also catch 
 the mails ; and the mail-trains do not wait." 
 
 They descended in the main elevator to the ground 
 floor and then went down a dark and winding stair- 
 
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HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 209 
 
 case until they faced an iron door. Howard pushed 
 it open and they entered the press-room. Its temper- 
 ature was blood-heat, its air heavy and nauseating 
 with the odours of ink, moist paper and oil, its lights 
 dim. They were in a gallery and below them on all 
 sides were the huge presses, silent, motionless, waiting. 
 
 Suddenly a small army of men leaped upon the 
 mighty machines, scrambled over them, then sprang 
 back. With a tremendous roar that shook the entire 
 building the presses began to revolve, to hurl out 
 great heaps of newspapers. 
 
 "Those presses eat six hundred thousand pounds of 
 paper and four tons of ink a week," Howard shouted, 
 " They can throw out two hundred thousand complete 
 papers an hour — papers that are cut, folded, pasted, 
 and ready to send away. Let us go before you are 
 stifled. This air is horrible." 
 
 They returned in the elevator to his lofty office. 
 Even there a slight vibration from the press-room 
 could be felt. But it was calm and still, a fit place 
 from which to view the panorama of sleeping city and 
 drowsy harbour tranquil in the moonlight. 
 
 " Look." Howard was leaning over the railing Just 
 outside his window. 
 
 They looked straight down three hundred feet to 
 the street made bright by electric lights. Scores of 
 wagons loaded with newspapers were rushing away 
 
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2IO THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 from the several newspaper buildings. The shouts 
 the clash of hoofs and heavy tires on the granite 
 blocks, the whirr of automobiles, were borne faintly 
 upward. 
 
 " It is the race to the railway stations to catch the 
 mail-trains," Howard explained. "The first editions 
 go to the country. These wagons are hurrying in 
 order that tens of thousands of people hundreds of 
 miles away, at Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and 
 scores on scores of towns between and beyond, may 
 find the New York newspapers on their breakfast- 
 tables." 
 
 The ofifice-boy came with a bundle of papers, warm, 
 moist, the ink brilliant. 
 
 " And now for the inquest," said Howard, 
 
 " The inquest? " Marian looked at him inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes — viewing the corpse. It was to give birth to 
 this that there was all that intensity and fury — that 
 and a thousand times more. For, remember, this paper 
 is the work of perhaps twenty thousand brains, in 
 every part of the world, throughout civilisation and 
 far into the depths of barbarism. Look at these date 
 lines — cities and towns everywhere in our own country, 
 Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America. 
 You'll find most of the capitals of Europe represented ; 
 and Africa, north, south and central, east and west 
 coast. Here's India and here the heart of Siberia. 
 
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HOWARD EXPLAINS HIS MACHINE. 211 
 
 There is China and there Japan and there Australia. 
 Think of these scores of newspaper correspondents 
 telegraphing news of the doings of their fellow beings 
 — not what they did last month or last year, but what 
 they did a few hours ago — some of it what they were 
 doing while we were dining up at Sherry's. Then think 
 of the thousands on thousands of these newspaper-men, 
 eager, watchful agents of publicity, who were on 
 duty but had nothing to report to-day. And " 
 
 Howard shrugged his shoulders and tossed the 
 paper from him. 
 
 " There it lies," he said, " a corpse. Already a 
 corpse, its life ended before it was fairly born. There 
 it is, dead and done for — writ in water, and by 
 anonymous hands. Who knows who did it? Who 
 cares? " 
 
 He caught Marian's eyes, looking wonder and re- 
 proach. 
 
 " I don't like to hear you say that," she said, for- 
 getting Mrs. Carnarvon. " Other men — yes, the little 
 men who work for the cheap rewards. But not you^ 
 who work for the sake of work. This night's ex- 
 perience has thrilled me. I understand your profession 
 now. I see what it means to us all, to civilisation, 
 what a splendid force for good, for enlightenment, for 
 uplifting it is. I can see a great flood of light radiat- 
 ing from this building, pouring into the dark places, 
 
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212 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 driving away ignorance. And the thunder of those 
 presses seems to me to fill the world with some mighty 
 command — what is it? — oh, yes — I can hear it dis- 
 tinctly. It is, ' Let there be light ! ' " 
 
 Mrs. Carnarvon's back was toward them and she 
 was looking out at the harbour. Howard put his hands 
 upon Marian's shoulders and they looked each the 
 other straight in the eyes. 
 
 " Lovers and comrades," he said, " always. And 
 how strong we are — together ! " 
 
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XIX. 
 
 " I MUST BE RICH." 
 
 " While I don't feel dependent upon the owners of 
 the News-Record, still I am not exactly independent of 
 them either. And if I left them it would only be to 
 become dependent in the same way upon somebody 
 else. A man who makes his living by the advocacy 
 of principles should be wholly free. If he isn't, the 
 principles are sure sooner or later to become incidental 
 to the living, instead of the living being incidental to 
 the principles." 
 
 " But you see — perhaps I ought to have told you 
 before — that is, there may be " — Marian was stam- 
 mering and blushing. 
 
 " What's the matter ? Don't frighten me by looking 
 so — so criminal," Howard laughed. 
 
 It was late in August. Marian was visiting Mrs. 
 Brandon at Irvington-on-the-Hudson and she and 
 Howard were driving. 
 
 " I never told you. But the fact is" — she hesitated 
 again. 
 
 " Is it about your other engagement ? You never told 
 me about that — how you broke it off. I don't want 
 
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214 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 yo-u to tell me unless you wish to. You know I 
 never meddle in past matters. I'm simply trying to 
 help you out." 
 
 " Instead, you're making it worse. I'd rather not 
 tell you that if " 
 
 " We'll never speak of it again. And now, what is it 
 that is troubling you ? " 
 
 " I have been trying to tell you — I wish you wouldn't 
 look at me — I've got a small income — it's really very 
 small." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it." 
 
 " I was afraid you wouldn't like it. It isn't very 
 big — only about eight thousand a year — some years 
 not so much. But then, if anything happened — we 
 could be — we could live." 
 
 Howard smiled as he looked at her — but not with 
 his eyes. 
 
 " I'm glad," he said. " It makes me feel safer in 
 several ways. And I'm especially glad that it is not 
 larger than mine. I know it's stupid, as so many of 
 our instincts are; but I should not like to marry a 
 woman who had a larger income than I could earn. 
 I think it is the only remnant I have of the ' lord and 
 master ' idea that makes so many men ridiculous. 
 But we need not let that bother us. Fate has made 
 us about equal in this respect, so unimportant yet so 
 important ; and we are each independent of the other. 
 
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"I MUST BE RICH." 215 
 
 Each will always know that love is the only bond 
 that holds us together." 
 
 They decided that they would live at the rate of 
 about fifteen thousand a year and would put by the 
 rest of their income. She was to undertake the entire 
 management of their home, he transferring his share 
 by check each month. 
 
 "And so," she said, "we shall never have to discuss 
 money matters." 
 
 " We couldn't," laughed Howard. " I don't know 
 anything about them and could not take part in a dis- 
 cussion." 
 
 As they were to be married in November, they 
 planned to take an apartment when Marian came back 
 to town — in late September. She was to attend to 
 the furnishing and all was to be in readiness by the 
 time they were married. Howard was to get a six 
 weeks' vacation and, as soon as they returned, they 
 were to go to housekeeping. 
 
 Her visit to the News-Record ofHce had made a 
 change in her. Until she met Howard, she had known 
 only the world-that-idles and the world-that-drudges. 
 Howard brought her the first real news of the world- 
 that-works. Of course she knew that there was such a 
 world, but she had confused it with the world-that- 
 drudges. She liked to hear Howard talk about his 
 world, but she thought that his enthusiasm blinded him 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
2i6 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 to the truth of its drudgery ; and she often caught her. 
 self half regretting that he had to work. 
 
 But that vast machine for the swift collecting and 
 distributing of the news of the world had opened her 
 eyes, had made her see her lover and, through him, 
 his life, in a different aspect. She had accepted the 
 supercilious, thoughtless opinion of those about her 
 that the newspaper is a mere purveyor of inaccurate 
 gossip. And while Howard had tried to show her his 
 profession as it was, he had only succeeded in con- 
 vincing her that he himself had an exalted view of it ; a 
 view which she thought creditable to him but wide of 
 the disagreeable truth. 
 
 On that trip down-town she had seen " the press " 
 with the flaws reduced and the merits looming. She 
 had looked into those all-seeing eyes that watch the 
 councils of statesmen and the movements of nations 
 and peoples, yet also note the swing of a murderous 
 knife in an alley of the slums. She had heard that 
 stentorian voice of Publicity, arousing the people of 
 the earth to apprehend, to reflect, to progress. 
 
 She had been proud of Howard for his appearance, 
 for what he said and the way he said it. Now she 
 was proud of him for the part he was taking in this 
 wonderful world-that-works. And she would not have 
 confessed to him how insignificant she felt, how weak' 
 and worthless. 
 
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"I MUST BE RICH." 217 
 
 She thought she was impatient for the time to come 
 when she could learn how to help him in his work, 
 could begin to feel that she too had a real share in it. 
 With what seemed to her most creditable energy and 
 self-sacrifice she tried again to interest herself in news- 
 papers. But the trivial parts bored her ; the chroni- 
 cles of crime repelled her ; and the politics and most 
 of the other serious articles were beyond the range of 
 her knowledge or of her interest. " I shall wait until 
 we are married," she said, " then he will teach me." 
 And she did not suspect how significant, how ominous 
 her postponement was. 
 
 She asked him if he would not teach her and he re- 
 plied : "Why, certainly, if you are interested. But I 
 don't intend to trouble you with the details of my pro- 
 fession. I want you to lead your own life — to do what 
 interests you." 
 
 She did not stop to analyse her feeling of relief at 
 this release, and went on to protest : " But I want your 
 life to be my life. I want there to be only one life — 
 our life." 
 
 " And there shall be — each contributing his share, 
 at least I'll try to contribute mine. But you have 
 your own individuality, dear ; and a very strong one 
 it is. And I don't want you to change." 
 
 At the time he was deep in his plans for illustrating 
 the News-Record. Early in that fall's campaign they 
 
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2i8 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 had secured the best cartoonist in America. Cartoons 
 ,are rarely the work of one man but are got up by 
 '--consultations. Howard spent never less than an hour 
 each day with the cartoonist, Wickham, wrestling 
 with the problem of the next day's picture. For he 
 insisted upon having a striking cartoon each day, and 
 gave it the most conspicuous place in the paper — the 
 top-centre of the first page. 
 
 " If a cartoon is worth printing at all," he said, " it 
 is worth printing large and conspicuous. And to be 
 worth printing it must be like an ideal editorial— one 
 point sharply and swiftly made and so clear that the 
 most careless glance-of-the-eye is enough." 
 
 Wickham had made a series of cartoons on the cam- 
 paign, humorous and satirical, which had the distinc- 
 tion of being reproduced on lantern slides for use in all 
 parts of the town. It was an admirable beginning of 
 the new policy of illustration. Howard had been mak 
 ing a careful study of all the illustrators in the country, 
 not overlooking those toiling in obscurity on the big 
 western dailies. He had selected a staff of twenty ; as 
 soon as Coulter and Stokely assented, he engaged them 
 by telegraph. Five were developed artists, the rest 
 beginners with talent. He gave all of his attention for 
 two weeks to organising this staff. He infected it with 
 his enthusiasm. He impressed upon it his ideas of news- 
 paper illustration — the dash and energy of the French 
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"I MUST BE RICH," 219 
 
 illustrators adapted to American public taste. He in- 
 sisted upon the artists studying the French illustrated 
 papers and applying what they learned. It was not 
 until the first Sunday in December that he felt ready 
 to submit the results of these labours to the public. 
 
 Again he scored over the " contemporaries " of the 
 News-Record. They printed many more illustrations 
 than it did. It had only one illustration on a page, 
 but there was one on every page and a good one. 
 All the subjects were well chosen — either action or 
 character — and as many good looking women as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 " Never publish a commonplace face," he said. 
 " There is no such thing in life as an uninteresting 
 face. Always find the element of interest and bring 
 it out." 
 
 The result of this policy, interpreted by a carefully 
 trained and enthusiastic staff, was what the out-of- 
 town press was soon praising as " a revelation in 
 newspaper-illustration." Howard himself was sur- 
 prised. He had mentally insured against a long 
 period of disappointment. 
 
 "This shows," he remarked to King and Vroom, 
 "how much more competent men are than we usually 
 think — if they get a chance, if they are pointed in the 
 right direction and are left free." 
 
 " He certainly knows his business." Vroom was 
 
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220 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 looking after Howard admiringly. " I never saw any. 
 body who so well understood when to lead and when 
 to let alone. What results he does get ! " 
 
 "A pity to waste such talents on this thankless 
 business," said King. " If he'd gone into real busi- 
 ness, he would have a salary of a hundred thousand a 
 yeat; would be rich and secure for life. Why, a busi- 
 ness man could and would make a whole career on 
 the ideas he has in a single week. As it is " 
 
 King shrugged his shoulders and Vroom finished 
 the sentence for him : " Coulter and Stokely could 
 kick him out to-morrow and the News-Record would go 
 straight on living upon his ideas for ten years at least." 
 
 Howard needed no one to make this truth clear to 
 him to the full. Often, as he thought of his expanding 
 tastes, his expanding expenditures and his expanding 
 plans both for his private life and for his career, he 
 felt an awful sinking at the heart and a sense of 
 fundamental weakness. 
 
 " I am building upon sand," he said to himself. 
 " In business, in the law, in almost any other career 
 to-day's work would be to-morrow's capital. As it is, 
 I am ever more and more a slave. To be free I ought 
 to be poor or rich. And I cannot endure the thought 
 of poverty again. I must be rich." 
 
 The idea allured him to a degree that made him 
 ashamed of himself. Sometimes, when he was talking 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
"I MUST BE RICH." 221 
 
 to Marian or writing editorials, all in the strain of 
 high principle and contempt for sordidness, he would 
 flush at the thought that he was in reality a good deal 
 of a hypocrite. " I'm expressing the ideals I ought to 
 have, the ideals I used to have, not the ideals I have." 
 
 But the clearer this discrepancy became to him and 
 the wider the gap between what he ought to think 
 and what he really did think, the more strenuously he 
 protested to himself against himself, and the more 
 fiercely he denounced in public the very poison he 
 was himself taking. 
 
 " I am living in a tainted atmosphere," he said to 
 Marian. " We all are. I fight against the taint but 
 how can I hope to avoid the consequences if I persist 
 in breathing it, in absorbing it at every pore of my 
 body?" 
 
 " I don't understand you." Marian was used to 
 his moods of self-criticism and did not attach much 
 importance to them. 
 
 He thought a moment. " Oh, nothing," he said. 
 " What's the use of discussing what can't be helped ? " 
 How could he tell her that the greatest factor in his 
 enervating environment was herself; that the strongest 
 chains which held him in it were the chains which 
 bound him to her? Indeed, was he not indulging in 
 cowardly self-excuse in thinking that this was true? 
 Had not his success, rather than his love, made ambi- 
 tion unfettered by principle the mainspring of his life? 
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XX. 
 
 ILLUSION. 
 
 " How shall we be married ? " Howard asked her in 
 the late Autumn. 
 
 " I know it will not be in a church with ushers and 
 bridesmaids and a crowd gaping at us. I suppose 
 there is a public side to marriage since the state 
 makes one enter into a formal contract. But that can 
 be done privately. I should as soon think of driving 
 down the Avenue with my arms about your neck as 
 of a public wedding." 
 
 " Thank you," he laughed. " I was afraid — well, 
 women are usually so fond of — but you're not usual. 
 Let us see. The minister is absolutely necessary, I 
 suppose. Would one feel married if there were not a 
 minister?" 
 
 " I don't know— I feel " 
 
 She hesitated and blushed but looked straight at 
 him with that expression in her eyes which always 
 made him think of their love as their religion. 
 
 " Feel — go on. I want to hear that very, very 
 much." 
 
 " I feel as if I were just as much married to you 
 now as I ever could be." 
 
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ILLUSION. 223 
 
 " And that is how I have felt ever since the day, 
 wlien I hardly knew you, when you suddenly came into 
 my life — my real, inner life where no one had been be- 
 fore — and sat down and at once made it look as if it 
 were your home. And the place that had been lonely 
 was lonely no more, and has not been since." 
 
 She put her hand in his and he saw that there were 
 tears in her eyes. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked. 
 
 " Only that — that I am so happy. It — it frightens 
 me. It seems so Uke a dream." 
 
 " It's going to be a long, long dream, isn't it ? " He 
 lifted her hand and kissed it, then put it down in her 
 lap again gently as if he feared a sudden movement 
 might awaken them. " Perhaps it had better be at 
 Mrs. Carnarvon's house — some morning just before 
 luncheon and we could go quietly away afterward." 
 
 " Yes — and — tell me," she said, " wouldn't it be 
 better for us not to go far away — and not to stay 
 long? It seems to me that I most want to begin — 
 begin our life together just as it will be." 
 
 " Are you afraid you wouldn't know what to do 
 with me if I were idling about all day long ? " 
 
 " Not exactly that. But I'd rather not take a vaca- 
 tion until we had earned it together." 
 
 " What a beautiful idea ! I'll see what I can do." 
 
 They postponed the wedding until Howard had 
 
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224 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 the "art-department" of the News-Record well es- 
 tablished. It was on a bright winter day in the 
 second week of January that they stood up together 
 and were married by the Mayor whom Howard had 
 helped to elect. Only Mr. and Mrs. Carnarvon and 
 Marian's brother were there. Then the six sat down 
 to luncheon, and at three o'clock Howard and his wife 
 started for Lakewood. 
 
 When they arrived a victoria was waiting. As soon 
 as they were seated, Howard said " Home." The 
 coachman touched his hat and the horses set out at a 
 swift trot. The sun was setting and the dry, still air 
 was saturated with the perfume of the snow-draped 
 pines. Within five minutes the carriage was at a 
 pretty little cottage with wide, glass-enclosed porches. 
 They entered the hall. In the rooms on either side 
 open fires were blazing an ecstatic welcome. 
 
 " How do you like ' home ' ? " asked Howard. 
 
 " I don't quite understand." 
 
 "You remember your plan of beginning at once. 
 Well — this is the compromise. Stokely has let me 
 have his house here for a month — we may keep it two 
 if we like it. There is a telephone. The office isn't 
 two hours away by rail. The newspapers are here 
 early. We can combine work and play." 
 
 The manservant had left the room, a sort of library- 
 reception room. Marian was seated in a big chair 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
ILLUSION. 225 
 
 drawn near the fire. She had thrown back her wraps 
 and was slowly drawing off her gloves. Howard 
 stood at the side of the fire, leaning against the 
 mantel and looking down at her. 
 
 " Before you definitely decide to stay — " he 
 paused. 
 
 "Yes," she said, her colour heightening as she slowly 
 lifted her eyes to his, " yes — why this solemn tone ? " 
 
 " If ever — in the days that come — one never knows 
 what may happen — if ever you should find that you 
 had changed toward me " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I ask you — don't promise — I never want you to 
 promise me anything — I want you always — at every 
 moment — to be perfectly free. So I just ask that you 
 will let me see it. Then we can talk about it frankly, 
 and we can decide what is best to do." 
 
 " But — suppose — you see I might still not wish to 
 wound you — " she suggested, half teasing, half in 
 earnest. 
 
 " It seems to me now that it is impossible that we 
 can ever change. It seems to me — " he sat on the 
 wide arm of her chair, and leaned over until his head 
 touched hers, " that if you were to change it would 
 break my heart. But if you were to change and were 
 to hide it from me, I should find it out some day 
 and ^" 
 
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226 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 " And what " 
 
 " It would be worse — a broken heart, a horror of 
 myself, a — a contempt for you." 
 
 " Whatever comes, I'll be myself or try to be. Is 
 that what you mean ? " 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 "And if you change?" 
 
 " But I shall not ! " 
 
 " Why do you say that so positively ? " 
 
 " Because — well, there are some things that we wish 
 to believe and half believe, and some things that we 
 believe that we believe, and some things that we know. 
 I know about you — about my love for you." 
 
 " It is strange in a way, isn't it ? " Marian was 
 gently drawing her fingers through his. " This is all 
 so different from what I used to think love would be. 
 I used to picture to myself a man, something like you 
 in appearance, only taller and fair, who would be my 
 master, who would make me do what he wished. I 
 think a woman always dreams of a lover who will be 
 strong enough to be her ruler. And here " 
 
 " So I am not the strong man that you look up to 
 and tremble before ? We shall see." 
 
 " Don't laugh at me. I mean that instead I have a 
 man who makes me rule myself. You make me feel 
 strong, not weak, and proud, not humble. You make 
 pie respect myself so," 
 
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ILLUSION. 227 
 
 " The democracy of love — freedom, equality, frater- 
 nity. Don't you like it?" 
 
 " Madame is served." It was the servant holding 
 back one of the portieres, his face expressionless, his 
 eyes down. 
 
 ********* 
 
 Happiness evades description or analysis. We can 
 only say that it reaches its highest point when a man 
 and a woman, intelligent, appreciative, sympathetic, 
 endowed with youth, health and freedom, are devot- 
 ing their energies solely and determinedly to verifying 
 each a preconceived idea of the other. 
 
 " And what do you think of it by this time ? " 
 
 Marian asked the question in the pause after a 
 twenty minutes' canter over a straightaway stretch 
 through the pines. 
 
 " Of what ? " Howard inquired. " I mean of what 
 phase of it. Of you ? " 
 
 " Well, — yes, of me — after a week." 
 
 "As I expected, only more so — more than I could 
 have imagined. And you, what do you think ? " 
 
 " It's very different from what I expected. It seemed 
 to me beforehand that you, even you, would ' get on 
 my nerves ' just a little at times. I didn't expect you 
 to appreciate — to feel my moods and to avoid doing — • 
 or is it that you simply cannot do — anything jarring. 
 You have amazing instincts or else — " Marian looked 
 
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228 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 at him and smiled mischievously, " or else you have 
 been well educated. Oh, I don't mind — not in the 
 least. No matter what the cause, I'm glad — glad — ■ 
 glad that you have been taught how to treat a 
 woman." 
 
 " I see you are determined to destroy me," Howard 
 was in jest, yet in earnest. " I am not used to being 
 flattered. I have never had but one critic, and I have 
 trained him to be severe and uncharitable. Now if 
 you set me up on a high altar and wave the censors 
 and cry 'glory, glory, glory,' I'll lose my head. You 
 have a terrible responsibility. I trust you and I 
 believe everything you say." 
 
 " I'll begin my duties as critic as soon as we go back 
 to — to earth. But at present I'm going to be selfish. 
 You see it makes me happier to blind myself to your 
 faults." 
 
 They rode in silence for a few moments and then 
 she said : 
 
 " I wish I had your feeling about — ^about democracy. 
 I see your point of view but I can't take it. I know 
 that you are right but I'm afraid my education is too 
 strong for me. I don't believe in the people as you 
 do. It's beautiful when you say it. I like to hear 
 you. And I would not wish you to feel as I do I'd 
 hate it if you did. It would be stooping, grovelling 
 for you to njal^e distinctions among people. But — ^" 
 
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ILLUSION. 229 
 
 " Oh, but I do make distinctions among people —so 
 much so that I have never had a friend in my life until 
 you came. I have been on intimate terms with manyj'Y 
 but no one except you has been on intimate terms 
 with me. Oh, yes, I'm one of the most exclusive I 
 persons in the world." 
 
 " That sounds like autocracy, doesn't it?" laughed 
 Marian. " But you know I don't mean that. You think 
 all the others are just as good as you are, only in differ- 
 ent ways, whereas I feel that they're not. You don't 
 mind vulgarity and underbreeding because you are 
 perfectly indifferent to people so long as they don't 
 try to junip the fence about your own little private 
 enclosure." 
 
 " Oh, I believe in letting other people alone, and 
 I insist upon being let alone myself. You see you 
 make the whole world revolve about social distinctions. 
 The fact is, isn't it, that social distinctions are mere 
 trifles " 
 
 " You oughtn't to waste time arguing with a prej- 
 ; udice. I admit that what I believe and feel is un- 
 reasonable. But I can't change an instinct. To me 
 some people are better than others and are entitled to 
 more, and ought to be looked up to and respected." 
 
 Howard had an answer on the tip of his tongue. 
 His passion for high principle seemed to have been 
 rekindled for the time by his love and in this tranquil- 
 
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230 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Using environment. He felt strongly tempted to reju 
 son with her unreasonableness, thus practically boasted 
 as a virtue. It seemed so unworthy, this streak of snob- 
 bery, so senseless in an American at most three gener- 
 ations away from manual labour. But he had made up 
 his mind long ago to trust to new surroundings, new 
 interests to create in her a spirit more in sympathy 
 with his career. 
 
 " She is too intelligent, too high-minded," he often 
 reassured himself, " to cling to this stupidity of class- 
 feeling. She has heard nothing but class-distinction 
 all her life. Now that she is away from those people, 
 with their petty routine of petty ideas, she will 
 begin to see things as they are." 
 
 So he suppressed the argument and, instead, said in 
 a tone of mock-pity : " Poor fallen queen— to marry 
 beneath her. How she must have fought against the 
 idea of such a plebeian partner." 
 
 " Plebeian — you ? " Marian looked at him proudly. 
 " Why, one has only to see you to know." 
 
 " Yes, plebeian. I shall conceal it no longer. My 
 ancestors were plain, ordinary, common, untitled 
 Americans." 
 
 " Why, so were mine," she laughed. 
 " Don't ! You distress me. I should never have 
 married you had I known that." 
 
 " I am absurd, am I not ? " Marian said gaily. " But 
 
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ILLUSION. 231 
 
 let me have my craze for well-mannered people and 
 I'll leave you your craze for the — the masses." 
 
 They began to canter. Howard was smiling in spite 
 of his irritation ; for it always irritated him to have her 
 refuse to see his point in this matter — his distinction 
 between a person as a friend and a person as a 
 sociological unit. 
 
 He worked for an hour or two every morning and 
 sometimes in the evening, Marian not far from his 
 desk, so seated that when she turned the page of her 
 book she could lift her eyes and look at him. She 
 read the papers diligently every day for the first week. 
 At the outset she thought she was interested. But 
 she knew so little about newspaper details that she 
 soon had to confess to herself that she was in fact in- 
 terested in Howard as her husband and lover, and that 
 his career interested her only in a broad, general way. 
 What he talked about, that she understood and liked 
 and was able to discuss. But the newspapers and the 
 news direct suggested nothing to her, bored her. 
 
 " Just read that," he would say, pointing to an item. 
 She would read it and wonder what he meant. 
 
 " It seems to me," she would think, " that it wouldn't 
 in the least matter if that had not been printed." 
 Then she would ask evasively but with an assump- 
 tion of interest, " What are you going to do about it ? " 
 
 And he would explain the meaning between the lines ; 
 
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232 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 the hinted facts that ought to be brought out ; the 
 possibilities of getting a piece of news that would at- 
 tract wide attention. And she would see it, sometimes 
 clearly, usually vaguely ; and she would admire him, 
 but resume her unconquerable indifference to news. 
 
 She was soon looking at the paper only to read what 
 he wrote ; and she often thought how much more in- 
 teresting he was as a talker than as a writer. " I'll 
 start right when we get to town," she was con- 
 stantly promising herself. " It must, must, must 
 be our work." 
 
 Howard was, as she had told him, acutely sensi- 
 tive to her moods. He did not formulate it to 
 himself but simply obeyed an instinct which defined 
 for him the limits of her interest. Before they had 
 been at Lakewood a month, he was working alone 
 without any expectation of sympathy or interest 
 from her and without the slightest sense of loss in not 
 getting it. Why should he miss that which he had 
 never had, had never counted upon getting? He had 
 always been mentally alone, most alone in the plans 
 and actions bearing directly upon his own career. He 
 was perfectly content to have her as the companion ^ 
 of his leisure. 
 
 Possibly, if he had been insistent, or if they had been 
 in .real sympathy instead of in only surface sympathy 
 in most respects, she might have become interested in 
 
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ILLUSION. 233 
 
 his work, might have impelled him to right develop- 
 ment. But her distaste and inertia and his habit of 
 debating and deciding questions as to the paper in 
 his own mind, the fear of boring her, the dread of in- 
 truding upon her rights to her own individual tastes 
 and feelings, restrained him without his having a sense 
 of restraint. 
 
 When, after two months, they went up to town to 
 stay, their course of life was settled, though Marian 
 was protesting that it was not and Howard was un- 
 conscious of there having been any settlement, or any- 
 thing to settle. 
 
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XXI. 
 
 WAVERING. 
 
 Their home was an apartment at Twenty-ninth 
 Street and Madison Avenue — just large enough for 
 two with its eleven rooms, all bearing the stamp of 
 Marian's individuality. She had a keen sense of the 
 beautiful and she had given her thought and most of 
 her time between the early autumn and the wedding 
 to making an attractive home. He had not seen her 
 work until they came together in the late afternoon 
 of a day in the last week of February. 
 
 " You — everywhere you," he said, as they inspected 
 room after room. " I don't see how I could add any- 
 thing to that. It is beautiful — the things you have 
 brought together, I mean, the furniture, curtains, 
 carpets, pictures, all beautiful in themselves, but " 
 
 He was looking at her in that way which made her 
 feel his great love for her even more deeply than 
 when he put his arms about her and kissed her. " It 
 reminds me of what I so often think about you. 
 Nature gave you beauty but you make it wonderful 
 because you shine through it, give it the force, the ex- 
 pression of your individuality. Other women have 
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WAVERING. 235 
 
 noses, eyes, chins, mouths as beautiful as yours. But 
 only you produce such effects with the materials. I 
 don't express it very well but — you understand ? " 
 
 " Yes, I understand." She was leaning against 
 him, her head resting upon his shoulder. " And you 
 like your home ? " 
 
 " We shall be happy here. I feel it in the air. 
 This is a temple of the three great gods — Freedom, 
 Love and Happiness. And — we'll keep the fires on 
 the altars blazing, won't we ? " 
 
 His hours were most irregular. Sometimes he was 
 off to work early in the morning. Again he would not 
 rise until noon. Sometimes he did not go to the 
 ofifice after dinner, and again he came hurriedly to 
 dinner, not having the time to dress, and left im- 
 mediately afterward to be gone until two, three 
 or even four in the morning. At first Marian tried to 
 follow his irregularities ; but she was soon compelled 
 to give up As he most often breakfasted about ten 
 o'clock, she arranged to breakfast regularly at that 
 'hour. If he was not yet up, she waited about the 
 house until she had seen him, listened while he talked 
 of those " everlasting newspapers," praised his work 
 a great deal, criticised it little and that gently. She 
 made few and feeble struggles to interest herself in 
 newspapers as newspapers. But he did not encourage 
 her ; other interests, domestic and social, clamoured for 
 
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236 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 her time ; and the idea of being directly useful to him 
 in his work faded from her mind. 
 
 If she had loved him more sympathetically, if she 
 had not been so super-sensitive to his passion for com- 
 plete freedom, she would have resented what in another 
 kind of man would have seemed frank neglect of her. 
 But she thought she understood him and was deceived 
 by his self-deceiving conviction that his work was her 
 service and that the highest proof of his devotion to 
 her was devotion to " our " career. Thus there was 
 no bitterness or reproach of him, rarely much intensity, 
 in her regret that they were together so little. 
 
 " Good morning, stranger ! " she said, as he came 
 into the dining room one day in early June. 
 
 He kissed her hand and then the " topknot " as he 
 called the point into which her hair was gathered at 
 the crown of her head. " It has been four days since 
 I saw you," he said. And he sat opposite her looking 
 at her with an expression of sadness which she had 
 not seen since the first days of their acquaintance. 
 
 " I have missed you — you know," she was trying to 
 look cheerful, " but I understand " 
 
 "Yes," he interrupted. "You understand what I 
 intend, understand that I mean my life to be for us. 
 But sometimes — this morning — I think I am mistaken. 
 It seems to me that I am letting this — " he threw his 
 hand contemptuously toward the heap of morning 
 
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WAVERING. 23; 
 
 newspapers beside him, " this trash comes between us. 
 You are my real career, not these, and under the pre- 
 tense of working for us I am spending my whole life, 
 my one life, my one chance to help to make us 
 happy, upon these." And he pushed the bundle of 
 papers off the table. 
 
 " Something has depressed you." She was leaning 
 her elbow upon the table and her chin upon her hand 
 and was looking at him wistfully. " I wouldn't have 
 you any different. You must follow the law of your 
 nature. You must work at your ideal of being useful 
 and influential in the world. You would not be 
 satisfied to take my hand and trudge off with me 
 through Arcadia to pick flowers and weave them into 
 crowns for me. Nor should I," she laughed, " or I try 
 to think I shouldn't." 
 
 " Let us go abroad for two months," he said. " I 
 am tired, so tired. I am so weary of all these others, 
 men and things." 
 
 " Can you spare the time ? " 
 
 " I " — he corrected himself — " we have earned a 
 vacation. It will be for me the first real vacation 
 since I left Yale — thirteen years ago. I am growing 
 narrow and stale. Let us get away and forget. 
 Shall we ? " 
 
 " The sooner the better — if this is not a passing 
 mood. What has depressed you ? " she persisted. 
 
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238 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 "What seems to be a piece of very good luck." 
 He laughed almost sneeringly. " They have given 
 me a share in the paper, twenty thousand in stock — 
 which means a fixed income of five thousand a year 
 so long as the paper pays what it does now — twenty- 
 five per cent. And they offer me twenty thousand 
 more at par to be paid for within two years. We are 
 in a fair way to be rich." 
 
 " They don't want to lose you, evidently," she said. 
 " But why does this make you sad ? We are inde- 
 pendent now — absolutely independent, both of us." 
 
 " Yes — we are rich. Together we have more than 
 thirty-five thousand a year. But it is not what I 
 wanted. I wanted to be free. Can a man be free 
 who is rich, and rich in the way we are ? Will my 
 mind be open ? Shall I dare to act and speak the 
 truth ? Or will our property, our environment, speak 
 for me ? " 
 
 " I can't imagine you a slave to mere dollars." 
 
 "Can't you? Well, I am afraid — I'm really afraid, 
 i I have always said that if I wished to enslave a people 
 I would make them prosperous, would give them 
 property, make them dependent upon their dollars. 
 Then the fear of losing their dollars, their investments, 
 would make them endure any oppression. Freedom's 
 battles were never fought by men with full stomachs 
 land full purses." 
 
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WAVERING. 239 
 
 " But rich men have given up everything for 
 freedom — Washington was a rich man." 
 
 " Ah, but how many Washingtons has the world 
 produced? I see the time coming when I shall have 
 to choose. I see it and — I dread it." 
 
 She rose and stood behind him leaning over with 
 her arms about his neck and her cheek against his. 
 
 " You are brave. You are strong," she whispered. 
 " You will meet that crisis if it comes and I have no 
 fear, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, as to how the battle will 
 
 go-" 
 
 He was glad that he did not have to face her eyes 
 just then. " We will go abroad next Wednesday 
 week," he whispered, " and we'll be happy in France — • 
 in Switzerland — in Holland — I want to see the park 
 at the Hague again ; and the tall trees with their 
 straight big trunks green with moss ; and the boughs 
 meeting over the canals and making the clear water so 
 black ; and the snow-white swans sailing statelily 
 about." 
 
 With the Atlantic between him and his work, he 
 was able to suspend the habit of so many years. 
 You would have fancied them just married, at what- 
 ever stage of their wanderings you might have met 
 them. They were always laughing and talking — an 
 endless flow of high spirits, absorption each in the 
 
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240 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 other. They rose when they pleased, went to bed 
 when it suited them. They had a manservant and a 
 maid with them to relieve them of all the details. 
 They travelled only in the afternoons, and then not far. 
 If they missed one train, they cheerfully waited for 
 another. 
 
 " I think we are achieving my ideal of vacation," he 
 said. 
 
 "What is that — perfect idleness? We certainly 
 are idle. I shouldn't have believed you could be so 
 idle." 
 
 " Perfect idleness — yes. But more than that. I 
 aimed far higher. My ideal was perfect irresponsi- 
 bility. We have become like the wind that bloweth 
 where it listeth." 
 
 And again, she said : " Let me see, what day is 
 this?" 
 
 " I think it is Thursday or Friday," he replied. 
 " But it may be Sunday. I can assure you that it is 
 afternoon, late afternoon, and I think we ought to 
 dress for dinner soon. After dinner, if you still care 
 to know, and will remind me, I'll try to find out the 
 day. But I'm sure we shall have forgotten before 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Howard got an extension of his leave of absence 
 and they roamed about England in August, reach- 
 ing New York on the first day of September. Marian 
 
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WAVERING. 241 
 
 went on to Mrs. Carnarvon at Newport and Howard 
 took rooms at the Waldorf. She stayed away a full 
 week, then came to town, opened their apartment, 
 and surprised him with a formal invitation to dinner. 
 
 He came like a guest and they went through all 
 the formalities of meeting for the first time, of in- 
 creasing intimacy — condensing a complete courtship 
 into one evening. 
 
 " I thought you had had enough of me for the 
 time," he said, as they sat in the wide window-seat, 
 he tracing with his forefinger the line of the straps 
 over her bare shoulders. 
 
 " And I thought that I would give you a chance to 
 forget how nice I am and so give you the pleasure of 
 learning all over again. But it was so lonely and 
 miserable up there. ' Who can come after the king ? ' " 
 
 " Sometimes I think I ought to stir about more — • 
 meet the men who lead in the city. But it seems 
 such a waste of time when I can come and call upon 
 you." 
 
 "But might it not be better in the long run if you 
 did meet these men ? Mightn't it make your getting 
 on quicker and easier?" 
 
 " Perhaps — if I were a gregarious animal, but I'm 
 not. I'm shy and solitary and hard to get acquainted 
 with. And it takes time to make friends. Besides, 
 in making friends you also make enemies, and one 
 
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242 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 enemy can do you more harm than all your friends 
 can do you good. Then too, friends take up too much 
 time. We have so little time and — we can spend it 
 to so much better advantage — can't we ? " 
 
 Marian pushed herself closer against him and 
 presently said dreamily : " So much happiness, such 
 utter happiness which no one, nothing can take away. 
 I wonder when and how the first storm will come ? " 
 
 " It needn't come at all — not for a long, long time. 
 
 And when it does — we can weather it, don't you 
 
 think?" 
 
 ********* 
 
 During the next two months they were together 
 more than they had been in the spring. He imposed 
 day ofHce hours upon himself and did no work in the 
 evenings except the correcting of editorial proofs 
 which he had sent to him at the house, at the theatre, 
 or at whatever restaurant they were dining. And at 
 midnight he called up the office on the telephone 
 and talked with Mr. King or Mr. Vroom about the 
 news in hand and the programme for presenting 
 it in the next morning's paper. 
 
 But as " people " — meaning Marian's friends — re- 
 turned to town, they fell into the former routine. It 
 was in part his doing, in part hers. He was now 
 thirty-seven years old and his mind, always of a serious 
 cast, was intolerant of trifles and triflers. 
 
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WAVERING. 243 
 
 Marian's range of interests was shallower but much 
 wider than his. Her beauty, her cleverness, her tact 
 caused her to be sought. She invited many to their 
 house and accepted more and more invitations. At 
 first she never went without him. But he was some- 
 times compelled by his work to send her alone. He 
 rarely went except for ] • sake — because he thought 
 going about amused her. And he was glad and re- 
 lieved when she began to go without him, instead of 
 spending the evenings in solitude. 
 
 " There is no reason why you should punish your- 
 self and punish me because you had the ill luck to 
 marry a working-man," he said. " It cannot be 
 agreeable to sit here all by yourself evening after 
 evening. And it depresses me when I am at the 
 ofifice at night to think of you as lonely. It makes 
 me happier in my work — my pleasure, you know — to 
 think of you enjoying yourself." 
 
 "But aren't you afraid that some one will steal 
 me? " she asked, laughingly. 
 
 " Not I." He was smiling proudly at her. " If 
 you could be stolen, if you could be happier anywhere 
 than with me, you have only to let me into the plot." 
 
 "There are some women who would not like that." 
 
 " And there are men who wouldn't feel as I do. 
 But you and I, we belong to a class all by ourselves, 
 don't we ? " 
 
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244 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Apparently they were as devoted each to the other 
 as ever. But each now sought a separate happiness 
 — he perforce in his work, she perforce in the only 
 way left open to her. When they were together, 
 which meant several hours every day and usually 
 one whole day in the week, they were at once 
 seemingly absorbed each in the other with all the 
 rest as background. But none the less, they were 
 leading separate lives, with separate interests, separate 
 tastes, separate modes of thinking. The " bourgeois " 
 life which they had planned — both standing behind 
 the counter and both adding up the results of the 
 day's business after they had put up the shutters, two 
 as one in all the interests of life — became a dead and 
 forgotten dream. 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
XXII. 
 
 THE SHENSTONE EPISODE. 
 
 On the way to or from the opera or a party, she 
 would peep in on him, watching the back of his head 
 as he bent over his desk or read away at some dull- 
 looking book, wishing that he would feel her pres- 
 ence and turn with that smile which was always hers 
 from him, yet fearing to make a sound and compel 
 his attention. 
 
 " At times I think," she said one day when he 
 caught her in his arms on a sudden impulse and 
 kissed her, " that the reason you don't try to rule me 
 is because you don't care enough." 
 
 " That's precisely it." He was smoothing her eye- 
 brows with his forefinger. " I don't care enough 
 about ruling. I don't care enough for the sort of 
 love that responds to * must.' " 
 
 " But a woman likes to have ' must ' said to her" 
 sometimes." 
 
 " Does she ? Do you ? Well — I'll say ' must ' to 
 you. You must love me freely and voluntarily, or 
 not at all. You must do as you please." 
 
 " But don't you see that that drives me from you 
 
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246 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 often, keeps us apart in many ways. Now if you 
 
 compelled me to thinlc as you do, to like what you 
 
 like " 
 
 " But I couldn't. Then you would no longer be 
 
 you. And I like you so well just as you are that I 
 
 would not change an idea in your head." 
 
 Marian sighed and went away to her dinner party. 
 She felt that she was in danger. " Not of falling in 
 love with some other man," she thought, " for that's 
 impossible. But if a man were to come along who 
 invited me to be interested in his work, to keep him 
 at whatever he was doing, I'd accept and that would 
 lead on and on — where ? " 
 
 She soon had an opportunity to answer that ques- 
 tion. Howard went away to Washington to assist 
 the party leaders in putting through a difficult tariff- 
 reform bill which all the protected interests were 
 fighting. He expected to be gone a week ; but week 
 after week passed and he was still at the capital, di- 
 recting the paper by telegraph and sending Marian 
 hurried notes postponing his return. She was going 
 about daily, early and late, her life vacant, her mind 
 restlessly seeking occupation, interest. 
 
 After he had been gone three weeks she found her- 
 self at dinner at Mrs. Provost's next to a tall, fair- 
 haired athletic young man of about her own age. 
 Something in his expression — perhaps the amused 
 
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THE SHENSTONE EPISODE. 24; 
 
 way in which he studied the faces of the others — 
 attracted her to him. She glanced over at his card. 
 It read " Mr. Shenstone." 
 
 " It doesn't add much to your information, does 
 it ? " he smiled, as he caught her glance rising from 
 the card. 
 
 " Nothing," she confessed candidly. " I never 
 heard of you before." 
 
 " And yet I've been splashing about, trying to 
 attract attention to myself, for twelve years." 
 
 " Perhaps not in this particular pond." 
 
 " No, that is true." 
 
 " I was wondering what you do — lawyer, doctor, 
 journalist, business man or what. 
 
 "And what did you conclude?" 
 
 " I concluded that you did nothing." 
 
 " You are right. But I try — I paint." 
 
 "Portraits?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " That explains your way of looking at people. 
 Only, you'll get no customers if you paint them as 
 you see them." 
 
 " I only see what they see when they look in the 
 mirror." 
 
 " Yes, but you see it impartially — or rather, I 
 should say, cynically." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
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248 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " For what ? " 
 
 " For calling me cynical. The two keenest plea- 
 sures a man can attain are for a woman to call him a 
 cynic and for a woman to call him a devil with the 
 women." 
 
 " Are you a ' devil with the women ' ? " 
 
 " Not I — not any more than I am a cynic. But let 
 us talk about you — I am about exhausted as a topic 
 of conversation. Why do you look so discontented? " 
 
 " Because I have nothing to occupy my mind." 
 
 "No children?" 
 
 " None — and no dogs." 
 
 " No husband ? " 
 
 " Husbands are busy." 
 
 " So you are the typical American woman — the 
 American instinct for doing, the universal woman's 
 instinct for sunshine and laziness ; the husband 
 absorbed in his business or profession with his domes- 
 tic life as an incident ; the wife — like you." 
 
 " That is right, and wrong — nearer right than wrong, 
 a little unjust to the husband." 
 
 " Oh, it's probably your fault that you are not 
 absorbed in his business or profession. It ought to be 
 as much yours as his. What does he do?" 
 
 " He edits a newspaper." 
 
 " Oh, he's the Mr. Howard, A very interesting, a 
 very remarkable man." 
 
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THE SHENSTONE EPISODE. 249 
 
 Marian was delighted by this appreciation. She 
 talked with Shenstone again after dinner and was 
 pleased that he was to be in the same box with her 
 at the opera the next night. He had spent much 
 of his time on the other side of the Atlantic. He was 
 unusually well educated for an artist^and his mind 
 was not developed in one direction only. Like Marian, 
 his point of view was artistic and emotional. Like her 
 he had a reverence for tradition, a deference to caste — 
 the latter not offensive for the same reason that hers 
 was not, because good birth and good breeding made 
 him of the " high caste " and not a cringer with his 
 eyes craned upward. It seemed in him, as in her, a 
 sort of self-respect. 
 
 Marian showed a candid liking for his society and 
 he was quick to take advantage of it. For a month 
 they saw more and more each of the other, she dis- 
 creet without deliberation and he discreet with deliber- 
 ation. He talked to her of his work, of his ambition. 
 He showed her himself without egotism. He made 
 an impression upon her so distinct and so favourable 
 that she admitted to herself that he was the most 
 fascinating man — except one — whom she had ever 
 met. 
 
 When Howard at last returned, defeated by cor- 
 ruption within his own party and for the time dis- 
 gusted with politics, she at once had Shenstone at 
 
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2SO THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 the house to dine. " What do you think of Mr. 
 Shenstone ? " she asked when they were alone. 
 
 " No wonder you're enthusiastic about him. As he 
 talked to me, I could hardly keep from laughing. It 
 was your own views, almost your own words. He has 
 the look of a great man. I think he will ' arrive,' as 
 they say in the Bowery." 
 
 Howard went out of his way to be agreeable to 
 Shenstone, often inviting him to the house and giv- 
 ing him a commission to paint Marian. For the rest 
 of the winter Shenstone was constantly in Marian's 
 company, so constantly that they were gossiped about, 
 and all the women who were unpleasantly discussed 
 " for cause " conspired to throw them together as 
 much as possible. 
 
 One evening in the very end of the winter, Howard 
 called to Marian from his dressing room : " Why, lady, 
 Shenstone's gone, hasn't he ? I've just read a note 
 from him." 
 
 There was a pause before Marian answered in a 
 constrained voice : " Yes, he sailed to-day." 
 
 Howard was tying his bow. He paused at the 
 curious tone, then smiled mysteriously to himself. 
 He put on his waistcoat and coat and knocked on the 
 half-open door. " May I come in ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes — I'm waiting for dinner to be announced." 
 
 She was sitting before the iire, very beautiful in her 
 
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THE SHENSTONE EPISODE. 251 
 
 evening gown. She seemed not to observe that he 
 had entered but stared on into the flames. He stood 
 beside her, looking down at her with the half mocking, 
 half tender smile. Presently he sat upon the arm of 
 her chair and took one of her hands. " Poor, friend- 
 less, beautiful lady," he said softly. 
 
 She glanced up quickly, her cheeks flaming but her 
 eyes clear and frank. " Why do you say that ? " she 
 asked in the tone of one who knows why. 
 
 " Other women will not be her friends because they 
 are jealous of her, and as for the men — how can a man 
 be really a friend to a woman, a fascinating, sympathetic 
 woman ? " 
 
 Marian hid her face against the lapel of his coat. 
 " He told me," she whispered, " and then he went 
 away." 
 
 " He always does tell her. But '' 
 
 " But— what ? " 
 
 " She doesn't always send him away. Poor fellow 1 
 Still, he went into it with his eyes open." 
 
 " He was very nice. He told it in a roundabout 
 way. And I wasn't a bit afraid that he'd — he'd — you 
 know. But I got to thinking about how I'd feel if he 
 did — did touch me. And it made me — nervous." 
 
 There was a long pause, then she went on ; "I 
 wonder how you'd feel about touching another 
 woman ? " 
 
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252 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " I ? Dear me, I wonder ! I never thought. You 
 see I'm such a domestic, unattractive creature " 
 
 " Don't laugh at me, please," she pleaded. 
 
 " I'm not laughing. Underneath, I'm thinking — 
 thinking what I would do if I met you and lost you. 
 It's very black on the Atlantic for one pair of eyes 
 to-night." 
 
 " And the worst of it is," she said, " that my vanity 
 is flattered and I'm not really sorry for him." 
 
 " Rather proud of her conquest, is she ? " 
 
 " Yes, it pleased me to have him care." 
 
 " She likes to think that he'll carry his broken heart 
 to the grave, does she ? " 
 
 " Yes. Isn't it shameful ? " 
 
 " Shameful ? Shameless. I have always held that 
 even the best woman dearly loves to ruin a man. It's 
 such a triumph. And the more she loves him, the more 
 she'd like to ruin him — that is, if ruin came solely 
 through love for her and didn't involve her." 
 
 " But I would not want to ruin you." 
 
 " If that seemed to be the supreme test of my love 
 for you — are you sure? I'm not. There's Thomas, 
 knocking to announce dinner." 
 
 The Shenstone incident was apparently closed. 
 
 Marian, a most attractive woman of thirty, absorbed in 
 
 a social life that demanded all her physical and mental 
 
 energy as well as all of her time, did not long vividly 
 
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THE SHENSTONE EPISODE. 253 
 
 remember him. But he had given her a standard by 
 which she unconsciously measured her husband. She 
 contrasted the life he had promised her, the life 
 Shenstone reminded her of, with the life that was — so 
 material, so suspiciously physical when it professed to 
 be loving, so suspiciously chill when it professed to be 
 friendly. She thrust aside these thoughts as disloyal 
 and false. But they persisted in returning. 
 
 If she had been less appreciative of Howard's 
 intellect, less fascinated by the charm of his personality, 
 she would soon have become one of the " misunder- 
 stood " women in search of " consolation." Instead, 
 she turned her mind in the direction natural to her 
 character — social ambition. 
 
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XXIII. 
 
 EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING. 
 
 In such a city as New York, to be deliberately care- 
 ful about money is the only way to keep within one's 
 income, whether it be vast or small. There are 
 temptations to buy at the end of every glance of the 
 eye. The merchants are crafty in producing new and 
 insidious allurements, in creating new and expensive 
 tastes. But these might be resisted were it not that 
 the habits of all one's associates are constantly and all 
 but irresistibly stimulating the faculty of imitation. 
 
 Neither Howard nor Marian had been brought up 
 to be watchful about money. Both had been accus- 
 tomed to having their wants supplied. And now that 
 they had a household and a growing income, it was 
 a matter of course that their expenditures should 
 steadily expand. Before three years had passed they 
 were spending more than double the sum which at the 
 outset they had fixed upon as their limit. A merely 
 decent and self-respecting return of the hospitalities 
 they accepted, a carriage and pair and two saddle 
 horses and the servants to look after them — these items 
 accounted for the increase. They looked upon this as 
 
 really necessary expenditure and soon would have 
 
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EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING. 255 
 
 found that curtailment involved genuine deprivation. 
 From the very beginning each step in expansion made 
 the next logical and inevitable, made the plea of 
 necessity seem valid. 
 
 An aunt of Marian's died, leaving her a " small " 
 house — worth perhaps a quarter of a million — near 
 the Avenue in Sixty-fifth Street, and eighty thousand 
 in cash. About the same time Stokely told Howard 
 of a fine speculative opportunity in certain copper 
 properties. Howard hesitated. He knew that the 
 way of speculation was the way of bondage for his 
 newspaper and for him. But this particular adventure 
 seemed harmless and he yielded. The money was 
 invested and within a few months was producing an 
 income of fifteen thousand a year which promised to 
 be steady. Howard's ownership of stock in the paper 
 increased ; and as the profits advanced swiftly with its 
 swift growth in its illustrated form, his own income 
 was nearly fifty thousand a year. They were growing 
 very rich. There was no longer the slightest anxiety 
 as to money in his mind. 
 
 " You know the great dread I had in marrying," he 
 said to her one day, "was lest I should make myself 
 and you dependents, should some day sacrifice my 
 freedom to my fear of losing — happiness." 
 
 " Yes, and very foolish you were, not to have more 
 confidence in yourself and in me." 
 
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256 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Perhaps. But what I am thinking is that you have 
 brought me luck, I am free, beyond anybody's reach. 
 I could quit the paper to-morrow and we should 
 hardly have to change our style of living even if I did 
 not get something else to do." 
 
 " Style of livings" in that phrase lay the key to the 
 change that was swiftly going on in Howard's mind 
 and mental attitude. It is not easy for a man with 
 environment wholly in his favour to keep his point of 
 view correct, to keep his horizon wide and clear, his 
 sense of proportion just. It is next to impossible for 
 him to do so when his environment opposes. 
 
 The man who looks out from misery and squalor 
 upon misery and squalor is, if he thinks at all, natur- 
 ally an anarchist. To him the established order 
 shows only injustice and persistence of injustice. 
 The man who looks out from luxury and ease and 
 well-being upon luxury and ease and well-being is 
 forced by the very limitations of the human mind to 
 an over-reverence for the established order. He is 
 unreasonably suspicious of anything that threatens 
 change. " When I'm comfortable all's well in the 
 world ; change might bring discomfort to me." And 
 he flatters himself that he is a " conservative." 
 
 Howard had had a long training at the correct 
 standpoint and in right thinking. But the influences 
 were there, were at work, were destroying his devo- 
 
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EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING. 257 
 
 tion to a social and political ideal wholly alien to the 
 life he was now living under the leading of his wife. 
 He did not blame her, indeed he could not justly 
 have blamed her, for his falling away from what he 
 knew were correct principles for him. While she had 
 brought him into this environment, while at first it 
 was in large part for her that he gave so much time 
 and thought to the accumulation of wealth, soon 
 love of luxury, dependence upon a train of servants, 
 fondness for the great extravagances to which New 
 York tempts the rich and those living near the rich, 
 became stronger In him than it was in her. And 
 through the inevitable reaction of environment upon 
 the man, the central point in his valuation of men and 
 women tended to shift from the fundamentals, mind 
 and character, to the surface qualities — dress and style 
 and manners and refinement, and even dress. 
 
 This process of demoralisation was well advanced 
 when they moved from the apartment. After four 
 years of " expansion " there, they had begun to feel 
 cramped ; and a year after Marian inherited the house 
 Howard had progressed to the mental, the moral, the 
 financial state where it seemed natural, logical, practi- 
 cally necessary that they should set up a real New 
 York " establishment." 
 
 "Isn't this just the house for us?" she said. "I 
 hate huge, big houses. Like you, I think the taste of 
 
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258 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 the occupants should be everywhere. Now this house 
 is just big enough. You don't know how wonderful 
 it would be." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I do," he laughed, " and you must try it. " 
 He was as enthusiastic as she. 
 
 In the late autumn the house was ready ; and there 
 was not a more artistic interior in New York. It was 
 not so much the result of great expense as of intelli- 
 gence and taste. It was an expression of an Individ- 
 uality — a revelation of a woman's beautiful mind, 
 inspired by love. 
 
 " At last I have something to interest, to occupy 
 me," she said. " This is our very own, through and 
 through our own. It will be such a pleasure to me to 
 keep it always like this." 
 
 " You — degenerated into a household drudge," he 
 mocked. "Why, you used to laugh at me when I 
 held up a wife who was a good housekeeper as one of 
 my ideals." 
 
 " Did I ? " she answered. " Well, as you would say, 
 see what I've come to through living with — a mem- 
 ber of the working-classes." 
 
 Howard's own particular part of this house included 
 a library with a small study next to it. In the study 
 was a most attractive table with plenty of room to 
 spread about books and papers, a huge divan in the cor- 
 ner and a fire-place near by. He found himself doing 
 
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EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING. 259 
 
 more and more of his work at home. There were not 
 so many interruptions as at the office, the beauty of the 
 surroundings, the consciousness that " she " was not 
 far away — all combined to keep him at home and to 
 enable him to do more and better work there. 
 
 He was justly and greatly proud of her achieve- 
 ment ; and where he used to be more regretful than 
 he admitted even to himself when they had guests, he 
 was now glad to see others about, admiring her taste, 
 appreciating her skill as a hostess and giving him 
 opportunities to look at her from an ever new point 
 of view. 
 
 Of course these guests were almost all " their kind 
 of people " — amiable, well mannered persons who 
 thought and acted in that most conventional of 
 moulds, the mould of " good society." They fitted 
 into the surroundings, they did their part toward 
 making those surroundings luxurious — a " wallow of 
 self-complacent content." And this environment 
 soon suited and fitted him exactly. 
 
 But to her he was still The Democrat. She loved 
 him in the way and to the degree which her character, 
 as the years had developed it, permitted her to love 
 And this love, or rather admiring respect, was wholly 
 based upon her ideal of him, her belief in the honesty 
 and intensity of his convictions. While she did not 
 sh^re them, she had breadth enough to admire then) 
 
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26o THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 and to regard them as high removed above her own 
 ideas to which for herself she held tenaciously, in- 
 stinct and association and " tradition " triumphing 
 over reason, 
 
 Howard retained his ideal of her, never examining 
 her closely, never seeing or suspecting what a pale love 
 she gave him and how shrivelled had become the part 
 of her nature which she and he both assumed was most 
 strongly developed. He knew how she idealised him 
 and did not dare to undeceive her. Therefore he 
 practised toward her a hypocrisy that grew steadily 
 more disgraceful, yet grew so gradually that there was 
 no single moment at which he could conveniently halt 
 and " straighten the record." At first he was often 
 and heartily ashamed of himself ; but by degrees this 
 feeling deadened into cynical insensibility and he was 
 only ashamed to let her see him as he really was. She 
 had kept her self-respect. She esteemed self-respect 
 at the exalted valuation he had formerly put upon it. 
 What if she should find him out ? 
 
 ********* 
 
 When the famous " coal conspiracy " was formed, 
 three of the men conspicuous in it were among their 
 intimates — that is, their families were often at his 
 house and he and Marian were often at theirs. Yet he 
 had never made a more relentless attack. Nor did he, 
 either in the news columns or on the editorial page, con- 
 
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EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING. 261 
 
 ceal the connection of his three friends with the con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 " Mrs. Mercer was here this morning," Marian said 
 as they were waiting for the butler to announce dinner. 
 She was flushed and embarrassed. 
 
 Howard laughed. " And did she tell you what a 
 dreadful husband you had?" 
 
 " Oh, she didn't blame you at all. She said they 
 all knew how perfectly upright you were. Only, she 
 said you did not understand and were doing Mr. Mercer 
 a great injustice." 
 
 " Well, what do you think?" 
 
 " Why — I can't believe — is it possible, dear — I was 
 just reading one of your editorials. Can Mr. Mercer 
 be in such a scheme ? The way she told it to me, he 
 and the others were really doing a lot of people d 
 valuable service, putting their property on a paying 
 basis, enabling the railroads to meet their expenses 
 and to keep thousands and thousands of men 
 employed." 
 
 "Poor Mercer!" Howard said ironically. "Poor 
 misunderstood philanthropist ! What a pity that that 
 sort of benevolence has to be carried on by bribing 
 judges and prosecutors and legislatures, by making the 
 poor shiver and freeze, by subtracting from the plea- 
 sures and adding to the anxieties of millions. One 
 would almost say that such a philanthropy had better 
 
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262 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 not be undertaken. It is so likely to be misunderstood 
 by the ' unruly classes.' " 
 
 " Oh, I knew you were right. I told her you must 
 be right, that you never wrote until you knew." 
 
 " And what was the result?" 
 
 " Well, we are making some very bitter enemies." 
 
 " I doubt it. I suspect that before long they'll come 
 wheedling about in the hope that I'll let up on them or 
 be a little easier next time." 
 
 " I'm sure I do not care what they do," said Marian, 
 drawing herself up. "All I care for is — you, and to 
 see you do your duty at whatever cost or regardless of 
 cost — " she was leaning over the back of his chair with 
 her arms about his neck and her lips very near to his 
 ear — " you are my love without fear and without re- 
 proach." 
 
 " Listen, dear." He took her hand and drew her 
 arms more closely about his neck. " Suppose that the 
 lines were drawn — as they may be any day. Suppose 
 that we had to choose, with all these friends of yours, 
 with our position, yes, even the place I have won in my 
 profession, my place as editor — all that we now have 
 on the one side ; and on the other side a thankless, 
 unprofitable, apparently useless standing up for the 
 right. Wouldn't you miss your friends ?" 
 
 "yi// our friends? And who will be on the other 
 side ? " 
 
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EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING. 263 
 
 " Almost no one that we know — that you would 
 care to call upon or go about with or have here at the 
 house. Nobody with any great amount of wealth or 
 social position. Those other people who are in town 
 when it is said ' Nobody is in town now ! ' " 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 " Where would you be ? " he repeated. 
 
 " Oh, I wasn't thinking of that." She came around 
 and sat on his knee. "Where? Why, there's only 
 one 'where' in all this world for me — 'wheresoever 
 thou goest.' " 
 
 And so the half-formed impulse to begin to straighten 
 himself out with her was smothered by her. 
 
 Both were silent through dinner. She was thinking 
 how honest, how fearless he was, how he loved her, 
 how eagerly she would follow him, how blessed she 
 was in the love of such a man. And he — he was re- 
 gretting that his " pose " had carried him so far ; he 
 was wishing that he had not been so bitter in his 
 attacks upon his and his wife's friends, the coal con- 
 spirators. When he had definitely cast in his lot with 
 " the shearers " why persist in making his hypocrisy 
 more abominable by protesting more loudly than 
 ever in behalf of " the sheep ? " Above all, why had 
 he let his habit of voluble denunciation lead him into 
 this hypocrisy with the woman he loved ? 
 
 He admitted to himself that "causes" had ceased 
 
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264 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 to interest him except as they might contribute to the 
 advancement of his power. Power ! — that was his am- 
 bition now. First he had wished to have an inde- 
 pendent income in order to be free. When he had 
 achieved that, it was at the sacrifice of his mental 
 freedom. And now, with the clearness of self-know- 
 ledge which only men of great ability have, he knew 
 that the one cause for which he would make sacrifices 
 was — ;himself. 
 
 " Of what are you thinking so gloomily ? " she 
 interrupted. 
 
 " Oh — I — let me see — well, I was thinking what a 
 fraud I am ; and that I wished I could dupe myself as 
 completely as I can dupe " 
 
 "Me?" she laughed. "Oh, we're all frauds — 
 shocking frauds. I wouldn't have you see me as I 
 really am for anything." 
 
 Although her remark was a commonplace, of small 
 meaning, as he knew, he got comfort out of it, so 
 desperately was he casting about for some consolation. 
 
 " That's true, my dear," he said. " And I wish that 
 you liked the kind of a fraud I am as well as I like the 
 kind of a fraud you are." 
 
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XXIV. 
 
 " MR. VALIANT-FOR-TRUTH." 
 
 Stokely came rushing into his office the next 
 morning. " Good God, old man," he exclaimed, 
 " What's the meaning of this attack on the coal 
 roads?" 
 
 Howard flushed with resentment, not at what 
 Stokely said, but at his tone. 
 
 " Now, don't get on your high horse. I don't think 
 you understand." Stokely's tone had moderated. 
 " Don't you know that the Delaware Valley road is in 
 this?" 
 
 Howard started. He had just invested two hundred 
 thousand dollars in that stock on Stokely's advice 
 " No, I didn't know it." He recovered himself. "And 
 furthermore I don't give a damn." He struck his desk 
 angrily. His simulation of incorruptible indignation 
 for the moment half deceived himself. 
 
 " Why, man, if this infernal roast is kept up, you'll 
 lose a hundred thousand. Then there are my inter- 
 ests. I'm up to my neck in this deal." 
 
 " My advice to you is to get out of it. I'm sorry, 
 but you know as well as I do that the thing is in- 
 famous." 
 
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266 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " Infamous — nonsense ! It will double our dividends 
 and the consumers won't feel it." 
 
 " Let us not discuss it, Stokely. There — don't say 
 anything you'll regret." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " Now, Stokely — don't argue it with me," 
 
 Stokely put on his hat, stqod up and looked at 
 Howard with sullen admiration. "You will drive 
 away the last friend you've got on earth, if you keep 
 this up. Good morning." 
 
 Howard sent a smile of cynical amusement after 
 him, then stared thoughtfully into the mass of papers 
 on his desk for five, ten, fifteen minutes. When his 
 plan was formed he touched the electric button. 
 
 " Please tell Mr. King I'd like to see him," he said 
 to the answering boy. 
 
 Mr. King entered with a bundle of legal documents. 
 " I suppose it's the injunction you want to discuss," 
 he said. " We've got the papers all ready. It's sim- 
 ply great. Those fellows will be in a corner and will 
 have to give up. They can't get away from us. The 
 price of coal will drop half a dollar within a week, I'll 
 
 bet." 
 
 " I'm afraid you are over sanguine," Howard said. 
 
 " I've just been going over the matter with my lawyer. 
 
 But leave the papers with me. And— about the news 
 
 —be careful what you say. We've been going a little 
 
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"MR. VALIANT-FOR-TRUTH." 267 
 
 strong. I think a little less personal matter would be 
 advisable." 
 
 Mr. King was amazed and looked it. He slowly 
 pulled himself together to say, " All right, Mr. Howard. 
 I think I understand." He laid the papers down and 
 departed. Outside the door he laughed softly to him- 
 self. " Somebody's been cutting his comb, I guess," 
 he murmured. " Well, I didn't think he'd last. New 
 York always gets 'em when they're worth while." 
 
 As the door closed behind King, Howard drew out 
 the lowest and deepest drawer of his desk. It was 
 half-filled with long-undisturbed pamphlets and news- 
 paper cuttings. He tossed in the injunction papers. 
 A cloud of dust flew up and settled thickly upon 
 them. He shut the drawer. 
 
 He went to the window and looked out over the 
 city — that seductive, that overwhelming expression of 
 wealth and power. " What was it my father wrote 
 me when I told him I was going to New York? " and 
 he recalled almost the exact words — " New York that 
 lures young men from the towns and the farms, and 
 prostitutes them, teaches them to sell themselves 
 with unblushing cheeks for a fee, for an ofifice, for 
 riches, for power." He shrugged his shoulders, 
 smiled, drew himself up, returned to his desk and was 
 soon absorbed in his work. 
 
 The next morning the News-Record' s double-leaded 
 
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268 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " leader " on the Coal Trust was a discharge of heavy 
 artillery. But it was artillery in retreat. And in the 
 succeeding days, the retreat continued — not precipi- 
 tate but orderly, masterly. 
 
 ********* 
 
 Ten days after their talk on the " coal conspiracy " 
 Marian greeted him late in the afternoon with " Oh, 
 such a row with Mrs. Mercer ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Mercer ! Why, what was she angry about ? " 
 
 " She wasn't — at least, not at first. It was I. I 
 went to see her and she asked me to thank you for 
 stopping that fight on the coal conspiracy." 
 
 "That was tactful of her," Howard said, turning 
 away to hide his nervousness. 
 
 " And I told her that you had not stopped, that 
 you wouldn't stop until you had broken it up. And 
 she smiled in a superior way and said I was quite mis- 
 taken, that I didn't read the paper. I haven't read it 
 for several days, but I knew you, dear, and I re- 
 membered what you had said. And so we just had it. 
 We were polite but furious when I went. I shall 
 never go near her again." 
 
 " But, unfortunately, we have stopped. We had to 
 do it. We could accomplish nothing." 
 
 " Oh, it doesn't matter. What angered me was her 
 insinuation." 
 
 " That was irritating. But, tell me, what if it had 
 
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" MR. VALIANT-FOR-TRUTH." 269 
 
 been true?" Howard's voice was strained and he 
 was looking at her eagerly, with fever in his eyes. 
 
 " But it couldn't be. It isn't worth while imagining. 
 You could not be a coward and a traitor." So com-| 
 plate was her confidence in him that suspicion of him 
 was impossible. 
 
 " Would you sit in judgment on me ? " 
 
 " Not if I could help it." 
 
 " But you can — you could help it." His manner 
 was agitated, and he spoke almost fiercely. " I am 
 free," he went on, and as she watched his eyes she 
 understood why men feared him. " I do what I will. 
 I am not accountable to you, not even to you. I have 
 never asked you to approve of me, to approve what I 
 do, to love me. You are free also, free to love, free to 
 withdraw your love. I follow the law of my own 
 being. You must take me as you find me or not at 
 all." 
 
 She tried to stop him but could not. His words 
 poured on. He leaned forward and took her hand 
 and his eyes were brilliant and piercing. " I love 
 you," he said. " Ah, how I love you — not because 
 you love me, not because you are an angel, not be- 
 cause you are a superior being. No, not for any 
 reason in all this wide world but because you are you. 
 Do what you will and I shall love you. Whether I 
 had to look up among the stars or down in the mire 
 
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270 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 to find you, I would look just as steadily, just as 
 proudly." 
 
 He drew a long breath and his hand trembled. " If 
 I were a traitor, then, if you loved me, you would say, 
 ' What ! Is he to be found among traitors ? How I 
 love treason ! ' If I were a coward, liar, thief, a sum 
 of all the vices, then, if you ever had loved me you 
 would love me still. I want no love with mental res- 
 ervations, no love with ifs and buts and provided- 
 thats. I want love, free and fearless, that adapts it- 
 self to changing human nature as the colour of the 
 sea adapts itself to the colour of the sky ; love that 
 does not have to be cajoled and persuaded lest it be 
 not there when I most need it. I want the love that 
 loves." 
 
 " You know you have it." She had been compelled 
 by his mood and was herself in a fever. She looked 
 at him with the expression which used to make his 
 nerves vibrate. " You know that no human being 
 ever was more to another than I to you. But you 
 can't expect me to be just the same as you are. I love 
 you — not the false, base creature you picture. I ad- 
 mire the way you love, but I could not love in that 
 way. Thank God, my love, my dear— I shall never 
 be put to that test. For my love for you is my— my 
 
 all." 
 
 " We are very serious about a mere supposition." 
 
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"MR. VALIANT-FOR-TRUTH." 271 
 
 Howard was laughing, but not naturally. " We take 
 each the other far too seriously. I'm sorry you ideal- 
 ise me so. Who knows — you might find me out some 
 day — and then — well, don't blame me." 
 
 Marian said no more, but late that evening she put 
 her hands on his shoulders and said : " You're not 
 hiding something from me — something we ought to 
 bear together ? " 
 
 " Not I." Howard smiled down into her eyes and 
 kissed her. 
 
 His mood of reaction, of hysteria had passed. He 
 was thinking how little in reality she had had to do 
 with his outburst. He had not been addressing her 
 at all, except as she seemed to him for the moment 
 the embodiment of his self-respect — or rather, of an 
 " absurd," " extremely youthful " ideal of self-respect 
 which he had " outgrown." 
 
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XXV. 
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 A WOMAN with a powerful personality may absorb 
 in herself a man of strong and resolute ambition, may 
 compel him to make her his career, to feel that to g6t 
 and to keep her is all that he asks from destiny. But 
 Marian was not such a woman. 
 
 She had come into Howard's life at just the time 
 and in just the way to arouse his latent passion for 
 power and to give it a sufficient initial impetus. It 
 was love for her that set him to lifting himself from 
 among those who work through themselves alone to 
 the potent few who work chiefly by directing the 
 labour of others. 
 
 Once in this class, once having tasted the joy of 
 power, Howard was lost to her. She was unable to 
 restrain or direct, or even clearly to understand. She 
 became an incident in his life. As riches came with 
 power, they pushed him to one side in her life. Liv- 
 ing in separate parts of a large house, leading separate 
 lives, rarely meeting except when others were present 
 — following the typical life of New Yorkers of fortune 
 and fashion — they gradually grew to know little and 
 see little and think little each of the other. 
 
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THE PROMISED LAND. 273 
 
 There was no abruptness in the transition. Every 
 day had contributed its little toward widening the 
 gap. There was no coolness, no consciousness of sepa- 
 ration ; simply the slow formation of the habit of 
 complete independence each of the other. 
 
 Hfs ambitions absorbed his thought and his time. 
 To them he found her very useful. The social side 
 — forming and keeping up friendly relations with the 
 families whose heads were men of influence — was a 
 vital part of his plan. But he used her just as he used 
 every and any one else whom he found capable of 
 contributing to his advancement; and, as she never in- 
 sisted upon herself, never sought to influence or even 
 to inquire into his course of action, she did not find 
 him out. 
 
 She was in a vague way an unhappy woman. A 
 discontent, a feeling that her life was incomplete, per- 
 petually teased her. He was distinctly unhappy, often 
 gloomy, at times morose. In her rare analytic moods 
 she attributed their failure to prolong the happiness 
 of their courtship to the hard work which kept him 
 from her, kept them from enjoying the great love which 
 she assumed they felt each for the other. She would 
 not and could not see that that love had long disap- 
 peared, leaving a mask of forms, of phrases and of im- 
 pulses of passion to conceal its departure. And to this 
 view he outwardly assented, when she suggested it ; 
 
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274 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 but he knew that she was deceiving herself as to him, 
 and wondered if she were not deceiving herself as to 
 her own feelings. 
 
 Up to the time of the " Coal Conspiracy " and 
 his attempt to put himself straight with her, the idea 
 of his love for her and of her oneness with him had 
 at least a hold upon his imagination. He then saw 
 how far apart they had drifted ; and he dismissed from 
 his mind even the pretense that love played any part 
 in his life. After that definite break with principle 
 and self-respect for the sake of his coal holdings, 
 his Wall Street friends and his newspaper career, 
 the development of his character continued along 
 strictly logical lines with accelerating speed. And it 
 was accompanied by an ever franker, more cynical 
 acceptance of the change. 
 
 He could not deceive himself, nor can any man 
 with the clearness of judgment necessary to great 
 achievement — although many " successful " men, for 
 obvious reasons of self-interest, diligently encourage 
 the popular theory of warped conscience. He was 
 well aware that he had shifted from the ideal of use 
 to his fellow-beings to the ideal of use of his fellow- 
 beings, from the ideal of character to the ideal of 
 reputation. And he knew that the two ideals can not 
 be combined and that he not only was not attempting 
 to combine them but had no desire so to do. He 
 
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THE PROMISED LAND. 275 
 
 despised his former ideals ; but also he despised him- 
 self for despising them. 
 
 His quarrel with himself was that he seemed 
 to himself a rather vulgar sort of hypocrite. This 
 was highly disagreeable to him, as his whole nature 
 tended to make him wish to be himself, to make 
 him shrink from the part of the truckler and the 
 sycophant which he was playing so haughtily and so 
 artistically. At times it exasperated him that he could 
 not regard his change of front as a deliberate sale for 
 value received, and not as the weak and cowardly 
 surrender which he saw that it really was. 
 
 On the day after Howard's forty-fourth birthday 
 Coulter fell dead at the entrance to the Union Club. 
 When Stokely heard of it he went direct to the 
 News-Record oiifice. 
 
 " I happen to know something about Coulter's will," 
 he said to Howard. " The News-Record stock is to 
 be sold and you and I are to have the first chance to 
 take it at three hundred and fifty — which is certainly 
 cheap enough." 
 
 " Why did he arrange to dispose of the most 
 valuable part of his estate ? " 
 
 " Well, we had an agreement about it. Then, too, 
 Coulter had no faith in newspapers as a permanent 
 
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276 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 investment. You know there are only the widow, 
 the girl and that worthless boy. Heavens, what an 
 ass that boy is ! Coulter has tied up his estate until 
 the youngest grandchild comes of age. He hopes 
 that there will be a son among the grandchildren who 
 will realise his dream." 
 
 "Dream?" Howard smiled. "I didn't know that 
 Coulter ever indulged in dreams." 
 
 " Yes, he had the rich man's mania — the craze for 
 founding a family. So everything is to be put into 
 real estate and long-term bonds. And for years 
 New York is to be reminded of Samuel Coulter by 
 some incapable who'll use his name and his money 
 to advertise nature's contempt for family pride in 
 her distributions of brains. I think even a fine tomb 
 is a wiser memorial." 
 
 " Well, how much of the stock shall you take ? " 
 Howard asked. 
 
 " Not a share," Stokely replied dejectecjlj^. " Coulter 
 couldn't have died at a worse time for me. I'm tied 
 in every direction and shall be for a year at least. 
 So you've got a chance to become controlling owner." 
 
 "I?" Howard laughed. "Where could I get a 
 million and a half?" 
 
 "How much could you take in cash?" 
 
 "Well — let me see — perhaps — five hundred thou- 
 sand." 
 
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THE PROMISED LAND. 27; 
 
 "You can borrow the million with the stock as 
 collateral." 
 
 "But how could I pay?" 
 
 " Why, your dividends at our present rate would be 
 more than two hundred thousand a year. Your 
 interest charge would be under seventy-five thousand. 
 Perhaps I can arrange it so that it won't be more 
 than fifty thousand. You can let the balance go on 
 reducing the loan. Then I may be able to put you 
 onto a few good things. At any rate you can't lose 
 anything. Your stock would bring five hundred even 
 at forced sale. It's your chance, old man. I want 
 to see you take it." 
 
 " I'll think it over. I have no head for figures." 
 
 " Let me manage it for you." Stokely rose to go. 
 Howard began thanking him, but he cut Kim off with : 
 
 " You owe me no thanks. You've made money for 
 me — big money. I owe you my help. Besides, I 
 don't want any outsider in here. Let me know when 
 you're ready." He nodded and was gone. 
 
 " What a chance ! " Howard repeated again and 
 again. 
 
 He was looking out over New York. 
 
 Twenty years before he had faced it, asking of it 
 nothing but a living and his. freedom. For twenty 
 years he had fought. Year by year, even when he 
 seemed to be standing still or going backward, he had 
 
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278 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 steadily gained, making each step won a vantage- 
 ground for forward attack. And now — victory. 
 Power, wealth, fame, all his ! 
 
 Yet a deep melancholy came over him. And he fell 
 to despising himself for the kind of exultation that 
 filled him, its selfishness, its sordidness, the absence of 
 all high enthusiasm. Why was he denied the happi- 
 ness of self-deception ? Why could he not forget 
 the means, blot it out, now that the end was attained ? 
 
 His mind went out, not to Marian, but to that 
 other — the one sleeping under the many, many layers 
 of autumn leaves at Asheville. And he heard a voice 
 saying so faintly, so timidly : " I lay awake night 
 after night listening to your breathing, and whisper- 
 ing under my breath, 'I love you, I love you. Why 
 can't you love me ? ' " And then — he flung down the 
 cover of his desk and rushed away home. 
 
 " Why did I think of Alice ? " he asked himself. 
 And the answer came — because in those days, in the 
 days of his youth, he had had beliefs, high principles ; 
 he had been incapable of this slavery to appearances, to 
 vain show, incapable of this passion for reputation 
 regardless of character. His weaknesses were then 
 weaknesses only, and not, as now, the laws of his being 
 controlling his every act. 
 
 He smiled cynically at the self of such a few years 
 ago — yet he could not meet those honest, fearless eyes 
 
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THE PROMISED LAND. 279 
 
 that looked out at him from the mirror of mem- 
 ory. 
 
 He was triumphant, but self-respect had gone and 
 not all the thick swathings of vanity covered him from 
 the stabs of self-contempt. 
 
 " When I am really free, when the paper is paid for 
 and I can do as I please, why not try to be a man 
 again ? Why not ? It would cost me nothing." 
 \ But a man is the sum of all his past. | 
 
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XXVI. 
 
 IN POSSESSION. 
 
 Stokely arranged the loan, and within six months 
 Howard was controlling owner of the News-Record. 
 There was a debt of a million and a quarter attached 
 to his ownership, but he saw how that would be wiped 
 out. Once more he threw himself into, his work with 
 the energy of a boy. He had to give much of his 
 time to the business department — to the details of 
 circulation and advertising. He felt that the profits 
 of the paper could be greatly increased by improving 
 its facilities for reaching the advertiser and the public. 
 He had never been satisfied with the circulation 
 methods ; but theretofore his ignorance of business 
 and his position as mere salaried editor had acted in 
 restraint upon his interference with the " ground 
 floor.;' 
 
 As he had suspected, the business ofifice was afiflicted 
 with the twin diseases — routine and imitativeness. It 
 followed an old system, devised in days of small circu- 
 lation and grudgingly improved, not by thought on 
 the part of those who circulated the paper, but by 
 compulsion on the part of the public. No attempts 
 
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IN POSSESSION. 281 
 
 were made to originate schemes for advertising the 
 paper. The only methods were wooden variations up- 
 on placards in the street cars and the elevated stations, 
 and cards hung up at the news-stands. As for getting 
 advertising business, they thought they showed enter- 
 prise by a little canvassing among the conspicuous 
 merchants in Greater New York. 
 
 Howard had charts made showing the circulation by 
 districts. With these as a basis he ordered an 
 elaborate campaign to " push " the paper in the districts 
 where it was circulated least and to increase its hold 
 where it was strong. " We do not reach one-third of 
 the people who would like to take our paper," he told 
 Jowett, the business manager. " Let us have an army 
 of agents and let us take up our territory by districts." 
 
 The Sunday edition was the largest source of 
 revenue, both because it carried a great deal more ad- 
 vertising at much higher rates than did the week-day 
 editions, and because it sold at a price which yielded a 
 profit on the paper itself, while the price of the week- 
 day editions did not. News constituted less than one- 
 fourth of its contents. The rest was " feature articles," 
 as interesting a week late to a man in Seattle as on 
 the day of publication within a mile of the office. 
 
 " We get out the very best magazine in the market," 
 said Howard to Jowett. " Are we pushing it in the 
 east, in the west, in the south ? Look at the charts. 
 
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282 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 We have a Sunday circulation of five hundred in 
 Oregon, of one thousand in Texas, of six hundred in 
 Georgia, of two thousand in Maine. Why not ten 
 times as much in each of those states? Why not ten 
 times as much as we now have near New York ? " f 
 
 There was no reason except failure to " push " the 
 paper. That reason Howard proceeded to remove. 
 But these enterprises involved large expenditures, 
 perhaps might mean postponement of the payment of 
 the debt. Receipts must be increased and the most 
 promising way was an increase in the advertising 
 business. 
 
 Howard noted on the chart nineteen cities and 
 large towns near New York in each of which the 
 daily circulation of the News-Record was equal to that 
 of any paper published there and far exceeded the com- 
 bined circulations of all the home dailies on Sunday. 
 This suggested a system of local advertising pages, 
 and for its working out he engaged one of the most 
 capable newspaper advertising men in the city. 
 Within three months the idea had " caught on " and, 
 instead of sending useless columns of New York 
 " want-ads " and the like to places where they could 
 not be useful, the News-Record was presenting to its 
 readers in twelve cities and towns the advertisements 
 of their local merchants. 
 
 A year of this work, with Howard giving many 
 
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IN POSSESSION. 283 
 
 hours of each day personally to tiresome details, 
 brought the natural results. The profits of the 
 News-Record had risen to five hundred and forty thou- 
 sand, of which Howard's share was nearly three hundred 
 thousand. The next year the profits were seven hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand, and Howard had reduced his 
 debt to eight hundred thousand. 
 
 " We shall be free and clear in less than three 
 years," he said to Marian. 
 
 " If we have luck," she added. 
 
 " No — if we work — and we shall. Luck is a stone 
 which envy flings at success." 
 
 " Then you don't think you have been lucky? " 
 
 "Indeed I do not." 
 
 " Not even," she smiled, drawing herself up. 
 
 " Not even — " he said with a faint, sad answering 
 smile. " If you only knew how hard I worked pre- 
 paring myself to be able to get you when you came ; 
 if you only, only knew how life made me pay, pay, 
 pay ; if you only knew " 
 
 " Go on," she said, coming closer to him. 
 
 He sighed — not for the reason of sentiment which 
 she fancied, though he put his arms around her. 
 " How willingly I paid," he evaded. 
 
 He went to his desk and she stood looking at him. 
 There was still the charm of youth, even freshness, in 
 her beauty — and she was not unconscious of the fact. 
 
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284 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 And he — he was handsome, distinguished looking and 
 certainly did not suggest age or the approach of age ; 
 but in his hair, so grey at the temples, in the stern, 
 rather haughty lines of his features, in the weariness 
 of his eyes, there was not a vestige of youth. " How 
 he has worked for me and for his ideals," she thought, 
 sadly yet proudly. " Ah, he is indeed a great man, 
 and my husband ! " And she bent over him and 
 kissed him on an impulse to a kind of tenderness 
 which was now so strange to her that it made her feel 
 shy. 
 
 " And what a radical you'll be," she laughed, after 
 a moment's silence. " What a radical, what a dem- 
 ocrat \ " 
 
 "When?" He was flushing a little and avoided 
 her eyes. 
 
 " When you're free — really the proprietor — able to 
 express your own views, all your own views. We 
 shall become outcasts." 
 
 " I wonder," he replied slowly, " does a rich man 
 own his property or does it own him?" 
 
 For an instant he had an impulse of his old longing 
 for sympathy, for companionship. She was now 
 thirty-six and, save for an expression of experience, of 
 self-control, seemed hardly so much as thirty. But 
 with the years, with the habit of self-restraint, with 
 instinctive rather than conscious realisation of his 
 
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IN POSSESSION. 285 
 
 indifference toward her, had come a chill percepti- 
 ble at the surface and permeating her entire character. 
 In her own way she had become as self-absorbed, as 
 ambitious as he. 
 
 He looked at her, felt this chill, sighed, smiled at 
 himself. Yes, he was alone — and he preferred to be 
 alone. 
 
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XXVII. 
 
 THE HARVEST. 
 
 Through all his scheming and shifting Howard had 
 kept the News-Record in the main an " organ of the 
 people." Coulter and Stokely had on many occasions 
 tried to persuade him to change, but he had stood out. 
 He did not confess to them that his real reason was 
 not his alleged principles but his cold judgment that 
 the increases in circulation which produced increases 
 in advertising patronage were dependent upon the 
 paper's reputation of fearless democracy. 
 
 In the fourth year of his ownership he felt that the 
 time had come for the change, that he could safely 
 slip over to the other side — the side of wealth and 
 power, the winning side, the side with offices and 
 privileges to distribute. His debt was so far reduced 
 that he had nothing to fear from it. A presidential 
 campaign was coming on and was causing unusual 
 confusion, a general shift of party lines. And he had 
 put the News-Record in such a position that it could 
 move in any direction without shock to its readers. 
 
 The " great battle " was on — the battle he had in 
 his younger days looked forward to and longpd for — 
 
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THE HARVEST. 287 
 
 the battle against Privilege and for a " restoration of 
 government by the people." The candidates were 
 nominated, the platforms put forward and the issue 
 squarely joined. 
 
 The same issue had been involved in previous cam- 
 paigns ; but the statement of the case by the party 
 opposed to " government of, by and for plutocracy " 
 had been fantastic, extreme, entangled with social, 
 economic and political lunacies. And Howard had 
 strengthened the News-Record by refusing to permit it 
 to " go crazy." Now, however, there was in honesty 
 no reason for refusing support to the advocates of his 
 professed principles. 
 
 But the News-Record was silent. Howard and 
 Marian went away to their cottage at Newport, and he 
 left rigid instructions that no political editorials were 
 to be published except those which he might send. 
 There he got typhoid fever and was at the point of 
 death for two weeks. 
 
 Marian gave herself to nursing him, stayed close be- 
 side him, read books and the newspapers to him 
 throughout his convalescence. They were more in- 
 timate than they had been for years. A feeling bear- 
 ing a remote resemblance to the love he had once had 
 for her arose out of his weakness and dependence and 
 his seclusion from the instruments and objects of his 
 ambition. And she swept aside the barriers she had 
 
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288 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 erected between herself and him and returned, as 
 nearly as one may, to the love and interest of their 
 early days together. 
 
 In the first week of September came Stokely with 
 Senator Hereford, the chairman of the " Plutocracy " 
 campaign committee. 
 
 " I shall not annoy you with evasions," said Here- 
 ford, " as Mr. Stokely assures me that I may speak 
 freely to you, that you personally are with us. The 
 fact is, our campaign is in a bad way, especially in 
 New York State, and there especially in New York 
 City." 
 
 "You surprise me," said Howard. "All my in- 
 formation has come from the newspapers which my 
 wife reads me. I had gathered that the victory was 
 all but won." 
 
 " We encourage that impression. You know how 
 many weak-kneed fellows there are who like to be on 
 the winning side. We've been pouring out the money 
 and stand ready to pour it out like water. But these 
 damned reform ballot-laws make it hard for us to con- 
 trol the vote. We buy, but we fear that the goods 
 will not be delivered. Feeling is high against us. 
 Even our farmers and shopkeepers are acting queerly. 
 And the other fellows have at last put up a safe man 
 on a conservative platform." 
 
 Howard turned his face away. There was still the 
 
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THE HARVEST. 289 
 
 memory, the now quickened memory, of his former 
 self to make him wince at being included in such an 
 " us." 
 
 "You can't afford to keep silent any longer," Here- 
 ford continued. "You've done the cause a world of 
 good by your silence thus far. You have the reputa- 
 tion of being the leading popular organ, and your 
 keeping quiet has meant thousands of votes for us. 
 But the time has come to attack. And you must at- 
 tack if we are to carry New York. You can turn the 
 tide in the state, and — well, we have a very high re- 
 gard for your genius for making your points clearly 
 and interestingly. We need your ideas for our editors 
 and speakers as much as we need your influence." 
 
 " I cannot discuss it to-day," Howard answered 
 after a moment's silence. " It would be a grave step 
 for the News-Record to take. I am not well, as you 
 see. To-morrow or next day I'll decide. You'll see 
 my answer in the paper, I think." He closed his eyes 
 with significant weariness. 
 
 Hereford looked at him uneasily. Just outside the 
 door Stokely whispered, " Don't be alarmed. You've 
 got him. He's with us, I tell you." 
 
 " I must make sure," whispered Hereford. " I 
 wish to speak to him alone for a moment." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Howard," he said as he re- 
 entered the room. " I forgot an important part of my 
 
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290 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 mission. Our candidate authorized me to say to you 
 on 'his behalf that he felt sure you would see your 
 duty ; that he esteemed your character and judgment 
 too highly tp have any doubts ; and that be intends 
 to show his appreciation of the conscientious, inde- 
 pendent vote which is rallying to his support ; in the 
 event of his election, he feels that he could not do so 
 in a more satisfactory manner than by offering you 
 either a place in his cabinet or an ambassadorship as 
 you may prefer." 
 
 As soon as Howard saw Hereford returning, he 
 knew the reason. He had never before been offered 
 a bribe ; but he could not mistake the meaning of 
 Hereford's bold yet frightened expression. He kept 
 his eyes averted during the delivery of the long, ram- 
 bling sentence. At the end, he looked at Hereford 
 frankly and said in his most gracious manner : 
 
 " Thank him for me, will you ? And express my 
 appreciation of so high a compliment from such a 
 man." 
 
 Hereford looked relieved, delighted. " I'm glad to 
 have met you, Mr. Howard, and to have had so satis- 
 factory an interview." 
 
 Again outside the door, he muttered gleefully: 
 "Yes, we've him. Otherwise he would have had 
 
 his servants kick me down stairs. Gad, no wonder 
 
 is on his way to the Presidency. I had a sneaking 
 
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THE HARVEST. 291 
 
 fear that this fellow might be sincere. But he saw 
 through him without ever having seen him. I sup- 
 pose two men of that stripe instinctively understand 
 each other." 
 
 **»*4f**** 
 
 That was on a Sunday afternoon. On the following 
 Wednesday, as Marian came into Howard's sitting- 
 room with the newspapers, she laughed : " I've been 
 reading such a speech from your candidate, you radi- 
 cal ! I must say I liked to read it. It was so like 
 you, your very phrases in many places, the things you 
 used to talk to me before you gave me up as hopeless. 
 Just listen." 
 
 And she read him the oration — a reproduction of 
 the Howard she first saw, the Howard she admired 
 and loved and had never lost. " Isn't it superb? " she 
 asked at the end. " You must have written it for 
 him. Don't you like it ? " 
 
 "Very able," was Howard's only comment. 
 
 Marian continued to read the paper, glancing from 
 column to column, giving him the substance of the 
 news. Soon she reached the editorial page. He was 
 stealthily watching her face. He saw her glance 
 through a few lines of the leader, start, read on, look 
 in a terrified way at him, and then skip abruptly to 
 the next page. 
 
 " Read me the leader, won't you ? " he asked. 
 
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292 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 " My voice is tired," she pleaded. " I'll read it after 
 awhile." 
 
 " Please," he insisted. " I'm especially anxious to 
 hear it." 
 
 " I think," she almost stammered, " that somebody 
 has taken advantage of your illness. I didn't want to 
 tell you until I'd had a chance to think." 
 
 " Please read it." His tone was abrupt. She had 
 never heard that tone before. 
 
 She read. It was an assertion of that which her 
 Howard most disbelieved, most protested against ; a 
 defense of the public corruption she had heard him 
 denounce so often ; an attack upon the ideas, the 
 principles, the elements she had so often heard him 
 eulogize. It was as adroit as it was detestable, as 
 plausible as it was unprincipled. 
 
 When she had done, there was a long silence which 
 he broke. " What do you think of it ? " 
 
 " Only a wretch, an enemy of yours could have 
 written it. Who can it have been ? " Her eyes were 
 ablaze and her voice trembled with anger, 
 
 " I wrote it," he said. 
 
 He did not dare to look at her for a few seconds. 
 Then, with a flimsy mask of pretended calmness 
 only the more clearly revealing self-contempt and 
 cowardice, he faced her amazed eyes, her pale cheeks, 
 her parted lips — and dropped his gaze to the floor. 
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THE HARVEST. 293 
 
 " You ? " she whispered. " You ? " 
 
 " Yes, I." 
 
 She sat so still that he reached over and touched 
 her hand. It was cold. She shivered and drew it 
 away. They were silent for a long time — several 
 minutes. She was looking at his face. It was old 
 and sad and feeble — pitiful, contemptible. She had 
 never seen those lines of weakness about his mouth 
 before. She had never before noted that his fea- 
 tures had lost the expression of exalted character, 
 the light of free and independent manhood which 
 made her look again the first time she saw him. 
 When had the man she loved departed ? When had 
 the new man come ? How long had she been giving 
 herself to a stranger — and such a stranger? 
 
 "Yes — I," he repeated. "I have come over to 
 your side." He laughed and she shivered again. 
 " Well— what do you think ? " 
 
 " Think ?— I ?— Oh, I think " 
 
 She burst into tears, flung herself down at his feet 
 and buried her head in his lap. 
 
 " I think nothing," she sobbed, " except that I — I 
 love you." 
 
 He fell to smoothing her hair, slowly, gently, 
 patronisingly. His face was composed and he was 
 looking down at her trembling head and agitated 
 shoulders with an absent-minded smile. How easily 
 
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294 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 this once dreaded crisis had passed ! How he had 
 overestimated her ! How he had underestimated him- 
 self ! 
 
 His glance and his thoughts soon fastened upon the 
 copy of his newspaper which she had thrown aside — • 
 his newspaper indeed, his creation and his creature, 
 the epitome of his intellect and character, of his 
 strength and his weakness. Half a million circulation 
 daily, three quarters of a million on Sunday — how 
 mighty as a direct influence upon the people ! Its 
 clearness and vigour, its intelligence, its truth-like 
 sophistry — how mighty as an indirect influence upon 
 the minds of other editors and of public men ! " Power 
 — Success," he repeated to himself in an exaltation of 
 vanity and arrogance. 
 
 Marian lifted her head and, turning, put it against 
 his knee. She reached out for his hand. He began 
 to speak at once in a low persuasive voice : 
 
 " Trust me, dear, can't you ? You do not — have 
 not been reading the paper until recently. You are 
 not interested in politics. There have been many 
 changes in the few last years. And I too have changed. 
 I am no longer without responsibilities. They have 
 sobered me, have given me an appreciation of property, 
 stability, conservatism. Youth is enthusiastic, theo- 
 retical. I have " 
 
 " Ah, but I do trust you," she interrupted eagerly, 
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THE HARVEST. 295 
 
 fearful lest his explanations would make it the more 
 difficult for her to convince herself of what she felt 
 she must believe if life were to go on. " And you — I 
 don't want you to excite yourself. You must be quiet : 
 — must get well." 
 
 Each avoided meeting the other's eyes as she 
 arranged the pillows for him before leaving him alone 
 to rest. 
 
 The longer she juggled with her discovery the less 
 appalling it seemed. His line of action fitted too 
 closely to her own ambitions of social distinction, 
 social leadership. If he had been her lover, the shock 
 would have killed love and set up contempt in its stead. 
 But he was not her lover, had not been for years ; 
 and to find that her husband was doing a husband's 
 duty, was winning position and power for himself and 
 therefore for his wife — that was a disclosure with 
 mitigating aspects at least. Besides, might she not be 
 in part mistaken ? Surely any course so satisfactory 
 in its results could not be wholly wrong, might perhaps 
 be the right in an unexpected, unaccustomed form. 
 
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XXVIII. 
 
 saccESS. 
 
 French had made a portrait of the new American 
 ambassador to the Court of St. James and it was 
 shown at the spring exhibition of the Royal Academy. 
 The ambassador and his wife wished to see how it had 
 been hung, but they did not wish to be seen. So they 
 chose an early hour of a chill, rainy May morning to 
 drive in a hansom from their place in Park Lane to 
 Burlington House. 
 
 They found the portrait in Room VI, on the line, in 
 a corner, but where it had the benefit of such light as 
 there was. When they entered no one was there ; 
 but, as they were standing close to the picture, 
 admiring the energy and simplicity of the strokes of 
 the master's brush, a crowd swept in and enclosed them. 
 
 " Let us go," Howard said in a low tone. 
 
 Just then a man, almost at his shoulder because of 
 the pressure of those behind, said : " Wonderful, isn't 
 it ? I've never seen a better example of his work. He 
 had a subject that suited him perfectly." 
 
 " No, let us stay," Marian whispered in reply to her 
 
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SUCCESS. 297 
 
 husband. " They can't see our faces and I'd like to 
 hear." 
 
 "Yes, it is superb," came the answer to the man 
 behind them in a voice unmistakably American. 
 " Now, tell me, Saverhill, what sort of a person would 
 you say the ambassador is from that picture ? You 
 don't know him? " 
 
 " Never heard of him until I read of his appoint- 
 ment," replied the first voice. 
 
 " I've heard of him often enough," came in the 
 American voice. " But I've never seen him." 
 
 "You know him now," resumed the Englishman, 
 " inside as well as out. French always paints what he 
 sees and always sees what he's painting." 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " 
 
 " Let us go," whispered Marian. But Howard did 
 not heed her. 
 
 " I see — a fallen man. He was evidently a real man 
 once ; but he sold himself." 
 
 " Yes ? Where does it show ? " 
 
 " He's got a good mind, this fellow-countryman of 
 yours. There are the eyes of a thinker and a doer. 
 Nothing could have kept him down. His face is almost 
 as relentless as Kitchener's and fully as aggressive, 
 except that it shows intellect, and Kitchener's doesn't. 
 Now note the corners of his eyes, Marshall, and his 
 mouth and nostrils and chin, and you'll see why he 
 sold himself, and the — the consequences." 
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298 THE GREAT GOD SUCCESS. 
 
 Howard and Marian, fascinated, compelled, looked 
 where the unknown requested. 
 
 " I think I see what you mean," came in Marshall's 
 voice, laughingly. " But go on." 
 
 "Ah, there it all is — hypocrisy, vanity, lack of 
 principle, and, plainest of all, weakness. It's a com- 
 mon enough type among your successful men. The 
 man himself is the fixed market price for a certain 
 kind of success. But, according to French, this 
 ambassador of yours seems to know what he has paid ; 
 and the knowledge doesn't make him more content 
 with his bargain. He has more brains than vanity ; 
 therefore he's an unhappy hypocrite instead of a happy 
 self-deceiver." 
 
 Howard and Marian shrunk together with their 
 heads close in the effort to make sure of concealing 
 their faces. She was suffering for herself, but more 
 acutely for him. She knew, as if she were looking 
 into his mind, his frightful humiliation. " Hereafter," 
 she thought, " whenever any one looks at him he will 
 feel the thought behind the look." 
 
 " How nearly did I come to him ? " asked Saverhill. 
 Howard started and Marian caught the rail for 
 support. 
 
 "A centre-shot," replied Marshall, "if the people, 
 who know him and have talked to me about him tell 
 the truth." 
 
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SUCCESS. 299 
 
 " Oh, they're 'on to * him, as you say, over there, 
 are they ? " 
 
 " No, not everybody. Only his friends and the few 
 who are on the inside. There's an ugly story going 
 about privately as to how he got the ambassadorship. 
 They say he was bought with it. But — he's admired 
 and envied even by a good many who know or sus- 
 pect that he's only an article of commerce. He's got 
 the cash and he's got position ; and his paper gives 
 him tremendous power. Then too, as you say, all 
 about him there are men like himself. The only 
 punishment he's likely to get is the penalty of having 
 to live with himself." 
 
 " A good, round price if French is not mistaken," 
 replied Saverhill. 
 
 The two men passed on. Howard and Marian 
 looked guiltily about, then slipped away in the op- 
 posite direction. He helped her into the waiting han- 
 som. As they were driven homeward she cast a 
 stealthy side-glance at him. 
 
 " Yes," she thought, " the portrait is a portrait of 
 his face; and his face is a portrait of himself." 
 
 He caught her glance in the little mirror in the side 
 of the hansom — caught it and read it. And he began 
 to hate her, this instrument to his punishment, this 
 constant remembrancer of his downfall. 
 
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TITLES SELECTED FROM 
 
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 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. 
 
 HIS HOUR. By Elinor Glyn. Illustrated. 
 
 A beautiful blonde Englishwoman visits Russia, and is vio- 
 lently made love to by a young Russian aristocrat. A most unique 
 situation complicates the romance. 
 
 THE GAMBLERS . By Charles Klein and Arthur Homblow. 
 
 Illustrated by C. E. Chambers. 
 
 A big, vital treatment of a present day situation wherein men 
 play for big financial stakes and women flourish on the profits — or 
 repudiate the methods. 
 
 CHEERFUL AMERICANS. By Charles BatteU Loomis. lUus- 
 trated by Florence Scovel Shinn and others. 
 
 A good, wholesome, laughable presentation of some Americans 
 at home and abroad, on their vacations, and during their hours of 
 relaxation. 
 
 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD . By EUa Wheeler Wilcox. 
 
 Clever, original presentations of present day social problems 
 and the best solutions of them. A book every girl and woman 
 should possess. 
 
 THE LIGHT THAT LURES. By Percy Brebner. 
 Illustrated. Handsomely colored wrapper. 
 A young Southerner who loved Lafayette, goes to France to 
 aid him during the days of terror, and is lured in a certain direction 
 by the lovely eyes of a Frenchwoman. 
 
 THE RAMRODDERS . By Holman Day. Frontispiece by 
 Harold Matthews Brett. 
 
 A clever, timely story that vrill make politicians think and mil 
 (make women realize the part that politics play— even in then 
 romances. 
 
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TITLES SELECTED FROM 
 
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 Ma) be had wherever books aro sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. 
 
 THL SECOND WIFE. By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated 
 by W. W. Fawcett. Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four 
 colors and gold. 
 
 An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in 
 a wealthy New York family involving the happiness of a 
 beautiful young girl. 
 
 TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace MiUer White. 
 Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. 
 An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New 
 York college town, with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes 
 a great sacrifice for love. 
 
 FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING. By Grace MUler 
 White. 
 
 Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penrhyn Stanlaws. 
 Another storv of "the storm country. " Two beautiful chil- 
 dren are kidnapped from a wealthy hom e and appear many years 
 after showing the effects of a deep, malicious scheme behind 
 their disappearance. 
 
 THE LIC.HTED MATCH. By Charles NevUle Buck. Illus- 
 trated by R. F. Schabelitz. 
 A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and 
 falls in love with an American man. There are ties that bind her 
 ^o someone iu her own home, and the great plot revolves round 
 her efforts to work her way out. 
 
 MA UD BAXTER. By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will 
 Grefe. 
 A romance both daring and delightful, involving an Amer- 
 ican girl and a young man who had been impressed into English 
 service during the Revolution. 
 
 THE HIGHWAYMAN. By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by 
 Will Grefe. 
 A French beauty pt mysterious antecedents wins the love 
 of an Englishman of title. Devolopraents of a startling charactei 
 and a clever untangling of affairs hold the reader's interest. 
 
 THE PURPLE STOCKINGS. By Edward Salisbury Field 
 Illustrated in colors; marginal illustrations. 
 A young New York busmess man, his pretty sweetheart, 
 his sentiment^ stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all 
 mixed up in a misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the 
 way of comedy in years. A story with a laugh on every page. 
 
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TITLES SELECTED FROM 
 
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 May be had wherever hooks are jo!d. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 THE SILENT CALL. By Edwin Milton Royle. Illustrated 
 
 vrith scenes from the play. 
 
 The hero of this story is the Squaw Man's son. He has 
 been taken to Engfland, but sjjurns conventional life for the sake 
 of the untamed West and a girl's pretty face. 
 
 JOHN MARCH, SOUTHERNER. By George W. Cable. 
 
 A story of the pretty women and spirited men of the South. 
 As fragrant m sentiment as a sprig of magnolia, and as full of 
 mystery and racial troubles as any romance of "after the war" 
 days. 
 
 MR. JUSTICE RAFFLES. By E. W. Hornung. 
 
 This engaging rascal is found helping a young cricket player 
 out of the toils of a money shark. Novel in plot, thrilling and 
 amusing. 
 
 FORTY MINUTES LATE . By F. Hopkinson Smith. Illustrated 
 
 by S. M. Chase. 
 
 Delightfully human stories of every day happenings; of a 
 lecturer's laughable experience because he's late, a young woman's 
 excursion into the stock market, etc. 
 
 OLD LADY NUMBER 31 . By Louise Forsslund. 
 
 A heart-warming story of American rural life, telling of the 
 adventures of an old couple in an old folk's home, their sunny, 
 philosophical acceptance of misfortune and ultimate prosperity. 
 
 THE HUSBAND'S STORY . By David Graham Phillips. 
 
 A story that has given all Europe as well as all America much 
 food for thought. A young couple begin life in humble circum- 
 stances and nse in worldly matters until the husband is enormously 
 rich — the wife in the most aristocratic European society — but at the 
 price of their happiness. 
 
 THE T RAIL OF NINETY -EIGHT . By Robert W. Service. 
 
 Illustrated by Maynard Dixon. 
 
 One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and 
 one of the most accurate and picturesque descriptions of the stam- 
 pede of gold seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in 
 the narrative is strikingly original. 
 
 Ask for complete free Vst of G. & D. Poplar Copyrighted Fiction 
 
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TITLES SELECTED FROM 
 
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 May be had wharevar books are lold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 l A CERTAIN RICH MAN. By William Allen White. 
 
 A vivid, startling portrayal of one man's financial greed, its 
 
 ' wide spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on 
 the three women most intimately in his life. A splendid, enter- 
 taining American novel. 
 
 IN OUR TOWN. By William Allen White. Illustrated by F. 
 R. Gruger and W. Glackens. 
 Made up of the observations of a keen newspaper editor, 
 involving the town millionaire, the smart set, the literary set, the 
 bohemian set, and many others. All humorously related and sure 
 to hold the attention. 
 
 NATHAN BURKE . By Mary S. Watts. 
 
 The story of an ambitious, backwoods Ohio boy who rose 
 to prominence. Everyday humor of American rustic life per- 
 meates the book. 
 
 fHE HIGH HAND. By Jacques Futrelle. lUustrated by WiU 
 Grefe. 
 A splendid story of the political game, with a son of the 
 soil on the one side, and a "kid glove" politician on the other. 
 A pretty g^ri, interested in both men, is the chief figure. 
 
 THE BACKWOODSMEN. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated. 
 Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage 
 beauty of the wilderness. Human nature at its best and worst 
 is well protrayed. 
 
 YELLOWSTONE NIGHTS. By Herbert Quick. 
 
 A jolly company of six artists, writers and other clever 
 folks take a trip through the National Park, and tell stories around 
 camp fire at night. Brilliantly clever and original. 
 
 I THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY. By Wells Hastings and 
 Brian Hooker. Illustrated by Hanson Booth. 
 A young college professor, missing: his steamer for Europe, 
 has a romantic meeting with a pretty girl, escorts her home, and 
 is enveloped in a big mystery. 
 
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TITLES SELECTED FROM 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAFS LIST 
 
 May ba had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS . By Meredith Nich 
 olson. Illustrated by C. Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch. 
 Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful 
 girl, and she subjects them to a test that is fnll of mystery, magic 
 and sheer amusement. 
 
 THE M AGNET . By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence 
 F. Underwood. 
 The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty 
 girls on a yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a miz-up in the names 
 of the girls. 
 
 THE TURN OF THE ROAD. By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham. 
 A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success 
 instead of love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the 
 heart is stronger than worldly success. 
 
 SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY. By Margaret Morse. Illustrated 
 
 by Harold M. Brett. 
 A y jung girl whose affections have been blighted is presented 
 with a Scotch Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures 
 of her pet lead the young mistress into another romance. 
 
 SH EILA VEDDER . By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harri- 
 son Fisher. 
 A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a 
 handsome, strong willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as 
 heroire. A sequel to "Jan Vedder's Wife." 
 
 JOHN V/ARD. PREACHER . By Margaret Deland. 
 
 The first big success of this much loved American novelist. 
 It is a powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his 
 beautiful wife to his own narrow creed. 
 
 THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT. By Robert W. Service. 
 Illustrated by Maynard Dixon. 
 One of the best stories of " Vagabondia • ' ever written, and 
 one of the most accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold 
 seekers to the Yukon. The love story embedded in tne narrative 
 is strikingly onginal, 
 
 A.sk for comjilete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 
 
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TITLES SELECTED FROM 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST 
 
 REALISTIC. ENGAaNG PICTURES OF LIFI-; 
 
 THE GARDEN OF FATE. By Roy Norton. Illustrated 
 
 by Joseph Clement Coll. 
 
 The colorful romance of an American girl in Morocco, and^ 
 
 of a beautiful garden, whose beauty and traditions of strange 
 
 subtle happenings were closed to the world by a Sultan's seal. 
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP. By Henry Russell Miller. 
 Full page vignette illustrations by M. Leone Bracker. 
 The story of a tenement waif who rose by his own ingenuity 
 to the office of mayor of his native city. His experiences 
 while "climbing," make a most interesting example of the 
 possibilities of human, nature to rise above circumstances. 
 
 THE KEY TO YESTERDAY. By Charles Neville 
 Buck. Illustrated by R. Schabelitz. 
 Robert Saxon, a prominent artist, has an accident, while in 
 Paris, which obliterates his memory, and the only clue he has 
 to his former life is a rusty key. What door in Paris will it 
 unlock? He must know that before he woos the girl he loves. 
 
 THE DANGER TRAIL. By James Oliver Curwood. 
 Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull. 
 The danger trail is over the snow-smothered North. A 
 young Chicago engineer, who is building a road through the 
 Hud&on Bay region, is involved in mystery, and is led into 
 ambush by a young woman. 
 
 THE GAY LORD WARING. By Houghton Townley, 
 Illustrated by Will Grefe. 
 A story of the smart hunting set in England. A gay young 
 lord wins in love against his selfish and cowardly brother and 
 apparently against fate itself. 
 
 BY INHERITANCE. By Octave Thanet. Illustrated 
 by Thomas Fogarty. Elaborate wrapper in colors. 
 A wealthy New England spinster with the most elaborate 
 plans for the education of the negro goes to visit her nephew 
 in Arkansas, where she learns the needs of the colored race 
 first hand and begins to lose her theories. 
 
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A FEW OF 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP'S 
 Great Books at Little Prices 
 
 BRUVVER JIM'S BABY. By PhUip Verrill Mighels. 
 
 An uproariously funny story of a tiny mining settlement in the 
 West, which is shaken to the very roots by the suddenpossession 
 of a baby, found on the plains by one of its residents. The town is 
 as disreputable a spot as the gold fever was ever responsible for, 
 and the coming of that baby causes the upheaval of every rooted 
 tradition of the place. Its christening, the problems of its toys and 
 its illness supersede in the minds of the miners all thought of earthy 
 treasure. 
 
 THE FURNACE OF GOLD. By Philip VerriU Mighels, 
 author of " Bruvver Jim's Baby." Illustrations by J. N. 
 Marchand. 
 
 An accurate and informing portrayal of scenes, types, and condi'- 
 tions of the mining districts in modern Nevada. 
 
 The book is an out-door story, clean, exciting, exemplifying no. 
 bility and courage of character, and bravery, and heroism in the sort 
 of men and women we all admire and wish to know. 
 THE MESSAGE. By Louis Tracy. Illustrations by Joseph 
 C. Chase. 
 
 A breezy tale of how a bit of old parchment, concealed in a 6gaie- 
 bead from a sunken vessel, comes into the possession of a pretty 
 rirl and an army man during regatta week in the Isle of Wight. 
 This is the message and it enfolds a mystery, the development of 
 which the reader will f oUow with breathless interest. 
 
 THE SCARLET EMPIRE. By David M. Parry. Illus- 
 trations by Hermann C. Wall. 
 
 A young socialist, weary of life, plunges into the sea and awakes 
 in the lost island of Atlantis, known as the Scarlet Empire, where 
 a social democracy is in full operation, granting every man a living 
 but limiting food, conversation, education and marriage. 
 
 The hero passes through an enthralling love affair and other ad- 
 ventures but finally returns to his own New York world. 
 THE THIRD DEGREE. By Charles Klein and Arthur 
 Hornblow. Illustrations by Clarence Rowe, 
 
 A novel which exposes the abuses in this country of the police 
 system. 
 
 The son of an aristocratic New York family marries a woman 
 socially beneath him, but of strong, womanly qualities _ that, latei 
 on, save the man from the tragic consequences o? a dissipated Ufa. 
 
 The wife believes in his innocence and her wit and good sense 
 help her to win ag^nst the tremendous odds imposed by law. 
 THE THIRTEENTH DISTRICT. By Brand Whitlock. 
 
 A realistic western story of love and politics and a searching study 
 of their influence on character. The author shows with extraordi- 
 nary vitality of treatment the tricks, the heat, the passion, the tu" 
 malt of the political arena, the triumph and strength of love. 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, 526 West 26th St., New York 
 
A FEW OF 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP'S 
 Great Books at Little Prices 
 
 CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE. By Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 Illustrated by Wallace Morgan. 
 A Cape Cod story describing the amusing efforts of an el-[ 
 derly bachelor and his two cronies to rear and educate a little 
 girl. Full of honest fun — a rural drama. 
 
 THE FORGE IN THE FOREST. By Charles G. D. 
 Roberts. Illustrated by H. Sandham. 
 
 A story of the conflict in Acadia after its conquest by the 
 British. A dramatic picture that lives and shines with the in- 
 definable charm of poetic romance. 
 
 A SISTER TO EVANGELINE. By Charles G. D. 
 Roberts. Illustrated by E. McConnell. 
 
 Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went 
 into exile with the villagers of Grand Pr&. Swift action, 
 fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion and search- 
 ing analysis characterize this strong novel. 
 
 THE OPENED SHUTTERS. By Clara Louise Bum- 
 ham. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. 
 A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the bar:K- 
 ground for this romance. A beautiful woman, at discord with 
 life, is brought to realize, by her new friends, that she may 
 open the shutters of her soul to the blessed sunlight of joy by 
 casting aside vanity and self love. A delicately humorous 
 work with a lofty motive undsriying it all. 
 
 THE RIGHT PRINCESS. By Clara Louise Bumham. 
 
 An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island re- 
 sort, where a stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New 
 England housekeeper to serve in her interesting home. How 
 t3rpes so widely apart react on each others' lives, all to ulti- 
 , mate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in sentiment 
 THE LEAVEN OF LOVE. By Clara Louise Bum. 
 ham. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. 
 
 At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young 
 and beautiful but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned 
 the art of living — of tasting life in all its richness, opulence and 
 joy. The Ktory hinges upon the change wrought in the soul 
 of the blasfe woman by this glimpse into a cheery life. 
 
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A FEW OF 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP'S 
 Great Books at Little Prices 
 
 HAPPY HAWKINS. By Robert Alexander Wason. lUus 
 trated by Howard Giles. 
 A ranch and cowboy novel. Happy HawWna tells his own storj 
 Irith such a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much 
 humor that the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration^ 
 gtnd at last in positive afiection. 
 
 COMRADES. By Thomas Dixon, Jr. Illustrated by C. D. 
 Williams. 
 
 The locale of this story is in California, where a few socialists 
 establish a little community. 
 
 The author leads the litde band along the path of disillusion- 
 ment, and gives some brilliant flashes oi light on one side of an 
 Important question. 
 TONO-BUNGAY. By Herbert George Wells. 
 
 The hero of this novel is a young man who, through hard work, 
 earns a scholarship and goes to London. 
 
 Written with a frankness verging on Rousseau's, Mr. Wells stiT 
 uses rare discrimination and the border line of propriety is nevel 
 crossed. An entertaining book with both a story and a moral, and 
 without a dull page — Mr. Wells's most notable achievement. 
 A HUSBAND BY PROXY. By Jack Steele. 
 
 A young criminologist, but recently arrived in New York citVv 
 
 is drawn into a mystery, partly through financial need and partly 
 
 hrough his interest in a beautiful woman, who seems at times the 
 
 Simplest child and again a perfect mistress of intrigue. A bafBing 
 
 (fletective story. 
 
 LIKE ANOTHER HELEN. By George Horton. Illus. 
 trated by C. M. Relyea. 
 
 Mr. Horton's powerful romance stands in a new field and brmgs 
 an almost unknown world in reality before the reader — the world 
 of conflict between Greek and Turk on the Island of Crete. The 
 " Helen " of the story is a Greek, beautiful, desolate, defiant— pure 
 as snow. , ,., t 
 
 There is a certain new force about the story, a kind of masteifc 
 craftsmanship and mental dominance that holds the reader. 
 THE MASTER OF APPLEBY. By Francis Lynde, 
 Illustrated by T. de Thulstrup. , I 
 
 "A novel tale concerning itself in part with the great struggle nj!, 
 the two Carolinas, but chiefly with the adventures therein of two 
 gentlemen who loved one and the same lady. 
 
 A strong, masculine and persuasive story. 
 A MODERN MADONNA. By Caroline Abbot Stanley. 
 
 A story of American life, founded on facts as they existed some 
 years ago in the District of Columbia. The theme is the materual 
 love and splendid courage of a woman. 
 
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THE NOVELS OF 
 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE 
 
 THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller 
 
 The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college 
 hero goes into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes 
 into the romance of his life. 
 ARIZONA NIGHTS. Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth. 
 
 A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life 
 of the ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece. 
 THE BLAZED TRAIL. With illustiations by Thomas Fogarty. 
 
 A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young 
 man who blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Mich- 
 igan pines. 
 THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance. 
 
 The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the 
 Black Hills has a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than 
 one. 
 CONJUROR'S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition. 
 
 Dramatized under the title of "The Call of the North." 
 
 "Conjuror's House is a Hudson Bay trading post where the 
 head factor is the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and 
 won a bride on this forbidden land. 
 
 THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated. 
 
 The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and 
 their life is treated could only belong to one who is in love with the 
 forest and open air. Based on fact. 
 THE RIVERMAN. Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood. 
 
 The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle 
 between honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and 
 shrewdness on the other. 
 
 THE SILENT PLACES. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin. 
 
 The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine 
 devotion, and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian 
 and the instinct of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story. 
 THE WESTERNERS . 
 
 A story of the Black Hills that Is justly placed among the 
 best American novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no 
 other book has dorie in recent years. 
 
 THE MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams 
 With illustrations by Will Crawford. 
 
 The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout 
 ship ''Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrut- 
 able. In the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage 
 that man ever undertook. 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, 526 West 26th St., New York 
 
LOUIS TRACY'S 
 
 CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES 
 
 May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list 
 
 CYNTHIA'S - CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler 
 
 Christy. 
 
 A pretty American g^rl in London is touring in a car with 
 a, chauffeur whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery. 
 
 TH^ STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson. 
 
 A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a 
 fascina'tihg officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSA S. 
 
 Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands 
 of cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance. 
 
 THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase. 
 
 A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old ves- 
 sel tells of a buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops. 
 
 THE PILLAR OF LIGHT. 
 
 The pillar thus designatiid was a lighthouse, and the author 
 tells with exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off in- 
 habitants. 
 
 THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James 
 Montgomery Flagg. 
 The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing 
 the particulars of some of the treasures of the Qiieen of Sheba. 
 
 A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard 
 Chandler Christy. 
 A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan 
 Kingdom, and a pretty Parisian art student is the power behind 
 the throne. 
 
 THE WINGS OF THE MORNING . 
 
 A sort of Robinson Crusoe redivivus with modem settings 
 and a very pretty love story added. The hero and heroine, are 
 the only survivors of a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures 
 on their desert island. 
 
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THE NOVELS OF 
 
 IRVING BACHELLER 
 
 Full of the real atmosphere of American home life. 
 
 THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN. With a double- 
 page frontispiece. 
 The son of a wash-woman begins re-making himself 
 socially and imparts his sjrstem to his numerous friends. A 
 story of rural New York with an appreciation of American 
 types only possible from the pen of a humor loving American. 
 
 DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES. With illustra- 
 tions by Arthur I. Keller. 
 A tale of the North Country. In Barrel, the clock tinker, 
 \fit, philosopher and man of mysterjr, is portrayed a force held 
 in fetters and covered with obscurity, yet strong *o make its 
 way, and widely felt. 
 
 D'RI AND I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War 
 with the British. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 
 "D'ri" was a mighty hunter, quaint, rugged, wise, truth- 
 ful. He iights magnificently on the Lawrence, and is a strik- 
 ing figure in this enthusiastic romance of early America. 
 
 EBEN HOLDEN: A Tale of the North Country. 
 
 A story of the hardy wood-choppers of Vermont, who 
 founded their homes in the Adirondack wilderness. " Eben," 
 the hero, is a bachelor with an imagination that is a very 
 wilderness of oddities. 
 
 SILAS STRONG: Emperor of the Woods. 
 
 A simple account of one summer life, as it was lived in a 
 part of the Adirondacks. Silas Strong is a woodland philos- 
 opher, and his camp is the scene of an impressive little love 
 story. 
 
 VERGILIUS: A Tale of the Coming of Christ. 
 
 A thrilling and beautiful story of two young Roman 
 Patricians whose great and perilous love in the reign of 
 Augustus leads them through the momentous, exciting even's 
 that marked the year just preceding the birth of Christ. 
 
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THE NOVELS OF 
 
 WINSTON CHURCHILL 
 
 SkilKul in plot, dramatic ia episode, powerful and oiiginal in climax. 
 
 MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A.I. Keller and Kinneys. 
 
 A New England state is under the political domination 
 j of a railway and Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes the moment 
 ' when the cause of the people against corporation greed is 
 being espoused by an ardent young attorney, to further his 
 own interest in a political way, by taking up this cause. 
 
 The daughter of the railway president, with the sunny 
 humor and shrewd common sense of the New England girl, 
 plays no small part in the situation as well as in the life of the 
 young attorney who stands so unflinchingly for clean politics. 
 THE CROSSING . Illus. by S. Adamson and L. Baylis. 
 
 Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie and the British 
 fleet in the harbor of Charleston, the blazing of the Kentucky 
 wilderness, the expedition of Clark and his handful of daunt- 
 less followers in Illinois, the beginning of civilization along 
 the Ohio and Mississippi, and the treasonable schemes buildea 
 against Washington and the Federal Government. 
 CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. 
 
 A deft blending ef love and politics distinguishes this 
 book. The author has taken for his hero a New Englander, 
 a crude man of the tannery, who rose to political prominence 
 by his own powers, and then surrendered all for the love of a 
 woman. 
 
 It is a sermon on civic righteousness, and a love story of a 
 deep motive. 
 
 THE CELEBRITY. An Episode. 
 
 An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of 
 personalities between a celebrated author and a bicycle sales- 
 man of the most blatant type. The story is adorned with 
 some character sketches more living than pen work. It is the 
 purest, keenest fun — no such piece of humor has appeared for 
 years : it is American to the core. 
 THE CRISIS. Illus. by Howard Chandler Christy. 
 
 A book that presents the great crisis in our national life 
 with splendid power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a 
 patriotism that are inspiring. The several scenes in the book 
 in which Abraham Lincoln figures must be read in their en- 
 tirety for they give a picture of that great, magnetic, lovable 
 man, which has been drawn with evident affection and excep- 
 tional success. 
 
 Grosset & DuNLAP, 526 West 26th St., New York 
 
 Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
Digitized by Microsoft® 
 
Digitized by Microsoft®