The Story of an Untold Love

"Pay back the money, Maizie!" ejaculated Mr. Walton. "Why haven't you told me of it?"

"It did not seem necessary," you answered.

"I'm sure it's a trick," asserted Agnes. "He's probably trying to worm his way back to your friendship, to get something more out of you."

"How much" – began Mr. Walton; but you interrupted him there by saying, "I would rather not talk about it."

The subject was changed at once, but when we were smoking, Mr. Walton asked, "Blodgett, do you know anything about that Maitland affair?"

"A little," replied the host.

"The debt really is being paid?"

"Yes."

"And you don't know by whom?"

"So Maizie tells me."

"Has she made no attempt to find out?"

"When the first payment was made she came to me for advice."

"Well?" asked Mr. Walton eagerly.

"She got it," declared Mr. Blodgett.

"What did she do?" persisted Mr. Walton.

Mr. Blodgett was silent for a moment, and then responded, "The exact opposite of what I advised. Do you know, Walton, you and I remind me of the warm-hearted elephant who tried to hatch the ostrich eggs by sitting on them."

"In what respect?"

"We decided that we must break up Maizie's love of the Maitlands for her own good."

"Well?"

"Well, we made the whole thing so mean to her that finally we did break something. Then, manlike, we were satisfied. What was it we broke?"

"Nonsense!" growled Mr. Walton, sipping his wine.

Mr. Blodgett laughed slightly. "That's rather a good name for it," he assented; "but the trouble is, Walton, that nonsense is a very big part of every woman's life. You'll never get me to fool with it again."

I often ponder over those three brief remarks of yours, and of what you said to me last autumn, in our ride and in the upper hall of My Fancy, trying to learn, if possible, what your feeling is towards us. Can you, despite all that has intervened, still feel any tenderness and love for my father and me? Perhaps it was best that you were silent; if you had spoken of him with contempt, I think – I know you would not, my darling, for you loved him once, and that, to you, would be reason enough to be merciful to the dead, however sinning.

Dear love, good-night.

XV

March 6. You once said to me that you could conceive of no circumstances that would justify dishonesty; for, no matter what the seeming benefits might be, the indirect consequences and the effect on the misdoer's character more than neutralized them. The wrong I have done has only proved your view, and I have come to scorn myself for the dishonorable part I have played. Yet I think that you would pity more than blame me, if you could but know my sacrifices. I drifted into the fraud unconsciously, and cannot now decide at what point the actual stifling of my conscience began. I suppose the first misstep was when I entered Mr. Whitely's employment; yet though I knew it to be unscrupulous in him to impose my editorials as his own, it still seemed to me no distinct transgression in me to write them for him. With that first act those that followed became possible, and each involved so slight an increase in the moral lapse, and my debt to you was so potent an excuse to blind me, that at the time I truly thought I was doing right. I wonder what you would have done had you been in my position?

Mr. Blodgett's shrewdness in stipulating what work I was to do for Mr. Whitely quickly proved itself. One of the magazines asked my employer to contribute an article on The Future of Journalism. Handing me the letter, he said, "Dr. Hartzmann, kindly write a couple of thousand words on that subject."

"That surely is not part of my duty, Mr. Whitely," I had the courage to respond.

He looked at me quickly, and his mouth stiffened into a straight line. "Does that mean that you do not choose to do it?" he asked suavely.

My heart failed me at the thought that if I lost my position I might never get so good a one, and should drag my debt through life. For once thought of you made me cowardly. I answered, "I will write it, Mr. Whitely;" and he said, "I thank you," as if I had done him a favor.

I told Mr. Blodgett of the incident, that evening, with a wry face and a laugh over my bravery, and he was furious at me.

"Why, you – you" – he stuttered. "Haven't you learned yet that the man wouldn't part with you for anything? He's so stuck up over his editorials and what people say of them that he'd as soon think of discharging his own mother before she weaned him."

Not content with venting his anger on me, he came into the office the next day and told Mr. Whitely I should not be imposed on, and finally forced him to agree that I should receive whatever the review paid for the article.

After this I wrote several magazine articles for Mr. Whitely, and soon another development of our curious relations occurred. One afternoon he informed me, "The Library trustees request me to deliver an address at the dedication of the building. I shall be grateful for any suggestions you can make of a proper subject."

"Books?" I replied, with an absolutely grave face.

"That is eminently suitable," he responded. "Possibly you can spare the time to compose such a paper; and as it should be of a scholarly character some Greek and Latin seem to me advisable."

"How much?" I asked, inwardly amused to note if he would understand my question, or would suppose it referred to the quantity of dead languages I was to inject.

"What is the labor worth?" he inquired, setting my doubt at rest, and proving his business ability to recognize the most distant allusion to a dollar. When I named a price, he continued: "That is excessive. The profession of authorship is so little recompensed that there are many good writers in New York who would gladly do it for less."

"I can do it cheaper, if, like them, I crib it from books at the Astor," I asserted.

"I do not see why an address composed in the Astor Library should not be entirely satisfactory?" he questioned, in his smooth, self-controlled manner.

"Did you never hear of the man who left the theatre in the middle of Hamlet because, he said, he didn't care to hear a play that was all quotations?" I asked, with a touch of irony.

"I presume the story has some connection in your mind with the subject in hand, but I am unable to see the appositeness?" he said interrogatively and evidently puzzled.

"I merely mentioned it lest you might not know that Pope never lived in Grub Street."

He looked at me, still ignorant that I was laughing at him. "You think it injudicious to have it done by Mather?" he questioned, naming a fellow who did special work for the paper at times.

"Not at all," I replied, "provided you label the address 'hash,' so that people who have some discrimination won't suppose you ignorant that it is twice-cooked meat you are giving them," and, turning, I went on with my work as if the matter were ended.

But the next day he told me, "I have concluded to have you compose that oration, Dr. Hartzmann;" and from that moment of petty victory I have not feared my employer.

I wrote the address, and it so pleased Mr. Whitely that, not content with delivering it, he had it handsomely printed, and sent copies to all his friends.

The resulting praise he received clearly whetted his appetite for authorship, for not long after he said to me, "Dr. Hartzmann, you told me, when you sold me this library, that you were writing a history of the Turks. How nearly completed is it?"

"I hope to have it ready for press within three months."

"For some time," he remarked, "I have meditated the writing of a book, and possibly yours will serve my purpose."

I was so taken by surprise that for a moment I merely gazed at him, since it seemed impossible that even egotism so overwhelming as his could be capable of such blindness; but he was in earnest, and I could only revert to Mr. Blodgett's idea that a business man comes to think in time that anything he can buy is his. I smiled, and answered, "My book is not petroleum, Mr. Whitely."

"If it is what I desire, I will amply remunerate you," he offered.

"It is not for sale."

"I presume," he replied, "that you know what disposition of your book suits you best. I have, however, noticed in you a strong desire to obtain money, and I feel sure that we could arrange terms that will bring you more than you would otherwise receive."

Even before Mr. Whitely finished speaking, I realized that I was not a free agent. I owed a debt, and till it was paid I had no right to think of my own ambition or feelings. I caught my breath in anguish at the thought, and then, fearing that my courage would fail me, I spoke hastily: "What do you offer me?"

He smiled blandly as he predicted: "It is hardly a work that will have a large sale. The Turkish nation has not played an important part in history."

"Only conquered the key of the Old World, caused the Crusades, forced the discovery of America and of the Cape passage, compelled Europe to develop its own civilization instead of adopting that of the East, and furnished a question to modern statesmen that they have yet found no Œdipus to answer," I retorted.

"Your special pleading does tend to magnify their position," he assented. "I shall be happy to look the work over, leaving the terms to be decided later."

I am ashamed to confess what a night of suffering I went through, battling with the love and pride that had grown into my heart for my book. I knew from the first moment his proposition had been suggested that he would give me more than I could ever hope to make from the work, and therefore my course was only too plain; but I had a terrible struggle to force myself to carry my manuscript to him the following afternoon.

For the next week he was full of what he was reading; and had the circumstances been different, I could have asked no higher compliment as regards its popular interest than the enthusiasm of this unlettered business man for my book.

"It is quite as diverting as a romance!" he exclaimed. "I can already see how astonished people will be when they read of the far-reaching influence of that nation."

Since the pound of flesh was to be sold, I took advantage of this mood. After much haggling, which irritated and pained me more than it should, Mr. Whitely agreed to give me six thousand dollars and the royalties. Good as the terms were, my heart nearly broke, the day the manuscript left my hands, for I had put so much thought into the book that it had almost become part of myself. My father, too, had toiled over it, with fondest predictions of the fame it would bring me; spending, as it proved, his very life in the endeavor to make it a great work. That his love, that the love of my dear professors, and that my own hopes should all be brought to market and sold as if they were mere merchandise was so mercenary and cruel that at the last moment it was all I could do to bring myself to fulfill the bargain. Nothing but my small progress in paying my debt would have forced me to sell, and I hope nothing but that would have led me to join in such dishonesty. It was, after all, part of the price I was paying for the original wrong, and but just retribution against which I had no right to cry out. Yet for a month I was so sad that I could scarcely go through my day's toil; and though that was a year ago, I have never been able to work with the same vim, life seems to have so little left in it for me. And idle as the thought is, when I think of your praise of the book I cannot help dreaming of what might have been if it had been published in my name; if – Ah, well, to talk of "ifs" is only to confess that I am beaten, and that I will not do. Nor is the fight over. I never hoped nor attempted to gain your love, and that he has won you does not mean failure. To pay my debt is all I have to do, and though I may feel more ill and disheartened than I do to-night, I will pay it, come what may.

Good-night, my darling.

XVI

March 7. It is little to be proud of, yet I like to think that though I have behaved dishonestly, I have not entirely lost my sense of right and wrong. Twice at least have I faced temptation and been strong enough to resist.

When I carried to Mr. Blodgett the money I received for my book, I was so profoundly discouraged that my mood was only too apparent. In his kindness he suggested that I buy certain bonds of a railroad his firm was then reorganizing, – telling me from his inside knowledge that a year's holding would give me a profit of thirty per cent. It was so sore a temptation to make money without exertion and practically without risk that I assented, and authorized him to buy the securities; but a night's reflection made the dishonesty of my act clear to me, and the next morning I went to his office and told him I wished to countermand my order.

"What's that for?" he inquired.

"I have thought better of the matter, and do not think I have the right."

"Why not?"

"If this money were a trust in my hands, it would not be honest to use it in speculation, would it?"

"No."

"That is practically what it is, since it was stolen from a trust, and is to be returned to it."

He smiled rather grimly. "It's lucky for Wall Street," he said, "that you literary fellows don't have the making and enforcing of laws; and it's luckier still that you don't have to earn your living down here, for the money you'd make wouldn't pay your burial insurance." Yet though he laughed cynically, he shook my hand, I thought, more warmly than usual when we parted, as if he felt at heart that I had done right.

Much easier to resist was an offer of another kind. Very foolishly, I told Mr. Whitely that I had received a letter from the literary editor of the leading American review asking if I would write the criticism of the History of the Turks.

"That is a singular piece of good fortune," Mr. Whitely said cheerfully, "and guarantees me a complimentary notice in a periodical that rarely praises."

"That is by no means certain," I answered. "You know as well as I that it does not gloze a poor book, nor pass over defects in silence."

"But you can hardly write critically of your own book!" cried Mr. Whitely, for once giving me a share in our literary partnership. "For if there are defects you ought to have corrected them in proof."

"Of course I do not intend to write the review!" I exclaimed.

"Not write it? Why not?" he questioned in amazement equal to mine.

"Because I am absolutely unfitted to do it."

"Why, you know all about the subject!"

"I mean that no author can for a moment write discriminatingly of his own work; and besides, the offer would never have been made if my connection with the book were known."

"But they will never know."

"I should."

"You mean to say you do not intend to do it?"

"I shall write to-night declining."

"But I want you to do it."

"And I don't."

"What would they probably pay you for it?"

"What it is worth."

"If you will reconsider your determination, I will double the amount."

"Unfortunately," I laughed bitterly, "there are limits to what even I will sell."

"I will give you two hundred and fifty dollars if you will write a laudatory review of my book," he offered.

"Have you ever dealt in consciences, Mr. Whitely?" I asked.

"Occasionally."

"Did you ever get any as cheap as that?"

"Many."

"I'm afraid you were buying shopworn and second-hand articles," I retorted; "or you may have gone to some bargain counter where they make a specialty of ninety-eight and forty-nine cent goods."

He never liked this satirical mood into which he sometimes drove me. He hesitated an instant, and then bid, "Three hundred."

"This reminds me of Faust," I remarked; but he was too intent on the matter in hand to see the point.

"I suppose it's only a question of amount?" he suggested blandly.

"You are quite right, Mr. Whitely. I will write you that review if you will pay me my price," I assented.

"I knew it," he asserted exultingly. "But you are mistaken if you think I will pay any fancy price."

"Then it's a waste of time to talk any more about it," I answered, and resumed my work.

"It isn't worth three hundred, even," he argued, "but you may tell me what you will do it for."

"I will write that review for one hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars," I replied.

"What!"

"And from that price I will not abate one cent," I added.

Strangely enough, I did not write the notice.

It was amusing to see his eagerness for the criticisms of the book. The three American critical journals had notices eminently characteristic of them. The first was scholarly, praising moderately, with a touch of lemon-juice in the final paragraph that really only heightened its earlier commendation, but which made the book's putative author wince; the second was discriminating and balanced, with far more that was complimentary; while the third was the publisher's puff so regularly served up, – a colorless, sugary mush, – which my employer swallowed with much delectation. I am ashamed to say that I greatly enjoyed his pain over any harsh words. He always took for granted that the criticisms were correct, never realizing that as between an author, who has spent years on a book, and the average critic, who is at best superficial in his knowledge of a subject, the former is the more often right of the two. I tried to make this clear to him one day by asking him if he had never read Lord Brougham's review of Byron or Baron Jeffrey's review of Coleridge, and even brought him the astonishing tirades of those world-renowned critics; but it was time wasted. He preferred a flattering panegyric in the most obscure of little sheets to a really careful notice which praised less inordinately; yet while apparently believing all the flattery, he believed all the censoriousness as well, even in those cases known to every author where one critic praises what another blames.

"A Western paper says you do not know how to write English," he complained one day. "You ought to have taken more pains with the book, Dr. Hartzmann."

"The Academy and The Athenæum both thought my style had merit," I answered, smiling.

"Nevertheless there must be something wrong, or this critic, who in other respects praises with remarkable discrimination, would certainly not have gone out of his way to mention it," he replied discontentedly.

Fortunately, unfavorable criticism, both in Europe and in America, was the exception, and not the rule; the book was generally praised, and sprang into an instant sale that encouraged and cheered me. Mr. Whitely was immensely gratified at the sudden reputation it achieved for him, and even while drinking deep of the mead of fresh authorship told me he thought he would publish another book. I knew it was an opportunity to make more money, but for some reason I felt unequal to beginning anew on what would be a purely mercenary task. I mentioned my plan of a work on the Moors, and promised, when I felt able to commence it, I would talk with him about terms. That was three months ago, yet every day I seem to feel less inclination, and in fact less ability, to undertake the labor. For three years I have toiled to the utmost of my strength, and forced myself to endure the most rigid economy. It is cowardly, but at times I find myself hoping my present want of spirit and energy is the forerunner of an illness which will end the hopeless struggle.

Good-night, dear heart.

XVII

March 8. Each day I determine to spend my evening usefully, but try as I may, when the time comes I feel too weary to do good work, and so morbidly recur to these memories. I ought to fight the tendency, the more that in reverting to the past I seem only to dwell on its sadness, thus intensifying my own depression. Let me see if I cannot for one night write of the good fortune that has come to me in the last three years.

Pleased with the success of my book of travel and text-books, and knowing of my wish for work, the American publishers offered me the position of assistant editor of their magazine and reader of manuscripts. By hard work and late hours the task could be done in my mornings and evenings, allowing me to continue in Mr. Whitely's employ; so I eagerly accepted the position. I can imagine few worse fates than reading the hopeless and impossible trash that comes to every publisher; but this was not my lot, for I was to read only the manuscripts that had been winnowed of the chaff. Yet this very immunity, as it proved, nearly lost me an opportunity of trying to be of service to you.

Returning a bundle of stuff to the manuscript clerk one day, I saw "M. Walton, 287 Madison Avenue, New York City," in your handwriting, on the cover of a bulky pile of sheets on his desk. Startled, I demanded, "What is this?"

"It's a rejected manuscript I was on the point of wrapping to return," the clerk answered.

Opening the cover, I saw, "A Woman's Problem, a Novel, by Aimez Lawton." It needed little perception to detect your name in the anagram.

"Mrs. Graham has rejected it?" I asked, and he nodded.

"Give me the file about it, please," I requested; and after a moment's search he handed me the envelope, and I glanced over its meagre contents: a brief formal note from you, submitting it, and the short opinion of the woman reader. "Traces of amateurishness, but a work of considerable power and feeling, marred by an inconclusive ending," was the epitome of her opinion, coupled with the recommendation not to accept.

"Register it on my list, and I'll take it and look it over," I said, and went to my little editorial cuddy, feeling actually rich in the possession of the manuscript. Indeed, it was all I could do to go through my morning quota of proof-reading and "making up" dummy forms for the magazine's next issue, I was so eager for your book.

A single reading told me you had put the problem of your life into the story. It is true the heroine was different enough in many respects to make analogy hardly perceptible, though she too was a tender, noble woman. She had never felt the slightest responsive warmth for any of her lovers, but she was cramped by the social conventions regarding unmarried women, and questioned whether her life would not be more potent if she married, even without love. One of her lovers was a man of force, brains, wealth, and ambition, outwardly an admirable match, respected by the world, and, most of all, able to draw about him the men of genius and intellect she wished to know, but whom her society lot debarred her from meeting. Yet your heroine was conscious of faults: she felt in him a touch of the soil that repels every woman instinctively; at times his nature seemed hard and unsympathetic, and his scientific work, for which he was famous, had narrowed his strong mind to think only of facts and practicalities, to the exclusion of everything ideal or beautiful. In the end, however, his persistent wooing convinced her of the strength of his feeling; and though she was conscious that she could never love him as she wished to love, the tale ended by her marrying him. Am I to blame for reading in this the story of Mr. Whitely's courtship of you? I only marveled at how much of his true character you had detected under his veneer.

To me the story was sweet and noble. I loved your heroine from beginning to end. She was so strong even in her weaknesses; for you made her no unsubstantial ideal. I understood her craving something more than her allotted round of social amusements, and her desire for intercourse and friendship with finer and more purposeful people than she daily met. I even understood her willingness to accept love, when not herself feeling it; for my own life was so hungry-hearted that I had come to yearn for the slightest tenderness, no matter who the giver might be.

As soon as I realized that the story was your own, I hoped it might tell me something of your thoughts of my father and myself; but that part of your life you passed over as if it never had been. Was the omission due to too much feeling or too little? I have always suspected that I served as a model for one of your minor characters: a dreamy, unsocial being, curiously variable in mood; at times talking learnedly and even wittily, but more often absolutely silent. He was by profession an artist, and you made him content to use his talent on book and magazine illustration, apparently without a higher purpose in life than to earn enough to support himself, in order that he might pass the remainder of his time in an intellectual indulgence scarcely higher in motive than more material dissipation. His evident sadness and lack of ambition was finally discovered to be due to a disappointment in love; and as a cure, your heroine introduced him to her best friend, – a young girl, – and through her influence he was roused to some ambition, and in the end he dutifully fell in love as your heroine wished. It was a sketch that made me wince, and yet at which I could not help but laugh. I suppose it was a true picture, and I am quite conscious that at times I must seem ridiculous to you; for often my mood is such, or my interest in you is so strong, that I forget even the ordinary courtesies and conventions. There is a general idea that a lover is always at his best when with the woman he loves, but, from my own experience, I think he is quite as likely to be at his worst. To watch your graceful movements, to delight in the play of expression on your face, and to catch every inflection in your voice and every word you speak are pleasures so engrossing to me that I must appear to you even more abstracted than I ordinarily am, though a dreamer at best. And yet now and then I have thought you were conscious of a tenderness in me, which, try as I will, I cannot altogether hide.