I interrupted him.

"See here, Lucio, you are very fond of alluding to 'this' planet as if you knew anything about other planets"--I said impatiently. "_This_ planet, as you somewhat contemptuously call it, is the only one _we_ have any business with."

He bent his piercing looks so ardently upon me that for the moment I was startled.

"If that is so," he answered, "why in Heaven's name do you not let the other planets alone? Why do you strive to fathom their mysteries and movements? If men, as you say, have no business with any planet save this one why are they ever on the alert to discover the secret of mightier worlds,--a secret which haply it may some day terrify them to know!"

The solemnity of his voice and the inspired expression of his face awed me. I had no reply ready, and he went on--

"Do not let us talk, my friend, of planets, not even of this particular pin's point among them known as Earth. Let us return to a better subject--the Lady Sibyl. As I have already said, there are no obstacles in the way of your wooing and winning her, if such is your desire.

Geoffrey Tempest, as mere author of books would indeed be insolent to aspire to the hand of an earl's daughter, but Geoffrey Tempest, millionaire, will be a welcome suitor. Poor Lord Elton's affairs are in a bad way--he is almost out-at-elbows;--the American woman who is boarding with him----"

"Boarding with him!" I exclaimed--"Surely he does not keep a boarding-house?"

Lucio laughed heartily.

"No, no!--you must not put it so coa.r.s.ely, Geoffrey. It is simply this, that the Earl and Countess of Elton give the prestige of their home and protection to Miss Diana Chesney (the American aforesaid) for the trifling sum of two thousand guineas per annum. The Countess being paralyzed, is obliged to hand over her duties of chaperonage to her sister Miss Charlotte Fitzroy,--but the halo of the coronet still hovers over Miss Chesney's brow. She has her own suite of rooms in the house, and goes wherever it is proper for her to go, under Miss Fitzroy's care.

Lady Sibyl does not like the arrangement, and is therefore never seen anywhere except with her father. She will not join in companionship with Miss Chesney, and has said so pretty plainly."

"I admire her for it!" I said warmly--"I really am surprised that Lord Elton should condescend----"

"Condescend to what?" inquired Lucio--"Condescend to take two thousand guineas a year? Good heavens man, there are no end of lords and ladies who will readily agree to perform such an act of condescension. 'Blue'

blood is getting thin and poor, and only money can thicken it. Diana Chesney is worth over a million dollars and if Lady Elton were to die conveniently soon, I should not be surprised to see that 'little American' step triumphantly into her vacant place."

"What a state of topsy-turveydom!" I said, half angrily.

"Geoffrey, my friend, you are really amazingly inconsistent! Is there a more flagrant example of topsy-turveydom than yourself for instance? Six weeks ago, what were you? A mere scribbler, with flutterings of the wings of genius in your soul, but many uncertainties as to whether those wings would ever be strong enough to lift you out of the rut of obscurity in which you floundered, struggling and grumbling at adverse fate. Now, as millionaire, you think contemptuously of an Earl, because he ventures quite legitimately to add a little to his income by boarding an American heiress and launching her into society where she would never get without him. And you aspire, or probably mean to aspire to the hand of the Earl's daughter, as if you yourself were a descendant of kings.

Nothing can be more topsy-turvey than _your_ condition!"

"My father was a gentleman," I said, with a touch of hauteur, "and a descendant of gentlemen. We were never common folk,--our family was one of the most highly esteemed in the counties."

Lucio smiled.

"I do not doubt it, my dear fellow,--I do not in the least doubt it. But a simple 'gentleman' is a long way below--or above--an Earl. Have it which side you choose!--because it really doesn't matter nowadays. We have come to a period of history when rank and lineage count as nothing at all, owing to the profoundly obtuse stupidity of those who happen to possess it. So it chances, that as no resistance is made, brewers are created peers of the realm, and ordinary tradesmen are knighted, and the very old families are so poor that they have to sell their estates and jewels to the highest bidder, who is frequently a vulgar 'railway-king'

or the introducer of some new manure. You occupy a better position than such, since you inherit your money with the farther satisfaction that you do not know how it was made."

"True!" I answered meditatively,--then, with a sudden flash of recollection I added--"By the way I never told you that my deceased relative imagined that he had sold his soul to the devil, and that this vast fortune of his was the material result!"

Lucio burst into a violent fit of laughter.

"No! Not possible!" he exclaimed derisively--"What an idea! I suppose he had a screw loose somewhere! Imagine any sane man believing in a devil!

Ha, ha, ha! And in these advanced days too! Well, well! The folly of human imaginations will never end! Here we are!"--and he sprang lightly out as the brougham stopped at the Grand Hotel--"I will say good-night to you, Tempest. I've promised to go and have a gamble."

"A gamble? Where?"

"At one of the select private clubs. There are any amount of them in this eminently moral metropolis--no occasion to go to Monte Carlo! Will you come?"

I hesitated. The fair face of Lady Sibyl haunted my mind,--and I felt, with a no doubt foolish sentimentality, that I would rather keep my thoughts of her sacred, and unpolluted by contact with things of lower tone.

"Not to-night;"--I said,--then half smiling, I added--"It must be rather a one-sided affair for other men to gamble with you, Lucio! You can afford to lose,--and perhaps they can't."

"If they can't, they shouldn't play,"--he answered--"A man should at least know his own mind and his own capacity; if he doesn't, he is no man at all. As far as I have learned by long experience, those who gamble like it, and when _they_ like it, _I_ like it. I'll take you with me to-morrow if you care to see the fun,--one or two very eminent men are members of the club, though of course they wouldn't have it known for worlds. You shan't lose much--I'll see to that."

"All right,--to-morrow it shall be!"--I responded, for I did not wish to appear as though I grudged losing a few pounds at play--"But to-night I think I'll write some letters before going to bed."

"Yes--and dream of Lady Sibyl!" said Lucio laughing--"If she fascinates you as much when you see her again on Thursday you had better begin the siege!"

He waved his hand gaily, and re-entering his carriage, was driven off at a furious pace through the drifting fog and rain.

IX

My publisher, John Morgeson,--the estimable individual who had first refused my book, and who now, moved by self-interest, was devoting his energies a.s.siduously to the business of launching it in the most modern and approved style, was not like Shakespeare's _Ca.s.sio_, strictly 'an honourable man.' Neither was he the respectable chief of a long-established firm whose system of the cheating of authors, mellowed by time, had become almost sacred;--he was a 'new' man, with new ways, and a good stock of new push and impudence. All the same, he was clever, shrewd and diplomatic, and for some reason or other, had secured the favour of a certain portion of the press, many of the dailies and weeklies always giving special prominence to his publications over the heads of other far more legitimately dealing firms. He entered into a partial explanation of his methods, when, on the morning after my first meeting with the Earl of Elton and his daughter, I called upon him to inquire how things were going with regard to my book.

"We shall publish next week,"--he said, rubbing his hands complacently, and addressing me with all the deference due to my banking account--"And as you don't mind what you spend, I'll tell you just what I propose to do. I intend to write out a mystifying paragraph of about some seventy lines or so, describing the book in a vague sort of way as '_likely to create a new era of thought_'--or, '_ere long everybody who is anybody will be compelled to read this remarkable work_,'--or '_as something that must be welcome to all who would understand the drift of one of the most delicate and burning questions of the time_.' These are all stock phrases, used over and over again by the reviewers,--there's no copyright in them. And the last one always 'tells' wonderfully, considering how old it is, and how often it has been made to do duty, because any allusion to a '_delicate and burning question_' makes a number of people think the novel must be improper, and they send for it at once!"

He chuckled at his own perspicuity, and I sat silent, studying him with much inward amus.e.m.e.nt. This man on whose decision I had humbly and anxiously waited not so many weeks ago was now my paid tool,--ready to obey me to any possible extent for so much cash,--and I listened to him indulgently while he went on unravelling his schemes for the gratification of _my_ vanity, and the pocketing of _his_ extras.

"The book has been splendidly advertised"--he went on; "It could not have been more lavishly done. Orders do not come in very fast yet--but they will,--they will. This paragraph of mine, which will take the shape of a 'leaderette,' I can get inserted in about eight hundred to a thousand newspapers here and in America. It will cost you,--say a hundred guineas--perhaps a trifle more. Do you mind that?"

"Not in the least!" I replied, still vastly amused.

He meditated a moment,--then drew his chair closer to mine and lowered his voice a little.

"You understand I suppose, that I shall only issue two hundred and fifty copies at first?"

This limited number seemed to me absurd, and I protested vehemently.

"Such an idea is ridiculous!" I said--"you cannot supply the trade with such a scanty edition."

"Wait, my dear sir, wait,--you are too impatient. You do not give me time to explain. All these two hundred and fifty will be _given away_ by me in the proper quarters on the day of publication,--never mind how,--they _must_ be given away--"

"Why?"

"Why?" and the worthy Morgeson laughed sweetly--"I see, my dear Mr Tempest, you are like most men of genius--you do not understand business. The reason why we give the first two hundred and fifty copies away is in order to be able to announce at once in all the papers that '_The First Large Edition of the New Novel by Geoffrey Tempest being exhausted on the day of publication, a Second is in Rapid Preparation_.'

You see we thus hoodwink the public, who of course are not in our secrets, and are not to know whether an edition is two hundred or two thousand. The Second Edition will of course be ready behind the scenes, and will consist of another two hundred and fifty."

"Do you call that course of procedure honest?" I asked quietly.

"Honest? My dear sir! Honest?" And his countenance wore a virtuously injured expression--"Of course it is honest! Look at the daily papers!

Such announcements appear every day--in fact they are getting rather too common. I freely admit that there are a few publishers here and there who stick up for exact.i.tude and go to the trouble of not only giving the number of copies in an Edition, but also publishing the date of each one as it was issued,--this may be principle if they like to call it so, but it involves a great deal of precise calculation and worry! If the public like to be deceived, what is the use of being exact! Now, to resume,--your second edition will be sent off 'on sale or return' to provincial booksellers, and then we shall announce--"In consequence of the Enormous Demand for the new novel by Geoffrey Tempest, the Large Second Edition is out of print. A Third will be issued in the course of next week." And so on, and so on, till we get to the sixth or seventh edition (always numbering two hundred and fifty each) in three volumes; perhaps we can by skilful management work it to a tenth. It is only a question of diplomacy and a little dexterous humbugging of the trade.

Then we shall arrive at the one-volume issue, which will require different handling. But there's time enough for that. The frequent advertis.e.m.e.nts will add to the expense a bit, but if you don't mind--"

"I don't mind anything," I said--"so long as I have my fun."