That was the fact, the unshakable fact, the block of granite that a malicious fortune had flung athwart her little pavilion of gla.s.s.

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

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

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

And then, of all moments, _ex machina_, Harold Vickers's card was handed in.

She stared at it an instant, through tears, amazed and incredulous.

Surely some one was playing a monstrous joke upon her today. Soon she would come upon the strings and false bottoms and wigs and masks of the game. But the office boy's contemplation of her distress was real.

Something must be done. The whole machine of things could not indefinitely hang thus suspended, inert, waiting her pleasure.

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

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

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

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

"I have received an unimportant government appointment in the Fisheries Department," he explained, "and as I was in New York for the week I thought I might--not that I wished to seem to hurry you, Miss.

Beltis--but I thought I might ask if you had come to--to my little book yet."

In five minutes of time Rosella knew just where Harold Vickers was to be placed, to what type he belonged. He was the young man of great talent who, so far from being discovered by the outside world, had not even discovered himself. He would be in two minds as yet about his calling in life, whether it was to be the hatching of fish or the writing of "Last Dryads." No one had yet taken him in hand, had so much as spoken a word to him. If she told him now that his book was a ridiculous failure, he would no doubt say--and believe--that she was quite right, that he had felt as much himself. If she told him his book was a little masterpiece, he would be just as certain to tell himself, and with equal sincerity, that he had known it from the first.

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

"Yes," she said at length, "I have read your ma.n.u.script." She paused a moment, then: "But I am not quite ready to pa.s.s upon it yet."

He was voluble in his protestations.

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

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

Ah, why had this situation leaped upon her thus unawares, and all unprepared! Why had she not been allowed time, opportunity, to fortify herself!

What she said now would mean so much. Best err, then, on the safe side; and which side was that? Her words seemed to come of themselves, and she almost physically felt herself withdraw from the responsibility of what this other material Rosella Beltis was saying.

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

But he answered that the judgment of such a house as the Conants would suffice for him. Somehow he could not peddle his story about New York.

If the Conants would not take his work, n.o.body would.

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

She did not sleep that night. When she left the office she brought "The Last Dryad" home with her, and till far into the night she read it and re-read it, comparing it and contrasting it with "Patroclus," searching diligently if perhaps there were not some minute loophole of evasion, some devious pa.s.sage through which she might escape. But amid the shattered panes of her gla.s.s pavilion the block of stone persisted, inert, immovable. The stone could not be raised, the little edifice could not be rebuilt.

Then at last, inevitably, the temptation came--came and grew and shut about her and gripped her close. She began to temporize, to advance excuses. Was not her story the better one? Granted that the idea was the same, was not the treatment, the presentation, more effective? Should not the fittest survive? Was it not right that the public should have the better version? Suppose "Patroclus" had been written by a third person, and she had been called upon to choose between it and "The Last Dryad," would she not have taken "Patroclus" and rejected the other? Ah, but "Patroclus" was not yet written! Well, that was true. But the draft of it was; the idea of it had been conceived eight months ago. Perhaps she had thought of her story before Vickers had thought of his. Perhaps?

No; it was very probable; there was no doubt of it, in fact. That was the important thing: the conception of the idea, not the execution. And if this was true, her claim was prior.

But what would Conant say of such reasoning, and Trevor--would they approve? Would they agree?

"Yes, they would," she cried the instant the thought occurred to her.

"Yes, they would, they would, they would; I know they would. I am sure of it; sure of it."

But she knew they would not. The idea of right persisted and persisted.

Rosella was on the rack, and slowly, inevitably, resistlessly the temptation grew and gathered, and snared her feet and her hands, and, fold on fold, lapped around her like a veil.

A great and feminine desire to shift the responsibility began to possess her mind.

"I cannot help it," she cried. "I am not to blame. It is all very well to preach, but how would--any one do in my case? It is not my fault."

And all at once, without knowing how or why, she found that she had written, sealed, stamped, and addressed a note to Harold Vickers declining his story.

But this was a long way from actually rejecting "The Last Dryad"--rejecting it in favor of "Patroclus." She had only written the note, so she told herself, just to see how the words would look. It was merely an impulse; would come to nothing, of course. Let us put it aside, that note, and seriously consider this trying situation.

Somehow it seemed less trying now; somehow the fact of her distress seemed less poignant. There was a way out of it--stop. No; do not look at the note there on the table. There was a way out, no doubt, but not that one; no, of course not that one. Rosella laughed a little. How easily some one else, less scrupulous, would solve this problem! Well, she could solve it, too, and keep her scruples as well; but not tonight.

Now she was worn out. Tomorrow it would look different to her.

She went to bed and tossed wide-eyed and wakeful till morning, then rose, and after breakfast prepared to go to the office as usual. The ma.n.u.script of "The Last Dryad" lay on her table, and while she was wrapping it up her eye fell upon the note to Harold Vickers.

"Why," she murmured, with a little grimace of astonishment--"why, how is this? I thought I burned that last night. How _could_ I have forgotten!"

She could have burned it then. The fire was crackling in the grate; she had but to toss it in. But she preferred to delay.

"I will drop it in some ash-can or down some sewer on the way to the office," she said to herself. She slipped it into her m.u.f.f and hurried away. But on the way to the cable-car no ash-can presented itself. True, she discovered the opening of a sewer on the corner where she took her car. But a milkman and a police officer stood near at hand in conversation, occasionally glancing at her, and no doubt they would have thought it strange to see this well-dressed young woman furtively dropping a sealed letter into a sewer-vent.

She held it awkwardly in her hand all of her way down-town, and still carried it there when she had descended from her car and took her way up the cross-street toward Conant's.

She suddenly remembered that she had other letters to mail that morning.

For two days the weekly epistles that she wrote home to her mother and younger sister had been overlooked in her pocket. She found a mail-box on the corner by the Conant building and crossed over to it, holding her mother's and sister's letters in one hand and the note to Vickers in the other.

Carefully scanning the addresses, to make sure she did not confuse the letters, she dropped in her home correspondence, then stood there a moment irresolute.

Irresolute as to what, she could not say. Her decision had been taken in the matter of "The Last Dryad." She would accept it, as it deserved.

Whether she was still to write "Patroclus" was a matter to be considered later. Well, she was glad she had settled it all. If she had not come to this conclusion she might have been, at that very instant, dropping the letter to Harold Vickers into the box. She would have stood, thus, facing the box, have raised the cast-iron flap,--this with one hand,--and with the other have thrust the note into the slide--thus.

Her fingers closed hard upon the letter at the very last instant--ah, not too late. But suppose she had, but for one second, opened her thumb and forefinger and--what? What would come of it?

And there, with the letter yet on the edge of the drop she called up again the entire situation, the ident.i.ty of the stories, the jeopardizing--no, the wrecking--of her future career by this chance-thrown barrier in the way. Why hesitate, why procrastinate? Her thoughts came to her in a whirl. If she acted quickly now,--took the leap with shut eyes, reckless of result,--she could truly be sorry then, truly acknowledge what was right, believe that Vickers had the prior claim without the hard necessity of acting up to her convictions. At least, this harrowing indecision would be over with.

"Indecision?" What was this she was saying? Had she not this moment told herself that she was resolved--resolved to accept "The Last Dryad"?

Resolved to accept it? Was that true? Had she done so? Had she not made up her mind long ago to decline it--decline it with full knowledge that its author would destroy it once the ma.n.u.script should be returned?

These thoughts had whisked through her mind with immeasurable rapidity.