"Oh!... Been trying it?" I inquired.

He made no reply.

"Well, those who have made the refusal have at least had something to refuse," I said mildly. Then, realising that this was mere quarrelling, I returned to the point. "Anyhow, there's no question of refusing to write the 'Life.' I admit that during the last fortnight I've met with certain difficulties; but the task isn't so easy as perhaps it looks.... I'm making progress."

"I suppose," she said hesitatingly, after a pause, "that you don't care to show it as far as it is written?"

For a moment I also hesitated. I thought I saw where she was. Thanks to that Lancashire jackanapes, there was division between us; and I had pretty well made up my mind, not only that he thought himself quite capable of writing Andriaovsky's "Life," himself, but that he had actually made an attempt in that direction. They had come in the suspicion that I was throwing them over, and, though that suspicion was removed, Maschka wished, if there was any throwing over to be done, to do it herself. In a word, she wanted to compare me with Schofield.

"To see it as far as it is written," I repeated slowly.... "Well, you may. That is, you, Michael's sister, may. But on the condition that you neither show it to anybody else nor speak of it to anybody else."

"Ah!" she said.... "And only on those conditions?"

"Only on those conditions."

I saw a quick glance between them. "Shall we tell him?" it seemed to say....

"Including the man Michael's sister is going to marry?" she said abruptly.

My att.i.tude was deeply apologetic, but, "Including anybody whomsoever," I answered.

"Then," she said, rising, "we won't bother. But will you at least let us know, soon, when we may expect your text?"

"I will let you know," I replied slowly, "one week from to-day."

On that a.s.surance they left; and when they had gone I crossed once more to the lower shelf that contained my letter-files. I turned up the file for 1900 once more. During their visit I had had an idea.

I ran through the letters, and then replaced them....

Yes, I ought to be able to let them know within the week.

V

Against the day when I myself shall come to die, there are in the pigeon-holes of the newspaper libraries certain biographical records that deal roughly with the outward facts of my life; and these, supplemented by doc.u.ments I shall place in the hands of my executors, will tell the story of how I leaped at a bound into wealth and fame with the publication of _The Cases of Martin Renard_. I will set down as much of that story as has its bearing on my present tale.

_Martin Renard_ was not immediately accepted by the first editor to whom it was offered. It does not suffice that in order to be popular a thing shall be merely good--or bad; it must be bad--or good--in a particular way. For taking the responsibility when they happen to miss that particular way editors are paid their salaries. When they happen to hit it they grow fat on circulation-money: Since it becomes me ill to quarrel with the way in which any man earns his money, I content myself with merely stating the fact.

By the time the fourth editor had refused my series I was about at my last gasp. To write the things at all I had had to sink four months in time; and debts, writs and p.a.w.nshops were my familiars. I was little better off than Andriaovsky at his very worst. I had read the first of the _Martin Renards_ to him, by the way; the gigantic outburst of mirth with which he had received it had not encouraged me to read him a second.

I wrote the others in secret.

I wrote the things in the spring and summer of 1900; and by the last day of September I was confident that I had at last sold them. Except by a flagrant breach of faith, the editor in whose desk they reposed could hardly decline them. As it subsequently happened, I have now nothing but grat.i.tude for him that he did, after all, decline them; for I had a duplicate copy "on offer" in another quarter.

He declined them, I say; and I was free to possess my soul again among my writs, debts and p.a.w.nshops.

But four days later I received the alternative offer. It was from the _Falchion_. The _Falchion_, as you may remember, has since run no less than five complete series of _Martin Renards_. It bought "both sides,"

that is to say, both British and American serial rights. Of the twelve _Martin Renards_ I had written, my wise agent had offered the _Falchion_ six only. On his advice I accepted the offer.

Instantaneously with the publication of those six stories came my success. In two continents I was "home"--home in the hearts of the public. I had my small cheque--it was not much more than a hundred pounds--but "Wait," said my agent; "let's see what we can do with the other six...."

Precisely what he did with them only he and I know; but I don't mind saying that 3000 did not buy my first serial rights. Then came second and third rights, and after them the book rights, British, American, and Colonial. Then came the translation rights. In French, my creation is, of course, as in English, _Martin Renard_; in German he is Martin Fuchs; and by a similar process you can put him--my translators have put him--into Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, and three-fourths of the tongues of Europe. And this was the first series only. It was only with the second series that the full splendour of my success appeared. My very imitators grew rich; my agent's income from his comparatively small percentage on my royalties was handsome; and he chuckled and bade me wait for the dramatic rights and the day when the touring companies should get to business....

I had "got there."

And I remember, sadly enough now, my first resolution when the day came when I was able to survey the situation with anything approaching calm.

It was, "Enough." For the rest of my days I need not know poverty again.

Thenceforward I need not, unless I chose, do any but worthy work. _Martin Renard_ had served his purpose handsomely, and I intended to have nothing more to do with him.

Then came that dazzling offer for the second series....

I accepted it.

I accepted the third likewise; and I have told you about the fourth....

I have tried to kill _Martin Renard_. He was killing me. I have, in the pages of the _Falchion_, actually killed him; but I have had to resuscitate him. I cannot escape from him....

I am not setting down one word more of this than bears directly on my tale of Andriaovsky's "Life." For those days, when my whole future had hung in the balance, _were the very days covered by that portion of Andriaovsky's life at which I had now arrived_. I had reached, and was hesitating at, our point of divergence. Those checks and releases which I had at first found so unaccountable corresponded with the vicissitudes of the _Martin Renard_ negotiations.

The actual dates did not, of course, coincide--I had quickly discovered the falsity of that scent. Neither did the intervals between them, with the exception of those few days in which I had been unable to complete that half-written sentence--the few days immediately prior to my (parallel) acceptance by the _Falchion_. But, by that other reckoning of time, of mental and spiritual experience, _they tallied exactly_.

The gambling chances of five years ago meant present stumblings and haltings; the breach of faith of an editor long since meant a present respite; and another week should bring me to that point of my so strangely reduplicated experience that, allowing for the furious mental rate at which I was now living, would make another node with that other point in the more slowly lived past that had marked my acceptance of the offer for the second half-dozen of the _Martin Renards_.

It had been on this hazardous calculation that I had made my promise to Maschka.

I pa.s.sed that week in a state of constantly increasing apprehension.

True, I worked at the "Life," even a.s.siduously; but it was plain sailing, mere cataloguing of certain of Andriaovsky's works, a chapter I had deliberately planned _pour mieux sauter_--to enhance the value of the penultimate and final chapters. These were the real crux of the "Life."

These were what I was reserving myself for. These were to show that only his body was dead, and that his spirit still lived and his work was still being done wherever a man could be found whose soul burned within him with the same divine ardour.

But I was now realising, day by day, hour by hour more clearly, what I was incurring. I was penning nothing less than my own artistic d.a.m.nation.

Self-condemned, indeed, I had been this long time; but I was now making the world a party to the sentence. The crowning of Andriaovsky involved my own annihilation; his "Life" would be my "Hic Jacet." And yet I was prepared, nay, resolved, to write it. I had started, and I would go forward. I would not be spewed with the lukewarm out of the mouth of that Spirit from which proceeds all that is bright and pure and true. The vehemence with which I had rejected its divine bidding should at least be correspondent with my adoration of it. The snivelling claims of the Schofields I spurned. If, as they urged, "an artist must live," he must live royally or starve with a tight mouth. No complaining....

And one other claim I urged in the teeth of this Spirit, which, if it was a human Spirit at all, it could not disregard. Those pigeon-holed obituaries of mine will proclaim to the world, one and all, the virtues of my public life. In spite of my royal earnings, I am not a rich man. I have not accepted wealth without accepting the personal responsibility for it. Sick men and women in more than one hospital lie in wards provided by _Martin Renard_ and myself; and I am not dishonoured in my Inst.i.tution at Poplar. Those vagrant wanderings with Andriaovsky have enabled me to know the poor and those who help the poor. My personal labours in the administration of the Inst.i.tute are great, for outside the necessary routine I leave little to subordinates. I have declined honours offered to me for my "services to Literature," and I have never encouraged a youth, of parts or lacking them, to make of Literature a profession. And so on and so forth. All this, and more, you will read when the day comes; and I don't doubt the _Falchion_ will publish my memoir in mourning borders...

But to resume.

I finished the chapter I have mentioned. Maschka and her fiance kept punctiliously away. Then, before sitting down to the penultimate chapter, I permitted myself the relaxation of a day in the country.

I can't tell you precisely where I went; I only know it was somewhere in Buckinghamshire, and that, ordering the car to await me a dozen miles farther on, I set out to walk. Nor can I tell you what I saw during that walk; I don't think I saw anything. There was a red wintry disc of a sun, I remember, and a land grey with rime; and that is all. I was entirely occupied with the attempt I was about to make. I think that even then I had the sense of doom, for I know not how otherwise I should have found myself several times making little husbandings of my force, as if conscious that I should need it all. For I was determined, as never in my life have I been determined, to write that "Life." And I intended, not to wait to be challenged, but to challenge.... I met the car, returning in search of me; and I dined at a restaurant, went home to bed, and slept dreamlessly.

On the morrow I deliberately refrained from work until the evening. My challenge to Andriaovsky and the Powers he represented should be boldly delivered at the very gates of their own Hour. Not until half-past eight, with the curtains drawn, the doors locked, and orders given that on no account whatever was I to be disturbed, did I switch on the pearly light, place Andriaovsky's portrait in its now accustomed place, and draw my chair up to my writing-table.

VI

But before I could resume the "Life" at the point at which I had left it, I felt that there were certain preliminaries to be settled. It was not that I wished to sound a parley with any view of coming to terms; I had determined what the terms were to be. As a boxer who leaps from his corner the moment the signal is given, astounding with suddenness his less prompt antagonist, so I should be ready when the moment came. But I wished the issue to be defined. I did not propose to submit the whole of my manhood to the trial. I was merely a.s.serting my right to speak of certain things which, if one chose to exaggerate their importance by a too narrow and exclusive consideration of them, I might conceivably be thought to have betrayed.

I drew a sheet of paper towards me, and formally made out my claim. It occupied not more than a dozen lines, and its nature has already been sufficiently indicated. I put my pen down again, leaned back in my chair, and waited.

I waited, but nothing happened. It seemed that if this was my attempt to justify myself, the plea was certainly not disallowed. But neither had I any sign that it was allowed; and presently it occurred to me that possibly I had couched it in terms too general. Perhaps a more particular claim would meet with a different reception.