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'Yes. The novel is Miss Hawk's "On the Boards." How will the editor get out of this?'

  'H'm! Of course Mr Fadge is not immediately responsible; but it'll be unpleasant for him, decidedly unpleasant.' He smiled grimly. 'You hear this, Marian?'

  'How is it explained, father?'

  'May be accident, of course; but—well, there's no knowing. I think it very likely this will be the end of Mr Fadge's tenure of office. Rackett, the proprietor, only wants a plausible excuse for making a change. The paper has been going downhill for the last year; I know of two publishing houses who have withdrawn their advertising from it, and who never send their books for review. Everyone foresaw that kind of thing from the day Mr Fadge became editor. The tone of his paragraphs has been detestable. Two reviews of the same novel, eh? And diametrically opposed? Ha! Ha!'

  Gradually he had passed from quiet appreciation of the joke to undisguised mirth and pleasure. His utterance of the name 'Mr Fadge' sufficiently intimated that he had some cause of personal discontent with the editor of The Study.

  'The author,' remarked Milvain, 'ought to make a good thing out of this.'

  'Will, no doubt. Ought to write at once to the papers, calling attention to this sample of critical impartiality. Ha! ha!'

  He rose and went to the window, where for several minutes he stood gazing at vacancy, the same grim smile still on his face. Jasper in the meantime amused the ladies (his sisters had heard him on the subject already) with a description of the two antagonistic notices. But he did not trust himself to express so freely as he had done at home his opinion of reviewing in general; it was more than probable that both Yule and his daughter did a good deal of such work.

  'Suppose we go into the garden,' suggested Miss Harrow, presently. 'It seems a shame to sit indoors on such a lovely afternoon.'

  Hitherto there had been no mention of the master of the house. But Mr Yule now remarked to Jasper:

  'My brother would be glad if you would come and have a word with him. He isn't quite well enough to leave his room to-day.'

  So, as the ladies went gardenwards, Jasper followed the man of letters upstairs to a room on the first floor. Here, in a deep cane chair, which was placed by the open window, sat John Yule. He was completely dressed, save that instead of coat he wore a dressing-gown. The facial likeness between him and his brother was very strong, but John's would universally have been judged the finer countenance; illness notwithstanding, he had a complexion which contrasted in its pure colour with Alfred's parchmenty skin, and there was more finish about his features. His abundant hair was reddish, his long moustache and trimmed beard a lighter shade of the same hue.

  'So you too are in league with the doctors,' was his bluff greeting, as he held a hand to the young man and inspected him with a look of slighting good-nature.

  'Well, that certainly is one way of regarding the literary profession,' admitted Jasper, who had heard enough of John's way of thinking to understand the remark.

  'A young fellow with all the world before him, too. Hang it, Mr Milvain, is there no less pernicious work you can turn your hand to?'

  'I'm afraid not, Mr Yule. After all, you know, you must be held in a measure responsible for my depravity.'

  'How's that?'

  'I understand that you have devoted most of your life to the making of paper. If that article were not so cheap and so abundant, people wouldn't have so much temptation to scribble.'

  Alfred Yule uttered a short laugh.

  'I think you are cornered, John.'

  'I wish,' answered John, 'that you were both condemned to write on such paper as I chiefly made; it was a special kind of whitey-brown, used by shopkeepers.'

  He chuckled inwardly, and at the same time reached out for a box of cigarettes on a table near him. His brother and Jasper each took one as he offered them, and began to smoke.

  'You would like to see literary production come entirely to an end?' said Milvain.

  'I should like to see the business of literature abolished.'

  'There's a distinction, of course. But, on the whole, I should say that even the business serves a good purpose.'

  'What purpose?'

  'It helps to spread civilisation.'

  'Civilisation!' exclaimed John, scornfully. 'What do you mean by civilisation? Do you call it civilising men to make them weak, flabby creatures, with ruined eyes and dyspeptic stomachs? Who is it that reads most of the stuff that's poured out daily by the ton from the printing-press? Just the men and women who ought to spend their leisure hours in open-air exercise; the people who earn their bread by sedentary pursuits, and who need to live as soon as they are free from the desk or the counter, not to moon over small print. Your Board schools, your popular press, your spread of education! Machinery for ruining the country, that's what I call it.'

  'You have done a good deal, I think, to counteract those influences in Wattleborough.'

  'I hope so; and if only I had kept the use of my limbs I'd have done a good deal more. I have an idea of offering substantial prizes to men and women engaged in sedentary work who take an oath to abstain from all reading, and keep it for a certain number of years. There's a good deal more need for that than for abstinence from strong liquor. If I could have had my way I would have revived prize-fighting.'

  His brother laughed with contemptuous impatience.

  'You would doubtless like to see military conscription introduced into England?' said Jasper.

  'Of course I should! You talk of civilising; there's no such way of civilising the masses of the people as by fixed military service. Before mental training must come training of the body. Go about the Continent, and see the effect of military service on loutish peasants and the lowest classes of town population. Do you know why it isn't even more successful? Because the damnable education movement interferes. If Germany would shut up her schools and universities for the next quarter of a century and go ahead like blazes with military training there'd be a nation such as the world has never seen. After that, they might begin a little book-teaching again—say an hour and a half a day for everyone above nine years old. Do you suppose, Mr Milvain, that society is going to be reformed by you people who write for money? Why, you are the very first class that will be swept from the face of the earth as soon as the reformation really begins!'

  Alfred puffed at his cigarette. His thoughts were occupied with Mr Fadge and The Study. He was considering whether he could aid in bringing public contempt upon that literary organ and its editor. Milvain listened to the elder man's diatribe with much amusement.

  'You, now,' pursued John, 'what do you write about?'

  'Nothing in particular. I make a salable page or two out of whatever strikes my fancy.'

  'Exactly! You don't even pretend that you've got anything to say. You live by inducing people to give themselves mental indigestion—and bodily, too, for that matter.'

  'Do you know, Mr Yule, that you have suggested a capital idea to me? If I were to take up your views, I think it isn't at all unlikely that I might make a good thing of writing against writing. It should be my literary specialty to rail against literature. The reading public should pay me for telling them that they oughtn't to read. I must think it over.'

  'Carlyle has anticipated you,' threw in Alfred.

  'Yes, but in an antiquated way. I would base my polemic on the newest philosophy.'

  He developed the idea facetiously, whilst John regarded him as he might have watched a performing monkey.

  'There again! your new philosophy!' exclaimed the invalid. 'Why, it isn't even wholesome stuff, the kind of reading that most of you force on the public. Now there's the man who has married one of my nieces—poor lass! Reardon, his name is. You know him, I dare say. Just for curiosity I had a look at one of his books; it was called "The Optimist." Of all the morbid trash I ever saw, that beat everything. I thought of writing him a letter, advising a couple of anti-bilious pills before bedtime for a few weeks.'

  Jasper glanced at Alfred Yule, who w
ore a look of indifference.

  'That man deserves penal servitude in my opinion,' pursued John. 'I'm not sure that it isn't my duty to offer him a couple of hundred a year on condition that he writes no more.'

  Milvain, with a clear vision of his friend in London, burst into laughter. But at that point Alfred rose from his chair.

  'Shall we rejoin the ladies?' he said, with a certain pedantry of phrase and manner which often characterised him.

  'Think over your ways whilst you're still young,' said John as he shook hands with his visitor.

  'Your brother speaks quite seriously, I suppose?' Jasper remarked when he was in the garden with Alfred.

  'I think so. It's amusing now and then, but gets rather tiresome when you hear it often. By-the-bye, you are not personally acquainted with Mr Fadge?'

  'I didn't even know his name until you mentioned it.'

  'The most malicious man in the literary world. There's no uncharitableness in feeling a certain pleasure when he gets into a scrape. I could tell you incredible stories about him; but that kind of thing is probably as little to your taste as it is to mine.'

  Miss Harrow and her companions, having caught sight of the pair, came towards them. Tea was to be brought out into the garden.

  'So you can sit with us and smoke, if you like,' said Miss Harrow to Alfred. 'You are never quite at your ease, I think, without a pipe.'

  But the man of letters was too preoccupied for society. In a few minutes he begged that the ladies would excuse his withdrawing; he had two or three letters to write before post-time, which was early at Finden.

  Jasper, relieved by the veteran's departure, began at once to make himself very agreeable company. When he chose to lay aside the topic of his own difficulties and ambitions, he could converse with a spontaneous gaiety which readily won the good-will of listeners. Naturally he addressed himself very often to Marian Yule, whose attention complimented him. She said little, and evidently was at no time a free talker, but the smile on her face indicated a mood of quiet enjoyment. When her eyes wandered, it was to rest on the beauties of the garden, the moving patches of golden sunshine, the forms of gleaming cloud. Jasper liked to observe her as she turned her head: there seemed to him a particular grace in the movement; her head and neck were admirably formed, and the short hair drew attention to this.

  It was agreed that Miss Harrow and Marian should come on the second day after to have tea with the Milvains. And when Jasper took leave of Alfred Yule, the latter expressed a wish that they might have a walk together one of these mornings.

  CHAPTER III. HOLIDAY

  Jasper's favourite walk led him to a spot distant perhaps a mile and a half from home. From a tract of common he turned into a short lane which crossed the Great Western railway, and thence by a stile into certain meadows forming a compact little valley. One recommendation of this retreat was that it lay sheltered from all winds; to Jasper a wind was objectionable. Along the bottom ran a clear, shallow stream, overhung with elder and hawthorn bushes; and close by the wooden bridge which spanned it was a great ash tree, making shadow for cows and sheep when the sun lay hot upon the open field. It was rare for anyone to come along this path, save farm labourers morning and evening.

  But to-day—the afternoon that followed his visit to John Yule's house—he saw from a distance that his lounging-place on the wooden bridge was occupied. Someone else had discovered the pleasure there was in watching the sun-flecked sparkle of the water as it flowed over the clean sand and stones. A girl in a yellow-straw hat; yes, and precisely the person he had hoped, at the first glance, that it might be. He made no haste as he drew nearer on the descending path. At length his footstep was heard; Marian Yule turned her head and clearly recognised him.

  She assumed an upright position, letting one of her hands rest upon the rail. After the exchange of ordinary greetings, Jasper leaned back against the same support and showed himself disposed for talk.

  'When I was here late in the spring,' he said, 'this ash was only just budding, though everything else seemed in full leaf.'

  'An ash, is it?' murmured Marian. 'I didn't know. I think an oak is the only tree I can distinguish. Yet,' she added quickly, 'I knew that the ash was late; some lines of Tennyson come to my memory.'

  'Which are those?'

  'Delaying, as the tender ash delays To clothe herself when all the woods are green,

  somewhere in the "Idylls."'

  'I don't remember; so I won't pretend to—though I should do so as a rule.'

  She looked at him oddly, and seemed about to laugh, yet did not.

  'You have had little experience of the country?' Jasper continued.

  'Very little. You, I think, have known it from childhood?'

  'In a sort of way. I was born in Wattleborough, and my people have always lived here. But I am not very rural in temperament. I have really no friends here; either they have lost interest in me, or I in them. What do you think of the girls, my sisters?'

  The question, though put with perfect simplicity, was embarrassing.

  'They are tolerably intellectual,' Jasper went on, when he saw that it would be difficult for her to answer. 'I want to persuade them to try their hands at literary work of some kind or other. They give lessons, and both hate it.'

  'Would literary work be less—burdensome?' said Marian, without looking at him.

  'Rather more so, you think?'

  She hesitated.

  'It depends, of course, on—on several things.'

  'To be sure,' Jasper agreed. 'I don't think they have any marked faculty for such work; but as they certainly haven't for teaching, that doesn't matter. It's a question of learning a business. I am going through my apprenticeship, and find it a long affair. Money would shorten it, and, unfortunately, I have none.'

  'Yes,' said Marian, turning her eyes upon the stream, 'money is a help in everything.'

  'Without it, one spends the best part of one's life in toiling for that first foothold which money could at once purchase. To have money is becoming of more and more importance in a literary career; principally because to have money is to have friends. Year by year, such influence grows of more account. A lucky man will still occasionally succeed by dint of his own honest perseverance, but the chances are dead against anyone who can't make private interest with influential people; his work is simply overwhelmed by that of the men who have better opportunities.'

  'Don't you think that, even to-day, really good work will sooner or later be recognised?'

  'Later, rather than sooner; and very likely the man can't wait; he starves in the meantime. You understand that I am not speaking of genius; I mean marketable literary work. The quantity turned out is so great that there's no hope for the special attention of the public unless one can afford to advertise hugely. Take the instance of a successful all-round man of letters; take Ralph Warbury, whose name you'll see in the first magazine you happen to open. But perhaps he is a friend of yours?'

  'Oh no!'

  'Well, I wasn't going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He's a clever, prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and friends; he came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people; his name was mentioned in print six times a week before he had written a dozen articles. This kind of thing will become the rule. Men won't succeed in literature that they may get into society, but will get into society that they may succeed in literature.'

  'Yes, I know it is true,' said Marian, in a low voice.

  'There's a friend of mine who writes novels,' Jasper pursued. 'His books are not works of genius, but they are glaringly distinct from the ordinary circulating novel. Well, after one or two attempts, he made half a success; that is to say, the publishers brought out a second edition of the book in a few months. There was his opportunity. But he couldn't use it; he had no friends, because he had no money. A book of half that merit, if written
by a man in the position of Warbury when he started, would have established the reputation of a lifetime. His influential friends would have referred to it in leaders, in magazine articles, in speeches, in sermons. It would have run through numerous editions, and the author would have had nothing to do but to write another book and demand his price. But the novel I'm speaking of was practically forgotten a year after its appearance; it was whelmed beneath the flood of next season's literature.'

  Marian urged a hesitating objection.

  'But, under the circumstances, wasn't it in the author's power to make friends? Was money really indispensable?'

  'Why, yes—because he chose to marry. As a bachelor he might possibly have got into the right circles, though his character would in any case have made it difficult for him to curry favour.

  But as a married man, without means, the situation was hopeless. Once married you must live up to the standard of the society you frequent; you can't be entertained without entertaining in return. Now if his wife had brought him only a couple of thousand pounds all might have been well. I should have advised him, in sober seriousness, to live for two years at the rate of a thousand a year. At the end of that time he would have been earning enough to continue at pretty much the same rate of expenditure.'

  'Perhaps.'

  'Well, I ought rather to say that the average man of letters would be able to do that. As for Reardon—'

  He stopped. The name had escaped him unawares.

  'Reardon?' said Marian, looking up. 'You are speaking of him?'

  'I have betrayed myself Miss Yule.'

  'But what does it matter? You have only spoken in his favour.'

  'I feared the name might affect you disagreeably.'

  Marian delayed her reply.

  'It is true,' she said, 'we are not on friendly terms with my cousin's family. I have never met Mr Reardon. But I shouldn't like you to think that the mention of his name is disagreeable to me.'

  'It made me slightly uncomfortable yesterday—the fact that I am well acquainted with Mrs Edmund Yule, and that Reardon is my friend. Yet I didn't see why that should prevent my making your father's acquaintance.'