“I don’t think we’d better. You see we might have to wait quite a long time. I don’t know when Miss Sommerton will be here again, and it will be a week at least before Mrs. Mason comes back. They are more than half-way to Three Rivers by this time.”

“Good gracious!” cried Trenton, abashed; “why didn’t you call me? I should have liked very much to have accompanied them.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t hear of your being disturbed; and besides, Mr. Trenton, our American ladies are quite in the habit of looking after themselves. I found that out long ago.”

“I suppose there is nothing for it but get out my buckboard and get back to Three Rivers.”

“Oh, I dismissed your driver long ago,” said the lumberman. “I’ll take you there in my buggy. I am going out to Three Rivers to-day anyhow.”

“No chance of overtaking the ladies?” asked Trenton.

“I don’t think so. We may overtake Mrs. Mason but I imagine Miss Sommerton will be either at Quebec or Montreal before we reach Three Rivers. I don’t know in which direction she is going. You seem to be somewhat interested in that young lady. Purely artistic admiration, I presume. She is rather a striking girl. Well, you certainly have made the most of your opportunities. Let’s see, you have known her now for quite a long while. Must be nearly twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, don’t underestimate it, Mason; quite thirty-six hours at least.”

“So long as that? Ah, well, I don’t wish to discourage you; but I wouldn’t be too sure of her if I were you.”

“Sure of her! Why, I am not sure of anything.”

“Well, that is the proper spirit. You Englishmen are rather apt to take things for granted. I think you would make a mistake in this case if you were too sure. You are not the only man who has tried to awaken the interest of Miss Sommerton of Boston.”

“I didn’t suppose that I was. Nevertheless, I am going to Boston.”

“Well, it’s a nice town,” said Mason, with a noncommittal air. “It hasn’t the advantages of Three Rivers, of course; but still it is a very attractive place in some respects.”

“In some respects, yes,” said the artist.

* * * * *

Two days later Mr. John Trenton called at the house on Beacon Street.

“Miss Sommerton is not at home,” said the servant. “She is in Canada somewhere.”

And so Mr. Trenton went back to his hotel.

The artist resolved to live quietly in Boston until Miss Sommerton returned. Then the fateful number three could be answered. He determined not to present any of his letters of introduction. When he came to Boston first, he thought he would like to see something of society, of the art world in that city, if there was an art world, and of the people; but he had come and gone without being invited anywhere, and now he anticipated no trouble in living a quiet life, and thinking occasionally over the situation. But during his absence it appeared Boston had awakened to the fact that in its midst had resided a real live artist of prominence from the other side, and nothing had been done to overcome his prejudices, and show him that, after all, the real intellectual centre of the world was not London, but the capital of Massachusetts.

The first day he spent in his hotel he was called upon by a young gentleman whose card proclaimed him a reporter on one of the large daily papers.

“You are Mr. Trenton, the celebrated English artist, are you not?”

“My name is Trenton, and by profession I am an artist. But I do not claim the adjective, ‘celebrated.’”

“All right. You are the man I am after. Now, I should like to know what you think of the art movement in America?”

“Well, really, I have been in America but a very short time, and during that time I have had no opportunity of seeing the work of your artists or of visiting any collections, so you see I cannot give an opinion.”

“Met any of our American artists?”

“I have in Europe, yes. Quite a number of them, and very talented gentlemen some of them are, too.”

“I suppose Europe lays over this country in the matter of art, don’t it?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Knocks the spots out of us in pictures?”

“I don’t know that I quite follow you. Do you mean that we produce pictures more rapidly than you do here?”

“No, I just mean the whole tout ensemble of the thing. They are ‘way ahead of us, are they not, in art?”

“Well, you see, as I said before—really, I am not in a position to make any comparison, because I am entirely ignorant of American painting. It seems to me that certain branches of art ought to flourish here. There is no country in the world with grander scenery than America.”

“Been out to the Rockies?”

“Where is that?”

“To the Rocky Mountains?”

“Oh no, no. You see I have been only a few weeks in this country. I have confined my attention to Canada mainly, the Quebec region and around there, although I have been among the White Mountains, and the Catskills, and the Adirondacks.”

“What school of art do you belong to?”

“School? Well, I don’t know that I belong to any. May I ask if you are a connoisseur in art matters. Are you the art critic of your journal?”

“Me? No—oh no. I don’t know the first darn thing about it. That’s why they sent me.”

“Well, I should have thought, if he wished to get anything worth publishing, your editor would have sent somebody who was at least familiar with the subject he has to write about.”

“I dare say; but, that ain’t the way to get snappy articles written. You take an art man, now, for instance; he’s prejudiced. He thinks one school is all right, and another school isn’t; and he is apt to work in his own fads. Now, if our man liked the French school, and despised the English school, or the German school, if there is one, or the Italian school, whatever it happened to be, and you went against that; why, don’t you see, he would think you didn’t know anything, and write you up that way. Now, I am perfectly unprejudiced. I want to write a good readable article, and I don’t care a hang which school is the best or the worst, or anything else about it.”

“Ah! I see. Well, in that case, you certainly approach your work without bias.”

“You bet I do. Now, who do you think is the best painter in England?”

“In what line?”

“Well, in any line. Who stands ahead? Who’s the leader? Who tops them all? Who’s the Raphael?”

“I don’t know that we have any Raphael? We have good painters each in his own branch.”

“Isn’t there one, in your opinion, that is ‘way ahead of all the rest?”

“Well, you see, to make an intelligent comparison, you have to take into consideration the specialty of the painter. You could hardly compare Alma Tadema, for instance, with Sir John Millais, or Sir Frederic Leighton with Hubert Herkomer, or any of them with some of your own painters. Each has his specialty, and each stands at the head of it.”

“Then there is no one man in England like Old Man Rubens, or Van Dyke, or those other fellows, I forget their names, who are head and shoulders above everybody else? Sort of Jay Gould in art, you know.”

“No, I wouldn’t like to say there is. In fact, all of your questions require some consideration. Now, if you will write them down for me, and give me time to think them over, I will write out such answers as occur to me. It would be impossible for me to do justice to myself, or to art, or to your paper, by attempting to answer questions off-hand in this way.”

“Oh, that’s too slow for our time here. You know this thing comes out to-morrow morning, and I have got to do a column and a half of it. Sometimes, you know, it is very difficult; but you are different from most Englishmen I have talked with. You speak right out, and you talk to a fellow. I can make a column and a half out of what you have said now.”

“Dear me! Can you really? Well, now, I should be careful, if I were you. I am afraid that, if you don’t understand anything about art, you may give the public some very erroneous impressions.”

“Oh, the public don’t care a hang. All they want is to read something snappy and bright. That’s what the public want. No, sir, we have catered too long for the public not to know what its size is. You might print the most learned article you could get hold of, it might be written by What’s-his-name De Vinci, and be full of art slang, and all that sort of thing, but it wouldn’t touch the general public at all.”

“I don’t suppose it would.”

“What do you think of our Sunday papers here? You don’t have any Sunday papers over in London.”

“Oh yes, we do. But none of the big dailies have Sunday editions.”

“They are not as big, or as enterprising as ours, are they? One Sunday paper, you know, prints about as much as two or three thirty-five cent magazines.”

“What, the Sunday paper does?”

“Yes, the Sunday paper prints it, but doesn’t sell for that. We give ‘em more for the money than any magazine you ever saw.”

“You certainly print some very large papers.”

With this the reporter took his leave, and next morning Mr. Trenton saw the most astonishing account of his ideas on art matters imaginable. What struck him most forcibly was, that an article written by a person who admittedly knew nothing at all about art should be in general so free from error. The interview had a great number of head lines, and it was evident the paper desired to treat the artist with the utmost respect, and that it felt he showed his sense in preferring Boston to New York as a place of temporary residence; but what appalled him was the free and easy criticisms he was credited with having made on his own contemporaries in England. The principal points of each were summed up with a great deal of terseness and force, and in many cases were laughably true to life. It was evident that whoever touched up that interview possessed a very clear opinion and very accurate knowledge of the art movement in England.

Mr. Trenton thought he would sit down and write to the editor of the paper, correcting some of the more glaring inaccuracies; but a friend said—

“Oh, it is no use. Never mind. Nobody pays any attention to that. It’s all right anyhow.”

“Yes, but suppose the article should be copied in England, or suppose some of the papers should get over there?”

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” said his friend, with easy optimism. “Don’t bother about it. They all know what a newspaper interview is; if they don’t, why, you can tell them when you get back.”

It was not long before Mr. Trenton found himself put down at all the principal clubs, both artistic and literary; and he also became, with a suddenness that bewildered him, quite the social lion for the time being. He was astonished to find that the receptions to which he was invited, and where he was, in a way, on exhibition, were really very grand occasions, and compared favourably with the finest gatherings he had had experience of in London.

His hostess at one of these receptions said to him, “Mr. Trenton, I want to introduce you to some of our art lovers in this city, whom I am sure you will be pleased to meet. I know that as a general thing the real artists are apt to despise the amateurs; but in this instance I hope you will be kind enough not to despise them, for my sake. We think they are really very clever indeed, and we like to be flattered by foreign preference.”

“Am I the foreign preference in this instance?”

“You are, Mr. Trenton.”

“Now, I think it is too bad of you to say that, just when I have begun to feel as much at home in Boston as I do in London. I assure you I do not feel in the least foreign here. Neither do I maintain, like Mrs. Brown, that you are the foreigners.”

“How very nice of you to say so, Mr. Trenton. Now I hope you will say something like that to the young lady I want you to meet. She is really very charming, and I am sure you will like her; and I may say, in parenthesis, that she, like the rest of us, is perfectly infatuated with your pictures.”

As the lady said this, she brought Mr. Trenton in her wake, as it were, and said, “Miss Sommerton, allow me to present to you Mr. Trenton.”

Miss Sommerton rose with graceful indolence, and held out her hand frankly to the artist. “Mr. Trenton,” she said, “I am very pleased indeed to meet you. Have you been long in Boston?”

“Only a few days,” replied Trenton. “I came up to Boston from Canada a short time since.”

“Up? You mean down. We don’t say up from Canada.”

“Oh, don’t you? Well, in England, you know, we say up to London, no matter from what part of the country we approach it. I think you are wrong in saying down, I think it really ought to be up to Boston from wherever you come.”

His hostess appeared to be delighted with this bit of conversation, and she said, “I shall leave you two together for a few moments to get acquainted. Mr. Trenton, you know you are in demand this evening.”

“Do you think that is true?” said Trenton to Miss Sommerton.

“What?”

“Well, that I am in demand.”

“I suppose it is true, if Mrs. Lennox says it is. You surely don’t intend to cast any doubt on the word of your hostess, do you?”

“Oh, not at all. I didn’t mean in a general way, you know, I meant in particular.”

“I don’t think I understand you, Mr. Trenton. By the way, you said you had been in Canada. Do you not think it is a very charming country?”

“Charming, Miss Sommerton, isn’t the word for it. It is the most delightful country in the world.”

“Ah, you say that because it belongs to England. I admit it is very delightful; but then there are other places on the Continent quite as beautiful as any part of Canada. You seem to have a prejudice in favour of monarchical institutions.”

“Oh, is Canada monarchical? I didn’t know that. I thought Canada was quite republican in its form of government.”

“Well, it is a dependency; that’s what I despise about Canada. Think of a glorious country like that, with hundreds of thousands of square miles, in fact, millions, I think, being dependent on a little island, away there among the fogs and rains, between the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. To be a dependency of some splendid tyrannical power like Russia wouldn’t be so bad; but to be dependent on that little island—I lose all my respect for Canada when I think of it.”

“Well, you know, the United States were colonies once.”

“Ah, that is a very unfortunate comparison, Mr. Trenton. The moment the colonies, as you call them, came to years of discretion, they soon shook off their dependency. You must remember you are at Boston, and that the harbour is only a short distance from here.”

“Does that mean that I should take advantage of its proximity and leave?”

“Oh, not at all. I could not say anything so rude, Mr. Trenton. Perhaps you are not familiar with the history of our trouble with England? Don’t you remember it commenced in Boston Harbour practically?”

“Oh yes, I recollect now. I had forgotten it. Something about tea, was it not?”

“Yes, something about tea.”

“Well, talking of tea, Miss Sommerton, may I take you to the conservatory and bring you a cup of it?”

“May I have an ice instead of the tea, if I prefer it, Mr. Trenton?”

“Why, certainly. You see how I am already dropping into the American phraseology.”

“Oh, I think you are improving wonderfully, Mr. Trenton.”

When they reached the conservatory, Miss Sommerton said—

“This is really a very great breach of good manners on both your part and mine. I have taken away the lion of the evening, and the lion has forgotten his duty to his hostess and to the other guests.”

“Well, you see, I wanted to learn more of your ideas in the matter of dependencies. I don’t at all agree with you on that. Now, I think if a country is conquered, it ought to be a dependency of the conquering people. It is the right of conquest. I—I am a thorough believer in the right of conquest.”

“You seem to have very settled opinions on the matter, Mr. Trenton.”

“I have indeed, Miss Sommerton. It is said that an Englishman never knows when he is conquered. Now I think that is a great mistake. There is no one so quick as an Englishman to admit that he has met his match.”

“Why, have you met your match already, Mr. Trenton? Let me congratulate you.”

“Well, don’t congratulate me just yet. I am not at all certain whether I shall need any congratulations or not.”

“I am sure I hope you will be very successful.”

“Do you mean that?”

Miss Sommerton looked at him quietly for a moment.

“Do you think,” she said, “I am in the habit of saying things I do not mean?”

“I think you are.”

“Well, you are not a bit more complimentary than—than—you used to be.”

“You were going to say than I was on the banks of the St. Maurice?”

“Oh, you visited the St. Maurice, did you? How far away from Boston that seems, doesn’t it?”

“It is indeed a great distance, Miss Sommerton. But apparently not half as long as the round-about way we are traveling just now. Miss Sommerton, I waited and waited in Boston for you to return. I want to be a dependence. I admit the conquest. I wish to swear fealty to Miss Eva Sommerton of Boston, and now I ask my third question, will you accept the allegiance?”

Miss Sommerton was a little slow in replying, and before she had spoken Mrs. Lennox bustled in, and said—

“Oh, Mr. Trenton, I have been looking everywhere for you. There are a hundred people here who wish to be introduced, and all at once. May I have him, Miss Sommerton?”

“Well, Mrs. Lennox, you know, if I said ‘Yes,’ that would imply a certain ownership in him.”

“I brought Miss Sommerton here to get her to accept an ice from me, which as yet I have not had the privilege of bringing. Will you accept—the ice, Miss Sommerton?”

The young lady blushed, as she looked at the artist.

“Yes,” she said with a sigh; the tone was almost inaudible.

The artist hurried away to bring the refreshment.

“Why, Eva Sommerton,” cried Mrs. Lennox, “you accept a plate of ice cream as tragically as if you were giving the answer to a proposal.”

Mrs. Lennox said afterward that she thought there was something very peculiar about Miss Sommerton’s smile in reply to her remark.

The Heralds of Fame

Chapter I

Now, when each man’s place in literature is so clearly defined, it seems ridiculous to state that there was a time when Kenan Buel thought J. Lawless Hodden a great novelist. One would have imagined that Buel’s keen insight into human nature would have made such a mistake impossible, but it must be remembered that Buel was always more or less of a hero-worshipper. It seems strange in the light of our after-knowledge that there ever was a day when Hodden’s books were selling by the thousand, and Buel was tramping the streets of London fruitlessly searching for a publisher. Not less strange is the fact that Buel thought Hodden’s success well deserved. He would have felt honoured by the touch of Hodden’s hand.

No convict ever climbed a treadmill with more hopeless despair than Buel worked in his little room under the lofty roof. He knew no one; there were none to speak to him a cheering or comforting word; he was ignorant even of the names of the men who accepted the articles from his pen, which appeared unsigned in the daily papers and in some of the weeklies. He got cheques—small ones—with illegible and impersonal signatures that told him nothing. But the bits of paper were honoured at the bank, and this lucky fact enabled him to live and write books which publishers would not look at.

Nevertheless, showing how all things are possible to a desperate and resolute man, two of his books had already seen the light, if it could be called light. The first he was still paying for, on the instalment plan. The publishers were to pay half, and he was to pay half. This seemed to him only a fair division of the risk at the time. Not a single paper had paid the slightest attention to the book. The universal ignoring of it disheartened him. He had been prepared for abuse, but not for impenetrable silence.

He succeeded in getting another and more respectable publisher to take up his next book on a royalty arrangement. This was a surprise to him, and a gratification. His satisfaction did not last long after the book came out. It was mercilessly slated. One paper advised him to read “Hodden;” another said he had plagiarized from that popular writer. The criticisms cut him like a whip. He wondered why he had rebelled at the previous silence. He felt like a man who had heedlessly hurled a stone at a snow mountain and had been buried by the resulting avalanche.

He got his third publisher a year after that. He thought he would never succeed in getting the same firm twice, and wondered what would happen when he exhausted the London list. It is not right that a man should go on for ever without a word of encouragement. Fate recognised that there would come a breaking-point, and relented in time. The word came from an unexpected source. Buel was labouring, heavy-eyed, at the last proof-sheets of his third book, and was wondering whether he would have the courage not to look at the newspapers when the volume was published. He wished he could afford to go to some wilderness until the worst was over. He knew he could not miss the first notice, for experience had taught him that Snippit & Co., a clipping agency, would send it to him, with a nice type-written letter, saying—

“Dear Sir,

“As your book is certain to attract a great deal of attention from the Press, we shall be pleased to send you clippings similar to the enclosed at the following rates.”

It struck him as rather funny that any company should expect a sane man to pay so much good money for Press notices, mostly abusive. He never subscribed.

The word of encouragement gave notice of its approach in a letter, signed by a man of whom he had never heard. It was forwarded to him by his publishers. The letter ran:—

“Dear Sir,

“Can you make it convenient to lunch with me on Friday at the Métropole? If you have an engagement for that day can you further oblige me by writing and putting it off? Tell the other fellow you are ill or have broken your leg, or anything, and charge up the fiction to me. I deal in fiction, anyhow. I leave on Saturday for the Continent, not wishing to spend another Sunday in London if I can avoid it. I have arranged to get out your book in America, having read the proof-sheets at your publisher’s. All the business part of the transaction is settled, but I would like to see you personally if you don’t mind, to have a talk over the future—always an interesting subject. “Yours very truly, “L. F. BRANT, “Of Rainham Bros., Publishers, New York.”

Buel read this letter over and over again. He had never seen anything exactly like it. There was a genial flippancy about it that was new to him, and he wondered what sort of a man the New Yorker was. Mr. Brant wrote to a stranger with the familiarity of an old friend, yet the letter warmed Buel’s heart. He smiled at the idea the American evidently had about a previous engagement. Invitations to lunch become frequent when a man does not need them. No broken leg story would have to be told. He wrote and accepted Mr. Brant’s invitation.

“You’re Mr. Buel, I think?”

The stranger’s hand rested lightly on the young author’s shoulder. Buel had just entered the unfamiliar precincts of the Métropole Hotel. The tall man with the gold lace on his hat had hesitated a moment before he swung open the big door, Buel was so evidently not a guest of the hotel.

“My name is Buel.”

“Then you’re my victim. I’ve been waiting impatiently for you. I am L. F. Brant.”

“I thought I was in time. I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Don’t mention it. I have been waiting but thirty seconds. Come up in the elevator. They call it a lift here, not knowing any better, but it gets there ultimately. I have the title-deeds to a little parlour while I am staying in this tavern, and I thought we could talk better if we had lunch there. Lunch costs more on that basis, but I guess we can stand it.”

A cold shudder passed over the thin frame of Kenan Buel. He did not know but it was the custom in America to ask a man to lunch and expect him to pay half. Brant’s use of the plural lent colour to this view, and Buel knew he could not pay his share. He regretted they were not in a vegetarian restaurant.

The table in the centre of the room was already set for two, and the array of wine-glasses around each plate looked tempting. Brant pushed the electric button, drew up his chair, and said—

“Sit down, Buel, sit down. What’s your favourite brand of wine? Let’s settle on it now, so as to have no unseemly wrangle when the waiter comes. I’m rather in awe of the waiter. It doesn’t seem natural that any mere human man should be so obviously superior to the rest of us mortals as this waiter is. I’m going to give you only the choice of the first wines. I have taken the champagne for granted, and it’s cooling now in a tub somewhere. We always drink champagne in the States, not because we like it, but because it’s expensive. I calculate that I pay the expenses of my trip over here merely by ordering unlimited champagne. I save more than a dollar a bottle on New York prices, and these saved dollars count up in a month. Personally I prefer cider or lager beer, but in New York we dare not own to liking a thing unless it is expensive.”

“It can hardly be a pleasant place for a poor man to live in, if that is the case.”

“My dear Buel, no city is a pleasant place for a poor man to live in. I don’t suppose New York is worse than London in that respect. The poor have a hard time of it anywhere. A man owes it to himself and family not to be poor. Now, that’s one thing I like about your book; you touch on poverty in a sympathetic way, by George, like a man who had come through it himself. I’ve been there, and I know how it is. When I first struck New York I hadn’t even a ragged dollar bill to my back. Of course every successful man will tell you the same of himself, but it is mostly brag, and in half the instances it isn’t true at all; but in my case—well, I wasn’t subscribing to the heathen in those days. I made up my mind that poverty didn’t pay, and I have succeeded in remedying the state of affairs. But I haven’t forgotten how it felt to be hard up, and I sympathise with those who are. Nothing would afford me greater pleasure than to give a helping hand to a fellow—that is, to a clever fellow who was worth saving—who is down at bed rock. Don’t you feel that way too?”

“Yes,” said Buel, with some hesitation, “it would be a pleasure.”

“I knew when I read your book you felt that way—I was sure of it. Well, I’ve helped a few in my time; but I regret to say most of them turned out to be no good. That is where the trouble is. Those who are really deserving are just the persons who die of starvation in a garret, and never let the outside world know their trouble.”

“I do not doubt such is often the case.”

“Of course it is. It’s always the case. But here’s the soup. I hope you have brought a good appetite. You can’t expect such a meal here as you would get in New York; but they do fairly well. I, for one, don’t grumble about the food in London, as most Americans do. Londoners manage to keep alive, and that, after all, is the main thing.”

Buel was perfectly satisfied with the meal, and thought if they produced a better one in New York, or anywhere else, the art of cookery had reached wonderful perfection. Brant, however, kept apologising for the spread as he went along. The talk drifted on in an apparently aimless fashion, but the publisher was a shrewd man, and he was gradually leading it up to the point he had in view from the beginning, and all the while he was taking the measure of his guest. He was not a man to waste either his time or his dinners without an object. When he had once “sized up” his man, as he termed it, he was either exceedingly frank and open with him, or the exact opposite, as suited his purpose. He told Buel that he came to England once a year, if possible, rapidly scanned the works of fiction about to be published by the various houses in London, and made arrangements for the producing of those in America that he thought would go down with the American people.

“I suppose,” said Buel, “that you have met many of the noted authors of this country?”

“All of them, I think; all of them, at one time or another. The publishing business has its drawbacks like every other trade,” replied Brant, jauntily.

“Have you met Hodden?”

“Several times. Conceited ass!”

“You astonish me. I have never had the good fortune to become acquainted with any of our celebrated writers. I would think it a privilege to know Hodden and some of the others.”

“You’re lucky, and you evidently don’t know it. I would rather meet a duke any day than a famous author. The duke puts on less side and patronises you less.”

“I would rather be a celebrated author than a duke if I had my choice.”

“Well, being a free and independent citizen of the Democratic United States, I wouldn’t. No, sir! I would rather be Duke Brant any day in the week than Mr. Brant, the talented author of, etc., etc. The moment an author receives a little praise and becomes talked about, he gets what we call in the States ‘the swelled head.’ I’ve seen some of the nicest fellows in the world become utterly spoiled by a little success. And then think of the absurdity of it all. There aren’t more than two or three at the most of the present-day writers who will be heard of a century hence. Read the history of literature, and you will find that never more than four men in any one generation are heard of after. Four is a liberal allowance. What has any writer to be conceited about anyhow? Let him read his Shakespeare and be modest.”

Buel said with a sigh, “I wish there was success in store for me. I would risk the malady you call the ‘swelled head.’”

“Success will come all right enough, my boy. ‘All things come to him who waits,’ and while he is waiting puts in some good, strong days of work. It’s the working that tells, not the waiting. And now, if you will light one of these cigars, we will talk of you for a while, if your modesty will stand it. What kind of Chartreuse will you have? Yellow or green?”