CHAPTER XVI.

A LITERARY DINNER.

A few weeks later Hermia gave a dinner to Cryder. The other guests were Mr. Overton, Mr. Simms, Alan Emmet, a young author who combined the literary and the sensational in a manner which gave him much notoriety, Mr. Langley, Cryder’s publisher, and Ralph Embury, a noted young journalist. Helen Simms was there to chatter serious thought to ambush, and Miss Starbruck, primly alert, and waiting to be shocked.

Poor Miss Starbruck! She drifted like a gray shadow through Hermia’s rooms, and longed for her modest cottage at Nantucket. She had been an active member of sewing-circles and reading-clubs, and the farther down her past’s perspective did this unexciting environment retreat, the oftener did she sigh as she contrasted its cool shadows with the hot glare into which fate’s caprice had suddenly cast her. But Hermia was considerate—if Miss Starbruck appeared at her niece’s dinners and receptions, and drove with her occasionally, she could sit up in her room and dream of Nantucket and bewail duty as much as she pleased. Mrs. Dykman was chaperon-in-chief.

Hermia wore a gown of white velvet, simply made, and fitting in wrinkleless perfection the free lines and curves of her full, lithe figure. About her throat hung a silver chain of Roman workmanship, and around her waist a girdle of similar but heavier links. The wiry maze of her hair outshone the diamond pins that confined it.

Miss Simms wore a dinner-gown of black tulle and a profusion of chrysanthemums. Her hair was as sleek as a mole.

The conversation was naturally more or less literary, and Hermia drew out her ambitious guests with a good deal of skill. It was hard to curb them when they were started, but she managed to make each feel that he had had an opportunity to shine. Some day, when her personal interest in life had ceased, she intended to have a _salon_, and this was a pleasant foretaste. She even let Mr. Simms tell a few anecdotes, but after the third gently suppressed him.

It is not easy to check the anecdotal impulse, and both Mr. Langley and Mr. Overton were reminiscent. The former told a tale of a young man who had brought him a manuscript ten years before, and never returned to ask its destiny.

“He looked delicate, and I imagine he died of consumption,” said the great publisher, placidly, as he discussed his pâté. “At all events I have never heard from him since. Our readers unanimously advised us not to publish the manuscript. It was entirely out of our line, and would have involved great risk. We put it aside and forgot all about it. The other day I happened to meet one of the readers through whose hands it passed—he has not been with us for some years—and he asked me why I did not publish the rejected book. ‘That sort of thing has become fashionable now,’ he said, ‘and you would make money out of it.’ I merely mention this as an illustration of how fashion changes in literature as in everything else.”

“You publishers are awful cowards,” said Emmet, in his drawling tones; “you are so afraid of anything new that all authors you introduce are branded Prophets of the Commonplace.”

Mr. Langley’s blonde, pleasant little face took a warmer hue, and he answered somewhat testily: “The publisher was brave, indeed, who presented you to the public, Mr. Emmet.”

In spite of the general laugh, Emmet replied imperturbably: “The best advertisement I had, and the only one which I myself inserted, was that ‘Mrs. Bleeker’ had been refused by every conservative house in New York. My reward is that I have the reputation instead of the firm.”

“No; the firm hasn’t any left—that’s a fact,” retorted Mr. Langley; and Emmet turned to Helen with a pout on his boyish face.

“Do my books shock you?” he asked her.

Helen smiled. “No, they do not,” she said, briefly. “I quite adore them. I don’t always acknowledge having read them, but I don’t mind telling you, considering that you are the author.”

“Oh, some women assure me that nothing would induce them to read my books. I am glad you have the courage of your opinions. I scorn women who have not, and I will not talk to a girl unless I can do so as freely as to a man.”

“Oh, I am not a prude,” said Helen, lightly. “I only draw the line at positive indecency, and you are quite vague enough. But do you always talk to men on improper subjects?”

“Oh—no; I merely meant that I like to feel the same lack of restraint with women as with men. It is a bore to call up every thought for inspection before you utter it.”

“Yes,” said Helen; “you wouldn’t talk at all, you would only inspect.”

“Speaking of mysterious disappearances,” broke in Embury’s voice, “what has become of that girl who used to give us such bucketfuls of soulful lava?—the one who signed herself ‘Quirus’?”

Mr. Overton laughed, and much to Hermia’s relief every one turned to him. “She brought me that poem I published, herself, and I came near laughing outright once or twice. I have seen few plainer women; there was such a general dinginess about her. At the same time there was a certain magnetism which, I imagine, would have been pronounced had she been a stronger woman. But I should not be surprised to hear that she had died of consumption.”

“Is it possible?” said Embury. “Her work was strong, however. Why didn’t you take her in hand and bring her up in the way she should go?”

“My dear Embury, life is too short. That girl was all wrong. She worked her syllogisms backward, so to speak. Her intellect was molten with the heat of her imagination, and stunted with the narrowness of her experience. She reasoned from effect to cause. Her characters, instead of being the carefully considered products of environment and heredity, were always altered or distorted to suit some dramatic event. Intellect without experience of the heart and of life is responsible for more errors than innate viciousness which is controlled by worldly wisdom, or natural folly which is clothed in the gown of accumulated knowledge. I have seen so many clever writers go to pieces,” he added, regarding his empty plate with a sigh; “they lie so. They have no conscience whatever, and they are too clever to see it.”

“Then how can they help themselves?” asked Hermia, with a puzzled look.

“They had better wait until they can.”

Hermia did not care to pursue the subject, and saw, moreover, that Embury was waiting to be heard. “What would journalism do if no one knew how to lie?” she asked him, with a smile, and was somewhat surprised when every man at the table except Embury laughed aloud.

Embury colored, but replied promptly: “It would probably die for want of patronage.”

“You are right, Embury,” said Cryder. “You could not have found a more appreciative field for your talents.”

Embury looked at him reproachfully, and Cryder continued: “I never could resist the temptation to kick a friend when he was down. I will give you an opportunity later.”

“Life is made up of lost opportunities—I probably shall not see it. True, I might review your books, but to do so I should have to read them.”

“Is this the way literary people always spar?” murmured Hermia to Cryder.

“Oh! do not let it worry you,” he replied. “This is only facetiousness—American humor. It doesn’t hurt.” He dropped his voice. “Are you not well? You look tired.”

“I am tired,” said Hermia, returning his gaze—he seemed very near to her at that moment. “Clever people, singly, are very delightful, but _en masse_ they keep one on the rack.”

“Don’t bother any more!” said Cryder. “Leave them to me; I will take care of them.”

“You are good,” murmured Hermia. “When I am old I shall like a _salon_; I shall like the power of it. Now—it bores me a little.”

Cryder bent somewhat nearer to her. “Do not wait too long for anything,” he murmured. “A man’s power comes with age; a woman’s power goes with age.”

He turned from her suddenly and addressed a remark to Embury which immediately gave that clever young man a chance to entertain his companions for ten minutes. Hermia found herself drifting from her guests. She had undergone many evolutions of thought and feeling during the past few weeks. At times she had believed herself in love with Cryder; at others, she had been conscious of indifferent liking. She was puzzled to find that his abstract image thrilled her more than his actual presence. On the other hand, she _liked_ him better when with him. He was so entertaining, so sympathetic; he had such delicate tact and charm. When absent, she sometimes thought of him with a certain distaste; he had qualities that she disliked, and he was diametrically different from all imagined lovers. Then she would make up her mind to close her eyes to his deficiencies and to love him spiritually. She would compel herself to think of him for hours together on an exalted mental and spiritual plane, where passion had no place. Not that she believed him incapable of passion, by any means—she believed that all men were constructed on the same plan—but he was so different from that man who now dwelt behind a barred door in her brain that she felt it her duty, to both, to love him in a different way. She was surprised to find that after such æsthetic communion she almost hated him. Reaction following excess of passion may be short-lived; but immoderate sentimentality leaves a mental ennui that requires a long convalescence. Sentimentality is a growth of later civilization, and trails its roots over the surface like a pine; while passion had its seeds planted in the garden of Eden, and is root, branch, twig, and leaf of human nature.

In summing up her sensations she had come to the conclusion that on the whole she was in love with him. No one had ever moved her one-tenth as much before. If she had not lost her head about him, it was because her nature had slept too long to awake in a moment. That would come by degrees. There were times when she felt the impulse to cast herself on her face and sob farewell to the dreams of her youth and to the lover who had been a being more real than Ogden Cryder; but she thrust aside the impulse with a frown and plunged into her daily life.

At opportune moments Hermia’s attention returned to her guests. Miss Starbruck rose at a signal from her niece and the women went into the library. The men joined them soon after, and Cryder, much to the gratitude of his tired and dreamy hostess, continued to entertain them until eleven o’clock, when they went home.

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