Part 4

Then one propitious morning an indignant gentlewoman in Brooklyn wrote to _The New York Sphere_ a letter which was duly printed in that journal’s widely circulated Sunday supplement, _The Literary Masterpieces of This Week_, to denounce the loathsome and depraved indecency of the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, in which—while treating of Sir Guiron’s imprisonment in the Sacred Grove of Caer Idryn, and the worship accorded there to the sigil of Scoteia—Kennaston had touched upon some of the perverse refinements of antique sexual relations. The following week brought forth a full page of letters. Two of these, as Kennaston afterward learned, were contributed by the “publicity man” of the Baxon-Muir Company, and all arraigned obscenities which Kennaston could neither remember or on re-reading his book discover. Later in this journal, as in other newspapers, appeared still more denunciations. An up-to-the-minute bishop expostulated from the pulpit against the story’s vicious tendencies, demanding that it be suppressed. Thereafter it was no longer on sale in the large department-stores alone, but was equally procurable at all the bookstands in hotels and railway stations. Even the author’s acquaintances began to read it. And the Delaunays (then at the height of their vogue as exponents of the “new” dances) introduced “the Alison amble”; and from Tampa to Seattle, in certain syndicated cartoons of generally appealing idiocy, newspaper readers were privileged to see one hero of the series knock the other heels over head with a copy of Kennaston’s romance. And women wore the “Alison aigrette” for a whole season; and a new brand of cheap tobacco christened in her honor had presently made her name at least familiar in saloons. _Men Who Loved Alison_ became, in fine, the novel of the hour. It was one of those rare miracles such as sometimes palm off a well-written book upon the vast public that reads for pastime.

And shortly afterward Mr. Booth Tarkington published another of his delightful romances: one forgets at this distance of time just which it was: but, like all the others, it was exquisitely done, and sold neck and neck with _Men Who Loved Alison_; so that for a while it looked almost as if the American reading public was coming to condone adroit and careful composition.

But presently the advertising columns of magazines and newspapers were heralding the year’s vernal output of enduring masterworks in the field of fiction: and readers were again assured that the great American novel had just been published at last, by any number of persons: and so, the autumnal predecessors of these new _chefs d’œuvre_ passed swiftly into oblivion, via the brief respite of a “popular” edition. And naturally, Kennaston’s romance was forgotten, by all save a few pensive people. Some of them had found in this volume food for curious speculation.

That, however, is a matter to be taken up later.

VI

Suggesting Themes of Universal Appeal

SO Felix Kennaston saw his dream vulgarized, made a low byword; and he contemplated this travestying, as the cream of a sardonic jest, with urbanity. Indeed, that hour of notoriety seemed not without its pleasant features to Felix Kennaston, who had all a poet’s ordinary appetite for flattery. Besides, it was droll to read the “literary notes” which the Baxon-Muir people were industriously disseminating, by means of the daily journals, concerning Felix Kennaston’s personality, ancestry, accomplishments, recreations and preferences in diet. And then, in common with the old woman famed in nursery rhyme, he was very often wont to observe, “But, lawk a mercy on me! this is none of I!”

It was droll, too, to be asked for autographs, lectures, and for donations of “your wonderful novel.” It was droll to receive letters from remote mysterious persons, who had read his book, and had liked it, or else had disliked it to the point of being goaded into epistolary remonstrance, sarcasm, abuse, and (as a rule) erratic spelling. It troubled Kennaston that only riffraff seemed to have read his book, so far as he could judge from these unsolicited communications; and that such people of culture and education as might have been thrilled by it—all people whose opinions he might conceivably value—seemed never to write to authors....

And finally, it was droll to watch his wife’s reception of the book. To Kennaston his wife stayed always a not unfriendly mystery. She now could not but be a little taken aback by this revelation of his abilities, he reflected—with which she had lived so long without, he felt, appreciation of them—but certainly she would never admit to either fact. He doubted very much if Kathleen would ever actually read _Men Who Loved Alison_; on various pretexts she had deferred the pleasure, and seemed, with perverted notions of humor, to esteem it a joke that she alone had not read the book of which everybody was talking. Such was not Kennaston’s idea of humor, or of wifely interest. But Kathleen dipped into the volume here and there; and she assuredly read all the newspaper-notices sent in by the clipping-bureau. These she considered with profound seriousness.

“I have been thinking—you ought to make a great deal out of your next novel,” she said, one morning, over her grapefruit; and the former poet wondered why, in heaven’s name, it should matter to her whether or not the marketing of his dreams earned money, when they had already a competence. But women were thus fashioned....

“You ought to do something more up-to-date, though, Felix, something that deals with real life—”

“Ah, but I don’t particularly care to write about a subject of which I am so totally ignorant, dear. Besides, it isn’t for you to fleer and gibe at a masterpiece which you never read,” he airily informed her.

“I am saving it up for next summer, Felix, when I will have a chance to give every word of it the reverence it deserves. I really don’t have any time for reading nowadays. There is always something more important that has to be attended to—For instance, the gasoline engine isn’t working again, and I had to ’phone in town for Slaytor to send a man out to-day, to see what is the matter this time.”

“And it is messy things like that you want me to write about!” he exclaimed. “About the gasoline engine going on another strike, and Drake’s forgetting to tell you we were all out of sugar until late Saturday night! Never mind, Mrs. Kennaston! you will be sorry for this, and you will weep the bitter tears of unavailing repentance, some day, when you ride in the front automobile with the Governor to the unveiling of my various monuments, and have fallen into the anecdotage of a great man’s widow.” He spoke lightly, but he was reflecting that in reality Kathleen did not read his book because she did not regard any of his doings very seriously. “Isn’t this the third time this week we have had herring for breakfast?” he inquired, pleasantly. “I think I will wait and let them scramble me a couple of eggs. It is evidently a trifle that has escaped your attention, my darling, during our long years of happy married life, that I don’t eat herring. But of course, just as you say, you have a number of much more important things than husbands to think about. I dislike having to put any one to any extra trouble on my account; but as it happens, I have a lot of work to do this morning, and I cannot very well get through it on an empty stomach.”

“We haven’t had it since Saturday, Felix.” Then wearily, to the serving-girl, “Cora, see if Mr. Kennaston can have some eggs.... I wish you wouldn’t upset things so, Felix. Your coffee will get stone-cold; and it is hard enough to keep servants as it is. Besides, you know perfectly well to-day is Thursday, and the library has to be thorough-cleaned.”

“That means of course I am to be turned out-of-doors and forced to waste a whole day somewhere in town. It is quite touching how my creature comforts are catered to in this house!”

And Kathleen began to laugh, ruefully. “You are just a great big baby, Felix. You are sulking and swelling up like a frog, because you think I don’t appreciate what a wonderful husband I have and what a wonderful book he has written.”

Then Kennaston began to laugh also. He knew that what she said was tolerably true, even to the batrachian simile. “When you insisted on adopting me, dear, you ought to have realized what you were letting yourself in for.”

“—And I do think,” Kathleen went on, evincing that conviction with which she as a rule repeated other people’s remarks—“that you ought to make your next book something that deals with real life. _Men Who Loved Alison_ is beautifully written and all that, but, exactly as the _Tucson Pioneer_ said, it is really just colorful soapbubbly nonsense.”

“Ah, but is it unadulterated nonsense, Kathleen, that somewhere living may be a uniformly noble transaction?” he debated—“and human passions never be in a poor way to find expression with adequate speech and action?” Pleased with the phrase, and feeling in a better temper, he began to butter a roll.

“I don’t know about that; but, in any event, people prefer to read about the life they are familiar with.”

“You touch on a disheartening truth. People never want to be told anything they do not believe already. Yet I quite fail to see why, in books or elsewhere, any one should wish to be reminded of what human life is actually like. For living is the one art in which mankind has never achieved distinction. It is perhaps an obscure sense of this that makes us think the begetting of mankind an undiscussable subject, and death a sublime and edifying topic.”

“Yes—? I dare say,” Kathleen assented vaguely. “This herring is really very good, Felix. I think you would like it, if you just had not made up your mind to be stubborn about it—” Then she spoke with new animation: “Felix, Margaret Woods was in Louvet’s yesterday morning, having her hair done for a dinner they gave the railroad crowd last night, and of all the faded washed-out looking people I ever saw—! And I can remember her having that hideous brown dress long before she was married. Of course, it doesn’t make any difference to me that she didn’t see fit to invite us. She was one of your friends, not mine. I was only thinking that, since she always pretended to be so fond of you, it does seem curious the way we are invariably left out.”

So Kennaston did not embroider verbally his theme—of Living Adequately—as he had felt himself in vein to do could he have found a listener.

“Some day,” he ruefully reflected, “I shall certainly write a paper upon The Lost Art of Conversing with One’s Wife. Its appeal, I think, would be universal.”

Then his eggs came....

VII

Peculiar Conduct of a Personage

SHORTLY afterward befell a queer incident. Kennaston, passing through a famed city, lunched with a personage who had been pleased to admire _Men Who Loved Alison_, and whose remunerative admiration had been skilfully trumpeted in the public press by Kennaston’s publishers.

There were some ten others in the party, and Kennaston found it droll enough to be sitting at table with them. The lean pensive man—with hair falling over his forehead in a neatly-clipped “bang,” such as custom restricts to children—had probably written that morning, in his official capacity, to innumerable potentates. That handsome bluff old navy-officer was a national hero: he would rank in history with Perry and John Paul Jones; yet here he sat, within arms’-reach, prosaically complaining of unseasonable weather. That bearded man, rubicund and monstrous as to nose, was perhaps the most powerful, as he was certainly the most wealthy, person inhabiting flesh; and it was rumored, in those Arcadian days, that kingdoms did not presume to go to war without securing the consent of this financier.

And that exquisitely neat fellow, looking like a lad unconvincingly made-up for an octogenarian in amateur theatricals, was the premier of the largest province in the world: his thin-featured neighbor was an aeronaut—at this period really a _rara avis_—and went above the clouds to get his livelihood, just as ordinary people went to banks and offices. And chief of all, their multifarious host—the personage, as one may discreetly call him—had left unattempted scarcely any rôle in the field of human activities: as ranchman, statesman, warrior, historian, editor, explorer, athlete, coiner of phrases, and re-discoverer of the Decalogue, impartially, he had labored to make the world a livelier place of residence; and already he was the pivot of as many legends as Charlemagne or Arthur.

The famous navy-officer, as has been said, was complaining of the weather. “The seasons have changed so, since I can remember. We seem to go straight from winter into summer nowadays.”

“It has been rather unseasonable,” assented the financier; “but then you always feel the heat so much more during the first few hot days.”

“Besides,” came the judicious comment, “it has not been the heat which was so oppressive this morning, I think, as the great amount of humidity in the air.”

“Yes, it is most unpleasant—makes your clothes stick to you so.”

“Ah, but don’t you find, now,” asked the premier gaily, “that looking at the thermometer tends to make you feel, really, much more uncomfortable than if you stayed uninformed as to precisely how hot it was?”

“Well! where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise, as I remember to have seen stated somewhere.”

“By George, though, it is wonderful how true are many of those old sayings!” observed the personage. “We assume we are much wiser than our fathers: but I doubt if we really are, in the big things that count.”

“In fact, I have often wondered what George Washington, for example, would think of the republic he helped to found, if he could see it nowadays.”

“He would probably find it very different from what he imagined it would be.”

“Why, he would probably turn in his grave, at some of our newfangled notions—such as prohibition and equal suffrage.”

“Oh, well, all sensible people know, of course, that the trouble with prohibition is that it does not prohibit, and that woman’s place is the home, not in the mire of politics.”

“That is admirably put, sir, if you will permit me to say so. Still, there is a great deal to be said on both sides.”

“And after all, is there not a greater menace to the ideals of Washington and Jefferson in the way our present laws tend uniformly to favor rich people?”

“There you have it, sir—to-day we punish the poor man for doing what the rich man does with entire impunity, only on a larger scale.”

“By George, there are many of our so-called captains of industry who, if the truth were told, and a shorter and uglier word were not unpermissible, are little better than malefactors of great wealth.”

This epigram, however heartily admired, was felt by many of the company to be a bit daring in the presence of the magnate: and the lean secretary spoke hastily, or at any rate, in less leisurely tones than usual:

“After all, money is not everything. The richest people are not always the happiest, in spite of their luxury.”

“You gentlemen can take it from me,” asserted the aeronaut, “that many poor people get a lot of pleasure out of life.”

“Now, really though, that reminds me—children are very close observers, and, as you may have noticed, they ask the most remarkable questions. My little boy asked me, only last Tuesday, why poor people are always so polite and kind—”

“Well, little pitchers have big ears—”

“What you might call a chip of the old block, eh?—so that mighty little misses him?”

“I may be prejudiced, but I thought it pretty good, coming from a kid of six—”

“And it is perfectly true, gentlemen—the poor are kind to each other. Now, I believe just being kind makes you happier—”

“And I often think that is a better sort of religion than just dressing up in your best clothes and going to church regularly on Sundays—”

“That is a very true thought,” another chimed in.

“And expressed, upon my word, with admirable clarity—”

“Oh, whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart—”

“I would put it that Christianity, in spite of the carping sneers of science so-called, has led us once for all to recognize the vast brotherhood of man—”

“So that, really, the world gets better every day—”

“We have quite abolished war, for instance—”

“My dear sir, were there nothing else, and even putting aside the outraged sentiments of civilized humanity, another great or prolonged war between any two of the leading nations is unthinkable—”

“For the simple reason, gentlemen, that we have perfected our fighting machines to such an extent that the destruction involved would be too frightful—”

“Then, too, we are improving the automobile to such an extent—”

“Oh, in the end it will inevitably supplant the horse—”

“It seems almost impossible to realize how we ever got along without the automobile—”

“Do you know, I would not be surprised if some day horses were exhibited in museums—”

“As rare and nearly extinct animals? Come, now, that is pretty good—”

“And electricity is, as one might say, just in its infancy—”

“The telephone, for instance—our ancestors would not have believed in the possibilities of such a thing—”

“And, by George, they talk of giving an entire play with those moving-picture machines—acting the whole thing out, you know.”

“Oh, yes, we live in the biggest, brainiest age the world has ever known—”

“And America is going to be the greatest nation in it, before very long, commercially and in every way....”

So the talk flowed on, with Felix Kennaston contributing very little thereto. Indeed, Felix Kennaston, the dreamer, was rather ill-at-ease among these men of action, and listened to their observations with perturbed attention. He sat among the great ones of earth—not all of them the very greatest, of course, but each a person of quite respectable importance. It was the sort of gathering that in boyhood—and in later life also, for that matter—he had foreplanned to thrill and dazzle, as he perfectly recollected. But now, with the opportunity, he somehow could not think of anything quite suitable to say—of anything which would at once do him justice and be admiringly received.

Therefore he attempted to even matters by assuring himself that the talk of these efficient people was lacking in brilliance and real depth, and expressed sentiments which, microscopically viewed, did not appear to be astoundingly original. If these had been less remarkable persons he would have thought their conversation almost platitudinous. And not one of these much-talked-about men, whatever else he might have done, could have written _Men Who Loved Alison_! Kennaston cherished that reflection as he sedately partook of a dish he recollected to have seen described, on menu cards, as “Hungarian goulash” and sipped sherry of no very extraordinary flavor....

He was to remember how plain the fare was, and more than once, was to refer to this meal—quite casually—beginning “That reminds me of what Such-an-one said once, when I was lunching with him,” or perhaps, “The last time I lunched with So-and-so, I remember—” With such gambits he was able, later on, to introduce to us of Lichfield several anecdotes which, if rather pointless, were at least garnished with widely-known names.

There was a Cabinet meeting that afternoon, and luncheon ended, the personage wasted scant time in dismissing his guests.

“It has been a very great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kennaston,” quoth the personage, wringing Kennaston’s hand.

Kennaston suitably gave him to understand that they shared ecstasy in common.

“Those portions of your book relating to the sigil of Scoteia struck me as being too explicit,” the personage continued, bluffly, but in lowered tones. The two stood now, beneath a great stuffed elk’s head, a little apart from the others. “Do you think it was quite wise? I seem to recall a phrase—about birds—”

But Kennaston’s thoughts were vaguely dental. And there is no denying Kennaston was astounded. Nor was he less puzzled when, as if in answer to Kennaston’s bewildered look, the personage produced from his waistcoat pocket a small square mirror, which he half-exhibited, but retained secretively in the palm of his hand. “Yes, the hurt may well be two-fold—I am presupposing that, as a country-gentleman, you have raised white pigeons, Mr. Kennaston?” he said, meaningly.

“Why, no, they keep up such a maddening cooing and purring on warm days, and drum so on tin roofs”—Kennaston stammered—“that I long ago lost patience with the birds of Venus, whatever the tincture of their plumage. There used to be any number of them on our place, though—”

“Ah, well,” the personage said, with a wise nod, and a bright gleam of teeth, “you exercise the privilege common to all of us—and my intended analogy falls through. In any event, it has been a great pleasure to meet you. Come and see me again, Mr. Kennaston—and meanwhile, think over what I have said.”

* * * * *

And that was all. Kennaston returned to Alcluid in a whirl of formless speculations. The mirror and the insane query as to white pigeons could not, he considered, but constitute some password to which Kennaston had failed to give the proper response.

The mystery had some connection with what he had written in his book as to the sigil of Scoteia.... And he could not find he had written anything very definite. The broken disk was spoken of as a talisman in the vague terms best suited to a discussion of talismans by a person who knew nothing much about them. True, the book told what the talisman looked like; it looked like that bit of metal he had picked up in the garden.... He wondered if he had thrown away that bit of metal; and, searching, discovered it in the desk drawer, where it had lain for several months.

Laid by the lamp, it shone agreeably as Kennaston puckered his protruding heavy brows over the characters with which it was inscribed. That was what the sigil looked like—or, rather, what half the sigil looked like, because Ettarre still had the other half. How could the personage have known anything about it? unless there were, indeed, really some secret and some password through which men won to place and the world’s prizes?... Blurred memories of Eugène Sue’s nefarious Jesuits and of Balzac’s redoubtable Thirteen arose in the background of his mental picturings....

No, the personage had probably been tasting beverages more potent than sherry; there were wild legends, since disproved, such as seemed then to excuse that supposition: or perhaps he was insane, and nobody but Felix Kennaston knew it.... What could a little mirror, much less pigeons, have to do with this bit of metal?—except that this bit of metal, too, reflected light so that the strain tired your eyes, thus steadily to look down upon the thing....

VIII

Of Vain Regret and Wonder in the Dark

“MADAM,” he was insanely stating, “I would not for the world set up as a fit exponent for the mottoes of a copybook; but I am not all base.”

“You are,” flashed she, “a notorious rogue.”

It was quite dark. Kennaston could not see the woman with whom he was talking. But they were in an open paved place, like a courtyard, and he was facing the great shut door against which she stood, vaguely discernible. He knew they were waiting for some one to open this door. It seemed to him, for no reason at all, that they were at Tunbridge Wells. But there was no light anywhere. Complete darkness submerged them; the skies showed not one glimmer overhead.