It was a long day.
Toward evening he recollected that he had to leave cards upon his host and hostess of the Monday previous, but it was past six o'clock when he found himself at the top of the steps of Mr. Ayrton's house. Before his ring had been responded to a victoria drove up with Phyllis, and in a moment she was on the step beside him.
She looked radiant in the costume which she was wearing. He thought he had never seen a lovelier girl--he was certain that he had never seen a better-dressed girl. (Mr. Courtland was not clever enough to know that it is only the beautiful girls who seem well dressed in the eyes of men.) There was a certain frankness in her face that made it very interesting--the frankness of a child who looks into the face of the world and wonders at its reticence. He felt her soft gray eyes resting upon his face, as she shook hands with him and begged him to go in and have tea with her. He felt strangely uneasy under her eyes this evening, and his self-possession failed him so far as to make it impossible for him to excuse himself. It did not occur to him to say that he could not drink tea with her on account of having an appointment which he could not break through without the most deplorable results. He felt himself led by her into one of her drawing rooms, and sitting with his back to the window while her frank eyes remained on his face, asking (so he thought) for the nearest approach to their frankness in response, that a man who has lived in the world of men dare offer to a maiden whose world is within herself.
"Oh, yes! I got the usual notification of the Order of the Bald Eagle," said he, in reply to her inquiry. "I shall wear it next my heart until I die. The newspapers announced the honor that had been done to me the same morning."
"You cannot keep anything out of the papers," said Phyllis.
"Even if you want to--a condition which doesn't apply to my case," said he. "My publishers admitted to me last week that they wouldn't rest easy if any newspaper appeared during the next month without my name being in its columns in some place."
"I'm sure they were delighted at the development of the /Spiritual Aneroid's/ attack upon you," said Phyllis.
"They told me I was a made man," said he.
She threw back her head--it was her way--and laughed. Her laughter--all the grace of girlhood was in its ring; it was girlhood made audible--was lightening her fair face as she looked at him.
"How funny!" she cried. "You fight your way through the New Guinea forests; you are in daily peril of your life; you open up a new country, and yet you are not a made man until you are attacked by a wretched newspaper."
"That is the standpoint of the people who sell books, so you may depend upon its being the standpoint of the people who buy books," said he.
"I can quite believe it," said she. "Mr. Geraint, the novelist, took me down to dinner at Mrs. Lemuel's last night, and he told me that the only thing that will make people buy books is seeing the author's portrait in some of the illustrated papers, or hearing from some of the interviews which are published regarding him that he never could take sugar in his coffee. The reviews of his books are read only by his brother authors, and they never buy a book, Mr. Geraint says; but the interviews are read by the genuine buyers."
"Mr. Geraint knows his public, I'm sure."
"I fancy he does. He would be very amusing if he didn't aim so persistently at going one better than someone else in his anecdotes.
People were talking at dinner about your having massacred the natives with dynamite--you did, you know, Mr. Courtland."
"Oh, yes; I have admitted so much long ago. There was no help for it."
"Well, of course everyone was laughing when papa told how the massacre came about, and this annoyed Mr. Geraint and induced him to tell a story about a poor woman who fancied that melinite was a sort of food for children that caused their portraits to appear in the advertisements; so she bought a tin of it and gave it all to her little boy at one meal. It so happened, however, that he became restless during the night and fell out of his cradle. That happened a year ago, Mr. Geraint said, and yet the street isn't quite ready for traffic yet."
"That little anecdote of Mr. Geraint makes me feel very meek. If at any time I am tempted to think with pride upon my dynamite massacre, I shall remember Mr. Geraint's story, and hang my head."
"We were all amused at Mr. Geraint's lively imagination, but much more so when Mr. Topham, the under-secretary, shook his head gravely, and said in his most dignified manner, that he thought the reported occurrence--the melinite incident--quite improbable. He was going on to explain that the composition of the explosive differed so materially from that of the food that it would be almost impossible for any mother to take the one for the other, when our hostess rose."
"Mr. Topham must have been disappointed. As a demonstrator of the obvious he has probably no equal even among the under-secretaries. You discussed him pretty freely in the drawing room afterward, I may venture to suggest."
"No; we discussed you, Mr. Courtland."
"A most unprofitable topic. From what standpoint--dynamite massacres?"
"From the standpoint of heredity, of course. Can you imagine any topic being discussed in a drawing room, nowadays, from any other standpoint? There was a dear old lady present, Mrs. Haddon, and she said she had been a friend of your mother's."
"So she was; I recollect her very well. I should like to go see her."
"She told us a great deal about your mother, and your sister--a sister to whom you were greatly attached."
Phyllis' voice had become low and serious; every tone suggested sympathy.
"I had such a sister," said he slowly. His eyes were not turned toward her. They were fixed upon a little model of St. Catherine of Siena,--a virgin among the clouds,--which was set in the panel of an old cabinet beside him. "I had such a sister--Rosamund; she is dead."
