CHAPTER XI.
As the fiacre bore to Paris Savarin and Graham, the former said, “I cannot conceive what rich simpleton could entertain so high an opinion of Gustave Rameau as to select a man so young, and of reputation though promising so undecided, for an enterprise which requires such a degree of tact and judgment as the conduct of a new journal,—and a journal, too, which is to address itself to the beau monde. However, it is not for me to criticise a selection which brings a god-send to myself.”
“To yourself? You jest; you have a journal of your own. It can only be through an excess of good-nature that you lend your name and pen to the service of M. Gustave Rameau.”
“My good-nature does not go to that extent. It is Rameau who confers a service upon me. Peste! mon cher, we French authors have not the rents of you rich English milords. And though I am the most economical of our tribe, yet that journal of mine has failed me of late; and this morning I did not exactly see how I was to repay a sum I had been obliged to borrow of a money-lender,—for I am too proud to borrow of friends, and too sagacious to borrow of publishers,—when in walks ce cher petit Gustave with an offer, for a few trifles towards starting this new-born journal, which makes a new man of me. Now I am in the undertaking, my amour propre and my reputation are concerned in its success; and I shall take care that collaborateurs of whose company I am not ashamed are in the same boat. But that charming girl, Isaura! What an enigma the gift of the pen is! No one can ever guess who has it until tried.”
“The young lady’s manuscript, then, really merits the praise you bestowed on it?”
“Much more praise, though a great deal of blame, which I did not bestow,—for in a first work faults insure success as much as beauties. Anything better than tame correctness. Yes, her first work, to judge by what is written, must make a hit,—a great hit. And that will decide her career. A singer, an actress, may retire,—often does when she marries an author; but once an author always an author.”
“Ah! is it so? If you had a beloved daughter, Savarin, would you encourage her to be an author?”
“Frankly, no: principally because in that case the chances are that she would marry an author; and French authors, at least in the imaginative school, make very uncomfortable husbands.”
“Ah! you think the Signorina will marry one of those uncomfortable husbands,—M. Rameau, perhaps?”