This led, through his spleen, to an explanation between himself and the business-man of the firm, and what was their mutual astonishment, on privately comparing “notes,” to find that one was absolutely a “Cherubim,” and the other an “Archangel!” They looked at each other with a blank stare of surprise. The tawney, lean, angular, iron-jawed face of the business-man suggested anything but the plump and dimpled outlines of that prolific progeny of winged infants, which Raphael has rendered so illustrious. While, in contrast, the features of the young editor were remarkable for their plump and childlike freshness.
“Why!” shouted the business-man, with a tremendous guffaw, “there’s a great mistake here—she has clearly misdirected the notes. You should be the cherub!”
The breath of a simultaneous roar of laughter dissipated all her fine-spun web, in these two directions at least. She was more successful, however, with the third party.
Manton had been deceived, egregiously, in regard to this man’s past history, or he would never have permitted him to pass the threshold of the house where he lived. He had known him only as ostensibly associate editor of a highly-respectable paper, and therefore had not felt himself called upon to interfere in any way. Although he had, as we have perceived, early indications of his having become a frequent visitor at the house.
To have gone any higher in her classification of him than she had already gone in that of his associates, would have puzzled any less versatile genius than hers. But as cherubim and archangel had already been used up, she placed him among the “principalities and powers in heavenly places,” and there he decided to stick. It was certainly time for him to be pleased with elevation of some sort, for, as it turned out afterwards, when his history became better understood by Manton, he was one of those slugs, or barnacles of the press, that cling about and slime the keels of every noble and thought-freighted bark. From the precarious and eminently honourable occupation of writing obscene books for private circulation, “getting up” quack advertisements, interpolating the pages of Paul De Kock with smearings of darker filth than ever his mousing vision had yet discovered in the sinks and gutters of Paris, he had gradually risen, through his facile availability, to the sub rosa respectability of a well-paid “sub” in a respectable office—I say sub rosa, for it seems to have been well understood, in New York, that the appearance of his name, at the head of the columns of any paper, would be sufficient to damn it, outright, so linked had it become with sneaking infamy of every sort.
However, this “child of genius” and Madame progressed bravely towards a mutual understanding; and billets-doux flew between them thick as snow-flakes. As for their contents, the reader is, by this time, pretty well prepared to conjecture. Interviews, from weekly to semi-weekly, crowded fast upon each other’s heels; until, at last, Manton began to perceive that, not only was the sleeve lost every day, but that the new novel, like the pious labor of the needle of Penelope, “grew with its growth.”
About this time, however, it came to his knowledge, that this highly respectable literary personage, Mr. Narcissus, had been as notoriously abject in his private relations as he had been in those to the press. However, as he had determined to drag Elna from beneath the clutches of her mother, and to sever all remote, or even possible connection between them, he did not feel himself called upon to do more than announce the fact to Madame that the fellow was even now an infamous stipendiary to a party no less infamous than himself, who had privately furnished him, out of her ill-gotten gains, the money to buy his share in the weekly paper she was so ambitious of controlling, through him. As he had now to expect, she received the news with the most refreshing coolness, and merely remarked, that it was no fault of hers that this bad woman had loved Mr. Narcissus; that he possessed great talent in affairs; could be made of much use in the cause of human progress and advancement—in a word, deserved to be saved, and to save him she meant. She should rescue him from such gross and debasing associations, and give to his astonishing energies a nobler bent; that his future life, under her inspiration and guidance, should be made to atone for the past.
This logic seemed so very conclusive and characteristic, that Manton made no reply, but a shudder, at the thought of that saving process, to which, despicable as he was, a new victim was to be subjected. But it was no part of his plan to divert her from her purpose; for he wished, by all means, to see her active and dangerous energies employed in any direction, save that of the subversion and counteraction of his own design in regard to her daughter.
Elna, in a few days after, was sent to New England, with the understanding between Manton and herself, that she would by no means consent to return to her mother, until he himself should come back from his tour, and should send for her. He did not dare to trust her for an hour beneath the accursed shadow of this domestic Upas, that had given her birth; and more particularly did he dread the hideous combination of influences which were likely now to be brought to bear upon her, as Madam had openly announced her intention, since she had obtained a divorce from her former husband, to marry the delectable Narcissus.
We may as well dispose of this affair at once, by remarking, that in a few months afterward she did marry him; that the unfortunate woman, who had heretofore so long lived with and loved Narcissus, instantly withdrew the support which her ill-gotten gains furnished; and that, asserting her right to the share which he had pretended to own in the property of the paper, and disclosing the whole of his infamy to his former partners, the cherubim and archangel indignantly kicked him out of doors, and at once toppled about the astonished ears of Madame all her castles in the air reared, with regard to “controlling a powerful organ.”