"And the applications from fellow-authors?" asked Pauline. "The requests for autographs?"
"Pshaw! those are a figment of his fancy, I suspect. He imagines that he is of vast importance in the literary world. His sensitiveness is something ridiculous. He's a far worse monologuist than I am, which is surely saying a great deal; but if you answer him he considers it an interruption, and if you disagree with him he ranks it as impertinence. I think he rather likes me because I persistently, fearlessly, and relentlessly do both. But with all his faults, Barrowe has a large, warm heart. Still, it's astonishing how a fine and true character can often enshroud itself with repellent mannerisms, just as a firm breadth of sea-rock will become overcrusted with brittle barnacles.... Ah, Whitcomb, good evening."
A corpulent man, with silver-gray hair and a somewhat pensive expression, was the recipient of Kindelon's last cordial sentence of salutation. After he had made the needful introduction, Kindelon said, addressing Pauline while he regarded Mr. Whitcomb,—
"This is the author of no less than five standard histories."
"Kindelon is very good to call them standard, Mrs. Varick," said Mr. Whitcomb, in a voice quite as pensive as his face. "I wish that a few thousands more would only share his opinion."
"Oh, but they are gradually getting to do it, my dear Whitcomb!" declared Kindelon. "Don't make any mistake on that point. A few days ago I chanced to meet your publisher, Sours. Now, an author must stand pretty sure of success when his publisher pays him a round compliment."
"What did Sours say?" asked Mr. Whitcomb, with an almost boyish eagerness.
"He said," exclaimed Kindelon, "that Whitcomb was our coming American historian. There, my dear sir, what do you think of that?"
Mr. Whitcomb sadly shook his silver-gray head. "I've been coming," he murmured, "ever since I was twenty-eight, and I shall be fifty-seven next May. I can't say that I think Sours's compliment meant much. It's got to be a sort of set phrase about me, that I'm coming. It never occurs to anybody to say that I've come, and I suppose it will not if I live to be eighty and totter round with white hair. No, I shall always be coming, coming...."
As the gentleman repeated this final word he smiled with a kind of weary amiability, still shaking his gray head; and a moment later he had passed from sight.