“Why, my dear boy,” he cried, “I am sorry indeed. That is a shame. I had trusted so much that this time you would be successful. Indeed, I had almost in a way begun to feel as if your success were mine. I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.”
Gloomily Vaughan nodded assent. “It does make things bad,” he said. “I hoped so much. And now I’m as far from Rose as ever.”
Carleton cleared his throat. “My dear Vaughan,” he said, “since you’ve chanced to mention the subject, I believe I ought to tell you that I’ve been thinking a great deal of late—as is only natural—about the position you and Rose are in. You know, of course, that I desire only her happiness, and yours, too. You know that. You believe that, I’m confident. Do you not, my boy?”
Vaughan, although not altogether without a vague feeling of uneasiness, hastened to assent to this self-evident proposition, and Carleton at once went on.
“Now then, my only feeling in the whole matter is this. You’re neither of you really happy now; not in the least. Long engagements, as a rule, never are provocative of much happiness. And of course, as we’ve said before, you wouldn’t want to get married, and have me support you. No, no, I’m sure you wouldn’t wish that; no, of course you wouldn’t—” he spoke a little hastily, himself answering the question he had appeared to ask—“and so,” he continued, “I have been wondering, wouldn’t it be better—fairer, perhaps, to Rose—not to see her so much for a while. She’s very young, you know. And if it gets to be understood that you two are practically engaged, she’s cut off from a great deal of pleasure which a young girl at her age ought rightfully to enjoy. So why won’t it be best for you to go back in earnest to your work—try as you’ve never tried before—and I know that ultimately you’ll succeed. I envy you your ability, Arthur; I envy you your choice of a profession; and I know that success is only a matter of time—only a matter of time—” he repeated a little dreamily. “But you can’t do it and have all this strain of a long love affair at the same time. I know how that distracts one; it would scarcely be worthy the name of love if it were otherwise. I remember—”
He sat silent for a moment, as if lost in the contemplation of the past; and then suddenly coming to the present again, continued, in a far brisker and more practical tone, “And so, about Rose—remember, I’m not attempting to dictate, I’m not urging it, even; I’m only suggesting to your own sense of what is fairest and in the end best for both of you, how it would be if perhaps you didn’t see her for a time. How does it seem to you, Arthur? I want you to be perfectly frank with me, of course, just as I have been with you.”
To some men, possessing the defects of their virtues, any appeal to their spirit of fairness transforms their strongest into their weakest side. Vaughan nodded miserably. “Perhaps,” he said, a little faintly, “you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it in just that way before. But I want to do what’s best for Rose, of course. And I’ll own up that having the book rejected this last time has taken all the confidence out of me. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I’m not being fair to her.”
“I’m very glad,” Carleton said cordially, “that you take such a sensible view of it. It isn’t the easiest thing for a man in your position to do; I appreciate that. And of course we have one other thing to consider. It’s hardly probable that Rose is going to take the same view of all this that we do—at least, not with any great enthusiasm. She’s very fond of you, Vaughan, as is only right and natural. But all women in the world, where their lovers are concerned, are hopelessly and by nature entirely selfish and jealous, to a degree, of anything that keeps the man in the case away from them, jealous even of so worthy a thing as a man’s life work; and a man’s life work, after all, as you must realize now as perhaps never before, is a terribly important thing. So you will have to do your best to try to make her see the common sense side of all this. And that you’ll do, I’m sure.”
To Vaughan it appeared as if he found himself suddenly involved, really against his will; arrayed on the same side with Henry Carleton to fight the battle of stern common sense, without having any very clear idea of how he had happened to get there. “Do you mean,” he asked, “that you think I ought not to see her at all?”
Henry Carleton’s success had been too great to permit of the slightest risk of endangering it. “Oh, by no means,” he made haste to answer. “Run out and see her whenever you feel like it—say once a month or so. But to come as an ordinary friend, and not as an accepted suitor, I think perhaps would be the wiser way. That commends itself to you also, I have no doubt.”