The Giant's Robe

by F. Anstey

Vincent vindicated as well as he could the scheme in which he was the most guiltless of accessories after the fact, and Mark kept in the background and said as little as possible; he felt distinctly uncomfortable, however, when Mr. Chilton drily inquired whether the same mystification attached to 'Sweet Bells Jangled,' and on being reassured as to this, observed that it was a little unfortunate that the matter had not been explained before the latter book had been brought out. 'If you think you are prejudiced in any way,' Mark said, flushing angrily, 'we can easily come to some other arrangement!' 'Oh,' said Mr. Chilton, 'I was not thinking of it from a pecuniary point of view exactly—we shall not lose much—as far as money is concerned, I dare say!'

'My partner,' explained Mr. Fladgate, 'was thinking of the results this will have upon our reputation in the trade;' on which Vincent tried to appease him by promising to make it abundantly clear that the firm were no parties to the concealment, and as soon as the partners understood that it was not proposed to disturb any existing arrangements respecting 'Illusion,' beyond disclosing the truth, and having some necessary revisions inserted in any future edition, they parted amicably enough, though Mark was made to understand his altered standing in the most unmistakable manner.

And in a few days, by means which it is not necessary to particularise here, the version of the affair given by Vincent at Grosvenor Gardens was made known to all those who might find it of interest.

The announcement, when it became generally known, caused a certain amount of surprise and remark, but not nearly so much as might have been expected. Hawthorne, in his preface to the 'Scarlet Letter,' has remarked the utter insignificance of literary achievements and aims beyond the narrow circle which recognises them as important and legitimate, and the lesson the discovery of this is to the man who dreams of literary fame. If Vincent needed to learn that lesson, he learnt it then; no fresh laurels were brought out for him—and the old ones had withered already; people were beginning to feel slightly ashamed of their former raptures over 'Illusion,' or had transferred them to a newer object, and they could not be revived in cold blood, even for the person legitimately entitled. Jacob had intercepted the birthright, and for this Esau there was not even the réchauffé of a blessing.

The people who had lionised Mark were enraged now, and chiefly with Holroyd; the more ill-natured hinted that there was something shady on both sides—or why should all that secrecy have been necessary?—but the less censorious were charitably disposed to think that Ashburn's weak good-nature had been unscrupulously abused by his more gifted friend.

Vincent's conduct, if it showed nothing more than a shrinking from notoriety, was sufficiently offensive, such distaste being necessarily either cynical or hypocritical. So upon the whole, the reaction which attends all sudden and violent popularity, and which had already set in here, was, if anything, furthered by the disclosure.

But this did not greatly distress him. Neglect and fame were alike to him, now that his lady had withdrawn her countenance from him. He had resigned himself to the loss of the fairest dream of his life, but it had been a consolation to him in his loneliness to feel that he might be her friend still, that he might see her sometimes, that though she could never love him, he would always possess her confidence and regard—not much of a consolation, perhaps, to most men, but he had found a sort of comfort in it. Now that was all over, and his solitude was left more desolate still; he knew there was no appeal for him, and that, so long as Mabel believed that he had sacrificed her husband to his deliberate selfishness, she would never relent towards him. There were times when he asked himself if he was bound to suffer all this misconception from the one woman he had ever loved—but he knew always that in clearing himself he would lay her happiness in ruins, and resolved to bear his burden to the end, sustained by the conviction, which every day became clearer, that he would not have to bear it much longer.

As for Mark, the announcement of the true authorship of 'Illusion' brought him nothing short of disaster, social and financial. It produced a temporary demand for 'Sweet Bells Jangled' at the libraries, but now that things had been explained to them, the most unlikely persons were able to distinguish the marked inferiority of the later book.

Those reviews which had waited at first from press of matter or timidity now condemned it unanimously, and several editors of periodicals who had requested works from Mark's pen wrote to say that, as the offer had been made under a misapprehension, he would understand that they felt compelled to retract the commissions.

Mark's career as a novelist was ended, he had less chance than ever of getting a publisher's reader to look at his manuscript, the affair had associated his name with ridicule instead of the scandal which is a marketable commodity, and might have launched him again; his name upon a book now would only predestine it to obscurity.