“I got Wilson and Butler to read some of your MSS. I couldn’t do any more. It isn’t my fault if they don’t think your work good enough.”
“Nonsense! I don’t believe they ever saw it. You only said they did to pacify me.”
“Oh, Billy!” cried Matthew, in shocked reproach.
“Well, even if they did,” said Billy, tetchily, “they’re not infallible. They’re prejudiced. They think two brothers can’t both be clever. I’m sure my stories are as good as anything that appears in their magazines, and a damned sight better. But there are any amount of other editors that you come across, for I’ve seen your name printed with theirs in the lists of guests at public dinners. But you go your own way, and never spare a thought for me, eating my heart out here. I come in handy to keep your wife company and to prevent her feeling deserted, and you think that’s about all I’m good for.” His white face was worked up to a flush of anger. He had the common delusion of the unsuccessful, that the successful in any department can pull the ropes in every other. Nor could he understand that Matthew disliked approaching people, and people disliked being approached.
“Whatever you’re good for you’ll be,” said Matthew, soothingly. “If your work is really first-class—it will come to the front in the long-run.” He shrank from adding that he did not think it even second-class; it was no use making the boy more miserable.
“Yes, but I can’t run—I’m a cripple!” Billy burst forth, passionately. “Who knows whether I shall live to see the end of the long-run? Perhaps they’ll give me a stone when I’m dead—but what’s the good of that to me? You have everything that makes life worth living: you have love—you have a wife whenever you choose to come; you have money, and heaps of it, all earned by the sweat of your own brow; you have fame—your name is in all the papers; you have fashionable folk courting and caressing you. I dare say some fine-scented lady fixed that rose so beautifully in your button-hole; I can smell her white fingers. It’s all roses and sunshine for you. But you take jolly good care to keep ’em to yourself.”
The imbittered words carried no sting to the painter’s breast. But he was sick at heart as he replied, gently:
“You don’t really mean what you’re saying, Billy. You know I’ve offered to defray the cost of publication of ‘By Field and Flood’ if you’d only let me.”
“Yes, but that’s making me more of a drag on you. Besides, you told me it’s only the rotten houses that publish novels at the author’s expense, and that the critics look askance on them. But if I could earn enough on my short stories to pay for a book, I’d chance that.” His voice took on a maundering, pitiful intonation. “I’m sure I’ve worked hard enough, toiling at my desk and denying myself every pleasure in life; you can’t say I don’t keep sober now. I never go beyond one glass of ale at meal-times.”
“Yes, you’re very good, Billy. You’ve been good for a long time.”