The trial interview between Lord Silverdale and Ellaline Rand took place in the rooms of the Old Maids' Club in the presence of the President. Lillie, encouraged by the rush of candidates, occupied herself in embroidering another epigrammatic antimacassar—"It is man who is vain of woman's dress." She had deliberately placed herself out of earshot. To Miss Rand, Lord Silverdale was a casual visitor with whom she had drifted into conversation, yet she behaved as prettily as if she knew she was undergoing the viva-voce portion of the examination for entranceship.
There are two classes of flirts—those who love to flirt, and those who flirt to love. There is little to be said against the latter, for they are merely experimenting. They intend to fall in love, but they can hardly compass it without preliminary acquaintance, and by giving themselves a wide and varied selection, are more likely to discover the fitting object of affection. It is easy to confound both classes of flirts together, and heartbroken lovers generally do so, when they do not use a stronger expression. But so far as Lord Silverdale could tell, there was nothing in Miss Rand's behavior to justify him in relegating her to either class, or to make him doubt the genuineness of the anti-hymeneal feelings provoked by her disappointment in Trepolpen. Her manner was simple and artless—she gushed, indeed, but charmingly, like a daintily sculptured figure on a marble fountain in a fair pleasaunce. You could be as little offended by her gush, as by her candid confessions of her own talents. The Lord had given her a good conceit of herself, and given it her so gracefully, that it was one of her chiefest charms. She spoke with his lordship of Shakespeare and others of her profession, and mentioned that she was about to establish a paper called The Cherub, after her popular story The Cherub That Sits Up Aloft.
"I want to get into closer touch with my readers," she explained, helping herself charmingly to the chocolate creams. "In a book, you cannot get into direct rapport with your public. Your characters are your rivals and distract attention from the personality of the author. In a journal I shall be able to chat with them freely, open my heart to them and gather them to it. There is a legitimate curiosity to learn all about me—the same curiosity that I feel about other authors. Why should I allow myself to be viewed in the refracting medium of alien ink? Let me sketch myself to my readers, tell them what I eat and drink, and how I write, and when, what clothes I wear and how much I pay for them, what I think of this or that book of mine, of this or that character of my creation, what my friends think of me, and what I think of my friends. All the features of the paper will combine to make my face. I shall occupy all the stories, and every column will have me at the top. In this way I hope, not only to gratify my yearnings for sympathy, but to stimulate the circulation of my books. Nay more, with the eye of my admirers thus encouragingly upon me, I shall work more zealously. You see, Lord Silverdale, we authors are a race apart—without the public hanging upon our words, we are like butterflies in a London fog, or actors playing to an empty auditorium."
"I have noticed that," said Lord Silverdale dryly, "before authors succeed, it takes them a year to write a book, after they succeed it takes them only a month."
"You see I am right," said Ellaline eagerly. "That's what the sun of public sympathy does. It ripens work quickly."
"Yes, and when the sun is very burning, it sometimes takes the authors no time at all."
"Ah, now you are laughing at me. You are speaking of 'ghosts.'"
"Yes. Ghost stories are published all the year round—not merely at Christmas. Don't think I'm finding fault. I look upon an author who keeps his ghost, as I do on a tradesmen who keeps his carriage. It is a sign he has succeeded."
"Oh, but it's very wicked, giving the public underweight like that!" said Ellaline in her sweet, serious way. "How can anybody write as well as yourself? But why I mentioned about The Cherub is because it has just struck me the paper might become the organ of the Old Maids' Club, for I should make a point of speaking freely of my aims and aspirations in joining it. I presume you know all about Miss Dulcimer's scheme?"
"Oh, yes! But I don't think it feasible."