There is a tide

by J. C. Snaith

They might be said to challenge each other’s curiosity. But their meeting not only fulfilled their hopes of one another; it was the beginning of a friendship. One could not help liking the author of Prairie City. He was a well-set-up young man; and behind the dry shrewdness and the determination to get there, qualities characteristic of Mame herself, were genuine kindliness and modesty. His rise to fame had been less sudden than it seemed. It had been prepared for and earned. He owned to thirty-one years of life. They had not been easy years, but they had made him the man he was.

Lady Violet was glad that Elmer answered fully to Mame’s description of him as “a regular fellow.” There was something about him that inspired confidence. Whether it was a certain slowness of speech which implied depth of mind, a vein of real grit, or the charming air of diffidence with which he wore the fame that so deservedly was his, she instinctively felt that here was what Mame called a he-man.

This was well. She had a plan in that sagacious mind of hers. But the carrying out of it depended upon Elmer P. himself. Unless he could pass the test, and a pretty severe one, that a thorough woman of the world felt bound to impose, the fine scheme was doomed from the outset. His bearing, however, in those crowded days in which they saw a good deal of each other, convinced this friend that rumour had not over-painted him. Undoubtedly the young man deserved the position his talents had won. Beneath a surface a little stiff and formal at first, and, the critic thought, none the worse for that, was a warmth of heart and a balance of nature which enabled him to pass his examination with flying colours.

As much time as Elmer could spare from his exceedingly numerous engagements was devoted to Half Moon Street. From the first afternoon he went there to drink tea, with reviewers and people of influence in the world of letters, he took a great liking to the place. For one thing he was made to feel so much at home. The presence of Mame guaranteed that. She was quite unspoiled in spite of the English accent, which to Elmer’s secret delight was apt to wear a little thin in places. He was no end of an observer, the author of Prairie City. Back in the Cowbarn days there was something in Mame that had appealed to him; and in this new orientation she was still the Mame he had liked, smiled at just a little, and yet admired. Wonderful how she had been able to get away with it; yet he was not really surprised. He had always known that his little stenographer had a lot in her.

Everybody was so friendly in Half Moon Street. They seemed to take quite a personal pride in his success; they seemed to treat it almost as a part of their own. During the hours he spent there Mame and her friend Lady Violet were always devising fresh schemes for Prairie City. The boom was growing daily. But it must get bigger and bigger. Had he been their own brother they could not have done more.

One afternoon, when Elmer had been in London a week, he came rather early and happened to catch Lady Violet alone. Mame had gone, at the call of duty, to the première of a new play. In this rather providential absence, which yet did not owe quite so much to providence as appeared on the surface, Lady Violet seized the chance to have a private talk.

“So you are leaving us a week to-day?”

Elmer confessed that was his intention.

“If you find us all as complacent as our perfectly absurd newspapers you won’t be sorry.”

Elmer had the tact to ignore the vexed question of the British newspaper. “I’ll be sorry enough,” he said with simple sincerity. “You are just giving me the time of my life.”