“Let, down the curtain, the farce is done.”
—Rabelais.
I suppose my story ought to end here, since Harley’s rebellious heroine has finally been subdued for the use of his publishers and the consequent declaration of dividends for the Harley exchequer; but there was an epilogue to the little farce, which nearly turned it into tragedy, from which the principals were saved by nothing short of my own ingenuity. Harley had fallen desperately in love with Marguerite Andrews, and Marguerite Andrews had fallen in love with Stuart Harley, and Harley couldn’t find her. She eluded his every effort, and he began to doubt that he had drawn her from real life, after all. She had become a Marjorie Daw to him, and the notion that he must go through life cherishing a hopeless passion was distracting to him. His book was the greatest of his successes, which was an additional cause of discomfort to him, since, knowing as he now did that his study was not a faithful portrayal of the inner life of his heroine, he felt that the laurels that were being placed upon his brow had been obtained under false pretences.
“I feel like a hypocrite,” he said, as he read an enthusiastic review of his little work from the pen of no less a person than Mr. Darrow, the high-priest of the realistic sect. “I am afraid I shall not be able to look Darrow in the eye when I meet him at the club.”
“Never fear for that, Stuart,” I said, laughing inwardly at his plight. “Brazen it out; keep a stiff upper lip, and Darrow will never know. He has insight, of course, but he can’t see as far in as you and he think.”
“It’s a devilish situation,” he cried, impatiently striding up and down the room, “that a man of my age should be so hopelessly in love with a woman he can’t find; and that he can’t find her is such a cruel sarcasm upon his literary creed! What cursed idiosyncrasy of fate is it that has brought this thing upon me?”
“It’s the punishment that fits your crime, Harley,” I said. “You’ve been rather narrow minded in your literary ideas. Possibly it will make a more tolerant critic of you hereafter, when you come to flay fellows like Balderstone for venturing to think differently from you as to the sort of books it is proper to write. He has as much right to the profits he can derive from his fancy as you have to the emoluments of your insight.”
“I’d take some comfort if I thought that she really loved me,” he said, mournfully.
“Have no doubt on that score, Stuart,” I said. “She does love you. I know that. I wish she didn’t.”
“Then why can’t I find her? Why does she hide from me?” he cried, fortunately ignoring my devoutly expressed wish, which slipped out before I knew it.
“Because she is a woman,” I replied. “Hasn’t your analytical mind told you yet that the more a woman loves a man, the harder he’s got to work to find it out and—and clinch the bargain?”