“I was just then thinking,
” he said, “what you would have done with your life if you had not inherited this fortune, and if,—if I had not come your way?”
“I should have starved, no doubt,”—I responded—“Died like a rat in a hole,—of want and wretchedness.”
“I rather doubt that;” he said meditatively—“It is just possible you might have become a great writer.”
“Why do you say that now?” I asked.
“Because I have been reading your book. There are fine ideas in it,—ideas that might, had they been the result of sincere conviction, have reached the public in time, because they were sane and healthy. The public will never put up for [p 257] long with corrupt ‘fads’ and artificial ‘crazes.’ Now you write of God,—yet according to your own statement, you did not believe in God even when you wrote the words that imply His existence,—and that was long before I met you. Therefore the book was not the result of sincere conviction, and that’s the key-note of your failure to reach the large audience you desired. Each reader can see you do not believe what you write,—the trumpet of lasting fame never sounds triumph for an author of that calibre.”
“Don’t let us talk about it for Heaven’s sake!” I said irritably—“I know my work lacks something,—and that something may be what you say or it may not,—I do not want to think about it. Let it perish, as it assuredly will; perhaps in the future I may do better.”
He was silent,—and finishing his cigar, threw the end away in the grass where it burned like a dull red coal.
“I must turn in,” he then observed,—“I have a few more directions to give to the servants for to-morrow. I shall go to my room as soon as I have done,—so I’ll say good-night.”
“But surely you are taking too much personal trouble,”—I said—“Can’t I help in any way?”