"Oh, go on, I'm used to it, and, besides, I can't afford to quarrel with you until I have your sketches in hand; you must make the sketches, Mr. Moreton: they will be invaluable to me. I want to get on in literature, and the only way in which I can do that is to get into the great illustrated magazines: they are the highways to fame." There was a hungry, almost greedy ring to her voice, as if her longing for literary recognition were rooted in her heart. Moreton fancied that her lips quivered as she spoke. Her manner touched his sympathy.
"You'll get on fast enough, Miss Crabb," he quickly said; "your energy and persistence and your capacity for work will take you through, never fear." It was the best he could think of, though he felt its utter inadequacy to her fancied needs. As he looked down upon her his rather heavy, thoroughly English face wore a very kindly expression.
"But you don't know, Mr. Moreton, you can't imagine what a hard time I have; how many ugly obstacles men put in my way, simply because I am a woman. I don't see why they do, but they do. It's awful sometimes."
"They are brutes, they ought to be punched, don't you know," he blurted; "they deserve no recognition by gentlemen."
"Yes, but they do get recognition," she replied, half-mournfully. "They drink and smoke and swear themselves into prominence in every walk of life—into fame, fortune, and——"
"Oh, not so bad as that, I hope," he interposed. "Don't be discouraged. George Eliot and Georges Sand and——"
"They are not American women," she interrupted in turn, "and they have never tried editing a country newspaper or writing for a New York magazine. They were rich, or had influential friends, or made people believe they were men."
"Well, suppose you try adopting a masculine pseudonym, you might——"
"Never!" she exclaimed, with a little stamp of the foot. "Never! I shall win my way as a woman or not at all."
Moreton was beginning to comprehend, in a measure, the really pathetic hopelessness of Miss Crabb's intellectual predicament. To his mind she appeared a heroine with a self-imposed task quite as great as that of Joan of Arc. Like Joan, she must at last be man's victim. He could see the stake set and the fagots heaped for her already. It now seemed a mighty blessing of providence that she was not beautiful, that she was positively ugly and not at all likely to attract men. He had the English admiration for pluck and he felt a great desire to help her; but there was no way. Evidently she did not possess any genius and was only gifted with a shrewd, quick mind and a hungry imagination. She was mistaking notoriety for just fame and was deluding herself with the belief that her burning desire for success was proof positive of her power to succeed. Nevertheless her attitude was heroic and he wished her a better fate than was sure to befall her.