And he, Harlan, was absolutely prevented from speaking of it by an unhappy chain of circumstances which put him in a false light! For the first time he fully perceived how a single thoughtless action may bind all one’s future existence.
“Just because I stroked the hand of a distressed damsel,” muttered Harlan, “and told her I was married, I’ve got to sit and see a procession of my wife’s old lovers marking time here all Summer!” In his fevered fancy, he already saw the Jack-o’-Lantern surrounded by Mrs. Carr’s former admirers, heard them call her “Dorothy,” and realised that there was not a single thing he could do.
“Unless, of course,” he added, mentally, “it gets too bad, and I have an excuse to order ’em out. And then, probably, Dorothy will tell Elaine to take her dolls and go home, and the poor thing’s got nowhere to go—nowhere in the wide world.
“How would Dorothy like to be a lonely orphan, with no husband, no friends, and no job? She wouldn’t like it much, but women never have any sympathy for each other, nor for their husbands, either. I’d give twenty dollars this minute not to have stroked Elaine’s hand, and fifty not to have had Dorothy see it, but there’s no use in crying over spilt milk nor in regretting hands that have already been stroked.”
In search of diversion, he opened his letter, which was in answer to the one he had written some little time ago, inquiring minutely, of an acquaintance who was supposed to be successful, just what the prospects were for a beginner in the literary craft.
“Dear Carr,” the letter read. “Sorry not to have answered before, but I’ve been away and things got mixed up. Wouldn’t advise anybody but an enemy to take up writing as a steady job, but if you feel the call, go in and win. You can make all the way from eight dollars a year, which was what I made when I first struck out, up to five thousand, which was what I averaged last year. I’ve always envied you fellows who could turn in your stuff and get paid for it the following Tuesday. In my line, you work like the devil this year for what you’re going to get next, and live on the year after.
“However, if you’re bitten with it, there’s no cure. You’ll see magazine articles in stones and books in running brooks all the rest of your life. When you get your book done, I’ll trot you around to my publisher, who enjoys the proud distinction of being an honest one, and if he likes your stuff, he’ll take it, and if he doesn’t, he’ll turn you down so pleasantly that you’ll feel as though he’d made you a present of something. If you think you’ve got genius, forget it, and remember that nothing takes the place of hard work. And, besides, it’s a pretty blamed poor book that can’t get itself printed these days.
“Yours as usual,
“C. J.”