It did not occur to him, Keyes thought, as within the range of remotest possibility that he, Keyes, might be one of these. Then came the doctor's reason.
"You do not know anything," he said paternally, "anything at all."
Keyes realized, with some bitterness, that this world is not an institution existing for the purpose of detecting and rewarding inner worth. He had known enough to write his story, he guessed. With some flare of rage, he felt that simply unsupported merit is rather frowned upon, as tending by comparison to cast others possibly not possessing so much of it somewhat into the shade. He had a savage thought that when he was Dr. Nevens's age he would not be a country dentist. He saw the intense egoism of mankind.
Dr. Nevens was determined to show a young man who had betrayed a consciousness of superiority of grain, his place—economically and socially. The selfish jealousy of the world!
* * * * * * *
His letter had not come. There was only a package from Louise—a copy of "Book Talk," containing a marked article on "Representative American Story Tellers"; from this, after dinner, Keyes imbibed most of the purported facts about Booth Tarkington. Then he went to bed to sleep through the hours until the return of the postman.
The next evening still there was no letter. Keyes's spirit was troubled. He sought the solace of solitude in the quiet, shadowed streets. A reaction was succeeding his rosy complacency! Doubts pierced his dissolving confidence. Was his story so good, after all? Somehow, as he looked back at it now, it seemed much less strong than it had before. He felt a sort of sinking in his stomach. A sickening suspicion came to him that, perhaps, it was absurd. Maybe it was very silly. In a disconnected way certain remarks and passages in it came back to him now as quite questionable. Yes, they sounded pretty maudlin. He squirmed within with mortification as a recollection of these passages passed through his mind. He hoped his story would never get into print. A fear that it might nauseated him. Then he was suffused with a sensation of how little he amounted to. He felt, with a sense of great weakness, the precariousness of his job. A horror came over him that he might lose it. He wished he did not know Louise, who expected things of him. He felt how awkward it was so to fail her. In the position he had got himself into with her, how he had laid himself open to humiliating exposure! Oh, why had he ever sought her? He wished he did not know anybody well. He was an ass and he would never come to anything. He felt the futility of his life. Why could he not slink away somewhere and live out his feeble existence unobserved? As he got into bed he felt that very easily he could cry.
* * * * * * *
The August
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The Great Prize Story
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BENJAMIN CECIL KEYES
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