"At first they do," responded Brown, "but later—ah!" He sighed.
"What do you mean?"
"The ride down the cañon," he explained. "The sentences are crisp and the adjectives hot. But, alas! there is much poetic connotation, and, so far from representing real life, it seems to me only the perperoid lucubrations of a disordered imagination."
"Why, that part is the most realistic in the whole thing!" cried the unhappy author, in distress.
"No," replied the editor, firmly, "it is not. It is not realism at all. Even if there were nothing objectionable about the incident, the man's feelings are frightfully overdrawn. No man ever was such an everlasting coward as you make out your hero! I should be glad to see something else of yours—but that, no!"
Somewhat damped, Severne took his manuscript home with him. There he re-read it. All his old enthusiasm returned. It was exactly true. Realism could have had no more accurate exposition of its principles. He cursed Brown, and inclosed stamps to the Decade. After a time he received a check and a flattering letter. Realism stood vindicated!
In due course the story appeared. During the interim Severne had found that his glooming was becoming altogether too realistic for his peace of mind. As time went on and he saw nothing of Lucy Melville, he began to realise that perhaps, after all, he was making a mistake somewhere. At certain recklessly immoral moments he even thought a very little of proving false to art. To such depths can the human soul descend!
The evening after the appearance of his story in the Decade, he was sitting in front of his open fire in very much that mood. The lamps had not been lighted. To him came Mortimer, his man. "A leddy to see you, sir; no name," he announced, solemnly.
Severne arose in some surprise. "Light the lamp, and show her up," he commanded, wondering who she could be.
At the sound of his voice, the visitor pushed into the room past Mortimer.