'Come, Roland,' he said, smiling blandly. 'Let us have it out. It galls sometimes, doesn't it? But remember you can't have everything—come, now. If you were to tell the fellows at the club, truthfully, the whole story, they would, I dare say, be glad to get such a beautiful pile of stones to throw at me. One more reputation built on pretence and humbug—eh? Yes: the little edifice which you and I have reared together with so much care would be shattered at a single stroke, wouldn't it? You could do that: you can always do that. But at some little cost to yourself—some little cost, remember.'
Roland remarked that the cost or consequences of that little exploit might be condemned.
'Truly. If you will. But not until you realise what they are. Now my version of the story is this. There was once—three years ago—a fellow who had failed. The Academy wouldn't accept his pictures; no one would buy them. And yet he had some power and true feeling. But he could not succeed: he could not get anybody to buy his pictures. And then he was an extravagant kind of man: he was head over ears in debt: he liked to lead the easy life—dinner and billiards at the club—all the rest of it. Then there was another man—an old schoolfellow of his—a man who wanted, for purposes of his own, a reputation for genius in more than one branch of Art. He wanted to seem a master of painting as well as poetry and fiction. This man addressed the Failure. He said, "Unsuccessful Greatness, I will buy your pictures of you, on the simple condition that I may call them mine." The Failure hesitated at first. Naturally. He was loth to write himself down a Failure. Everybody would be. Then he consented. He promised to paint no more in the style in which he had failed except for this other man. Then the other man, who knew his way about, called his friends together, set up a picture painted by the Failure on an easel, bought the tools, laid them out on the table—there they are—and launched himself upon the world as an artist as well as a poet and author. A Fraud, wasn't he? Yet it paid both men—the Fraud and the Failure. For the Fraud knew how to puff the work and to get it puffed and praised and noticed everywhere; he made people talk about it: he had paragraphs about it: he got critics to treat his—or the Failure's—pictures seriously: in fact, he advertised them as successfully and as systematically as if he had been a soap-man. Is this true, so far?'
'Quite true. Go on—Fraud.'
'I will—Failure. Then the price of the pictures went up. The Fraud was able to sell them at a price continually rising. And the Failure received a price in proportion. He shared in the proceeds. The Fraud gave him two thirds. Is that true? Two thirds. He ran your price, Failure, from nothing at all to four hundred and fifty pounds—your last, and biggest price. And he gave you two thirds. All you had to do was to produce the pictures. What he did was to persuade the world that they were great and valuable pictures. Is that true?'
Roland grunted.
'Three years ago you were at your wits' end for the next day's dinner. You had borrowed of all your friends: you had pawned your watch and chain: you were face to face with poverty—no; starvation. Deny that, if you can.' He turned fiercely on Roland. 'You can't deny it. What are you now? You have a good income: you dine every day on the best of everything: you do yourself well in every respect. Hang it, Roland, you are an ungrateful dog!'
'You have ruined my life. You have robbed me of my name.'
'Let us stop heroics. If you are useful to me, I am ten times as useful to you. Because, my dear boy, without me you cannot live. Without you I can do very well. Indeed, I have only to find another starving genius—there are plenty about—in order to keep up my reputation as a painter. Go to the club. Call the men together. Tell them if you like, and what you like. You have no proofs. I can deny it, and I can give you the sack, and I can get that other starving genius to carry on the work.'
Roland made no reply.