When Effie turned over the pages of the next number of The Muses Nine, she found, first of all, her own verses in the Editor's column with his name at the bottom. This sight, which had formerly made her so proud, now filled her with shame. The generous promise of the future failed to awaken in her any glow of hope. For the very words with which her only editor had beguiled her of her verses—the plea that they were worthless, and must be rewritten—he had used to her brother. And as her poems had never been rewritten, so would Archie's play, she felt sure, be presented without a single alteration, with the name of Mr. Alec Feilding as author. That week she took no verses to the studio-study.
And a certain paragraph in the same columns perused by this suspicious young woman brought rage—nothing short of rage—into her heart. No! not her brother, as well as herself! It ran thus: 'I have always been under the impression that the dearth of good plays is due to nothing else in the world than the fact that the good men who ought to be writing them all run off into the domain of fiction. It is a pleasant country—that of Fable Land. I have been there, and I hope to go there again and make a long stay. But Play Land—that is also a pleasant country. I have been there lately, and I hope to demonstrate that a good play may still be produced in the English tongue—a good and original play. In short, I have written a romantic drama, of which all I can say at present is that it lies finished, in my fireproof safe, and that a certain actor-manager will probably play the title-rôle before many moons have waxed and waned.'
'No,' said Effie, crumpling up the paper. 'You have not got Archie's romantic drama yet.'
CHAPTER VIII
ALL ABOUT MYSELF
'You have kept this promise, then.' Armorel welcomed her old friend with eyes of kindness and lips of smiles. 'Do you ever think of the promise that you broke? Effie, dear'—this young lady was the only other occupant of the room—'this is Mr. Roland Lee—my first friend and my first master. He knew me long ago, in Samson, in the days of which I have told you. We have memories of our own—memories such as make the old friendships impossible to be dissolved—whatever happens. Roland, you first put a pencil into my hand and taught me how to use it. In return, I used to play old-fashioned tunes in the evening. And you first put thoughts into my head. Before you came my head was filled with phantoms, which had neither voice nor shape. What am I to do now in return for such a gift?' She gave him both her hands, and her face was so glowing, her eyes so soft yet serious withal, her voice so full of tenderness—that the luckless painter stood confused and overwhelmed. How had he deserved such a reception?
'This evening,' she went on, 'we are going to talk about nobody but myself, and about nothing but my own affairs. Effie, you will be horribly bored. It is five years since I had such a chance. Because, my dear, though you have the best will in the world, and would talk to me about old times if you could, you did not know me when I lived on Samson in the Scilly Islands—and Roland did. That is, if he still remembers Samson.'
'I remember every day on Samson: every blade of grass on the island: every boulder and every crag.'
'And every talk we had in those days?—all the things you told me?'
'I remember, as well, a girl who has so changed, so grown——'