'Oh!' said Roland. 'Is there nothing in him at all?'
'Nothing at all. There is really nothing at all. This man persuaded the lady to write down these stories, which were all based on old family scandals and episodes unknown or forgotten by the world. They form a most charming series of stories. I believe they are written in a most sparkling style—full of wit and life. Well, he did not put his name to them, but he allowed the whole world to believe that they were his own.'
'Good Heavens!' cried Roland.
'And still he was not satisfied. He found a young dramatist who had written a most charming play. He tried to persuade the poor lad that his play was worthless, and he offered to take it himself, alter it—but there needed no alteration—and convert it into a play that could be acted. He would give fifty pounds for the play, but it was to be his own.'
'Yes,' said Effie, savagely. 'He made that offer, but he will not get the play.'
'You have heard, now, what manner of man he was. Very well. I tell you two the story because I want to consult you. The other day I arranged a little play of my own. That is, I invited people to hear the reciting of that drama: I invited the pretender himself among the rest, but he did not know or guess what the play was going to be. And at the same time I invited the painter and the poet. The former brought his unfinished picture—the latter brought her latest poem, which the pretender was going that very week to bring out in his own name. I had set it to music, and I sang it. I meant that he should learn in this way, without being told, that everything was discovered. I watched his face during the recital of the play, and I saw the dismay of the discovery creeping gradually over him as he realised that he had lost his painter, his poet, and his dramatist. There remained nothing more but to discover the author of the stories—and that, too, I have found out. And I think he will lose his story-teller as well. He will be deprived of all his borrowed plumes. At one blow he saw himself ruined.'
Neither of the two made answer for a space. Then spoke Roland: 'Dux femina facti! A woman hath done this.'
'He is ruined unless he can find others to take your places. The question I want you to consider is—What shall be done next? Roland, it is your name and fame that he has stolen—your pictures that he has called his own. Effie, they are your poems that he has published under his name. What will you do? Will you demand your own again? Think.'
'He must exhibit no more pictures of mine,' said Roland. 'He has one in his studio that he has already sold. That one must not go to any gallery. That is all I have to say.'
'He cannot publish any more poems of mine,' said Effie, 'because he hasn't got any, and I shall give him no more.'