“Forgive me, Elice,” with quick contrition. “That was nasty of me, I confess. But I’m sore to-day, raw. It’s genius I suppose,” sarcastically, “genius unappreciated.”
Still the girl said nothing.
“If I could only get a ray of light, a lead, the flutter of a signal from outside the wall. But I keep hammering my head at it day after day, and it remains precisely as it was years ago when I began. It’s maddening.”
Yet the girl was silent, waiting silent.
“And, last of all, if I should eventually succeed, should break through into my own, as Darley 82 Roberts says, even then—from any point of view it isn’t a cheerful prospect.”
“As Mr. Roberts says? What was that, Steve?”
“I referred to the reward, pecuniary reward. He figured it out in dollars and cents once when he wanted to bring me out of the clouds. Looking at it that way, there isn’t much to the game even for the winners, Elice.”
“Not much if you win? I can’t believe it, Steve. I always supposed—”
“Everybody does. The public, the uninitiated, are long on supposing. Even the would-be’s like myself delude themselves and build air castles until some hard-headed friend calls the turn. Then—no; there really isn’t much in it, Elice; nothing in comparison to the plums in the business world. That job of Graham’s, for instance, offers greater possibilities than success even, and when it comes to partial success or failure! It’s a joke, the artistic temperament in this commercial twentieth century, a tremendous side-splitting joke! One nowadays should be born with suckers on his fingers, such as a fly has on its feet, so that whenever he came into the vicinity of a bank note it would stick fast. That would be the ideal condition, the greatest natural blessing, now!” 83
“You know you don’t mean that, Steve. It’s hot and you’re out of the mood to-day—that’s all. To-morrow will be different; you’ll see things straight again.”