“Same year at college,” Crosbeigh explained, “and he has always been friendly. God knows why,” the editor said gloomily. The difference in their lot seemed suddenly to appal him.
“There must be something unsuspectedly bad in your make-up,” Trent declared, “which attracts him to you. It can’t be he wants to sell you a story.”
“There are all sorts of rumors about him,” Crosbeigh went on meditatively, “started by his wife’s people, I believe. He was wild. Sometimes he has hinted at it. I know him well enough to call him ‘Connie’ and go up to his dressing-room sometimes. That’s a mark of intimacy. My Lord, Trent, but it makes me envious to see with what luxury the rich can live. He has a Japanese valet and masseur, Togoyama, and an imported butler who looks like a bishop. They know him at his worst and worship him. He’s magnetic, that’s what Connie is, magnetic. Have you ever thought what having a million a year means?”
“Ye Gods,” groaned Trent, “don’t you read my lamentations in every story you buy from me at bargain rates?”
“And a shooting box in Scotland which he uses two weeks a year in the grouse season. A great Tudor residence in Devonshire overlooking Exmoor, a town house in Park Lane which is London’s Fifth Avenue! And you know what he’s got here in his own country. Can you imagine it?”
“Not on forty dollars a week,” said Anthony Trent gloomily.
“You’d make more if you were the hero of your own stories,” Crosbeigh told him.
Anthony Trent turned on him quickly, “What do you mean?”
“Why this crook you are making famous gets away with enough plunder to live as well as Conington Warren.”
“Ah, but that’s in a story,” returned the author.