Part 23 (1/2)

”But suppose I'm dragging Harry down? I shouldn't be surprised if it's all through me that his MSS. keep on being returned.

I said to him, 'Let me make drawings to ill.u.s.trate your stories--I'd love to'. And I do love to! 'Then we'll send the stories and the drawings to the editors together.' But they nearly all come back. I've a horrid feeling that it's my drawings which ruin them.”

”Stuff! It's Harry's work that's no good.”

”No good? How dare you! You've said yourself over and over again that it's splendid.”

”That's what's against it--it's splendid.” Miss Johnson, stretching her right arm to its extreme length, dangled her gloves between the tips of her fingers. ”Margaret Wallace, literature means to me at least three pounds a week, it may be four, if possible, five. I can live on three, be comfortable on four, a swell on five. The problem being thus stated in all its beautiful simplicity, it only remains for me to discover the quickest and easiest solution. I have learned, from experience, that the _Home Muddler_ is willing to give me half a guinea for a column of drivel, and the _Hearthstone Smasher_ fifteen s.h.i.+llings for another. The _Family Flutterer_ prints eight or ten thousand words of an endless serial at five s.h.i.+llings a thousand--one of these days I mean to strike for seven-and-six.

But in the meantime there you are--the pursuit of literature has brought me bread and cheese. Why doesn't your Harry tread the same path?”

”The idea!”

”Of course!--the idea!--and that's where he gets left. It's my experience that in literature----”

”Literature!”

”I said literature. I was observing, when you interrupted, that it is my experience that in literature”--Miss Johnson paused, Miss Wallace was contemptuously silent--”men always get paid at least twice as much as the women. I don't know why; it seems to be one of the rules of the game. It therefore follows that if your Harry did as I do he would earn six, eight, ten pounds a week, which, with management, would keep two--not to speak of your drawings, which ought to bring in something. I believe the _Family Flutterer_ pays as much as seven-and-six for a full page.”

”My dear Dollie, you know as well as I do that we both of us would rather starve.”

”Sweet Meg, I'm not saying you're right or wrong, only, if you have resolved to eschew the easily earned loaves and fishes, don't revile because, having set out on the track of the rarer creatures, you discover--what every one knows, and you know!--that they are difficult to find. My private opinion is that Harry will find them one day--if he keeps on long enough--though I don't know when.”

”You're a comforting sort of person.”

”I'm a practical sort of person, which is better. Cheer up, Meg!

he'll get there--and perhaps you will too--though of course his stories are better than your drawings.”

”I don't need you to tell me that.”

Miss Johnson, descending from the table, put her arm round the girl who was seated on the other side.

”You poor darling! I'm a perfect pig! I say, Meg, are you hard up?”

”I always am.”

”Beyond the ordinary, I mean?”

”If you mean, can you lend me, or give me, any money, you can't--thank you very much. I'm going to hoe my own furrow, right to the end.”

”How about Harry? He gets some of his stuff accepted; then there's the three hundred pounds a year certain which he gets for being that party's secretary. I call that practicality, if you like! He ought to be getting on first-rate.”

”He doesn't seem to think so, anyhow. As for what you call the three hundred pounds a year certain, I doubt if anything could be more uncertain, the engagement may terminate any day. I believe that Harry is really more worried than I am, and--and that's saying a good deal.”

”Then the marriage is not coming off just yet?”

”Marriage!--and you call yourself a practical person!--how can you be so absurd?”

”I am not sure that I am absurd. If I ever loved a man--which I am never likely to do, men are such beings!--really loved him, and knew that he loved me, I shouldn't hesitate to marry him on a pound a week. Marriage, properly understood, is a spur; it's not, necessarily, anything like the clog romantic people like you seem to think it is.”

When Miss Johnson had gone Margaret Wallace went and stood before a photograph which hung over the mantelpiece--the photograph of a man.