Part 4 (1/2)

As they looked, friendly eye into friendly eye, Ellery seemed to review his own life in contrast with d.i.c.k's. d.i.c.k had background; he had to begin everything for himself. He had earned most of his way through college; he had earned his standing among the men as he had earned his standing in scholars.h.i.+p, by dogged persistence instead of by the right of eminent domain to which d.i.c.k was born. He had never envied Percival's readier brain, wider popularity, more profuse fortune; but something close to envy crept upon him now for this refinement of home, this delicate mother-love. This was a loss not to be made good by pluck or perseverance. Love was the gift of the G.o.ds.

CHAPTER III

AN OCCIDENTAL LUMINARY

Over next door, beyond the thick laurel hedge, on this same evening, Mr.

Sebastian Early, now that the last of his guests had withdrawn the silken wonder of her reception skirts, was settling down to a quiet evening with his turbaned guest.

Now Mr. Sebastian Early is far too intricate a person to be dismissed, as Mrs. Lenox disposed of him, with a phrase and a laugh. In early life, it is true, he had seemed a commonplace and insignificant young man. His first appearance before the public was as the inventor of a hook-and-eye, but his hook-and-eye had such unusual merits that it seemed, according to the engaging pictures and verses in the street-cars, to simplify most of the sterner problems of every-day life.

As its lineaments began to stare at pa.s.sers-by from thousands of huge bill-boards over the length and breadth of the land, dimes turned to dollars in Mr. Early's ever-widening pockets, and for the time he felt himself a man of distinction. Yet in these later and regenerate days, Mr. Early sometimes had a moment's anguish as he remembered those miles of unesthetic bill-boards, which once marred the meadows and streams of his native land; for with a widening horizon, there had crept upon him a rising spirit of discontent.

Perhaps it was that divine discontent, which William Morris celebrates, that makes men yearn for higher things. Department stores still rolled out their mult.i.tudinous cards of hooks-and-eyes, but the person of Sebastian Early pa.s.sed unnoticed in the crowd. He yearned for fame, not for his product, but for himself, and the same ability that led him to serve the wants of the public in hooks now drove him to study its social demands. Like many another unfortunate, he began to perceive that dollars alone were not enough of a key to unlock the magic door. In this over-fed land, people with money are growing too common. Therefore to gold one must add power and distinction, if one would keep one's head above the herd. This must one do and not leave the other undone.

Sebastian determined to make himself interesting. The public has a fawning respect for fame. One or two abortive attempts convinced Mr.

Early that his literary efforts would bring him not even the distinction of infamy. At last he hit upon an idea. He would be a patron of the Arts--not one of your little ordinary buyers, but a man whose purse was, so to speak, regilded by mind. He spent six months of hard work as a student of the situation and then he made his debut. He selected a few gems of half-forgotten eighteenth century literature--gems that deserved to be given life-preservers on that stream of oblivion into which they were too surely being sucked. These he brought forth in tiny volumes, wide-edged and thick-papered, illuminated as to capitals and bound in ooze or in old brocade on which were scattered a few decorations, calculated, so unthinkable were they, to upset the reasoning power of the average reader, and thus prepare him for the literary matter which he should find within.

These books naturally ”took.” They invited no man to read, but they were interesting to look at and therefore particularly adapted to those occasions when one must make a small gift to a friend. Scarce a center-table in the country but held at least one. The beauty of it was that the literary matter cost him nothing, and the books were their own advertising bill-boards; for wherever they went they lay in conspicuous places.

From books Mr. Early pa.s.sed on to furniture; and he begot strange shapes, wherein forgotten Gothic forms were commingled with forms that never man saw before; and these also took. So the circle widened, until gla.s.s pottery and rugs were gathered into the potpourri of Mr. Early's genius.

Finally he established his magazine, _The Aspirant_, for he began to feel the need of explaining things--chiefly himself--to his expanding circle. _The Aspirant_ had covers of butcher's paper; and the necessity for self-defense at last developed in Mr. Early that literary style which he had found it impossible to cultivate while he still had nothing to say. He grew a peculiar ability for self-glorification and for slugging the other man. Particularly caustic did his pen become in respect to those, whether painters, musicians, poets, novelists or reformers, who had endeared themselves to the great ma.s.s of the public.

_The Aspirant_ always called the public ”the rabble,” and you can't d.a.m.n humanity more easily and cheaply than by calling it ”the rabble.”

Naturally every one hastened to buy Mr. Early's furniture, his rugs and his pottery, and diligently to read _The Aspirant_, in order that he or she might escape the universal condemnation. Be _outre_ and you'll be right; be right and you'll be _outre_; be _outre_ anyway: was the simple creed.

To those penniless celebrities to whom purchase of Mr. Early's commodities was over-expensive, there was another way out from under.

They might visit Mr. Early's hospitable home, and so contribute their mite to the halo of distinction that surrounded him. The great ones came to St. Etienne. They ate and drank and were exhibited to an admiring throng. They gave lectures, introduced from the platform by Mr.

Sebastian Early; they went away and _The Aspirant_ chronicled their satellite excellences. No such ex-guest need fear a blow in the face upon its pages. All these things came before the public--more and more before the public every year. They kept Mr. Early's growing corps of a.s.sistants busy, inventing new furniture and new forms of invective.

It is needless to say that the hook-and-eye was never included in the ill.u.s.trious list of Mr. Early's productions. That gentleman frequently blessed himself in private that his first commodity had been put upon the market as the ”Imperial,” and not as the ”Bright and Early” as he had once half-resolved. Only a few knew who was responsible for the bill-boards.

Still even his new enterprises paid. He was a good business man, and he shared with ”the rabble” an appet.i.te for cold cash. Nor did the crafty Arts exhaust either his abilities or his desires; for though he had no wish to pose before the world in the over-done role of a millionaire, still he needed money and ever more and more money. To get it he kept his hand in many a business enterprise and his eye on many a speculation of which the gaping world did not dream. Even his right-hand editorial writer knew not of his left-handed dip into an electric light company here or a paving contract there, for his left hand had a.s.sistants too,--quiet, un.o.btrusive, even shy,--men who could lobby a bill ”on the quiet,” or wreck an opposing company, even though they did not know the difference between Hafiz and chutney. And Mr. Early's mind was of such a broad catholicity that it would be hard to tell which side of his career he most enjoyed, the variety-show or the still-hunt.

Thus it will be seen that this great man, who was a credit to the new art movement of our time, and of whom St. Etienne, a young western city, felt justly proud, was in his usual element when he introduced to the society, in which he was now a fixed star, a light from the Far East.

And Swami Ram Juna seemed so sure that he himself was right and all the rest of the world was wrong, that Mr. Early felt him to be a kindred spirit.

The impression deepened as he found himself alone with the Hindu. He had rather dreaded the strange demands and customs that might meet him; but the man of bronze and the snowy turban proved himself to be the best of table companions, suave, courteous and sympathetic. He seemed even to take a kindly interest in such matters of a day as Mr. Early's incursions into the realms of art and literature. Through dinner they chatted almost gaily, and afterward, while Mr. Early smoked, the Swami joined him in the slow sipping of a liqueur.

There is a frankness of those who have nothing to hide; there is a frankness which makes a mask for him who is, below the surface, all mystery. As Sebastian studied his companion, he told himself that this simple creature was after all a man, perhaps adapting himself to public demands as any clever fellow would; and, as this thought occurred to him, Mr. Early's benevolence increased.

”You ought to write a book,” he said with the air of one projecting a novel thought. ”With your gift for expression, and your--ah--insight into realities, you couldn't fail to make a success of it.”

”It is my intention,” said the Hindu.