'Yes, it's not _quite_ the right thing, perhaps, but it's taking, I think, taking.'

Mark said it was taking.

'Of course _your_ hero is not exactly a magician, but it brings in the "Vivien" part of the story, don't you see?' Of course Mark did not see, but he thought it best to agree. 'Well,' continued Mr. Fladgate, who was secretly rather proud of his t.i.tle, 'how does it strike you now? it seems to me as good a t.i.tle as we are likely to hit upon.'

After all, Mark thought, what did it matter? it wasn't his book, except in name. 'I think it's excellent,' he said, 'excellent; and, by the way, Mr. Fladgate,' he added, 'I should like to change the _nom de plume_: it's a whim of mine, perhaps, but there's another I've been thinking lately I should like better.'

'By all means,' said the other, taking up a pencil to make the necessary alteration on the ma.n.u.script, 'but why not use your real name? I prophesy you'll be proud of that book some day; think over it.'

'No,' said Mark, 'I don't wish my real name to appear just yet' (he hardly knew why; perhaps a lingering sense of shame held him back from this more open dishonesty). 'Will you strike out "Vincent Beauchamp,"

and put in "Cyril Ernstone," please?' For 'Cyril Ernstone' had been the pseudonym which he had chosen long ago for himself, and he wished to be able to use it now, since he must not use his own.

'Very well, then, we may consider that settled. We think of bringing out the book as soon as possible, without waiting for the spring season; it will go to press at once and we will send you the proofs as soon as we get them in.'

'There's one thing, perhaps, I'd better mention,' said Mark suddenly; after he had turned to go a new danger had occurred to him, 'the handwriting of the ma.n.u.script is not mine. I--I thought it as well to tell you that beforehand; it might lead to mistakes. I had it copied out for me by--by a friend.'

Mr. Fladgate burst out laughing. 'Pardon me,' he said, when he had finished, 'but really I couldn't help it, you do seem to have been so bent on hoodwinking us.'

'And yet you have found me out, you see,' said Mark, with a very unmirthful smile.

Mr. Fladgate smiled, too, making a little gesture of his hand, thinking very possibly that few precautions could be proof against his sagacity, and they parted.

Mark went down the stairs and through the clerks' room into the street, with a dazed and rather awestruck feeling upon him. He hardly realised the treachery he had been guilty of, the temptation had burst upon him so suddenly, his fall had been made so easy for him, that he scarcely felt his dishonour, nor was he likely to feel it very keenly so long as only good results should flow from it. But he was vaguely conscious that he was not the same Mark Ashburn who had parted from old Shelford not an hour ago in the street there; he was a man with a new hope in his breast, and it might be a new fear, but the hope was near and bright, the fear shadowy and remote as yet: he had only to keep his own counsel and be patient for a while, and the course of events would a.s.suredly bring him the stake he had played so high for.

At home that evening he took down his ma.n.u.script novels (which of course he had _not_ burnt) and read them again carefully. Yes; there was power in them, he felt it, a copious flow of words, sparkling wit, and melting pathos. The white heat at which the lines were written surprised even himself. It was humiliating to think that without the subterfuge that had been forced upon him he might have found it impossible to find publishers who would appreciate these merits, for after Messrs. Leadbitter & Gandy's refusal he had recognised this to the full; but now, at least, they were insured against any such fate.

A careful reading was absolutely necessary to a proper estimation of them, and a careful reading they had never had as yet, and would receive at last, or, if they did not, it would only be because the reputation he had appropriated would procure them a ready acceptance without any such preliminary ordeal. The great point gained was that they would be published, and after that he feared nothing.

If anything whispered to him that he might have accomplished even this by honourable means; that in time and with economy he could have produced them at his own expense; that perhaps a little more perseverance might even have discovered a firm with sufficient faith to take the risk upon themselves; if these doubts suggested themselves to him he had little difficulty in arguing them down. They might have had some weight once, but they came too late; the thing was done now and could never be recalled; his whole interest lay in persuading himself that what he had done was the only thing that could be done, unless he was content to resign his ambition for ever, and Mark succeeded in persuading himself of this.

Very soon his chief feeling was one of impatience for Holroyd's book to come out and make way for his own: then any self-reproach he might still feel would be drowned in a sense of triumph which would justify the means he had taken; so he waited eagerly for the arrival of the first proofs.

They arrived at last. As he came back one evening to Malakoff Terrace, Trixie ran to meet him, holding up two tightly rolled parcels, with a great curiosity in her eyes. 'They came this afternoon,' she whispered, 'and oh, Mark, I couldn't help it; I tore one end a little and peeped; are they really part of a book--is it _yours_?'

Mark thought he had better accustom himself to this kind of thing as early as possible. 'Yes, Trixie,' he said, 'they're the first proofs of my book.'

'O-oh!' cried Trixie, with a gasp of delight, 'not "Sweet Bells Jangled," Mark?'

'No, _not_ "Sweet Bells Jangled," it--it's a book you don't know about--a little thing I don't expect very much from, but my publishers seem to like it, and I can follow it up with the "Bells" afterwards.'

He was turning over the rough greyish pages as he spoke, and Trixie was peeping greedily at them, too, with her pretty chin dug into his shoulder.

'And did you really write all that?' she said; 'how interesting it looks, you clever boy! You _might_ have told me you were doing it, though. What's it about?'

'How can I tell you before I know myself,' said Mark, quite forgetting himself in his impatience. 'I--I mean, Trixie, that I can't correct these proofs as they ought to be corrected while you stay here chattering.'

'I'll go in a minute, Mark; but you won't have time to correct them before dinner, you know. When did you write it?'

'What _does_ it matter when I wrote it!' said Mark irritably; 'if it hadn't been written the proofs wouldn't be here, would they? Is there anything else you would like to know--_how_ I wrote it, where I wrote it, why I wrote it? You seem to think it a most extraordinary thing that anything I write should be printed at all, Trixie.'

'I don't know why you should speak like that, Mark,' said Trixie, rather hurt; 'you know a little while ago you never expected such a thing yourself. I can't help wanting to know all I can about it. What _will_ you say to Uncle Solomon?' she added, with a little quiver of laughter in her voice. 'You promised him to give up literature, you know.'

'Don't you remember the Arab gentleman in the poem?' said Mark lightly. 'He agreed to sell his steed, but when the time came it didn't come off--he didn't come off, either--_he_ "flung them back their gold," and rode away. I shall fling Uncle Solomon back _his_ gold, metaphorically, and gallop off on my Pegasus.'

'Ma won't like that,' prophesied Trixie, shaking her head wisely.

'No; mother objects to that kind of horse-exercise, and, ahem, Trixie, it might be as well to say nothing about it to any of them just at present. There will only be a fuss about it, and I can't stand that.'

Trixie promised silence. 'I'm so glad about it, though, you can't think, Mark,' she said; 'and this isn't one of your _great_ books, either, you said, didn't you?'

'No,' said Mark; 'it's not one of _them_. I haven't put my best work into it.'

'You put your best work into the two that came back, didn't you?'

asked Trixie naively. 'But they won't come back any more, will they?

They'll be glad of them if this is a success.'

'Fladgate will be glad of them, I fancy, in any case. I've got a chance at last, Trixie. A chance at last!'

Later that night he locked himself in the room which he used as a sitting-room and bedroom combined, and set himself, not without repugnance, to go steadily through the proofs, and make the acquaintance of the work he had made his own.

Much has been said of the delight with which an author reads his first proofs, and possibly the sensation is a wholly pleasurable one to some; to others it is not without its drawbacks. Ideas that seemed vivid and bright enough when they were penned have a bald tame look in the new form in which they come back. The writer finds himself judging the work as a stranger's, and forming the worst opinions of it. He sees hideous gaps and crudities beyond all power of correction, and for the first time, perhaps, since he learned that his ma.n.u.script was accepted, his self-doubts return to him.

But Mark's feelings were much more complicated than this; all the gratified pride of an author was naturally denied to him, and it was thoroughly distasteful to him to carry out his scheme of deception by such sordid details as the necessary corrections of printers' errors.

But he was anxiously eager to find out what kind of a literary bantling was this which he had fathered so fraudulently; he had claimed it in blind reliance on the publisher's evident enthusiasm--had he made a mistake after all? What if it proved something which could do him no credit whatever--a trap into which his ambition had led him! The thought that this might be so made him very uneasy. Poor Holroyd, he thought, was a very good fellow--an excellent fellow, but not exactly the man to write a book of extraordinary merit--clever, perhaps, but clever in an un.o.btrusive way--and Mark's tendency was to judge, as he expected to be judged himself, by outsides.

With these misgivings crowded upon him, he sat down to read the opening chapters; he was not likely to be much overcome by admiration in any case, for his habitual att.i.tude in studying even the greatest works was critical, as he felt the presence of eccentricities or shortcomings which he himself would have avoided.

But at least, as he read on, his greatest anxiety was set at rest--if he could judge by the instalment before him, and the book was not in any danger of coming absolutely to grief--it would do his reputation no harm. It was not, to be sure, the sort of book he would have written himself, as he affected the cynical mode of treatment and the indiscriminate satire which a rather young writer feels instinctively that the world expects from him. Still, it was not so bad. It was slightly dreamy and mystical in parts, the work of a man who had lived more amongst books than in the world, but some of the pa.s.sages glowed with the rich imagery of a true poet, and here and there were indications of a quiet and cultivated humour which would recommend itself to all who do not consider the humorous element in literature as uncanny, if not personally offensive. The situations were strong, too, and as nearly new as situations can be and retain any probability in this over-plagiarised world; and at least one of the characters was obviously studied from life with a true and tender observation.

All of this Mark did not see, nor was he capable of seeing, but he thought that, with a little 'weeding' and 'writing-up,' the book would do, and set himself to supply what was wanting with a laudable self-devotion. His general plan of accomplishing this may be described here once for all.

He freshened up chapters with touches of satire, and gave them a more scholarly air by liberal allusions to the cla.s.sics; he rewrote some of the more descriptive and romantic pa.s.sages, putting his finest and most florid epithets into them with what he felt was very like disinterestedness, and a reckless waste of good material. And he cut down the dialogue in places, or gave it a more colloquial turn, so as to suit the tastes of the average reader, and he worked up some of the crises which struck him as inadequately treated.

After that he felt much easier; either considering that these improvements const.i.tuted a sort of atonement, or that they removed any chance of failure. As this book was to go forth and herald his own, it was vitally important that it should make as imposing an appearance as possible.

CHAPTER XI.

REVOLT.

One afternoon, early in the year, Mark had betaken himself to the 'c.o.c.k,' where he was to lunch with his uncle by appointment before going with him to the steward's office of his Inn to pay his fees for the privilege of being called to the Bar. For Mark had duly presented himself for the not very searching ordeal by which the public is guaranteed against the incompetence of pract.i.tioners, and, rather to his own surprise, had not been required to try again. 'Call night' was announced in the windows of the law wig-makers, and Uncle Solomon, in high delight, resolved that his nephew should join the next batch of barristers, had appointed this day for choosing the wig and gown and settling all other preliminaries--he had been so much pleased, in fact, as to inclose a handsome cheque in the letter which conveyed his desires.

So Mark waited by the h.o.a.rdings of the New Law Courts, until his relative should join him. Mark was not at ease--he was nerving himself to make a statement which he felt would come upon his uncle as a far from gratifying surprise--he had put it off from time to time, out of weakness, or, as he had told himself, from diplomacy. Now he could do so no longer. Uncle Solomon had hinted terrible things in his letter of a certain brief with which his own solicitor was to entrust the brand-new barrister the morning after his call! But for this, Mark might have let things drift, as he would strongly have preferred to do, but this threat of immediate employment drove him to declare himself. He firmly believed that his true vocation was the one he had secured at such cost to his self-respect; he was willing enough to bear the t.i.tle of barrister, but he had no intention of devoting himself seriously to the profession; he saw little more attraction in the Bar than in teaching, and the most self-confident man might have recoiled at having work thrust into his hands before he had undergone the slightest practical training for conducting it. And Mark's imagination saw his first brief bringing others in its train, until he should sink in a sea of blue foolscap, helpless and entangled in clinging tentacles of red-tape. Perhaps this was a groundless alarm, but he had planned out a particular career for himself, a career of going about and observing (and it is well known that what a man of genius calls 'observing' is uncommonly like ordinary people's enjoyment), being famous and flattered, and sitting down in moments of inspiration to compose with a clear head and a mind unhampered by all other considerations. Now the responsibility of legal work _would_ hamper him--he felt his muse to be of that jealous disposition which will suffer no rival--if he meant to be free at all, he must strike the blow at once. And so, as has been said, he was not at his ease.

Mr. Lightowler appeared as St. Clement Danes struck half-past one; he was in high good-humour, jubilant, and ruddy. 'Well, Master Barrister,' he said, chuckling; 'to think o' my living to see you figurin' about in a wig and gown--you must cut off that moustache of yours, though, Mark: none of the young barrister fellows I see goin'