Tom Franks was seated before his desk
in his office. He was a good deal perturbed.
His calm was for the time being destroyed, although
it wanted but a week to his wedding-day. He did
not look at all like a happy bride-groom.
“It is a case of jilting,”
he said to himself, and he took up a letter which
he had received from Florence that morning. It
was very short and ran as follows:
“I cannot marry you, and you
will soon know why. When you know the reason
you won’t want me. I am terribly sorry,
but sorrow won’t alter matters. Please
do not expect the manuscript. Yours truly,
“FLORENCE AYLMER.”
“What does the girl mean?”
he said to himself. “Really, at the present
moment, the most annoying part of all is the fact that
I have not received the manuscript. The printers
are waiting for it. The new number of the Argonaut
will be nothing without it. The story was advertised
in the last number, and all our readers will expect
it.”
A clerk came in at that moment.
“Has Miss Aylmer’s manuscript
come, sir?” he said. “The printers
are waiting for it.”
“The printers must wait, Dawson;
I shall be going to see Miss Aylmer and will bring
the manuscript back. Here, hand me a telegram
form. I want to send a wire in a hurry.”
The clerk did so. Franks dictated
a few words aloud: “Will call to see you
at twelve o’clock. Please remain in.”
He gave the man Florence’s address,
and he departed with the telegram. Franks looked
up at the clock.
He thought for a little longer.
Anderson opened the door of his room and called him.
“Is that you, Franks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“May I speak to you for a moment?”
“Certainly,” replied Franks.
He went into his chief’s room and shut the door.
“I have been thinking, Franks,”
said Mr. Anderson, “whether we do well to encourage
that extremely pessimistic writing which Miss Florence
Aylmer supplies us with.”
“Do well to encourage it?”
said Franks, opening his eyes very wide.
“I have hesitated to speak to
you,” continued Mr. Anderson, “because
you are engaged to the young lady, and you naturally,
and very justly, are proud of her abilities; but the
strain in which she addresses her public is beginning
to be noticed, and although her talent attracts, her
morbidity and want of all hope will in the end tell
against the Argonaut, and even still more against
the General Review. I wish you would have
a serious talk with her, Franks, and tell her that
unless she alters the tone of her writings my
dear fellow, I am sorry to pain you, but really I
cannot accept them.”
Franks uttered a bitter laugh.
“You are very likely to have
your wish, sir,” he said. “I am even
now writing for the manuscript for the fourth story
which you know was advertised in the last Argonaut.”
“I believe she will always write
according to her convictions.”
“And that is what pains me so
much,” continued Mr. Anderson. “I
have myself looked over her proofs, and have endeavoured
to infuse a cheerful note into them; but cutting won’t
do it, nor will removing certain passages. The
same miserable, unnatural outlook pervades every word
she says. I believe her mind is made that way.”
“You are not very complimentary,”
said Franks, almost losing his temper. He was
quiet for a moment, then he said slowly: “We
are very likely to have to do without Miss Aylmer.
I begin to think that she is a very strange girl.
She has offered to release me from my engagement; in
fact, she has declared that she will not go on with
it, and says that she cannot furnish us with any more
manuscripts.”
“Then, in the name of Heaven,
what are we to do for the next number?” said
Mr. Anderson. “Look through all available
manuscripts at once, my dear fellow; there is not
a moment to lose.”
“I’ll do better than that,”
replied Franks. “Our public expect a story
by Miss Aylmer in the next number, and if possible
they must have it. I have already wired to say
that I will call upon her, and with your permission,
as the time is nearly up, I will go to Prince’s
Mansions now.”
“It may be best,” said
Mr. Anderson. He looked gloomy and anxious.
“You can cut the new story a bit cannot you,
Franks?”
“I will do my best, sir.”
The young man went out of the room.
He was just crossing his own apartment when the door
was opened and his clerk came in.
“A lady to see you, sir:
she says her business is pressing.”
“A lady to see me! Say
I am going out. I cannot see anyone at present.
Who is she? Has she come by appointment?”
“She has not come by appointment,
sir; her name is Miss Keys Miss Bertha
Keys.”
“I never heard of her.
Say that I am obliged to go out and cannot see her
to-day; ask her to call another time. Leave me
now, Dawson; I want to keep my appointment with Miss
Aylmer.”
Dawson left the room.
He then crossed the room to the peg
where he kept his coat and hat, and was preparing
to put them on when once again Dawson appeared.
“Miss Keys says she has come
about Miss Aylmer’s business, and she thinks
you will not lose any time if you see her, sir.”
Bertha Keys had quietly entered the
apartment behind the clerk.
“I have come on the subject
of Florence Aylmer and the manuscript you expect her
to send you,” said Bertha Keys. “Will
you give me two or three moments of your valuable
time?”
Dawson glanced at Franks. Franks
nodded to him to withdraw, and the next moment Miss
Keys and Mr. Franks found themselves alone.
Franks did not speak at all for a
moment. Bertha in the meantime was taking his
measure.
“May I sit down?” she
said. “I am a little tired; I have come
all the way from Shropshire this morning.”
Franks pushed a chair towards her,
but still did not speak. She looked at him, and
a faint smile dawned round her lips.
“You are expecting Florence
Aylmer’s manuscript, are you not?” she
said then.
He nodded, but his manner was as much
as to say: “What business is it of yours?”
He was magnetized by the curious expression
in her eyes; he thought he had never seen such clever
eyes before. He was beginning to be interested
in her.
“I have come about Florence’s
manuscript; but, all the same, you bitterly resent
my intrusion. By the way, you are engaged to marry
Florence Aylmer?”
“I was,” replied Franks
shortly; “but pardon me. I am extremely
busy: if she has chosen you as her messenger
to bring the manuscript, will you kindly give it to
me and go?”
“How polite!” said Bertha,
with a smile. “I have not brought any manuscript
from Florence Aylmer; but I have brought a manuscript
from myself.”
Franks uttered an angry exclamation.
“Have you forced your way into my room about
that?” he said.
“I have. You have received
and published three stories purporting to be
by the pen of Florence Aylmer. You have also published
one or two articles by the same person. You are
waiting for the fourth story, which was promised to
the readers of the Argonaut in last month’s
number. The first three stories made a great
sensation. You are impatient and disturbed because
the fourth story has not come to hand. Here it
is.”
Bertha hastily opened a small packet
which she held in her hand and produced a manuscript.
“Look at it,” she said;
“read the opening sentence. I am not in
the slightest hurry; take your own time, but read,
if you will, the first page. If the style is
not the style of the old stories, if the matter is
not equal in merit to the stories already published,
then I will own to you that I came here on a false
errand and will ask you to forgive me.”
Franks, with still that strange sense
of being mesmerized, received the manuscript from
Bertha’s long slim hand. He sank into his
office chair and listlessly turned the pages.
He read a sentence or two and then
looked up at the clock.
“I have wired to Miss Aylmer
to expect me at twelve: it is past that hour
now. I really must ask you to pardon me.”
“Miss Aylmer will not be in.
Miss Aylmer has left Prince’s Mansions.
I happened to call there and know what I am saying.
Will you go on reading? You want your story.
I believe your printers are waiting for it even now.”
Franks fidgeted impatiently.
Once again his eyes lit upon the page. As he
read, Bertha’s own eyes devoured his face.
She knew each word of that first page. She had
taken special and extra pains with it; it represented
her best, her very best; it was strong, perfect in
style, and her treatment of her subject was original;
there was a note of passion and pathos, there was
a deep undercurrent of human feeling in her words.
Franks read to the end.
If he turned the page Bertha felt
that her victory would be won if he closed
the manuscript she had still to fight her battle.
Her heart beat quickly. She wondered what the
Fates had in store for her.
Franks at last came to the final word;
he hesitated, half looked up, then his fingers trembled.
He turned the page. Bertha saw by the look on
his face that he had absolutely forgotten her.
She gave a brief sigh: the time of tension was
over, the victory was won. She rose and approached
him.
“I can take that to another house,” she
said.
“No, no,” said Franks;
“there is stuff in this. It is quite up
to the usual mark. So Florence gave it to you
to bring to me. Now, you know, I do not quite
like the tone nor does my chief; but the talent is
unmistakable.”
“You will publish it, then?”
“Certainly. I see it is
the usual length. If you will pardon me, as things
are pressing, I will ring and give this to the printers.”
“One moment first. You
think that manuscript has been written by Florence
Aylmer?”
“Why not? Of course it
has!” He looked uneasily from the paper in his
hand to the girl who stood before him. “What
do you mean?”
“I have something to tell you.
You may be angry with me, but I do not much care.
I possess the genius, not Florence Aylmer; I
am the writer of that story. Florence Aylmer
wrote one thing for you, a schoolgirl essay, which
you returned. I wrote the papers which the public
liked; I wrote the stories which the public
devoured. I am the woman of genius; I am the
ghost behind Florence Aylmer; I am the real author.
You can give up the false: the real has come to
you at last.”
“You must be telling me an untruth,”
said Franks. He staggered back, his face became
green, his eyes flashed angrily.
“I am telling you the truth;
you have but to ask Florence herself. Has she
not broken off her engagement with you?”
“She has, and a good thing,
too,” he muttered under his breath.
“Ah! I heard those words,
though you said them so low, and it is a good thing
for you. You would never have been happy with
a girl like Florence. I know her well. I
don’t pretend that I played a very nice part;
but still I am not ashamed. I want money now;
I did not want money when I offered my productions
to Florence. I hoped that I should be a very
rich woman. My hopes have fallen to the ground;
therefore I take back that talent with which Nature
has endowed me. You can give me orders
for the Argonaut in the future. You will
kindly pay me for that story. Now I think
I have said what I meant to say, and I wish you good-morning.”
“But you must stay a moment,
Miss I really forget your name.”
“My name is Keys Bertha
Keys. Other well-known magazines will pay me
for all I can write for them; but I am willing to give
you the whole of my writings, say for three
months, if you are willing to pay me according to
my own ideas.”
“What are those?”
“You must double your pay to
me. You can, if you like, publish this little
story about Florence and myself in some of your society
gossip I do not mind at all or
you can keep it quiet. You have but to say in
one of your issues that the nom de plume under
which your talented author wrote is, for reasons of
her own, changed. You can give me a fresh title.
The world will suspect mystery and run after me more
than ever. I think that is the principal thing
I have to say to you. Now, may I wish you good-morning?”
Bertha rose as she spoke, dropped
a light mocking curtsey in Franks’s direction,
and let herself out of the room before he had time
to realize that she was leaving.