“Oh, but I’m sure you oughtn’t,” she murmured, drooping away but leaving her eyes close to his.
“Oughtn’t what?” he stammered, entangled in his confusion.
“To tell me how you write your stories; or anything at all about them. Halo’s so reckless—she doesn’t stop to consider. And of course I’m burning to know. But people might think … you see, I simply must preserve my aloofness, my entire impartiality … or they’d say I was interfering. … And I’m sure I shall never like another story as much as yours. Oh, Mr. Weston, it’s a dreadful responsibility,” she wailed.
Vance was watching her curiously. He noticed the way her wandering eyes were set guardedly under a small contracted brow (“as if they were peering out of prison,” he thought, “and reckoning up the chances of escape”). The idea amused him, and he had to rouse himself to answer: “You mean giving the prize is a responsibility? But you don’t, do you? I thought there was a committee?”
“Of course, of course, but that’s the reason. If it should be suspected that I tried to influence them … and yet I do so worship what you write!” She swayed nearer, enveloping him in a golden network of smiles and shimmers, imparting in confidential murmurs commonplaces that might have been published on the housetops, telling him what a burden her money was, how much she needed sympathy, how few people she could talk to as she was talking to him, how the moment she had read the first lines of “Unclaimed” she had felt that there was someone who would understand her—and how she envied his heroine for being able, even at the cost of her last penny, to be herself, to proclaim her love openly, to starve herself in order to build a monument to the man who had never known she loved him. “How you do know women!” she murmured, swaying and gazing and retreating. “How in the world did you ever guess … ? Several of my friends have told me your Tullia was my living portrait. … But I mustn’t talk of that now. Won’t you come and see me some day? Yes—that would be better. I’m so alone, Mr. Weston—I do so need advice and encouragement! Sometimes I wish I’d never undertaken this prize business; but wealth has its duties, hasn’t it?”
She had rambled on for a long time, yet not long enough to satisfy his curiosity, when suddenly she started back. “Oh, but I mustn’t keep you any longer. … Why, there’s Fynes over there staring at us!” she exclaimed in agitation. “He’s one of our committee, you know. And he never goes to evening parties—not respectable ones, I mean. I daresay he’s come here just to look you over. …” She stood up nervously.
“Tristram Fynes? Who wrote The Corner Grocery?”
Vance interrupted with a shock of excitement.
“Yes, over there. That dreary little man by the door. You think him so wonderful?”
“It’s a big book.”
“Oh, I daresay, but the people are so dreadfully unsympathetic. I suppose you’ll call me very old-fashioned; but I don’t think our novelists ought to rob us of all hope, all belief. … But come, everybody’s waiting to talk to you. Fynes sees that, and he hates it. Oh, I do hope I haven’t spoilt your chance of the prize!” She held out her hand. “You will come to see me, won’t you? Yes—at six some day. Will you come tomorrow?” she insisted, and drew him after her across the room.
Vance, in following, had his eyes on the small dreary man by the door. Of the many recent novels he had devoured very few had struck him as really important; and of these The Corner Grocery was easily first. Among dozens of paltry books pushed into notoriety it was the only one entitled to such distinction. Readers all over the country had felt its evident sincerity, and its title had become the proverbial epithet of the smalltown atmosphere. It did not fully satisfy Vance; he thought the writer left untouched most of the deeper things the theme implied; if he himself had been able to write such a book he would have written it differently. But it was fearless, honest, preternaturally alive; and these qualities, which to Vance seemed the foundation of the rest, were those he most longed to acquire. “First stand your people on their feet,” Frenside had once enjoined him; “there’ll be time enough afterward to tell us where they went.” If only Tristram Fynes should be moved to say that the people in “Unclaimed” stood on their feet!
Vance’s heart thumped furiously as Mrs. Pulsifer paused near the great man. If it should really turn out that Fynes had read “Unclaimed,” and was here because of it!
“Oh, Mr. Fynes—what a surprise! I didn’t know you ever condescended … Oh, but you mustn’t say you’re going—not before I’ve introduced Mr. Weston! Vance Weston; yes; who wrote ‘Unclaimed.’ He’s simply dying to talk to you about …”
Mr. Fynes’s compressed lips snapped open. “About The Corner Grocery, eh? Well, there’s a good deal to be said about it that hasn’t been said yet,” he rejoined energetically, fixing his eyes on Vance. “You’re one of the new reviewers, aren’t you? Do ‘The Coconut Tree’ in the New Hour? Yes—I believe I saw something of yours the other day. Well, see here; this is no place for a serious talk, but I’d be glad if you’d come round some day and just let me tell you exactly what I want said about The Corner Grocery. … Much the best way, you know. The book’s a big book; no doubt about that. What I want people told is why it’s big. … Come round tomorrow, will you? I’m going to cut it now. …”
He vanished, and Vance stood dazed. But not for long. Others claimed his attention, people who wanted to talk to him not about themselves but about “Unclaimed.” The room was not crowded; there were probably not more
