Chapter 23

Mr. Rattray's proposal occurred as soon after the close of the season as he was able to find time to devote the amount of attention to it which he felt it required. He put it off deliberately till then, fearing that it might entail a degree of mental agitation on his part that would have an undesirable reflex action upon the paper. Mr. Rattray had never been really attracted toward matrimony before, although he had taken, in a discussion in the columns of the Age upon the careworn query, "Is Marriage a Failure?" a vigorous negative side under various pen-names which argued not only inclination, but experience. He felt, therefore, that he could not possibly predicate anything of himself under the circumstances, and that it would be distinctly the part of wisdom to wait until there was less going on. Mr. Rattray had an indefinite idea that in case of a rejection he might find it necessary to go out of town for some weeks to pull himself together again—it was the traditional course—and if such an exigency occurred before July the office would go to pieces under the pressure of events. So he waited, becoming every day more enthusiastically aware of the great advantage of having Miss Bell permanently connected with the paper under supervision which would be even more highly authorized than an editor's, and growing at the same time more thoroughly impressed with the unusual character of her personal charm. Elfrida was a "find" to Mr. Arthur Rattray from a newspaper point of view—a find he gave himself credit for sagaciously recognizing, and one which it would be expedient to obtain complete possession of before its market value should become known. And it was hardly possible for Mr. Rattray to divest himself of the newspaper point of view in the consideration of anything which concerned him personally. It struck him as uniquely fortunate that his own advantage and that of the Age should tally, as it undoubtedly might in this instance; and that, for Arthur Rattray, was putting the matter in a rather high, almost disinterested connection.

It is doubtful whether to this day Mr. Rattray fully understands his rejection, it was done so deftly, so frankly, yet with such a delicate consideration for his feelings. He took it, he assured himself afterward, without winking; but it is unlikely that he felt sufficiently indebted to the manner of its administration, in congratulating himself upon this point. It may be, too, that he left Miss Bell with the impression that her intention never to marry was not an immovable one, given indefinite time and indefinite abstention, on his part, from alluding to the subject. Certainly he found himself surprisingly little cast down by the event, and more resolved than ever to make the editor-in-chief admit that Elfrida's contributions were "the brightest things in the paper," and act accordingly. He realized, in the course of time, that he had never been very confident of any other answer; but nothing is more certain than that it acted as a curious stimulus to his interest in Elfrida's work. He found a co-enthusiast in Golightly Ticke, and on more than one occasion they agreed that something, must be done to bring Miss Bell before the public, to put within her reach the opportunity of the success she deserved, which was of the order Mr. Rattray described as "screaming."

"So far as the booming is concerned," said Mr. Rattray to Mr. Ticke, "I will attend to that; but there must be something to boom. We can't sound the loud tocsin on a lot of our own paras. She must do something that will go between two covers."

The men were talking in Golightly's room over easeful Sunday afternoon cigars; and as Rattray spoke they heard a light step mount the stairs. "There she is now," replied Ticke. "Suppose we go up and propose it to her?"

"I wish I knew what to suggest," Rattray returned; "but we might talk it over with her—when she's had time to take off her bonnet."

Ten minutes later Elfrida was laughing at their ambitions. "A success?" she exclaimed. "Oh yes! I mean to have a success—one day! But not yet—oh no! First I must learn to write a line decently, then a paragraph, then a page. I must wait, oh, a very long time—ten years perhaps. Five, anyway."

"Oh, if you do that," protested Golightly Ticke, "it will be like decanted champagne. A success at nineteen—"

"Twenty-one," corrected Elfrida.

"Twenty-one if you like—is a sparkling success. A success at thirty-one is—well, it lacks the accompaniments."

"You are a great deal too exacting, Miss Bell," Rattray put in; "those things you do for us are charming, you know they are."

"You are very good to say so. I'm afraid they're only frivolous scraps."

"My opinion is this," Rattray went on sturdily. "You only want material. Nobody can make bricks without straw—to sell—and very few people can evolve books out of the air that any publisher will look at it. You get material for your scraps, and you treat it unconventionally, so the scraps supply a demand. It's a demand that's increasing every day—for fresh, unconventional matter. Your ability to treat the scraps proves your ability to do more sustained work if you could find it. Get the material for a book, and I'll guarantee you'll do it well."

Elfrida looked from one to the other with bright eyes. "What do you suggest?" she said, with a nervous little laugh. She had forgotten that she meant to wait ten years.

"That's precisely the difficulty," said Golightly, running his fingers through his hair.

"We must get hold of something," said Rattray. "You've never thought of doing a novel?"

Elfrida shook her head decidedly. "Not now," she said. "I would not dare. I haven't looked at life long enough—I've had hardly any experience at all. I couldn't conceive a single character with any force or completeness. And then for a novel one wants a leading idea—the plot, of course, is of no particular consequence. Rather I should say plots have merged into leading ideas; and I have none."