And I tried that plan. As docile as a lamb she entered the phaeton, which I conjured up out of my ink-pot, and like a veteran Jehu did she seize the reins. I could not help admiring her as I wrote of it--she was so like a goddess; but I did not relent. Run away with she must be, and run away with she was. But again did this extraordinary woman assert herself to my discomfiture; for the moment she saw Bonetti rushing out to rescue her from the east, she jerked the left rein so violently that the horse swerved to one side, toppled over on Osborne, who had sprung gallantly to the rescue from the west; and Bonetti, missing his aim as the horse turned, fell all in a heap in the roadway two yards back of the phaeton. Miss Andrews was not hurt, but my story was, for she had not even observed the unhappy Osborne; and as for Bonetti, he cut so ridiculous a figure that, Italian though he was, even he seemed aware of it, and he shrank dejectedly out of sight. Again had this supernaturally elusive heroine upset the plans of one who had essayed to embalm her virtues in a literary mould. I could not bring her into contact with either of my heroes.
I threw my pen down in disgust, slammed to the cover of my ink-well, and for two hours paced madly through the maze-like walks of the Central Park, angry and depressed; and from that moment until Iundertook the narration of this pathetic story I gave Harley's heroine up as unavailable material for my purposes. She was worse, if anything, in imaginative work than in realism, because she absolutely defied the imagination, while the realist she would be glad to help so long as his realism was kept in strict accord with her ideas of what the real really was.
It was some days before I saw Harley again, and I thought he looked tired and anxious--so anxious, indeed, that I was afraid he might possibly be in financial straits, for I knew that for three weeks he had not turned out any of his usual pot-boilers, having been too busy trying to write the story for Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick.
It happened, oddly enough, that I had two or three uncashed checks in my pocket; so, feeling like a millionaire, I broached the subject to him.
"What's the matter, old fellow?" I said. "You seem in a blue funk.
Has the mint stopped? If it has, command me. I'm overburdened with checks this week.""Not at all; thanks just the same," he said, wearily. "My Tiffin royalties came in Wednesday, and I'm all right for a while, anyhow.""What's up, then, Stuart?" I asked. "You look worried. I've just offered to share my prosperity with you, you might share your grief with me. Lend me a peck of trouble overnight, will you?""Oh, it's nothing much," he said. "It's that rebellious heroine of mine. She's weighing on my mind, that's all. She's very real to me, that woman; and, by Jove! I've been as jealous as a lover for two days over a fancy that came into my head. You'll laugh when I tell you, but I've been half afraid somebody else would take her up and--well, treat her badly. There is something that tells me that she has been forced into some brutal situation by somebody, somewhere, within the past two or three days. I believe I'd want to kill a man who did that."I didn't laugh at him. I was the man who was in a fair way to get killed for "doing that," and I thought laughter would be a little bit misplaced; but I am not a coward, and I didn't flinch. I confessed.
I tried to ease his mind by telling him what I had attempted to do.
"It was a mistake," he said, shortly, when I had finished. "And you must promise me one thing," he added, very seriously.
"I'll promise anything," I said, meekly.
"Don't ever try anything of the sort again," he went on, gravely.
"If you had succeeded in writing that story, and subjected her to all that horror, I should never have spoken to you again. As it is, Irealize that what you did was out of the kindness of your heart, prompted by a desire to be of service to me, and I'm just as much obliged as I can be, only I don't want any assistance.""Until you ask me to, Stuart," I replied, "I'll never write another line about her; but you'd better keep very mum about her yourself, or get her copyrighted. The way she upset that horse on Osborne, completely obliterating him, and at the same time getting out of the way of that little simian Count, in spite of all I could do to place her under obligations to both of them, was what the ancients would have called a caution. She has made a slave of me forever, and Iventure to predict that if you don't hurry up and get her into a book, somebody else will; and whoever does will make a name for himself alongside of which that of Smith will sink into oblivion.""Count on me for that," said he. "'Faint heart never won fair lady,'
and I don't intend to stop climbing just because I fear a few more falls."