"Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her,--but I will not keep her long."- "Richard III."
There was no doubt about it that Harley, true to his purpose, was making a good fight to conquer without compulsion, and appreciated as much as I the necessity of reducing his heroine to concrete form as speedily as possible, lest some other should prove more successful, and so deprive him of the laurels for which he had worked so hard and suffered so much. In his favor was his disposition. He was a man of great determination, and once he set about doing something he was not an easy man to turn aside, and now that, for the first time in his life, he found himself baffled at every point, and by a heroine of no very great literary importance, he became more determined than ever.
"I'll conquer yet," he said to me, a week or so later; but the weariness with which he spoke made me fear that victory was afar off.
"I've no doubt of it--ultimately," I answered, to encourage him; "but don't you think you'll stand a better chance if you let her rest for a while, and then steal in upon her unawares, and catch her little romance as it flies? She is apparently nerved up against you now, and the more conscious she is of your efforts to put her on paper, the more she will rebel. In fact, her rebelliousness will become more and more a matter of whim than of principle, unless you let up on her for a little while. Half of her opposition now strikes me as obstinacy, and the more you try to break her spirit, even though you do it gently, the more stubborn will she become. Put this book aside for a few weeks anyhow. Why not tackle something else? You'd do better work, too, after a little variety.""This must be finished by September 1st, that's why not," said Stuart. "I've promised Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick to send them the completed manuscript by that time. Besides, no heroine of mine shall ever say that she swerved me from doing what I have set about doing.
It is now or never with Marguerite Andrews."So I left him at his desk, and for a week was busy with my own affairs. Late the following Friday night I dropped in at Harley's rooms to see how matters were progressing. As I entered I saw him at his desk, his back turned towards me, silhouetted in the lamp-light, scratching away furiously with his pen.
"Ah!" I thought, as my eye took in the picture, "it goes at last. Iguess I won't disturb his train of thought."And I tried to steal softly out, for he had not observed my entrance.
As luck would have it, I stepped upon the sill of the door as Ipassed out, and it creaked.
"Hello!" cried Harley, wheeling about in his chair, startled by the sound.
"Oh! It's you, is it?" he added, as he recognized me. "What are you up to? Come back here. I want to see you."His manner was cheerful, but I could see that the cheerfulness was assumed. The color had completely left his cheeks, and great rings under his eyes betokened weariness of spirit.