第34章 XVII.(1)

Burnamy paused in a flow of autobiography, and modestly waited for Miss Triscoe's prompting. He had not to wait long.

"And then, how soon did you think of printing your things in a book?"

"Oh, about as soon as they began to take with the public."

"How could you tell that they were-taking?"

"They were copied into other papers, and people talked about them."

"And that was what made Mr. Stoller want you to be his secretary?"

"I don't believe it was. The theory in the office was that he didn't think much of them; but he knows I can write shorthand, and put things into shape."

"What things?"

"Oh--ideas. He has a notion of trying to come forward in politics. He owns shares in everything but the United States Senate--gas, electricity, railroads, aldermen, newspapers--and now he would like some Senate.

That's what I think."

She did not quite understand, and she was far from knowing that this cynic humor expressed a deadlier pessimism than her father's fiercest accusals of the country. "How fascinating it is!" she said, innocently.

"And I suppose they all envy your coming out?"

"In the office?"

"Yes. I should envy, them--staying."

Burnamy laughed. "I don't believe they envy me. It won't be all roses for me--they know that. But they know that I can take care of myself if it isn't." He remembered something one of his friends in the office had said of the painful surprise the Bird of Prey would feel if he ever tried his beak on him in the belief that he was soft.

She abruptly left the mere personal question. "And which would you rather write: poems or those kind of sketches?"

"I don't know," said Burnamy, willing to talk of himself on any terms.

"I suppose that prose is the thing for our time, rather more; but there are things you can't say in prose. I used to write a great deal of verse in college; but I didn't have much luck with editors till Mr. March took this little piece for 'Every Other Week'."

"Little? I thought it was a long poem!"

Burnamy laughed at the notion. "It's only eight lines."

"Oh!" said the girl. "What is it about?"

He yielded to the temptation with a weakness which he found incredible in a person of his make. "I can repeat it if you won't give me away to Mrs.

March."

"Oh, no indeed!" He said the lines over to her very simply and well."

They are beautiful--beautiful!"

"Do you think so?" he gasped, in his joy at her praise.

"Yes, lovely. Do you know, you are the first literary man--the only literary man--I ever talked with. They must go out--somewhere! Papa must meet them at his clubs. But I never do; and so I'm making the most of you."

"You can't make too much of me, Miss Triscoe," said Burnamy.

She would not mind his mocking. "That day you spoke about 'The Maiden Knight', don't you know, I had never heard any talk about books in that way. I didn't know you were an author then."

"Well, I'm not much of an author now," he said, cynically, to retrieve his folly in repeating his poem to her.

"Oh, that will do for you to say. But I know what Mrs. March thinks."

He wished very much to know what Mrs. March thought, too; 'Every Other Week' was such a very good place that he could not conscientiously neglect any means of having his work favorably considered there; if Mrs.

March's interest in it would act upon her husband, ought not he to know just how much she thought of him as a writer? "Did she like the poem."

Miss Triscoe could not recall that Mrs. March had said anything about the poem, but she launched herself upon the general current of Mrs. March's liking for Burnamy. "But it wouldn't do to tell you all she said!"

This was not what he hoped, but be was richly content when she returned to his personal history. "And you didn't know any one when, you went up to Chicago from--"