and gay. “Do you burn without reading, too?” she asked; in answer to which I assured her that, if she would trust me with her repository, I would see that Mr. Paraday should write his name in it.
She considered a little. “That’s very well, but it wouldn’t make me see him.”
“Do you want very much to see him?” It seemed ungracious to catechise so charming a creature, but somehow I had never yet taken my duty to the great author so seriously.
“Enough to have come from America for the purpose.”
I stared. “All alone?”
“I don’t see that that’s exactly your business; but if it will make me more appealing I’ll confess that I’m quite by myself. I had to come alone or not come at all.”
She was interesting; I could imagine that she had lost parents, natural protectors—could conceive even that she had inherited money. I was in a phase of my own fortune when keeping hansoms at doors seemed to me pure swagger. As a trick of this bold and sensitive girl, however, it became romantic—a part of the general romance of her freedom, her errand, her innocence. The confidence of young Americans was notorious, and I speedily arrived at a conviction that no impulse could have been more generous than the impulse that had operated here. I foresaw at that moment that it would make her my peculiar charge, just as circumstances had made Neil Paraday. She would be another person to look after, and one’s honor would be concerned in guiding her straight. These things became clearer to me later; at the instant I had scepticism enough to observe to her, as I turned the pages of her volume, that her net had, all the same, caught many a big fish. She appeared to have had fruitful access to the great ones of the earth; there were people, moreover, whose signatures she had presumably secured without a personal interview. She couldn’t have worried George Washington and Friedrich Schiller and Hannah More. She met this argument, to my surprise, by throwing up the album without a pang. It wasn’t even her own; she was responsible for none of its treasures. It belonged to a girlfriend in America, a young lady in a Western city. This young lady had insisted on her bringing it, to pick up more autographs; she thought they might like to see, in Europe, in what company they would be. The “girl-friend,” the Western city, the immortal names, the curious errand, the idyllic faith, all made a story as strange to me, and as beguiling, as some tale in the Arabian Nights. Thus it was that my informant had encumbered herself with the ponderous tome; but she hastened to assure me that this was the first time she had brought it out. For her visit to Mr. Paraday it had simply been a pretext. She didn’t really care a straw that he should write his name; what she did want was to look straight into his face.
I demurred a little. “And why do you require to do that?”
“Because I just love him!” Before I could recover from the agitating effect of this crystal ring my companion had continued: “Hasn’t there ever been any face that you’ve wanted to look into?”
How could I tell her so soon how much I appreciated the opportunity of looking into hers? I could only assent in general to the proposition that there were certainly for every one such hankerings, and even such faces; and I felt that the crisis demanded all my lucidity, all my wisdom. “Oh, yes! I’m a student of physiognomy. Do you mean,” I pursued, “that you’ve a passion for Mr. Paraday’s books?”
“They’ve been every thing to me, and a little more beside—I know them by heart. They’ve completely taken hold of me. There’s no author about whom I feel as I do about Neil Paraday.”
“Permit me to remark then,” I presently rejoined, “that you’re one of the right sort.”
“One of the enthusiasts? Of course I am!”
“Oh, there are enthusiasts who are quite of the wrong. I mean you’re one of those to whom an appeal can be made.”
“An appeal?” Her face lighted as if with the chance of some great sacrifice.
If she was ready for one it was only waiting for her, and in a moment I mentioned it. “Give up this crude purpose of seeing him. Go away without it. That will be far better.”
She looked mystified; then she turned visibly pale. “Why, hasn’t he any personal charm?” The girl was terrible and laughable in her bright directness.
“Ah, that dreadful word ‘personal’!” I exclaimed; “we’re dying of it, and you women bring it out with murderous effect. When you encounter a genius as fine as this idol of ours, let him off the dreary duty of being a personality as well. Know him only by what’s best in him, and spare him for the same sweet sake.”
My young lady continued to look at me in confusion and mistrust, and the result of her reflection on what I had just said was to make her suddenly break out: “Look here, sir—what’s the matter with him?”
“The matter with him is that, if he doesn’t look out, people will eat a great hole in his life.”
She considered a moment. “He hasn’t any disfigurement?”
“Nothing to speak of!”
“Do you mean that social engagements interfere with his occupations?”
“That but feebly expresses it.”
“So that he can’t give himself up to his beautiful imagination?”
“He’s badgered, bothered, overwhelmed, on the pretext of being applauded. People expect him to give them his time, his golden time, who would not themselves give five shillings for one of his books.”
“Five? I’d give five thousand!”
“Give your sympathy—give your forbearance. Two-thirds of those who approach him only do it to advertise themselves.”
“Why, it’s too bad!” the girl exclaimed, with the face of an angel. “It’s the first time I was ever called crude!” she laughed.
I followed up my advantage. “There’s a lady with him now who’s a terrible complication, and who yet hasn’t read, I am sure, ten pages that he ever wrote.”
My visitor’s wide eyes grew tenderer. “Then how does she talk———”
“Without ceasing. I only mention her as a single case. Do you want to know how to show a superlative consideration? Simply avoid him.”
“Avoid him?” she softly wailed.
“Don’t force him to have to take account of you; admire him in silence, cultivate him at a distance and secretly appropriate his message. Do you want to know,” I continued, warming to my idea, “how to perform an act of homage really sublime?” Then, as she hung on my words: “Succeed in never seeing him at all!”
“Never at all?” she pathetically gasped.
“The more you get into his writings the less you’ll want to; and you’ll be immensely sustained by the thought of the good you’re doing him.”
She looked at me without resentment or spite, and at the truth I had put before her with candor, credulity, pity. I was afterward happy to remember that she must have recognized in my face the liveliness of my interest in herself. “I think I see what you mean.”
“Oh, I express it badly; but I should be delighted
