That would be a great chance for you of course. But why should you despise us chaps for not doing what you cant do yourself?
Cant do? He opened his eyes. Havent I done it in twenty volumes? I do it in my way, he continued. You dont do it in yours.
Ours is so devilish difficult, I weakly observed.
So is mine. We each choose our own. Theres no compulsion. You wont come down and smoke?
No. I want to think this thing out.
Youll tell me then in the morning that youve laid me bare?
Ill see what I can do; Ill sleep on it. But just one word more, I added. We had left the roomI walked again with him a few steps along the passage. This extraordinary general intention, as you call itfor thats the most vivid description I can induce you to make of itis then generally a sort of buried treasure?
His face lighted. Yes, call it that, though its perhaps not for me to do so.
Nonsense! I laughed. You know youre hugely proud of it.
Well, I didnt propose to tell you so; but it is the joy of my soul!
You mean its a beauty so rare, so great?
He hesitated a moment. The loveliest thing in the world! We had stopped, and on these words he left me; but at the end of the corridor, while I looked after him rather yearningly, he turned and caught sight of my puzzled face. It made him earnestly, indeed I thought quite anxiously, shake his head and wave his finger. Give it upgive it up!
This wasnt a challengeit was fatherly advice. If I had had one of his books at hand I would have repeated my recent act of faithI would have spent half the night with him. At three oclock in the morning, not sleeping, remembering moreover how indispensable he was to Lady Jane, I stole down to the library with a candle. There wasnt, so far as I could discover, a line of his writing in the house.
IV
Returning to town I feverishly collected them all; I picked out each in its order and held it up to the light. This gave me a maddening month, in the course of which several things took place. One of these, the last, I may as well immediately mention, was that I acted on Verekers advice: I renounced my ridiculous attempt. I could really make nothing of the business; it proved a dead loss. After all, before, as he had himself observed, I liked him; and what now occurred was simply that my new intelligence and vain preoccupation damaged my liking. I not only failed to find his general intentionI found myself missing the subordinate intentions I had formerly found. His books didnt even remain the charming things they had been for me; the exasperation of my search put me out of conceit of them. Instead of being a pleasure the more they became a resource the less; for from the moment I was unable to follow up the authors hint I of course felt it a point of honour not to make use professionally of my knowledge of them. I had no knowledgenobody had any. It was humiliating, but I could bear itthey only annoyed me now. At last they even bored me, and I accounted for my confusionperversely, I confessby the idea that Vereker had made a fool of me. The buried treasure was a bad joke, the general intention a monstrous pose.
The great incident of the time however was that I told George Corvick all about the matter and that my information had an immense effect upon him. He had at last come back, but so, unfortunately, had Mrs. Erme, and there was as yet, I could see, no question of his nuptials. He was immensely stirred up by the anecdote I had brought from Bridges; it fell in so completely with the sense he had had from the first that there was more in Vereker than met the eye. When I remarked that the eye seemed what the printed page had been expressly invented to meet he immediately accused me of being spiteful because I had been foiled. Our commerce had always that pleasant latitude. The thing Vereker had mentioned to me was exactly the thing he, Corvick, had wanted me to speak of in my review. On my suggesting at last that with the assistance I had now given him he would doubtless be prepared to speak of it himself he admitted freely that before doing this there was more he must understand. What he would have said, had he reviewed the new book, was that there was evidently in the writers inmost art something to be understood. I hadnt so much as hinted at that: no wonder the writer hadnt been flattered! I asked Corvick what he really considered he meant by his own supersubtlety, and, unmistakably kindled, he replied: It isnt for the vulgarit isnt for the vulgar! He had hold of the tail of something; he would pull hard, pull it right out. He pumped me dry on Verekers strange confidence and, pronouncing me the luckiest of mortals, mentioned half a dozen questions he wished to goodness I had had the gumption to put. Yet on the other hand he didnt want to be told too muchit would spoil the fun of seeing what would come. The failure of my fun was at the moment of our meeting not complete, but I saw it ahead, and Corvick saw that I saw it. I, on my side, saw likewise that one of the first things he would do would be to rush off with my story to Gwendolen.
On the very day after my talk with him I was surprised by the receipt of a note from Hugh Vereker, to whom our encounter at Bridges had been recalled, as he mentioned, by his falling, in a magazine, on some article to which my signature was appended. I read it with great pleasure, he wrote, and remembered under its influence our lively conversation by your bedroom fire. The consequence of this has been that I begin to measure the temerity of my having saddled you with a knowledge that you may find something of a burden. Now that the fits over I cant imagine how I came to be moved so much beyond my wont. I had never before related, no matter in what expansion, the history of my little secret, and I shall never speak of the business again. I was accidentally so much more explicit with you than it had ever entered into my game to be, that I find this gameI mean the pleasure of playing itsuffers considerably. In short, if you can understand it, Ive spoiled a part of my fun. I really dont want to give anybody what I believe you clever young men call the tip. Thats of course a selfish solicitude, and I name it to you for what it may be worth to you. If youre disposed to humour me, dont repeat my revelation. Think me dementedits your right; but dont tell anybody why.
The sequel to this communication was that as early on the morrow as I dared I drove straight to Mr. Verekers door. He occupied in those years one of the honest old houses in Kensington-square. He received me immediately, and as soon as I came in I saw I had not lost my power to minister to his mirth. He laughed out at the sight of my face, which doubtless expressed my perturbation. I had been indiscreetmy compunction was great. I have told somebody, I panted, and Im sure that, person will by this time have told somebody else! Its a woman, into the bargain.
The person youve told?
No, the other person. Im quite sure he must have told her.
For all the good it will do heror do me! A woman will never find out.
No, but shell talk all over the place: shell do just what you dont want.
Vereker thought a moment, but he was not so disconcerted as I had feared: he felt that if the harm was done it only served him right. It doesnt matterdont worry.
Ill do my best, I promise you, that your talk with me shall go no further.