CHAPTER XX
THE SURRENDER
THE reaction of anger following Manning’s voluntary burial in his book sustained Ellen’s spirits. Through pride every instinct of her strong character came to the rescue. By every law of the new creed of life she had achieved an individual personality. She had refused to merge herself or submerge herself in man. She summoned every energy of her being now to battle for her principles.
For two weeks she resolutely put Manning out of her thoughts. She wrote with renewed inspiration on her favorite themes.
She refused Rose’s enthusiastic appeals to read his manuscript. She refused to touch it.
“Please read just this one chapter, auntie,” the enthusiastic young typist urged one day. “It’s wonderful. I’ve just cried my eyes out over it.”
“No, dear,” was the firm reply. “I prefer to wait and read the finished book; I’ll enjoy it more.”
She made up her mind never to read it, unless----
“Bah!” she cried in disgust; “I’m always making idiotic conditions to every fine resolution, unless, of course, he comes with true repentance for his brutal cruelty and apologizes.”
She paused and smiled bitterly. She couldn’t imagine him apologizing again. He had gotten out of that habit. As he had grown in strength of character and found the poise which success among his equals brought, something had hardened inside. She dismissed the idea angrily.
She was watching Rose work with tireless energy. Her nimble fingers fairly flew over the keys of the machine. She rarely paused to correct an error. She read his scrawling penciled manuscript with curiously accurate instinct.
She had finished the copy on hand and placed it in the big square Manila envelope for the messenger, who arrived daily at twelve o’clock. She was writing a note to place inside.
Ellen’s heart gave a sudden leap. They were evidently carrying on a daily exchange of letters by the messenger boy!
She rose and stood beside the girl’s desk.
“Writing him a love-letter, dear?” she asked calmly.
Rose started and blushed.
“I’ll show you his note to me,” she answered eagerly.
She rummaged among the papers in the drawer and drew out a crumpled piece of cheap manuscript paper on which Manning had scrawled:
“Thanks, dear little Typewriter, for your beautiful copy. I can’t believe my eyes when I see what you make out of the awful stuff I send you. Sometimes I can’t read it myself. You must have X-rays in your eyes to read it so clearly. I congratulate you and I thank you.
MANNING.”
“And this is what I’ve written in reply.” She handed her aunt the sheet of paper on which she had been writing.
DEAR MR. AUTHOR:
You make me very happy with your flattering note. Please write a little plainer and I can go much faster.
YOUR TYPEWRITER.
Ellen smiled when she had finished the harmless epistle.
Rose searched her face for the meaning of her smile.
“Do you think that word ‘flattering’ is too bold?”
“No.”
“I’ll strike it out if you think so?”
“I don’t think he will misinterpret it, dear,” she answered gravely.
“All right; I’ll put it with the manuscript, then.”
She folded and placed her note in the big envelope containing the manuscript.
Ellen watched her tenderly.
“You shouldn’t fold it.”
“Why?”
“He’s so rushed and absorbed in work he’ll yank the manuscript out and never see it.”
“How’ll I fix it?” she asked anxiously.
“Unfold it and fasten the full page with a clip across the manuscript, and then he can’t neglect your message.”
“That’s so, isn’t it?”
She hurriedly did as Ellen had told her and just finished as the messenger boy arrived with a new chapter.
“Here you are, boy,” Rose said briskly. “And don’t you lose it now; I’ve got a note in this one.”
The boy threw her a look of pain and extended his slip for her signature without condescending to words.
It was impossible to discover in the two brief messages the slightest trace of the love-affair she had feared, and yet the fact that she had discovered this underground correspondence made Ellen miserable. All the strength of her anger melted.
He had pushed her out of his life as a troublesome intruder. This enthusiastic, helpful, mere child he had taken into the intimacy of his daily thought. And she was helping him. That was what cut. The girl was giving her soul and body in utter self-sacrifice, while his chosen mate stood by and watched in helpless misery.
There was something radically wrong with her theory of a free alliance! For the first time she faced it squarely. Her world of ideals and theories began to crumble. The ground beneath her feet gave way and the shock was an emotional earthquake.
She had lost the way of life in her search for self-development! This child was finding it before her eyes in the old-time worn way of self-sacrifice. There might be yet time to repair the tragic blunder.
She made up her mind. She would throw pride to the winds. She would wait in patient anguish until Manning had finished his book and then surrender--unconditionally--joyfully.
The thought of it gave her courage. She would redouble her efforts at writing. Her editorial work was far in advance of the needs of the magazine. She was specially thankful for this just now. She was not in the mood for radical propaganda. She would devote herself with furious energy to the writing of a series of short-stories which she had planned for years. Work was her only refuge from madness until she could see Manning, tell him her suffering and make the last effort to save herself from wreck.
The blackest days of life she had spent since his disappearance. If he had placed a continent or an ocean between them she could have borne the separation with philosophy. There was something of the stoic in the rock foundation of her character. The thing that had all but driven her mad was the fact that he was perhaps within a stone’s throw of his old apartment on Thirty-first Street and yet he had completely shut her from his life.
The decision to surrender brought relief from the strain of an anguish which had been unbearable. She would surprise him with the complete acceptance of his views of life. She would make her surrender so complete, so tenderly appealing, no shadow could ever again darken the home they would build.
She began to wonder at the supreme folly of her self-centered program. No wonder she had failed to hold him! She ought to have failed. Thank God, she had awakened in time!
The plan of complete reconciliation once settled in her mind, she worked on her stories with untiring zeal. She must finish the whole series of six by the time he completed his manuscript. She set her head to the task with the determination to show him her manuscript the day he would assemble his.
She finished two days before he sent his last chapter to Rose, and spent the time in leisurely revision and retouching. The hours were not without their tension of anxiety and foreboding. She wondered if he would call. He must, of course. They had parted in good humor. There had been no quarrel; no harsh words to regret.
Rose’s final verdict on his book had profoundly excited her.
“It’s _great_, Aunt Ellen!” she cried in breathless excitement. “I’ve cried my eyes out the past week. It’s the most beautiful book I ever read in all my life! It’s so real, you can just see and feel the people in it.”
Unless she had lost all sense of proportion in her enthusiasm, it would certainly make a hit. Such a verdict from a girl of twenty-one meant a sensational success.
He would probably take it to the publishers the day following and call that evening.
Three days passed without a word. It was ominous! Rose was evidently surprised and shocked; too surprised and shocked to ask her aunt why he stayed away. She had been present when he announced his plan of work and his complete isolation for two months. She, too, had supposed that he would call at once on the completion of his task.
Ellen caught the look of anxiety in the girl’s face and couldn’t keep silent.
“I’m afraid Mr. Manning is ill, dear,” she said anxiously.
“Do you think so?” Rose whispered.
“I’ll call up his apartment.”
“Yes, do.”
She rang his number and waited in breathless silence while some one fumbled the receiver at the other end.
A strange voice answered.
“Yes, this is Mr. Manning’s apartment.”
“May I speak to him, please?”
“Mr. Manning is not here.”
“Who is this, please?”
“Mr. Bates of the publishing house of Alfred Bates & Company. I have just packed him off in my car for a month’s rest at my country-place at Lakewood.”
“Was--he--ill?” Ellen gasped.
“Quite,” was the frank reply. “He has suffered a complete nervous collapse from overwork. The doctor has forbidden him to see a friend, write or receive a letter without his permission. A trained nurse was sent with him.”
Ellen recovered herself with a desperate effort and spoke evenly:
“This is Miss West, Mr. Bates. I am terribly shocked. My niece did the typewriting of his book. You know, perhaps, that we collaborated in a play this winter.”
“Oh, yes, Miss West. I’m glad you called. He was talking of you and your niece in his fever and seemed greatly distressed at leaving without seeing you. We managed to complete our contracts for the immediate publication of his book.”
“You’ve accepted it, then?”
“We seized it within forty-eight hours after we saw it. We are doing a most unusual thing. We are so sure of the sensation it will produce, we have ordered a first edition of fifty thousand copies. His fame and fortune are assured.”
“His illness will not be serious?”
“A month of absolute rest will put him on his feet again.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. The doctor says he will be all right sooner, but he will keep him quiet a month if he has to chain him.”
“He can’t receive a letter from any one?”
“The doctor has sternly forbidden it.”
“Thank you.”
She slowly hung up the receiver and faced the tense look of her niece.
“What’s the matter with him, auntie?” she faltered.
“He’s very ill, dear; a nervous breakdown from overwork.”
“He’ll get well, though,” she said firmly.
“The doctor says so; Yes, and Bates & Co. have accepted his book.”
“Of course; I knew they would.”
“They say it will be an enormous sensation.”
“Of course.”
There was a far-off look in the young eyes that was uncanny and Ellen caught it with a feeling of dumb misery.