To kill him off, too, was more
than his augmented stock of human nature could endure. After all, the
lad's death had been purely accidental, wanton. It was just that he
should live--with one of the author's inimitable suggestions of future
greatness; but, at the end, the parting was almost as bitter as the
other. Orth knew then how men feel when their sons go forth to
encounter the world and ask no more of the old companionship.
The author's boxes were packed. He sent the manuscript to his publisher
an hour after it was finished--he could not have given it a final
reading to have saved it from failure--directed his secretary to examine
the proof under a microscope, and left the next morning for Homburg.
There, in inmost circles, he forgot his children. He visited in several
of the great houses of the Continent until November; then returned to
London to find his book the literary topic of the day. His secretary
handed him the reviews; and for once in a way he read the finalities of
the nameless. He found himself hailed as a genius, and compared in
astonished phrases to the prodigiously clever talent which the world for
twenty years had isolated under the name of Ralph Orth.
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