"You mean it will be a big scandal, whereas my poor story would be a very small one, and that it's only out of a big one that money's to be made."Mr.Locket got up--he too had his dignity to vindicate."Such a sum as I offer you ought really to be an offset against all claims.""Very good--I don't mean to make any, since you don't really care for what I write.I take note of your offer," Peter pursued, "and Iengage to give you to-night (in a few words left by my own hand at your house) my absolutely definite and final reply."Mr.Locket's movements, as he hovered near the relics of the eminent statesman, were those of some feathered parent fluttering over a threatened nest.If he had brought his huddled brood back with him this morning it was because he had felt sure enough of closing the bargain to be able to be graceful.He kept a glittering eye on the papers and remarked that he was afraid that before leaving them he must elicit some assurance that in the meanwhile Peter would not place them in any other hands.Peter, at this, gave a laugh of harsher cadence than he intended, asking, justly enough, on what privilege his visitor rested such a demand and why he himself was disqualified from offering his wares to the highest bidder."Surely you wouldn't hawk such things about?" cried Mr.Locket; but before Baron had time to retort cynically he added: "I'll publish your little story.""Oh, thank you!"
"I'll publish anything you'll send me," Mr.Locket continued, as he went out.Peter had before this virtually given his word that for the letters he would treat only with the Promiscuous.
The young man passed, during a portion of the rest of the day, the strangest hours of his life.Yet he thought of them afterwards not as a phase of temptation, though they had been full of the emotion that accompanies an intense vision of alternatives.The struggle was already over; it seemed to him that, poor as he was, he was not poor enough to take Mr.Locket's money.He looked at the opposed courses with the self-possession of a man who has chosen, but this self-possession was in itself the most exquisite of excitements.It was really a high revulsion and a sort of noble pity.He seemed indeed to have his finger upon the pulse of history and to be in the secret of the gods.He had them all in his hand, the tablets and the scales and the torch.He couldn't keep a character together, but he might easily pull one to pieces.That would be "creative work" of a kind--he could reconstruct the character less pleasingly, could show an unknown side of it.Mr.Locket had had a good deal to say about responsibility; and responsibility in truth sat there with him all the morning, while he revolved in his narrow cage and, watching the crude spring rain on the windows, thought of the dismalness to which, at Dover, Mrs.Ryves was going back.This influence took in fact the form, put on the physiognomy of poor Sir Dominick Ferrand; he was at present as perceptible in it, as coldly and strangely personal, as if he had been a haunting ghost and had risen beside his own old hearthstone.Our friend was accustomed to his company and indeed had spent so many hours in it of late, following him up at the museum and comparing his different portraits, engravings and lithographs, in which there seemed to be conscious, pleading eyes for the betrayer, that their queer intimacy had grown as close as an embrace.Sir Dominick was very dumb, but he was terrible in his dependence, and Peter would not have encouraged him by so much curiosity nor reassured him by so much deference had it not been for the young man's complete acceptance of the impossibility of getting out of a tight place by exposing an individual.It didn't matter that the individual was dead; it didn't matter that he was dishonest.Peter felt him sufficiently alive to suffer; he perceived the rectification of history so conscientiously desired by Mr.Locket to be somehow for himself not an imperative task.It had come over him too definitely that in a case where one's success was to hinge upon an act of extradition it would minister most to an easy conscience to let the success go.No, no--even should he be starving he couldn't make money out of Sir Dominick's disgrace.He was almost surprised at the violence of the horror with which, as he shuffled mournfully about, the idea of any such profit inspired him.What was Sir Dominick to him after all? He wished he had never come across him.
In one of his brooding pauses at the window--the window out of which never again apparently should he see Mrs.Ryves glide across the little garden with the step for which he had liked her from the first--he became aware that the rain was about to intermit and the sun to make some grudging amends.This was a sign that he might go out; he had a vague perception that there were things to be done.He had work to look for, and a cheaper lodging, and a new idea (every idea he had ever cherished had left him), in addition to which the promised little word was to be dropped at Mr.Locket's door.He looked at his watch and was surprised at the hour, for he had nothing but a heartache to show for so much time.He would have to dress quickly, but as he passed to his bedroom his eye was caught by the little pyramid of letters which Mr.Locket had constructed on his davenport.They startled him and, staring at them, he stopped for an instant, half-amused, half-annoyed at their being still in existence.