And yet it was in strict accordance with the old tradition.  The staff of Metropolis knew that before a line of theirs was printed it had to pass under their editor’s reforming hand; that was the understood condition on which they wrote for him at all; it was the method by which Jewdwine maintained the unity of his empire.  But in the case of Rickman he either forbore to exercise his privilege, or exercised it in such a manner as preserved the individuality of the poet’s style.  Like some imperial conqueror Jewdwine had absorbed the literary spirit of the man he conquered, and Metropolis bore the stamp of Rickman for all time.  So now the style of the articles remained intact; they might have passed equally for the work of Rickman or of Jewdwine.

“I suppose,” he said helplessly, “it is a little short.”

“Short?  You weren’t bound to make it long; but there was no occasion to be so contemptuous.”

“Contemptuous?  Good God!”

“That’s what it amounts to when you’re so insufferably polite.”

Oh yes he recognized it, the diabolical urbanity that had seemed the very choicest method of dealing with Mr. Fulcher.

“Politeness was not exactly all you led us to expect from you.”

He passed his hand wearily over his forehead and his eyes.  Miss Roots had a moment of compunction.  She thought of all that he had done for her.  He had delivered her from her labours in the Museum; he had introduced her to the young men of The Planet, and had made Maddox send her many books to review; he had lifted her from the obscurity that threatened to engulf her.  And he had done more for her than this.  He had given her back her youth and intellect; he had made her life a joy instead of a terror to her.  But Miss Roots was just.  The agony on his face would have melted her heart, but for another agony that she saw.

“If the poor boy knew that you had written that paragraph—­”

“He needn’t know unless some kind friend goes and tells him.  It isn’t signed.”

“No.  I don’t wonder that you were ashamed to put your name to it.”

He rose to go.  She looked up at him with a queer little look, half penetrating and half pleading, and held out her hand.

“Well,” she said, “what am I to say if he asks me if you wrote it?  Can you deny it?”

“No,” he said curtly, “I can’t deny it.”

“And you can’t explain it?”

“No, and I can’t explain it.  Surely,” he said with a horrible attempt at laughter, “it speaks for itself.”

“It does indeed, Keith.”

And Maddox, to whom Miss Roots related the substance of that interview, echoed her sentiment.

“It does indeed.”

Of all that brilliant band of young men lured by journalism to ruin they looked on their Rickman as the most splendid, the most tragic.

CHAPTER LXVIII