the
good out of him we might have done. We _had_ to be tender to him,
too. I think Antigone liked us for our tenderness. Certainly she
liked Burton--oh, from the very first.

III

They had known each other about six months when he proposed to her,
and she wouldn't have him. He went on proposing at ridiculously
short intervals, but it wasn't a bit of good. Wrackham wouldn't give
his consent, and it seemed Antigone wouldn't marry anybody without
it. He _said_ Burton was too poor, and Antigone too young; but the
real reason was that Burton's proposal came as a shock to his
vanity. I told you how coolly he had appropriated the young man's
ardent and irrepressible devotion; he had looked on him as a
disciple, a passionate pilgrim to his shrine; and the truth, the
disillusionment, was more than he could stand. He'd never had a
disciple or a pilgrim of Burton's quality. He could ignore and
disparage Burton's brilliance when it suited his own purpose, and
when it suited his own purpose he thrust Burton and his brilliance
down your throat. Thus he never said a word about Burton's novels
except that he once went out of his way to tell me that he hadn't
read them (I believe he was afraid to). Antigone must have noticed
_that_, and she must have understood the meaning of it. I know she
never spoke to him about anything that Burton did. She must have
felt he couldn't bear it. Anyhow, he wasn't going to recognize
Burton's existence as a novelist; it was as if he thought his
silence could extinguish him. But he knew all about Burton's
critical work; there was his splendid "Essay on Ford Lankester"; he
couldn't ignore or disparage that, and he didn't want to. He had had
his eye on him from the first as a young man, an exceptionally
brilliant young man who might be useful to him.

And so, though he wouldn't let the brilliant young man marry his
daughter, he wasn't going to lose sight of him; and Burton continued
his passionate pilgrimages to Wildweather Hall.

I didn't see Wrackham for a long time, but I heard of him; I heard
all I wanted, for Burton was by no means so tender to him as he used
to be. And I heard of poor Antigone. I gathered that she wasn't
happy, that she was losing some of her splendor and vitality. In all
Burton's pictures of her you could see her droop.

This went on for nearly three years, and by that time Burton, as you
know, had made a name for himself that couldn't be ignored. He was
also making a mode