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Updated: October 22, 2025
The sense of being held under the lens of Vyse's mute scrutiny became more and more exasperating. Betton, by this time, had squared his shoulders to the fact that "Abundance" was a failure with the public: a confessed and glaring failure. The press told him so openly, and his friends emphasized the fact by their circumlocutions and evasions.
"Do you remember a note signed Hester Macklin that came three or four weeks ago? Married misunderstood Western army post wanted to correspond?" Betton seemed to grope among his memories; then he assented vaguely. "A short note," Vyse went on: "the whole story in half a page. The shortness struck me so much and the directness that I wrote her: wrote in my own name, I mean." "In your own name?"
"Poor devil, I'm damned if I don't do it for him!" said Betton, sitting down at his desk. Three or four days later he sent word to Vyse that he didn't care to go over the letters any longer, and that they would once more be carried directly to the library. The next time he lounged in, on his way to his morning ride, he found his secretary's pen in active motion.
You'll remember that ten was the hour you appointed for the secretaries to call, sir." Betton nodded. "I'll see Mr. Vyse first. My clothes, please." As he got into them, in the state of irritable hurry that had become almost chronic with him, he continued to think about Duncan Vyse.
That's the reason why I said I wanted somebody er well used to writing. I don't want to have anything to do with them not a thing! You'll have to answer them as if they were written to you " Betton pulled himself up again, and rising in confusion jerked open one of the drawers of his writing-table. "Here this kind of rubbish," he said, tossing a packet of letters onto Vyse's knee.
"Just so," said Betton, bringing down his clenched fist on the table. " Just so," he repeated, in italics. He caught his secretary's glance, and held it with his own for a moment. Then he dropped it as, in pity, one releases something scared and squirming. "The very day my letter was returned from Swazee Springs she wrote me this from there," he said, holding up the last Florida missive. "Ha!
Betton ran over the mauve pages and tossed them down. "Why, my dear man, I get hundreds like that. You'll have to be pretty short with her, or she'll send her photograph." He clapped Vyse on the shoulder and turned away, humming a tune. "Stay to luncheon," he called back gaily from the threshold. After luncheon Vyse insisted on showing a few of his answers to the first batch of letters.
And here's a chap who wants to syndicate it for a bunch of Sunday papers: big offer, too. That's from Ann Arbor. And this oh, this one's funny!" He held up a small scented sheet to Betton, who made no movement to receive it. "Funny? Why's it funny?" he growled. "Well, it's from a girl a lady and she thinks she's the only person who understands 'Abundance' has the clue to it.
"It's not sympathy?" broke in Betton, the moisture drying out of his voice. He withdrew his hand from Vyse's shoulder. "What is it, then? The joy of uncovering my nakedness? An eye for an eye? Is it that?" Vyse rose from his seat, and with a mechanical gesture swept into a heap all the letters he had sorted. "I'm stone broke, and wanted to keep my job that's what it is," he said wearily ...
"Those are yesterday's," said the secretary; "here are to-day's," he added, pointing to a meagre trio. "H'm only these?" Betton took them and looked them over lingeringly. "I don't see what the deuce that chap means about the first part of 'Abundance' 'certainly justifying the title' do you?"
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