The question pursued him still more, after the one interview which resulted from all this correspondence. There was a distinguished Harvard professor who had told him that he had rare powers and must go on; and hearing that the professor was in New York, Thyrsis asked the privilege of calling.
It was in one of the city’s most expensive hotels—for the professor had married a rich wife, and was what people called “socially prominent”. The other did not know this; but it seemed an awful thing to him that anyone should be sitting in a brocaded silk-covered chair in a palace of luxury like this, while possessed of the knowledge that his genius was starving.
“You tell me to go on, professor,” he said. “But how can I go on?”
The professor was fingering his gold eyeglasses and studying his visi
