Content Inc.

, Second Edition : Start a

Content-First Business, Build a
Massive Audience and Become
Radically Successful (With Little to No
Money) Joe Pulizzi
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/content-inc-second-edition-start-a-content-first-busine
ss-build-a-massive-audience-and-become-radically-successful-with-little-to-no-money
-joe-pulizzi/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Content Inc. Joe Pulizzi

https://ebookmass.com/product/content-inc-joe-pulizzi/

Epic Content Marketing, Second Edition: Break through

the Clutter with a Different Story, Get the Most Out of
Your Content, and Build a Community in Web3 Joe Pulizzi

https://ebookmass.com/product/epic-content-marketing-second-
edition-break-through-the-clutter-with-a-different-story-get-the-
most-out-of-your-content-and-build-a-community-in-web3-joe-
pulizzi/

The Essential Entrepreneur: What It Takes To Start,

Scale And Sell A Successful Business 1st Edition
Richard Turner

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-essential-entrepreneur-what-it-
takes-to-start-scale-and-sell-a-successful-business-1st-edition-
richard-turner/

Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to

Content and Process 4th Edition, (Ebook PDF)

https://ebookmass.com/product/surviving-your-dissertation-a-
comprehensive-guide-to-content-and-process-4th-edition-ebook-pdf/
Narrow Content Juhani Yli-Vakkuri

https://ebookmass.com/product/narrow-content-juhani-yli-vakkuri/

OpenAI API Cookbook: Build intelligent applications

including chatbots, virtual assistants, and content
generators 1st Edition Henry Habib

https://ebookmass.com/product/openai-api-cookbook-build-
intelligent-applications-including-chatbots-virtual-assistants-
and-content-generators-1st-edition-henry-habib/

Teaching ELLs Across Content Areas (NA)

https://ebookmass.com/product/teaching-ells-across-content-areas-
na/

Start with a Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal

and Business Success Contos

https://ebookmass.com/product/start-with-a-win-tools-and-lessons-
to-create-personal-and-business-success-contos/

Representational Content and the Objects of Thought

Nicholas Rimell

https://ebookmass.com/product/representational-content-and-the-
objects-of-thought-nicholas-rimell/
 PRAISE FOR CONTENT INC.

Content creators are the rock star entrepreneurs of the twenty-first

century, and Content Inc. delivers your winning business model.
—BRIAN CLARK, Founder of Copyblogger and Unemployable

From the man who invented content marketing. Listen to this guy.
He really understands the new world of marketing.
—DON SCHULTZ (1934–2020), the “father of integrated marketing,”
professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of
Journalism, and author of 13 books

If you’re serious about turning content into a business, this is the

most detailed, honest, and useful book ever written.
—JAY BAER, New York Times bestselling author of Youtility

What if you launched a business with nothing to sell, and instead

focused first on serving the needs of an audience, trusting that the
“selling” part would come later? Crazy? Or crazy-brilliant? I’d say the
latter. Because in today’s world, you should serve before selling.
—ANN HANDLEY, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of
Everybody Writes

Now there is a better way to promote your business.

—GUY KAWASAKI, chief evangelist of Canva and author of The Art
of the Start 2.0

Use this as your road map to startup success.

—SALLY HOGSHEAD, New York Times and Wall Street Journal
bestselling author of How the World Sees You
The approach to business taught all over the world is to create a
product and then spend a bunch of money to market and sell it. Joe
outlines a radically new way to succeed in business: Develop your
audience first by creating content that draws people in and then
watch your business sell itself.
—DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT, New York Times bestselling author of The
New Rules of Marketing and PR

Anyone, anywhere, with a passion and focus on a content niche can

build a multimillion-dollar platform and business. I did it and so can
you. Just follow Joe’s Content Inc. model.
—JOHN LEE DUMAS, founder, Entrepreneurs On Fire
Copyright © 2021 by Joe Pulizzi. All rights reserved. Except as
permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of
this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by
any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-26-425755-3
MHID: 1-26-425755-4

The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this
title: ISBN: 978-1-26-425754-6, MHID: 1-26-425754-6.

eBook conversion by codeMantra

Version 1.0

All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather

than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a
trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and
to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of
infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in
this book, they have been printed with initial caps.

McGraw-Hill Education eBooks are available at special quantity

discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions or for use in
corporate training programs. To contact a representative, please visit
the Contact Us page at www.mhprofessional.com.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative

information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with
the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is
engaged in rendering legal, accounting, securities trading, or other
professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is
required, the services of a competent professional person should be
sought.
—From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of
the
 American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and
Associations

TERMS OF USE

This is a copyrighted work and McGraw-Hill Education and its

licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is
subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act
of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work,
you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce,
modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute,
disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it
without McGraw-Hill Education’s prior consent. You may use the
work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use
of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be
terminated if you fail to comply with these terms.

THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” McGRAW-HILL EDUCATION AND

ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO
THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS
TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY
INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA
HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY
WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill Education and its licensors do
not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work
will meet your requirements or that its operation will be
uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill Education nor its
licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy,
error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any
damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill Education has no
responsibility for the content of any information accessed through
the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill Education
and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special,
punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use
of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised
of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall
apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause
arises in contract, tort or otherwise.
For Cora
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART 1 STARTING THE JOURNEY

CHAPTER 1 BEGINNING WITH THE END IN MIND

CHAPTER 2 THE CONTENT INC. OPPORTUNITY

PART 2 THE SWEET SPOT

CHAPTER 3 EXPERTISE + DESIRE

CHAPTER 4 AUDIENCE DEEP DIVE

PART 3 THE CONTENT TILT

CHAPTER 5 TILT OR BUST

CHAPTER 6 HOW TO FIND AND TEST THE TILT

CHAPTER 7 FINALIZING THE CONTENT MISSION

PART 4 THE BASE

CHAPTER 8 DO ONE THING . . . GREAT

CHAPTER 9 SELECTING YOUR PLATFORM

CHAPTER 10 COMING UP WITH IDEAS

CHAPTER 11 THE CONTENT CALENDAR

CHAPTER 12 FINDING CONTENT HELP

PART 5 AUDIENCE BUILDING

CHAPTER 13 THE METRIC THAT DRIVES THE MODEL

CHAPTER 14 MAXIMUM FINDABILITY

CHAPTER 15 STEALING AUDIENCE

CHAPTER 16 SOCIAL MEDIA SELECTION

PART 6 REVENUE

CHAPTER 17 SURVIVAL MONETIZATION

CHAPTER 18 BUILDING THE REVENUE MODEL

PART 7 DIVERSIFY

CHAPTER 19 BUILDING OUT EXTENSIONS

CHAPTER 20 ACQUIRING CONTENT ASSETS

PART 8 SELL OR GO BIG

CHAPTER 21 EXIT PLANNING

CHAPTER 22 EVALUATING YOUR OPTIONS

PART 9 NEXT-LEVEL CONTENT INC.

CHAPTER 23 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

CHAPTER 24 JOIN THE MOVEMENT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX
 INTRODUCTION

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world:

unreasonable people persist in trying to adapt the world to
themselves. Therefore all progress depends on
unreasonable people.
ADAPTED FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

T he model described in this book saved my life.

Here’s the synopsis:
I left a six-figure executive media position in 2007 to start a
business. Wife. Two kids, ages four and six. Not much money in the
bank.
Grappling through more mistakes than I care to mention (and
almost quitting in 2009), my wife and I hit our first million dollars in
sales in 2011. By 2015, we just missed $10 million in sales.
That same year, I wrote the first edition of this book, Content
Inc., which detailed the exact business model we used to go from
zero to millions in less than five years. More than 100,000 copies
were sold in print, digital, and audio.

Here’s the rest of the story.

In June 2016, we sold our company, the Content Marketing
Institute (CMI), for a little less than $30 million to a billion-dollar,
London-based events company.
I stayed on for a bit, left at the end of 2017, and took a sabbatical
for the entire calendar year of 2018. I flew to Sicily with my father,
spent more time with my wife and two boys than ever before, ran a
couple half marathons, and barely looked at social media. It was,
perhaps, the most perfect year of my life.
The next year I wrote a bestselling mystery novel.
I made the decision to become a full-time novelist; focus more
energy on our speech therapy nonprofit, the Orange Effect
Foundation; and spend an increasing amount of time with my family
before my two teenagers left for college.
Then COVID-19 hit particularly hard in the United States (I’m sure
you know the story). Yes, there was death and sickness. There were
also millions left without jobs or prospects. Whatever was the worst
scenario you can think of, the world seemed to be smack dab in the
middle of it.
Then I received an email from a close friend who had just been
downsized from her job. She wanted to know more about the
Content Inc. model.
Two days later, another friend reached out. Then another. After a
few months into the coronavirus pandemic, the Content Inc. model
had seen a resurgence. Sales of this first-edition book tripled in two
months, and my old podcast downloads started to pick up, even
though I wasn’t producing the podcast any longer.
How do I put this so I don’t sound egotistical? This is just a
business model. I am not saving the world. In this environment,
though, I believed that the Content Inc. model could truly help
people around the globe who were struggling to put food on the
table. What if more people used the Content Inc. model to start
amazing businesses and earn their own financial freedom? What if
more small businesses, currently fighting for survival, could leverage
the Content Inc. model not only to stay afloat, but to prosper? What
if, even in large businesses, marketers could use this model to stay
in business, to grow, and to employ more people?
I shelved part two of the mystery novel and emailed my executive
editor at McGraw Hill. I wanted to finish the Content Inc. book.
When I published the first version of Content Inc. in 2015, the
process was only half completed. Now I can tell the rest of the story.
 I relaunched the Content Inc. podcast, developed an email
newsletter for content entrepreneurs called The Tilt, and completely
updated the Content Inc. model.
I have had more than my fair share of breaks. I will never be
concerned about money for me or for my kids (it’s an amazing
feeling). I would like more people to have that opportunity. I believe
this book is the answer.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

Here’s the underlying concept for Content Inc. By focusing on
building an audience first and defining products and services second,
a person can change the rules of the game and significantly increase
the odds of financial and personal success.
Let me repeat that: I believe the absolute best way to start and
grow a business today is not by launching or pushing products, but
by creating a system to attract, build, and retain an audience. Once
you’ve built a loyal audience, one that loves you and the information
you send, you can most likely sell the audience anything you want.
This model is called Content Inc.
The content entrepreneurs who dedicate their time to this model
are wildly successful in their business and personal lives. If you
execute the Content Inc. model and deliver desirable information
consistently to a specific audience, $5 million in five years is most
certainly within reach for anyone in the world.

THE TRUE STORY OF DAVID AND GOLIATH

The challenges facing every entrepreneur who dreams of success
can be summed up in one of two interpretations of the biblical
story of David and Goliath.
Growing up in the Catholic school system, I heard the David
versus Goliath story often. Goliath, the Philistine giant, is the
most powerful warrior on the planet, and David, a young boy and
the ultimate underdog, doesn’t have a chance of defeating such a
powerful and skilled warrior.
But as a result of David’s faith in God, a handful of smooth
rocks, and perhaps a small miracle, David defeated Goliath.
Jack Wellman from the Christian Crier asserts that “Goliath had
everything going for him. He had every advantage possible. He
had great ability and he was trained, equipped, experienced,
battle tested, and battle hardened, and he was completely
fearless. He was totally confident, but it could also be said that
he was overconfident.” He was also about 6 feet 9 inches tall.
Then here comes David, small and totally outmatched. Just a
boy, David won because he had supreme confidence in the Lord,
who was with him, and the giant lost the seemingly unlosable
battle. It’s a battle that is over in a matter of seconds when David
makes his storied move:

Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and
struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his
forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.
So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a
stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the
Philistine and killed him.
David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the
Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed
him, he cut off his head with the sword.
When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they
turned and ran. (1 Samuel 17)

David beat Goliath because of his faith in God. Of course,

David had confidence in victory because the Lord was with him.
But perhaps there is another way to interpret this story.

Goliath: The Underdog

Malcolm Gladwell gave me a new perspective on this story in his
book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of
Battling Giants. Gladwell’s version makes perfect sense to my
entrepreneurial spirit.
According to Gladwell, Goliath was indeed a giant, and
therefore was also extremely slow to move. On top of that, he
was wearing 100 pounds of armor. Some medical experts believe
Goliath was suffering from acromegaly, a hormone imbalance that
causes a human to grow to extraordinary size. If that was the
case, his vision was most likely impaired as well.
How about David? Yes, David was small in stature, but he was
accomplished with a slingshot and could strike large beasts from
great distances. Light on his feet, David could move in
unsuspected on a target and still win an attack from far away.
The biblical interpretation tells us that David, the underdog,
was shown favor by the Lord, which helped him defeat Goliath,
the heavy favorite. Actually, Goliath had no chance to win. God
favored David by helping him discern a better strategy. The fight
was over before it ever began.

Changing the Game

David won because he played an entirely different game than
Goliath did. If David had fought Goliath in hand-to-hand combat,
as tradition demanded, he would have lost.
This is what happens to almost all entrepreneurs or small
businesses dreaming up an idea that will make them successful.
Smaller organizations have no resources compared with those of
their much larger competitors. That means they need to play an
entirely different game.
 ENTREPRENEURS ARE GETTING
BAD ADVICE
According to the US Small Business Administration, the first step in
starting a business is to develop a business plan. The standard
business plan includes things like “defining what you are selling” and
“creating a sales and marketing plan.” Of course it does. I’m sure if
you search the thousands of different business plans on the web,
they all look pretty much the same. Every startup essentially plays
the game by the same rules.
Even Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and the first outside
investor in Facebook, focuses all the attention in his book Zero to
One on developing an amazing product. While I believe Thiel offers
some excellent advice to entrepreneurs, his advice is the same as
that of all the other experts out there: create a great product first.
Find the problem; then solve the problem with an exceptional
product or service.
But the results aren’t exceptional at all. According to the US
Census Bureau, the majority of businesses fail in their first five
years. Every other statistic out there on startup failure says it’s
probably a lot worse than that.
Why do people go to market with their businesses in the same
way? Is humanity so devoid of creativity that we’ve accepted that
there is only one way to start and grow a business?
According to the Wall Street Journal, Americans are starting
businesses at a faster clip than at any time since 2007. Most of these
businesses are still leading with product first.
I say, be like David.

CAN CONTENT INC. BE

REPLICATED?
Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger Media, had some amazing ideas
about how businesses should market online. Unfortunately (or
maybe I should say fortunately), he didn’t have a product to sell.
For one year and seven months, Brian consistently developed
amazing content for a targeted audience. As he defined it, his
ultimate mission was “to create media assets that depended on the
permission to contact my audience, not the permission of a media
gatekeeper.”
In shorthand, he worked to become the expert resource that
attracts the right audience without having to buy advertising on
someone else’s platform. And Brian did just that. Today, Copyblogger
is a multimillion-dollar educational platform.
In our research for Content Inc., we’ve uncovered countless
entrepreneurs and small businesses from all over the globe in varied
industries using a similar philosophy. In other words, Brian and I are
not alone. The Content Inc. model can be replicated.

THE CONTENT INC. FUTURE IS NOW

Today thousands of businesses around the world are leveraging a
Content Inc. go-to-market strategy. Why? Because having a singular
focus on audience, and building a loyal audience directly, gives you
the best understanding of what products ultimately make the most
sense to sell.
Content Inc. tells us that there is a better way and a better model
that lead to a better life for entrepreneurs and business owners. You
have the opportunity to be like David, who looks like an underdog to
the Goliaths of the world, but the truth is that you’ve simply
uncovered a better business strategy than all the rest.
While all this is happening, big companies are getting bigger,
swallowing up smaller companies around the globe. What does this
mean? The atmosphere is ripe for disruption.
 THE CONTENT INC. MODEL
In our experience working with and interviewing hundreds of
businesses from all over the world, we’ve found that there are seven
distinct steps that make up the Content Inc. model, illustrated in
Figure I.1. The steps are the subject of the chapters that follow and
are briefly described below.

Figure I.1 Introducing the Content Inc. model.

1. THE SWEET SPOT

Simply put, the entrepreneur needs to uncover a content area that
the business model will be based on. To make this happen, we need
to identify a sweet spot that will attract an audience over time. This
sweet spot is the intersection of a knowledge or skill set (something
the entrepreneur or business has a competency in) and a specific
audience desire.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The reaping
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The reaping

Author: Mary Imlay Taylor

Illustrator: George Alfred Williams

Release date: February 10, 2024 [eBook #72917]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Little, Brown, and Company,

1908

Credits: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
made using scans of public domain works put online by
Harvard University Library's Open Collections Program.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE

REAPING ***
THE REAPING
 THE
REAPING
By
MARY IMLAY TAYLOR
AUTHOR OF “ON THE RED STAIRCASE,” “MY LADY
CLANCARTY,” “THE IMPERSONATOR,” ETC.

With a Frontispiece in Color by

GEORGE ALFRED WILLIAMS

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
 Copyright, 1908,
By Mary Imlay Taylor.

All rights reserved

Printers
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
BOOK I
 THE REAPING

I
“WILLIAM FOX? He’s the most brilliant man they’ve got, but a two-
edged sword; they’re all afraid of him!”
The speaker had just left the swinging doors at the foot of the
staircase from the Rotunda, under the old Library rooms in the west
front of the Capitol, and his companion, who was also a member,
was working himself slowly into his greatcoat.
“No wonder; he’s got a tongue like a whiplash and his smooth ways
only make its sting worse,” he retorted, between his struggles with a
recalcitrant sleeve lining and a stiff shoulder.
“That’s it, his tongue and his infernal sarcastic humor,” Fox’s admirer
admitted with reluctance, “but his logic—it’s magnificent,—his mind
cuts as clean as a diamond; look at his speech on the Nicaraguan
affair. Lord, I’d like to see the opposition beat it! They can’t do it;
they’ve done nothing but snarl since. He’ll be President some day—if
he doesn’t cut his own throat.”
“Pshaw, man!” retorted the other irritably, “he’s brilliant, but as
unstable as water, and a damned egoist!”
They had reached the top of the wide steps which descend from the
west terrace, and Allestree lost the reply to his outburst in the
increasing distance as they went down into the park below. He stood
looking after their indistinctly outlined figures as they disappeared
slowly into the soft mist which enveloped the scene at his feet. It was
about six o’clock, an early December evening, and already night
overhead where the sky was heavily clouded. The streets, streaming
with water, showed broad circles of shimmering light under the
electric lamps, and the naked trees and the ilexes clustered below
the terrace made a darkness through which, and beyond, he saw the
long, converging vista of the Avenue, lined on either side with what
seemed to be wavering and brilliant rainbows, suspended above the
wet pavements and apparently melting into one in the extreme
distance, as though he looked into the sharp apex of a triangle. The
whole was veiled and mystically obscured by a palely luminous
vapor which transformed and softened every object, while the
vehicles and pedestrians, constantly hurrying across the foreground,
loomed exaggerated and fantastic in the fog. Now and then a keen
point of light, the eye of some motor-car, approached, flashed past
the Peace Monument and was lost at the elbow of the Hill.
The terrace, except for Allestree, was deserted, and the continuous
murmur and roar of city life came up to him slightly softened and
subdued, both by the atmospheric depression and the intervening
space of the park. Behind him both wings of the Capitol were vividly
lighted, for the House had just risen after a heated debate,
prolonged, as he amusedly surmised, by the eloquence of William
Fox.
At the thought, that much discussed figure arose before his mind’s
eye in a new aspect created by the fragment of conversation which
had just reached him. He was in the habit of viewing Fox from that
intimate standpoint which, discovering all the details, loses the larger
effect of the whole; as the man in the wings of the theatre,
disillusioned by the tinsel on the costume of an actor and the rouge
on his face, loses the grand climax of his dramatic genius and sees
instead only the charlatan. Yet Allestree’s affection for his cousin was
strong enough to embrace even those defects, of which he was
keenly aware, and personal enough to feel a thrill of elation at the
constant evidences of an increasing recognition of Fox’s really great
abilities. Yet there was something amusing in the fear which he was
beginning to inspire in his opponents; amusing, at least, to one who
knew him, as Allestree did, to be a man of careless good humor and
large indifference.
Knowing all Fox’s peculiarities, his not infrequent relaxations, and
the complex influences which were at work upon his temperament—
the irresponsible temperament of genius—Allestree could not but
speculate a little upon that future which was beginning to be of
poignant interest to more than one aspirant in the great arena of
public life.
But his reflections were cut short at this point by the abrupt
appearance of Fox himself. He came out of the same door which
had, a few moments earlier, emitted his critics, and as he emerged
upon the terrace the keen light from the electric globes at the head of
the steps fell full on his remarkable face and figure. For, while by no
means above the average in stature, Fox possessed one of those
personalities which cannot be overlooked. Genius like beauty has
magnetic qualities of its own and, even at night and out of doors,
Allestree was fully aware of the singular brilliance and penetration of
his glance.
“Well, Bob,” he said genially, as he joined his cousin, “you’re a lucky
dog, out here in the open! The House has steamed like the witches’
cauldron to-night and brewed devil’s broth, tariff revision and all
manner of damnable heresies.”
Allestree smiled grimly in the dusk. “Then you must be the father of
them,” he retorted; “I just heard that you’d been making a speech.”
“Eh? you did, did you?” Fox paused an instant to light his cigar; “so I
did,” he admitted, tossing away the match, “I talked tommyrot for an
hour and a half to keep the House sitting; I might be going on still if
old Killigrew hadn’t got to his feet and howled for adjournment. He
usually dines at six sharp, and it’s a quarter to seven now; he had
death and starvation in his eye, and I yielded the point as a matter of
humanity.”
“According to recent information you have very little humanity in
you,” Allestree replied, as they descended the long flight of steps
from the terrace, “in fact, you are a ‘damned egoist.’”
Fox threw back his head with a hearty, careless laugh. “Which of my
enemies have you been interviewing?” he asked, with unruffled good
humor.
His cousin briefly related the result of his accidental début in the rôle
of eavesdropper, incidentally describing the two men.
“I know who they are,” Fox said amusedly; “one is Burns of
Pennsylvania, and the other a fellow from Rhode Island who is
picking flaws in everything and everybody; the government’s rotten,
the Senate’s corrupt, the Supreme Court is senile—so on and so on
ad infinitum! Meanwhile there’s some kind of a scandal attached to
his own election—no one cares what! He reminds me of Voltaire’s
enraged description of Jean Jacques with the rotten hoops off
Diogenes’ tub.”
“That is not all; even your admirer feared the suicidal effects of your
tongue,” continued Allestree teasingly, “which is said to be two-
edged, while your sarcasm is ‘infernal.’”
“Oh, that’s a mere façon de parler,” laughed Fox, “I’m really as mild
as a lamb and as harmless as a dove!”
“Quite so!” retorted his cousin dryly, “yet I think most of your enemies
and some of your friends resort to the litany when you cut loose for
an oratorical flight.”
“Well, it’s said that even the devil goes to prayers on occasions,” said
Fox with a shrug, “so why not my enemies? By the way, the
nominations were sent to the Senate just before adjournment to-
night, and the Cabinet changes are slated; I heard it as I came out.”
“Does Wingfield go out?” Allestree asked, after a momentary pause,
as they threaded their way between the electric cars and the
carriages which were slightly congested at the crossing below the
Peace Monument.
Fox nodded. “And Seymour gets his place, while Wicklow White is
made Secretary of the Navy.”
His companion looked up quickly and caught only his pale profile
outlined against the surrounding fog; his expression was enigmatical.
“Upon my word!” exclaimed Allestree, “White’s luck is stupendous—
you remember what a block-head we always thought him at
Harvard? Well, well, Margaret will have her heart’s desire,” he added
amusedly.
Fox slightly frowned. “So!” he said contemptuously, “you think the
sum total of a woman’s desire is to see a chump of a husband with
his foot in the stirrup?”
His cousin smiled coldly. “My dear fellow, it was for that Margaret
married him,” he retorted, “that and his money. When I see her, as I
saw her the other night, the most beautiful and charming creature, in
a miracle of a costume,—she knows how to wear clothes that make
pictures,—I longed to say to her:—
“‘You that have so fair parts of woman on you,
Have too a woman’s heart: which ever yet
Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty.’”
“Pshaw, you dreamer of dreams and painter of pictures; it’s a hollow
show, an ugly travesty! What has a man like White to give such a
woman? The husks of the prodigal!” Fox’s luminous dark eyes
kindled with anger, “when I see him—” he checked himself abruptly
and walked on rapidly, his long, easy stride carrying him ahead of
Allestree. “Pearls before swine!” he muttered to himself after a
moment, plunging his hands into his pockets and relapsing into an
angry silence.
They walked on at a smart pace, having occasionally to thread their
way single file through the increasing throng, as the long blocks
slipped behind them and they approached the heart of business life
near Fourteenth Street. When they came together again after such a
separation, Allestree asked Fox if he could come home with him to
dine but Fox declined rather curtly, pleading an early evening
engagement, and Allestree said no more, having his own surmises
as to the nature of that engagement, and being somewhat guiltily
aware that he was not an entirely involuntary party to his mother’s
conspiracy to draw Fox away from a dangerous attraction. Both men
were, in fact, conscious that a discord had arisen in their usually
confidential relations, and neither of them desired to broach any
subject which would add acrimony to the conversation; with the
usual masculine instinct of self-defense, therefore, they relapsed into
silence. However, at the entrance of a large hotel on the corner, their
hurried progress was interrupted to give way to a visitor who was
crossing the wide pavement to her carriage, escorted by one of the
attendants and a footman. The light from the lobby, brilliantly
illuminating the space beneath the awning, outlined her as sharply
as a silhouette against the darkness, and her figure,—she was a
young and slender girl,—was thrown into high relief; the quiet
elegance of her dress, the sables on her shoulders, as well as the
large picture hat which framed her face, being merely superfluous
accessories to beauty of a type at once unusual and spiritual.
Fox, startled out of a revery which was largely pervaded by the
personality of another woman, could not but observe this radiant
picture; there was a vitality, a power of expression in every feature of
her face and every movement of her tall, lithe figure which at once
specialized her. She seemed to belong to a different race of beings
from those who were hurrying past her through the fog, whose
figures lost themselves at once to vision and memory, dissolving into
the masses of the commonplace, as completely as the individual
sands at the seashore are lost in the larger sweep of the dunes.
She turned her head, saw Allestree and smiled. “How are you?” she
said, with the easy manner of an old intimacy; “I hardly dare look at
you—I know I broke the appointment and several of the studio
commandments!”
Allestree had hurried forward at once, apparently forgetting his
companion, and was helping her into her carriage. “You did,” he said,
“and shamelessly; but you must come and make amends.”
She laughed, her hand on the carriage door, and her eyes,
involuntarily passing him to Fox, were as quickly averted. “I will, on
Saturday at twelve—will that do, Bobby? Don’t be too exacting. I’ve a
dozen engagements, you know,” she added lightly, in a tone of
careless propitiation.
Fox did not catch his cousin’s reply, it was too low spoken, and in a
moment the horses started and the carriage passed him on its way
to F Street. Secretly a little piqued at Allestree’s failure to present
him, and yet amused at his discovery of his cousin playing knight-
errant to a beauty, Fox walked on a few moments in silence, aware
that the other was not a little confused.
But at last: “Who is she, Bob, wood-nymph, dryad, or Psyche
herself?”
Allestree’s face sobered sharply. “It was Miss Temple,” he said, a
trifle stiffly.
Fox gave a moment to reflection. “Ah,” he observed, “I recollect,
Judge Temple has a daughter. I had never seen her; I’ve heard her
spoken of, though, a hundred times; her name is—?”
“Rose Temple.”
William Fox glanced at his companion obliquely and smiled, but he
made no attempt at pleasantry. After a little, however, as they
approached the residential quarter and neared his club, where he
intended to dine, he returned to the subject. “You are painting Miss
Temple’s portrait?”
“Yes, attempting it,” assented Allestree, with marked reluctance; he
felt it to be almost a sacrilege to speak of a piece of work which had
become, in more ways than one, a labor of love.
He was indeed painting Rose Temple’s portrait, for he was already a
notable portrait painter, but he was doing it much as Raphael may
have painted the Sistine Madonna, with a reverence which was full
of ineffable tenderness and inspiration, and he was too keenly aware
of Fox’s intimate knowledge of him and his unmerciful insight into
human motives to endure the thought of Fox in possession of his
inmost secrets and on terms of friendship with Rose. Fox! one of the
most enigmatical, the most dangerous, the most fascinating
personalities—Allestree had seen the potency of that spell—to be
brought in contact with any woman, and most of all with a young and
imaginative girl.
After a moment Fox’s laugh interrupted him. “My dear Allestree,” he
said provokingly, “why not paint the Angel Gabriel?”
His companion, whose sensitiveness amounted to an exquisite self-
torture, bit his lip and made no reply.
At the door of the club they both paused as Allestree prepared to
take a car uptown while his cousin went in to dine.
“Sorry you can’t come to us,” he said, in a tone which was a shade
less cordial than usual; “mother will be disappointed; there is no one
else coming, and she always counts greatly on a talk with you.”
“Give her my love instead,” Fox retorted, with easy kindness, “I’m
sorry, but I dine here and then go up to the Whites’. I promised;
there’s to be music—or something—to-night.”
Allestree slightly shrugged his shoulders. “So I supposed,” he said
dryly, and signalled his car.
 II
A FEW hours later William Fox presented himself at the home of the
new Cabinet minister. He was an intimate habitué of the house; a
fact which created no little comment in social and political circles, for
Fox and White were naturally almost antipodal personalities and had
often engaged in political controversies, which had inevitably ended
in White’s defeat at the hands of his daring and brilliant adversary.
But it was not their antipathies or their rivalries in politics which
aroused the gossip, of which Fox was vaguely and carelessly aware,
but the presupposed existence of an old sentimental relation
between him and White’s wife. However, gossip of all kinds troubled
Fox but little, and he followed his own inclinations with the indolent
egoism of a man who has been for many years the spoiled darling of
fortune.
The house was one of the old landmarks of Washington, and the
true values of space and effect were consequently somewhat
diminished by low ceilings and small old-fashioned doors. As Fox
entered he heard the buzz of conversation in the distance, in more
tongues than English, and when the butler announced him he came
upon a group of dinner guests who were gathered around the
immense fireplace at the end of the ballroom—a huge addition to the
original house especially designed for the elaborate entertainments
for which the host and hostess were already famous—and the warm
glow of the leaping fire increased the effect and brilliance of the
scene.
At his name his hostess detached herself from the group and tossing
her cigarette into the fire held out her hand in greeting. “You
inconsequent wretch!” she said, shaking an admonishing finger, “late
as usual—we expected you to dinner and M. de Caillou tells us that,
instead, you made a great speech! Pray, what became of you
afterwards?”
“Total oblivion for the space of three hours,” replied Fox gaily; “I
come now to congratulate you! The next step will be the Presidency,
White,” he added, as he shook hands with his host.
“If I can keep you out of it,” retorted the secretary, dryly.
Fox laughed, acknowledging the intimate greetings of the other
guests. At a glance he saw that the gathering was as notable as
usual, and was secretly amused at White’s attitude which seemed to
accept all this as his own achievement, ignoring the influence of his
wife. The French ambassador was there, a Russian prince, an
Austrian savant, an Italian ex-diplomat, the chancellor of the British
embassy, two other Cabinet ministers, a literary celebrity, a Roman
Catholic dignitary, and a somewhat notorious French journalist and
socialist who had dipped his pen in gall during the controversy
between France and the Vatican. Margaret’s usual selections, Fox
thought with a smile, and noted that the only other woman was Mrs.
Osborne, the former wife of an American ambassador to Russia,
whose divorce had created a sensation as distinct and startling as
her beauty, which was of that type which somewhat openly
advertises the additions of art. A woman, in fact, who had given rise
to so much “talk” that the old-fashioned wondered at Margaret
White’s complacence in receiving her and even admitting her upon
terms of intimacy at the house. But Margaret’s personality was as
problematical as it was charming. She stood now regarding Fox with
a slightly pensive expression in her gray eyes, which seemed
unusually large and bright because of the dark shadows beneath
them, while her small head was set on a slender white neck which
supported it like the stem of a flower. She was thin, but with a
daintiness which eliminated angles, and she possessed in a marked
degree, as Allestree had said, the talent for artistic costumes; her
slight figure, which had the grace and delicate suppleness of some
fabled dryad, had the effect, at the moment, of being marvellously
enveloped in a clinging, shimmering cloud of soft, gold-colored silk
and embroidery out of which her white shoulders rose suddenly; she
was much décolletée, and, except for the jewelled shoulder-straps,
her slender but beautiful arms were bare.
She rested her hands on the high back of a chair, apparently
listening to all, but actually attentive only to that which immediately
concerned Fox and her husband, who were exchanging
commonplaces with the purely perfunctory manner of men who
cordially detested each other at heart.
“White only pretends indifference,” said Louis Berkman, the literary
genius, who was one of the famous writers of the day; “actually he is
overjoyed at the exit of Wingfield; that is the very pith of the matter,
isn’t it, Mrs. White?”
Margaret shrugged her shoulders. “Why not?” she retorted; “what
was it Walpole said? ‘One tiger is charmed if another tiger loses his
tail.’”
There was the general laugh at this, which always followed
Margaret’s careless and daring candor.
“It was certainly a case of ‘heads or tails’ with the President,” Louis
Berkman retorted, with the ease of political detachment in the midst
of the inner circle of officialdom; “we shall have a budget now which
will carry a billion dollar naval increase.”
“You’ve lived too long in England,” said Fox amusedly, “you don’t get
our terms, Berkman. But we shall insist on Mrs. White christening all
the new ships.”
“To be sure—I forgot that I was speaking to the money supply, Fox,”
he replied; “heaven help White if he gets into your clutches; I should
as soon expect mercy from an Iroquois Indian!”
“I don’t mind that from you,” laughed Fox,—“we expect anything from
the ‘outs,’—as long as you don’t write us up for the magazines!”
“The gods forbid!” said Berkman sharply, “I’m not ‘the man with the
muckrake;’ now if—” he turned his head and, catching a glimpse of
the French journalist engaged in an animated discussion with the
Italian ex-diplomat, who fairly bristled with suppressed anger, he bit
his lip to hide a smile.
One of the secretaries leaned forward to select a new cigarette from
the elaborate gold box on the table. “Berkman,” he remarked, “I read
that article of yours on the Duma with a great deal of interest, but I
got an impression that you lost sight of the main issues in your
passion for artistic effects.”