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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29860-8.txt b/29860-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f59d86 --- /dev/null +++ b/29860-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8179 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Great Man, by Arnold Bennett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: A Great Man + A Frolic + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: August 30, 2009 [EBook #29860] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GREAT MAN *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +A GREAT MAN + +A FROLIC + + +BY + +ARNOLD BENNETT + + +AUTHOR OF +'THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL,' 'ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS,' +'LEONORA,' ETC. + +[Illustration] + +LONDON +CHATTO & WINDUS + +1904 + + +TO + +MY DEAR FRIEND + +FREDERICK MARRIOTT + +AND TO + +THE IMPERISHABLE MEMORY + +OF + +OLD TIMES + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. HIS BIRTH 1 + + II. TOM 8 + + III. HIS CHRISTENING 17 + + IV. AGED TWELVE 26 + + V. MARRONS GLACÉS 36 + + VI. A CALAMITY FOR THE SCHOOL 49 + + VII. CONTAGIOUS 58 + + VIII. CREATIVE 72 + + IX. SPRING ONIONS 85 + + X. MARK SNYDER 95 + + XI. SATIN 105 + + XII. HIS FAME 117 + + XIII. A LION IN HIS LAIR 135 + + XIV. HER NAME WAS GERALDINE 148 + + XV. HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY 161 + + XVI. DURING THE TEA-MEETING 169 + + XVII. A NOVELIST IN A BOX 181 + + XVIII. HIS JACK-HORNERISM 195 + + XIX. HE JUSTIFIES HIS FATHER 201 + + XX. PRESS AND PUBLIC 215 + + XXI. PLAYING THE NEW GAME 226 + + XXII. HE LEARNS MORE ABOUT WOMEN 239 + + XXIII. SEPARATION 249 + + XXIV. COSETTE 256 + + XXV. THE RAKE'S PROGRESS 273 + + XXVI. THE NEW LIFE 289 + + XXVII. HE IS NOT NERVOUS 308 + +XXVIII. HE SHORTENS HIS NAME 325 + + XXIX. THE PRESIDENT 337 + + + + +A GREAT MAN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HIS BIRTH + + +On an evening in 1866 (exactly eight hundred years after the Battle of +Hastings) Mr. Henry Knight, a draper's manager, aged forty, dark, +clean-shaven, short, but not stout, sat in his sitting-room on the +second-floor over the shop which he managed in Oxford Street, London. He +was proud of that sitting-room, which represented the achievement of an +ideal, and he had a right to be proud of it. The rich green wall-paper +covered with peonies in full bloom (poisoning by arsenical wall-paper +had not yet been invented, or Mr. Knight's peonies would certainly have +had to flourish over a different hue) matched the magenta table-cloth of +the table at which Mr. Knight was writing, and the magenta table-cloth +matched the yellow roses which grew to more than exhibition size on the +Axminster carpet; and the fine elaborate effect thus produced was in no +way impaired, but rather enhanced and invigorated, by the mahogany +bookcase full of imperishable printed matter, the horsehair sofa netted +in a system of antimacassars, the waxen flowers in their glassy domes on +the marble mantelpiece, the Canterbury with its spiral columns, the +rosewood harmonium, and the posse of chintz-protected chairs. Mr. +Knight, who was a sincere and upright man, saw beauty in this apartment. +It uplifted his soul, like soft music in the gloaming, or a woman's +face. + +Mr. Knight was writing in a large book. He paused in the act of +composition, and, putting the pen between his teeth, glanced through the +pages of the volume. They were filled with the drafts of letters which +he had addressed during the previous seven years to the editors of +various newspapers, including the _Times_, and several other organs +great then but now extinct. In a space underneath each letter had been +neatly gummed the printed copy, but here and there a letter lacked this +certificate of success, for Mr. Knight did not always contrive to reach +his public. The letters were signed with pseudonyms, such as A British +Citizen, Fiat Justitia, Audi Alteram Partem, Indignant, Disgusted, One +Who Knows, One Who Would Like to Know, Ratepayer, Taxpayer, Puzzled, and +Pro Bono Publico--especially Pro Bono Publico. Two letters, to a trade +periodical, were signed A Draper's Manager of Ten Years' Standing, and +one, to the _Clerkenwell News_, bore his own real name. + +The letter upon which he was now engaged was numbered seventy-five in +the series, and made its appeal to the editor of the _Standard_. Having +found inspiration, Mr. Knight proceeded, in a hand distinguished by many +fine flourishes: + + + ' ... It is true that last year we only paid off some four + millions, but the year before we paid, I am thankful to say, more + than nine millions. Why, then, this outcry against the allocation + of somewhat less than nine millions out of our vast national + revenue towards the further extinction of the National Debt? _It is + not the duty of the State, as well as of the individual, to pay its + debts?_ In order to support the argument with which I began this + communication, perhaps you will permit me, sir, to briefly outline + the history of the National Debt, our national shame. In 1688 the + National Debt was little more than six hundred thousand pounds....' + + +After briefly outlining the history of the National Debt, Mr. Knight +began a new paragraph thus: + + + 'In the immortal words of Shakspere, wh----' + + +But at this point he was interrupted. A young and pleasant woman in a +white apron pushed open the door. + +'Henry,' she called from the doorway. + +'Well?' + +'You'd better go now.' + +'Very well, Annie; I'll go instantly.' + +He dropped the pen, reduced the gas to a speck of blue, and in half a +minute was hurrying along Oxford Street. The hour was ten o'clock, and +the month was July; the evening favoured romance. He turned into Bury +Street, and knocked like fate at a front-door with a brass tablet on it, +No. 8 of the street. + +'No, sir. He isn't in at the moment, sir,' said the maid who answered +Mr. Knight's imperious summons. + +'Not in!' exclaimed Mr. Knight. + +'No, sir. He was called away half an hour ago or hardly, and may be out +till very late.' + +'Called away!' exclaimed Mr. Knight. He was astounded, shocked, pained. +'But I warned him three months ago!' + +'Did you, sir? Is it anything very urgent, sir?' + +'It's----' Mr. Knight hesitated, blushing. The girl looked so young and +innocent. + +'Because if it is, master left word that anyone was to go to Dr. +Christopher's, 22, Argyll Street.' + +'You will be sure to tell your master that I came,' said Mr. Knight +frigidly, departing. + +At 22, Argyll Street he was informed that Dr. Christopher had likewise +been called away, and had left a recommendation that urgent cases, if +any, should apply to Dr. Quain Short, 15, Bury Street. His anger was +naturally increased by the absence of this second doctor, but it was far +more increased by the fact that Dr. Quain Short happened to live in Bury +Street. At that moment the enigma of the universe was wrapped up for him +in the question, Why should he have been compelled to walk all the way +from Bury Street to Argyll Street merely in order to walk all the way +back again? And he became a trinity consisting of Disgusted, Indignant, +and One Who Would Like to Know, the middle term predominating. When he +discovered that No. 15, Bury Street, was exactly opposite No. 8, Bury +Street, his feelings were such as break bell-wires. + +'Dr. Quain Short is at the Alhambra Theatre this evening with the +family,' a middle-aged and formidable housekeeper announced in reply to +Mr. Knight's query. 'In case of urgency he is to be fetched. His box is +No. 3.' + +'The Alhambra Theatre! Where is that?' gasped Mr. Knight. + +It should be explained that he held the stage in abhorrence, and, +further, that the Alhambra had then only been opened for a very brief +period. + +'Two out, and the third at the theatre!' Mr. Knight mused grimly, +hastening through Seven Dials. 'At the theatre, of all places!' + +A letter to the _Times_ about the medical profession was just shaping +itself in his mind as he arrived at the Alhambra and saw that a piece +entitled _King Carrot_ filled the bill. + +'_King Karrot!_' he muttered scornfully, emphasizing the dangerously +explosive consonants in a manner which expressed with complete adequacy, +not only his indignation against the entire medical profession, but his +utter and profound contempt for the fatuities of the modern stage. + +The politeness of the officials and the prompt appearance of Dr. Quain +Short did something to mollify the draper's manager of ten years' +standing, though he was not pleased when the doctor insisted on going +first to his surgery for certain requisites. It was half-past eleven +when he returned home; Dr. Quain Short was supposed to be hard behind. + +'How long you've been!' said a voice on the second flight of stairs, +'It's all over. A boy. And dear Susan is doing splendidly. Mrs. +Puddiphatt says she never saw such a----' + +From the attic floor came the sound of a child crying shrilly and +lustily: + +'Aunt Annie! Aunt Annie! Aunt _Annie_!' + +'Run up and quieten him!' Mr. Knight commanded. 'It's like him to begin +making a noise just now. I'll take a look at Susan--and my firstborn.' + + + + +CHAPTER II + +TOM + + +In the attic a child of seven years was sitting up in a cot placed by +the side of his dear Aunt Annie's bed. He had an extremely intelligent, +inquisitorial, and agnostical face, and a fair, curled head of hair, +which he scratched with one hand as Aunt Annie entered the room and held +the candle on high in order to survey him. + +'Well?' inquired Aunt Annie firmly. + +'Well?' said Tom Knight, determined not to commit himself, and waiting +wanly for a chance, like a duellist. + +'What's all this noise for? I told you I specially wanted you to go to +sleep at once to-night.' + +'Yes,' said Tom, staring at the counterpane and picking imaginary bits +off it. 'And you might have known I shouldn't go to sleep after _that_!' + +'And here it's nearly midnight!' Aunt Annie proceeded. 'What do you +want?' + +'You--you've left the comb in my hair,' said Tom. He nearly cried. + +Every night Aunt Annie curled Tom's hair. + +'Is it such a tiny boy that it couldn't take it out itself?' Aunt Annie +said kindly, going to the cot and extracting the comb. 'Now try to +sleep.' She kissed him. + +'And I've heard burglars,' Tom continued, without moving. + +'Oh no, you've not,' Aunt Annie pronounced sharply. 'You can't hear +burglars every night, you know.' + +'I heard running about, and doors shutting and things.' + +'That was Uncle Henry and me. Will you promise to be a good boy if I +tell you a secret?' + +'I shan't _promise_,' Tom replied. 'But if it's a good secret I'll +try--hard.' + +'Well, you've got a cousin, a little boy, ever so little! There! What do +you think of that?' + +'I knew someone had got into the house!' was Tom's dispassionate remark. +'What's his name?' + +'He hasn't any name yet, but he will have soon.' + +'Did he come up the stairs?' Tom asked. + +Aunt Annie laughed. 'No,' she said. + +'Then, he must have come through the window or down the chimney; and he +wouldn't come down the chimney 'cause of the soot. So he came through +the window. Whose little boy is he? Yours?' + +'No. Aunt Susan's.' + +'I suppose she knows he's come?' + +'Oh yes. She knows. And she's very glad. Now go to sleep. And I'll tell +Aunt Susan you'll be a good boy.' + +'You'd better not,' Tom warned her. 'I don't feel sure. And I say, +auntie, will there come any more little boys to-night?' + +'I don't think so, dear.' Aunt Annie smiled. She was half way through +the door, and spoke into the passage. + +'But are you sure?' Tom persisted. + +'Yes, I'm sure. Go to sleep.' + +'Doesn't Aunt Susan want another one?' + +'No, she doesn't. Go to sleep, I say.' + +''Cause, when I came, another little boy came just afterwards, and he +died, that little boy did. And mamma, too. Father told me.' + +'Yes, yes,' said Aunt Annie, closing the door. 'Bee-by.' + +'I didn't promise,' Tom murmured to his conscience. 'But it's a good +secret,' he added brazenly. He climbed over the edge of the cot, and let +himself down gently till his feet touched the floor. He found his +clothes, which Aunt Annie invariably placed on a chair in a certain +changeless order, and he put some of them on, somehow. Then he softly +opened the door and crept down the stairs to the second-floor. He was an +adventurous and incalculable child, and he desired to see the baby. + +Persons who called on Mr. Henry Knight in his private capacity rang at +the side-door to the right of the shop, and were instructed by the +shop-caretaker to mount two flights of stairs, having mounted which they +would perceive in front of them a door, where they were to ring again. +This door was usually closed, but to-night Tom found it ajar. He peeped +out and downwards, and thought of the vast showroom below and the +wonderful regions of the street. Then he drew in his head, and concealed +himself behind the plush portière. From his hiding-place he could watch +the door of Uncle Henry's and Aunt Susan's bedroom, and he could also, +whenever he felt inclined, glance down the stairway. + +He waited, with the patience and the fatalism of infancy, for something +to happen. + +After an interval of time not mathematically to be computed, Tom heard a +step on the stairs, and looked forth. A tall gentleman wearing a high +hat and carrying a black bag was ascending. In a flash Tom recollected a +talk with his dead father, in which that glorious and gay parent had +explained to him that he, Tom, had been brought to his mother's room by +the doctor in a black bag. + +Tom pulled open the door at the head of the stairs, went outside, and +drew the door to behind him. + +'Are you the doctor?' he demanded, staring intently at the bag to see +whether anything wriggled within. + +'Yes, my man,' said the doctor. It was Quain Short, wrenched from the +Alhambra. + +'Well, they don't want another one. They've got one,' Tom asserted, +still observing the bag. + +'You're sure?' + +'Yes. Aunt Annie said particularly that they didn't want another one.' + +'Who is it that has come? Do you know his name? Christopher--is that +it?' + +'I don't know his name. But he's come, and he's in the bedroom now, with +Aunt Susan.' + +'How annoying!' said Dr. Quain Short under his breath, and he went. + +Tom re-entered, and took up his old position behind the portière. + +Presently he heard another step on the stair, and issued out again to +reconnoitre. And, lo! another tall gentleman wearing another high hat +and carrying another black bag was ascending. + +'This makes three,' Tom said. + +'What's that, my little man?' asked the gentleman, smiling. It was Dr. +Christopher. + +'This makes three. And they only want one. The first one came ever such +a long time ago. And I can tell you Aunt Susan was very glad when he did +come.' + +'Dear, dear!' exclaimed Dr. Christopher. 'Then I'm too late, my little +man. I was afraid I might be. Everything all right, eh?' + +Tom nodded, and Dr. Christopher departed. + +And then, after a further pause, up came another tall gentleman, high +hat, and black bag. + +'This is four,' said Tom. + +'What's that, Tommy?' asked Mr. Henry Knight's regular physician and +surgeon. 'What are you doing there?' + +'One came hours since,' Tom said. 'And they don't want any more.' Then +he gazed at the bag, which was larger and glossier than its +predecessors. 'Have you brought a _very_ nice one?' he inquired. 'They +don't really want another, but perhaps if it's _very_----' + +It was this momentary uncertainty on Tom's part that possibly saved my +hero's life. For the parents were quite inexperienced, and Mrs. +Puddiphatt was an accoucheuse of the sixties, and the newborn child was +near to dying in the bedroom without anybody being aware of the fact. + +'A very nice what?' the doctor questioned gruffly. + +'Baby. In that bag,' Tom stammered. + +'Out of the way, my bold buccaneer,' said the doctor, striding across +the mat into the corridor. + +At two o'clock the next morning, Tom being asleep, and all going well +with wife and child, Mr. Henry Knight returned at length to his +sitting-room, and resumed the composition of the letter to the editor of +the _Standard_. The work existed as an artistic whole in his head, and +he could not persuade himself to seek rest until he had got it down in +black-and-white; for, though he wrote letters instead of sonnets, he was +nevertheless a sort of a poet by temperament. You behold him calm now, +master once more of his emotions, and not that agitated, pompous, and +slightly ridiculous person who lately stamped over Oxford Street and +stormed the Alhambra Theatre. And in order to help the excellent father +of my hero back into your esteem, let me point out that the imminence +and the actuality of fatherhood constitute a somewhat disturbing +experience, which does not occur to a man every day. + +Mr. Knight dipped pen in ink, and continued: + + + ' ... who I hold to be not only the greatest poet, but also the + greatest moral teacher that England has ever produced, + + + '"To thine own self be true, + And it must follow, as the night the day, + Thou canst not then be false to any man." + + + 'In conclusion, sir, I ask, without fear of contradiction, are we + or are we not, in this matter of the National Debt, to be true to + our national selves? + 'Yours obediently, + 'A CONSCIENTIOUS TAXPAYER.' + + +The signature troubled him. His pen hovered threateningly over it, and +finally he struck it out and wrote instead: 'Paterfamilias.' He felt +that this pseudonym was perhaps a little inapposite, but some impulse +stronger than himself forced him to employ it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HIS CHRISTENING + + +'But haven't I told you that I was just writing the very name when Annie +came in to warn me?' + +Mr. Knight addressed the question, kindly and mildly, yet with a hint of +annoyance, to his young wife, who was nursing their son with all the +experience of three months' practice. It was Sunday morning, and they +had finished breakfast in the sitting-room. Within an hour or two the +heir was to be taken to the Great Queen Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel +for the solemn rite of baptism. + +'Yes, lovey,' said Mrs. Knight. 'You've told me, time and again. But, oh +Henry! Your name's just Henry Knight, and I want his to be just Henry +Knight, too! I want him to be called after you.' + +And the mother, buxom, simple, and adoring, glanced appealingly with +bright eyes at the man who for her epitomized the majesty and +perfections of his sex. + +'He will be Henry Knight,' the father persisted, rather coldly. + +But Mrs. Knight shook her head. + +Then Aunt Annie came into the room, pushing Tom before her. Tom was +magnificently uncomfortable in his best clothes. + +'What's the matter, Sue?' Aunt Annie demanded, as soon as she had +noticed her sister's face. + +And in a moment, in the fraction of a second, and solely by reason of +Aunt Annie's question, the situation became serious. It jumped up, as +domestic situations sometimes do, suddenly to the temperature at which +thunderstorms are probable. It grew close, heavy, and perilous. + +Mrs. Knight shook her head again. 'Nothing,' she managed to reply. + +'Susan wants----' Mr. Knight began suavely to explain. + +'He keeps on saying he would like him to be called----' Mrs. Knight +burst out. + +'No I don't--no I don't!' Mr. Knight interrupted. 'Not if you don't +wish it!' + +A silence followed. Mr. Knight drummed lightly and nervously on the +table-cloth. Mrs. Knight sniffed, threw back her head so that the tears +should not fall out of her eyes, and gently patted the baby's back with +her right hand. Aunt Annie hesitated whether to speak or not to speak. + +Tom remarked in a loud voice: + +'If I were you, I should call him Tom, like me. Then, as soon as he can +talk, I could say, "How do, Cousin Tom?" and he could say back, "How do, +Cousin Tom?"' + +'But we should always be getting mixed up between you, you silly boy!' +said Aunt Annie, smiling, and trying to be bright and sunny. + +'No, you wouldn't,' Tom replied. 'Because I should be Big Tom, and of +course he'd only be Little Tom. And I don't think I'm a silly boy, +either.' + +'Will you be silent, sir!' Mr. Knight ordered in a voice of wrath. And, +by way of indicating that the cord of tension had at last snapped, he +boxed Tom's left ear, which happened to be the nearest. + +Mrs. Knight lost control of her tears, and they escaped. She offered +the baby to Aunt Annie. + +'Take him. He's asleep. Put him in the cradle,' she sobbed. + +'Yes, dear,' said Aunt Annie intimately, in a tone to show how well she +knew that poor women must always cling together in seasons of stress and +times of oppression. + +Mrs. Knight hurried out of the room. Mr. Knight cherished an injury. He +felt aggrieved because Susan could not see that, though six months ago +she had been entitled to her whims and fancies, she was so no longer. He +felt, in fact, that Susan was taking an unfair advantage of him. The +logic of the thing was spread out plainly and irrefutably in his mind. +And then, quite swiftly, the logic of the thing vanished, and Mr. Knight +rose and hastened after his wife. + +'You deserved it, you know,' said Aunt Annie to Tom. + +'Did I?' The child seemed to speculate. + +They both stared at the baby, who lay peacefully in his cradle, for +several minutes. + +'Annie, come here a moment.' Mr. Knight was calling from another room. + +'Yes, Henry. Now, Tom, don't touch the cradle. And if baby begins to +cry, run and tell me.' + +'Yes, auntie.' + +And Aunt Annie went. She neglected to close the door behind her; Tom +closed it, noiselessly. + +Never before had he been left alone with the baby. He examined with +minute care such parts of the living organism as were visible, and then, +after courageously fighting temptation, and suffering defeat, he touched +the baby's broad, flat nose. He scarcely touched it, yet the baby +stirred and mewed faintly. Tom began to rock the cradle, at first +gently, then with nervous violence. The faint mew became a regular and +sustained cry. + +He glanced at the door, and decided that he would make a further effort +to lull the ridiculous agitation of this strange and mysterious being. +Bending down, he seized the baby in both hands, and tried to nurse it as +his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it +exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process +of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and +now lay on its beam-ends. + +'Hsh--hsh!' Tom entreated, shooing and balancing as best he could. + +Then, without warning, Tom's spirit leapt into anger. + +'Will you be silent, sir!' he demanded fiercely from the baby, imitating +Uncle Henry's tone. 'Will you be silent, sir!' He shook the infant, who +was astounded into a momentary silence. + +The next thing was the sound of footsteps approaching rapidly along the +passage. Tom had no leisure to right the cradle; he merely dropped the +baby on the floor by the side of it, and sprang to the window. + +'You naughty, naughty boy!' Aunt Annie shrieked. 'You've taken baby out +of his cradle! Oh, my pet! my poor darling! my mumsy! Did they, then?' + +'I didn't! I didn't!' Tom asserted passionately. 'I've never stirred +from here all the time you were out. It fell out itself!' + +'Oh!' screamed Aunt Annie. 'There's a black place on his poor little +forehead!' + +In an instant the baby's parents were to the rescue, and Tom was +declaring his innocence to the united family. + +'It fell out itself!' he repeated; and soon he began to think of +interesting details. 'I saw it. It put its hand on the edge of the +cradle and pulled up, and then it leaned to one side, and then the +cradle toppled over.' + +Of course the preposterous lie was credited by nobody. + +'There's one thing!' said Mrs. Knight, weeping for the second time that +morning. 'I won't have him christened with a black forehead, that I +won't!' + +At this point, Aunt Annie, who had scurried to the kitchen for some +butter, flew back and anointed the bruise. + +'It fell out itself!' Tom said again. + +'Whatever would the minister think?' Mrs. Knight wondered. + +'It fell out itself!' said Tom. + +Mr. Knight whipped Tom, and his Aunt Annie put him to bed for the rest +of the day. In the settled opinion of Mrs. Knight, Tom was punished for +attempting to murder her baby. But Mr. Knight insisted that the +punishment was for lying. As for the baptism, it had necessarily to be +postponed for four weeks, since the ceremony was performed at the Great +Queen Street Chapel only on the first Sunday in the month. + +'I never touched it!' Tom asseverated solemnly the next day. 'It fell +out itself!' + +And he clung to the statement, day after day, with such obstinacy that +at length the three adults, despite the protests of reason, began to +think that conceivably, just conceivably, the impossible was +possible--in regard to one particular baby. Mrs. Knight had often +commented on the perfectly marvellous muscular power of her baby's hand +when it clutched hers, and signs were not wanting to convince the +parents and the aunt that the infant was no ordinary infant, but indeed +extraordinary and wonderful to the last degree. + +On the fourth day, when Tom had asserted for about the hundredth time, +'It fell out itself,' his Aunt Susan kissed him and gave him a +sweetmeat. Tom threw it away, but in the end, after much coaxing, he +consented to enjoy it. Aunt Susan detected the finger of Providence in +recent events, and one night she whispered to her husband: 'Lovey, I +want you to call him what you said.' + +And so it occurred, at the christening, that when the minister leaned +over the Communion-rail to take the wonder-child from its mother's +arms, its father whispered into the minister's ear a double name. + +'Henry Shakspere----' began the minister with lifted hand. + +And the baby smiled confidently upwards. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AGED TWELVE + + +'Quick! He's coming!' + +It was Aunt Annie who uttered the dramatic whisper, and as she did so +she popped a penknife on to an empty plate in front of an empty chair at +the breakfast-table. Mr. Knight placed a silver watch and also, +separately, a silver chain by the side of the weapon; and, lastly, Mrs. +Knight had the happy inspiration of covering these articles with the +empty slop-basin. + +The plotters sat back in their chairs and tried to keep their guilty +eyes off the overturned basin. 'Two slices, Annie?' said Mr. Knight in a +loud tone, elaborately casual. 'Yes, please,' said Aunt Annie. Mrs. +Knight began to pour out coffee. They all three looked at each other, +joyous, naughty, strategic; and the thing of which they were least +conscious, in that moment of expectancy, was precisely the thing that +the lustrous trifles hidden beneath the basin were meant to signalize: +namely, the passage of years and the approach of age. Mr. Knight's hair +was grey; Mrs. Knight, once a slim bride of twenty-seven, was now a +stout matron of thirty-nine, with a tendency to pant after the most +modest feats of stair-climbing; and Aunt Annie, only the other day a +pretty girl with a head full of what is wrongly called nonsense, was a +spinster--a spinster. Fortunately, they were blind to these obvious +facts. Even Mr. Knight, accustomed as he was to survey fundamental +truths with the detachment of a philosopher, would have been shocked to +learn that his hair was grey. Before the glass, of a morning, he +sometimes remarked, in the tone of a man whose passion for candour +permits him to conceal nothing: 'It's _getting_ grey.' + +Then young Henry burst into the room. + +It was exactly twelve years since he had been born, a tiny, shapeless, +senseless, helpless, toothless, speechless, useless, feeble, deaf, +myopic creature; and now he was a school-boy, strong, healthy, big, and +clever, who could define a dodecahedron and rattle off the rivers of +Europe like a house on fire. The change amounted to a miracle, and it +was esteemed as such by those who had spent twelve years chiefly in +watching it. One evening, in the very earliest stages, while his mother +was nursing him, his father had come into the darkened chamber, and, +after bending over the infant, had struck a match to ignite a cigar; and +the eyes of the infant had blinked in the sudden light. '_See how he +takes notice!_ the mother had cried in ecstatic wonderment. And from +that moment she, and the other two, had never ceased to marvel, and to +fear. It seemed impossible that this extraordinary fragment of humanity, +which at first could not be safely ignored for a single instant night or +day, should survive the multitudinous perils that surrounded it. But it +did survive, and it became an intelligence. At eighteen months the +intelligence could walk, sit up, and say 'Mum.' These performances were +astounding. And the fact that fifty thousand other babies of eighteen +months in London were similarly walking, sitting up, and saying 'Mum,' +did not render these performances any the less astounding. And when, +half a year later, the child could point to a letter and identify it +plainly and unmistakably--'O'--the parents' cup was full. The mother +admitted frankly that she had not expected this final proof of +understanding. Aunt Annie and father pretended not to be surprised, but +it was a pretence merely. Why, it seemed scarcely a month since the +miraculous child had not even sense enough to take milk out of a spoon! +And here he was identifying 'O' every time he tried, with the absolute +assurance of a philologist! True, he had once or twice shrieked 'O' +while putting a finger on 'Q,' but that was the fault of the printers, +who had printed the tail too small. + +After that the miracles had followed one another so rapidly, each more +amazing than the last, that the watchers had unaffectedly abandoned +themselves to an attitude of permanent delighted astonishment. They +lived in a world of magic. And their entire existence was based on the +tacit assumption--tacit because the truth of it was so manifest--that +their boy was the most prodigious boy that ever was. He went into +knickerbockers. He learnt hymns. He went to school--and came back alive +at the end of the first day and said he had enjoyed it! Certainly, other +boys went to school. Yes, but there was something special, something +indefinable, something incredible, about Henry's going to school that +separated his case from all the other cases, and made it precious in its +wonder. And he began to study arithmetic, geometry, geography, history, +chemistry, drawing, Latin, French, mensuration, composition, physics, +Scripture, and fencing. His singular brain could grapple simultaneously +with these multifarious subjects. And all the time he was growing, +growing, growing. More than anything else it was his growth that +stupefied and confounded and enchanted his mother. His limbs were +enormous to her, and the breadth of his shoulders and the altitude of +his head. It puzzled her to imagine where the flesh came from. Already +he was as tail as she, and up to Aunt Annie's lips, and up to his +father's shoulder. She simply adored his colossal bigness. But somehow +the fact that a giant was attending the Bloomsbury Middle School never +leaked out. + +'What's this?' Henry demanded, mystified, as he sat down to breakfast. +There was a silence. + +'What's what?' said his father gruffly. 'Get your breakfast.' + +'Oh my!' Henry had lifted the basin. + +'Had you forgotten it was your birthday?' Mrs. Knight asked, beaming. + +'Well, I'm blest!' He had in truth forgotten that it was his birthday. + +'You've been so wrapped up in this Speech Day business, haven't you?' +said Aunt Annie, as if wishful to excuse him to himself for the +extraordinary lapse. + +They all luxuriated in his surprise, his exclamations, his blushes of +delight, as he fingered the presents. For several days, as Henry had +made no reference to his approaching anniversary, they had guessed that +he had overlooked it in the exciting preparations for Speech Day, and +they had been anticipating this moment with the dreadful joy of +conspirators. And now they were content. No hitch, no anticlimax had +occurred. + +'I know,' said Henry. 'The watch is from father, and you've given me the +chain, mother, and the knife is from Aunt Annie. Is there a thing in it +for pulling stones out of horses' hoofs, auntie?' (Happily, there was.) + +'You must make a good breakfast, dear; you've got a big day before you,' +enjoined his mother, when he had thanked them politely, and assumed the +watch and chain, and opened all the blades and other pleasant devices of +the penknife. + +'Yes, mother,' he answered obediently. + +He always obeyed injunctions to eat well. But it would be unfair to +Henry not to add that he was really a most obedient boy--in short, a +good boy, a nice boy. The strangest thing of all in Henry's case was +that, despite their united and unceasing efforts, his three relatives +had quite failed to spoil him. He was too self-possessed for his years, +too prone to add the fanciful charm of his ideas to no matter what +conversation might be proceeding in his presence; but spoiled he was +not. + +The Speech Day which had just dawned marked a memorable point in his +career. According to his mother's private notion, it would be a +demonstration, and a triumphant demonstration, that, though the mills of +God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small. For until that term, of +which the Speech Day was the glittering conclusion, the surpassing +merits and talents of her son had escaped recognition at the Bloomsbury +Middle School. He had never reached the top of a form; he had never +received a prize; he had never earned pedagogic praise more generous +than 'Conduct fair--progress fair.' But now, out of the whole school, he +had won the prize for Good Conduct. And, as if this was not sufficiently +dazzling, he had also taken to himself, for an essay on 'Streets,' the +prize for English Composition. And, thirdly, he had been chosen to +recite a Shaksperean piece at the ceremony of prize-giving. It was the +success in Composition which tickled his father's pride, for was not +this a proof of heredity? Aunt Annie flattered herself on the Good +Conduct prize. Mrs. Knight exulted in everything, but principally in the +prospective sight of her son at large on the platform delivering +Shakspere to a hushed, attentive audience of other boys' parents. It was +to be the apotheosis of Henry, was that night! + +'Will you hear me, father?' Henry requested meekly, when he had finished +the first preparations for his big day, and looked at the time, and cut +a piece of skin from the palm of his hand, to the horror of his mother +and aunt. 'Will you hear me, father?' + +(No! I assure you he was not a detestable little prig. He had been +brought up like that.) + +And Mr. Knight took Staunton's Shakspere from the bookcase and opened it +at _Othello_, Act I., scene iii., and Henry arose and began to explain +to the signiors of Venice in what manner Desdemona had fallen in love +with him and he with Desdemona; how he told Desdemona that even from his +boyish days he had experienced moving accidents by flood and field, and +had been sold into slavery, and all about the cannibals and the--but he +came to utter grief at the word Anthropophagi.' + +'An-thro-poph-a-gi,' said his father. + +'It's a very difficult word, I'm sure,' said his mother. + +Difficult or not, Henry mastered it, and went on to the distressful +strokes his youth had suffered, and then to Desdemona's coy hint: + + + 'Upon this hint I spoke--spake, I mean; + She loved me for the dangers I had passed, + And I loved her that she did pity them. + This only is the witchcraft I have used. + Here comes the lady; let her witness it.' + + +'Have a bit of toast, my pet,' Mrs. Knight suggested. + +The door opened at the same moment. + +'Enter Desdemona,' said a voice. 'Now do go light on the buttered toast, +Othello. You know you'll be ill.' + +It was Cousin Tom. He was always very late for breakfast. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MARRONS GLACÉS + + +And Tom was always being inconvenient, always producing intellectual +discomfort. On this occasion there can be no doubt that if Tom had not +come in just then Henry would have accepted and eaten the buttered +toast, and would have enjoyed it; and his father, mother, and aunt would +have enjoyed the spectacle of his bliss; and all four of them would have +successfully pretended to their gullible consciences that an +indiscretion had not been committed. Here it must be said that the +Achilles' heel of Henry Shakspere Knight lay in his stomach. Despite his +rosy cheeks and pervading robustness, despite the fact that his infancy +had been almost immune from the common ailments--even measles--he +certainly suffered from a form of chronic dyspepsia. Authorities +differed upon the cause of the ailment. Some, such as Tom, diagnosed +the case in a single word. Mr. Knight, less abrupt, ascribed the evil to +Mrs. Knight's natural but too solicitous endeavours towards keeping up +the strength of her crescent son. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie regarded it +as a misfortune simply, inexplicable, unjust, and cruel. But even Mrs. +Knight and Aunt Annie had perceived that there was at least an apparent +connection between hot buttered toast and the recurrence of the malady. +Hence, though the two women would not admit that this connection was +more than a series of unfortunate coincidences, Henry had been advised +to deprive himself of hot buttered toast. And here came Tom, with his +characteristic inconvenience, to catch them in the very midst of their +folly, and to make even Mr. Knight, that mask of stern rectitude, a +guilty accessory before the fact. + +'It's only this once!' Mrs. Knight protested. + +'You're quite right,'said Tom. 'It's only this once.' + +Henry took the piece of toast, and then, summoning for one supreme +effort all the spiritual courage which he had doubtless inherited from +a long line of Puritan ancestors, he nobly relinquished it. + +Mr. Knight's eyes indicated to Tom that a young man who was constantly +half an hour late for breakfast had no moral right to preach abstinence +to a growing boy, especially on his birthday. But the worst thing about +Tom was that he was never under any circumstances abashed. + +'As nothing is worse than hot toast cold,' Tom imperturbably remarked, +'I'll eat it at once.' And he ate the piece of toast. + +No one could possibly blame Tom. Nevertheless, every soul round the +table did the impossible and blamed him. The atmosphere lost some of its +festive quality. + +Tom Knight was nineteen, thin, pale, and decidedly tall; and his fair +hair still curled slightly on the top of his head. In twelve years his +development, too, had amounted to a miracle, or would have amounted to a +miracle had there been anyone present sufficiently interested to observe +and believe in it. Miracles, however, do not begin to exist until at +least one person believes, and the available credence in the household +had been monopolized by Tom's young cousin. The great difference +between Tom and Henry was that Tom had faults, whereas Henry had +none--yet Tom was the elder by seven years and ought to have known +better! Mr. Knight had always seen Tom's faults, but it was only since +the advent of Henry that Mrs. Knight, and particularly Aunt Annie, had +begun to see them. Before Henry arrived, Tom had been Aunt Annie's +darling. The excellent spinster took pains never to show that Henry had +supplanted him; nevertheless, she showed it all the time. Tom's faults +flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, +untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; +he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be +overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not +'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave +him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a +shocking liar, he was lavish of truth whenever truth happened to be +disconcerting and inopportune. He it was who told the forewoman of his +uncle's millinery department, in front of a customer, that she had a +moustache. His uncle threshed him. 'She _has_ a moustache, anyhow!' +said this Galileo when his uncle had finished. Mr. Knight wished Tom to +go into the drapery, but Tom would not. Tom wanted to be an artist; he +was always drawing. Mr. Knight had only heard of artists; he had never +seen one. He thought Tom's desire for art was mere wayward naughtiness. +However, after Tom had threatened to burn the house down if he was not +allowed to go to an art-school, and had carried out his threat so far as +to set fire to a bale of cotton-goods in the cellar, Mr. Knight yielded +to the whim for the sake of peace and a low temperature. He expansively +predicted ultimate disaster for Tom. But at the age of eighteen and a +half, Tom, with his habit of inconvenience, simply fell into a post as +designer to a firm of wholesale stationers. His task was to design +covers for coloured boxes of fancy notepaper, and his pay was two +guineas a week. The richness of the salary brought Mr. Knight to his +senses; it staggered, sobered, and silenced him. Two guineas a week at +eighteen and a half! It was beyond the verge of the horizons of the +drapery trade. Mr. Knight had a shop-walker, aged probably thirty-eight +and a half, who was receiving precisely two guineas a week, and working +thirty hours a week longer than Tom. + +On the strength of this amazing two guineas, Tom, had he chosen, might +easily have regained the long-lost esteem of his relatives. But he did +not choose. He became more than ever a mystery to them, and a troubling +mystery, not a mystery that one could look squarely in the face and then +pass by. His ideals, if they could be called ideals, were always in +collision with those of the rest of the house. Neither his aunts nor his +uncle could ever be quite sure that he was not enjoying some joke which +they were not enjoying. Once he had painted Aunt Annie's portrait. +'Never let me see that thing again!' she exclaimed when she beheld it +complete. She deemed it an insult, and she was not alone in her opinion. +'Do you call this art?' said Mr. Knight. 'If this is art, then all I can +say is I'm glad I wasn't brought up to understand art, as you call it.' +Nevertheless, somehow the painting was exhibited at South Kensington in +the national competition of students works, and won a medal. 'Portrait +of my Aunt,' Tom had described it in the catalogue, and Aunt Annie was +furious a second time. 'However,' she said, 'no one'll recognise me, +that's one comfort!' Still, the medal weighed heavily; it was a gold +medal. Difficult to ignore its presence in the house! + +Tom's crowning sin was that he was such a bad example to Henry. Henry +worshipped him, and the more Tom was contemned the more Henry +worshipped. + +'You'll surely be very late, Tom,' Mrs. Knight ventured to remark at +half-past nine. + +Mr. Knight had descended into the shop, and Aunt Annie also. + +'Oh no,' said Tom--'not more than is necessary.' And then he glanced at +Henry. 'Look here, my bold buccaneer, you've got nothing to do just now, +have you? You can stroll along with me a bit, and we'll see if we can +buy you a twopenny toy for a birthday present.' + +Tom always called Henry his 'bold buccaneer.' He had picked up the term +of endearment from the doctor with the black bag twelve years ago. Henry +had his cap on in two seconds, and Mrs. Knight beamed at this unusual +proof of kindly thought on Tom's part. + +In the street Tom turned westwards instead of to the City, where his +daily work lay. + +'Aren't you going to work to-day?' Henry asked in surprise. + +'No,' said Tom. 'I told my benevolent employers last night that it was +your birthday to-day, and I asked whether I could have a holiday. What +do you think they answered?' + +'You didn't ask them,' said Henry. + +'They answered that I could have forty holidays. And they requested me +to wish you, on behalf of the firm, many happy returns of the day.' + +'Don't rot,' said Henry. + +It was a beautiful morning, sunny, calm, inspiriting, and presently Tom +began to hum. After a time Henry perceived that Tom was humming the same +phrase again and again: 'Some streets are longer than others. Some +streets are longer than others.' + +'_Don't rot_, Tom,' Henry pleaded. + +The truth was that Tom was intoning a sentence from Henry's prize essay +on streets. Tom had read the essay and pronounced it excellent, and till +this very moment on the pavement of Oxford Street Henry had imagined +Tom's verdict to be serious. He now knew that it was not serious. + +Tom continued to chant, with pauses: 'Some streets are longer than +others.... Very few streets are straight.... But we read in the Bible of +the street which is called Straight.... Oxford Street is nearly +straight.... A street is what you go along.... It has a road and two +footpaths.' + +Henry would have given his penknife not to have written that essay. The +worst of Tom was that he could make anything look silly without saying +that it was silly--a trick that Henry envied. + +Tom sang further: 'In the times before the French Revolution the streets +of Paris had no pavements ... _e.g._, they were all road.... It was no +infrequent occurrence for people to be maimed for life, or even +seriously injured, against walls by passing carriages of haughty +nobles.' + +'I didn't put "haughty,"' Henry cried passionately. + +'Didn't you?' Tom said with innocence. 'But you put "or even seriously +injured."' + +'Well?' said Henry dubiously. + +'And you put "It was no infrequent occurrence." Where did you steal that +from, my bold buccaneer?' + +'I didn't steal it,' Henry asserted. 'I made it up.' + +'Then you will be a great writer,' Tom said. 'If I were you, I should +send a telegram to Tennyson, and tell him to look out for himself. +Here's a telegraph-office. Come on.' + +And Tom actually did enter a doorway. But it proved to be the entrance +to a large and magnificent confectioner's shop. Henry followed him +timidly. + +'A pound of marrons glacés,' Tom demanded. + +'What are they?' Henry whispered up at Tom's ear. + +'Taste,' said Tom, boldly taking a sample from the scales while the +pound was being weighed out. + +'It's like chestnuts,' Harry mumbled through the delicious brown frosted +morsel. 'But nicer.' + +'They are rather like chestnuts, aren't they?' said Tom. + +The marrons glacés were arranged neatly in a beautiful box; the box was +wrapped in paper of one colour, and then further wrapped in paper of +another colour, and finally bound in pink ribbon. + +'Golly!' murmured Henry in amaze, for Tom had put down a large silver +coin in payment, and received no change. + +They came out, Henry carrying the parcel. + +'But will they do me any harm?' the boy asked apprehensively. + +The two cousins had reached Hyde Park, and were lying on the grass, and +Tom had invited Henry to begin the enterprise of eating his birthday +present. + +'Harm! I should think not. They are the best things out for the +constitution. Not like sweets at all. Doctors often give them to +patients when they are getting better. And they're very good for +sea-sickness too.' + +So Henry opened the box and feasted. One half of the contents had +disappeared within twenty minutes, and Tom had certainly not eaten more +than two marrons. + +'They're none so dusty!' said Henry, perhaps enigmatically. 'I could go +on eating these all day.' + +A pretty girl of eighteen or so wandered past them. + +'Nice little bit of stuff, that!' Tom remarked reflectively. + +'What say?' + +'That little thing there!' Tom explained, pointing with his elbow to the +girl. + +'Oh!' Henry grunted. 'I thought you said a nice little bit of stuff.' + +And he bent to his chestnuts again. By slow and still slower degrees +they were reduced to one. + +'Have this,' he invited Tom. + +'No,' said Tom. 'Don't want it. You finish up.' + +'I think I can't eat any more,' Henry sighed. + +'Oh yes, you can,' Tom encouraged him. 'You've shifted about fifty. +Surely you can manage fifty-one.' + +Henry put the survivor to his lips, but withdrew it. + +'No,' he said. 'I tell you what I'll do: I'll put it in the box and save +it.' + +'But you can't cart that box about for the sake of one chestnut, my bold +buccaneer.' + +'Well, I'll put it in my pocket.' + +And he laid it gently by the side of the watch in his waistcoat pocket. + +'You can find your way home, can't you?' said Tom. 'It's just occurred +to me that I've got some business to attend to.' + +A hundred yards off the pretty girl was reading on a seat. His business +led him in that direction. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A CALAMITY FOR THE SCHOOL + + +It was a most fortunate thing that there was cold mutton for dinner. The +economic principle governing the arrangement of the menu was that the +simplicity of the mutton atoned for the extravagance of the birthday +pudding, while the extravagance of the birthday pudding excused the +simplicity of the mutton. Had the first course been anything richer than +cold mutton, Henry could not have pretended even to begin the repast. As +it was, he ate a little of the lean, leaving a wasteful margin of lean +round the fat, which he was not supposed to eat; he also nibbled at the +potatoes, and compressed the large remnant of them into the smallest +possible space on the plate; then he unobtrusively laid down his knife +and fork. + +'Come, Henry,' said Aunt Annie, 'don't leave a saucy plate.' + +Henry had already pondered upon a plausible explanation of his +condition. + +'I'm too excited to eat,' he promptly answered. + +'You aren't feeling ill, are you?' his mother asked sharply. + +'No,' he said. 'But can I have my birthday pudding for supper, after +it's all over, instead of now?' + +Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie looked at one another. 'That might be safer,' +said Aunt Annie, and she added: 'You can have some cold rice pudding +now, Henry.' + +'No, thank you, auntie; I don't want any.' + +'The boy's ill,' Mrs. Knight exclaimed. 'Annie, where's the Mother +Seigel?' + +'The boy's no such thing,' said Mr. Knight, pouring calmness and +presence of mind over the table like oil. 'Give him some Seigel by all +means, if you think fit; but don't go and alarm yourself about nothing. +The boy's as well as I am.' + +'I think I _should_ like some Seigel,' said the boy. + +Tom was never present at the mid-day meal; only Mrs. Knight knew that +Henry had been out with him; and Mrs. Knight was far too simple a soul +to suspect the horrid connection between the morning ramble and this +passing malaise of Henry's. As for Henry, he volunteered nothing. + +'It will pass off soon,' said Aunt Annie two hours later. The time was +then half-past three; the great annual ceremony of Speech Day began at +half-past seven. Henry reclined on the sofa, under an antimacassar, and +Mrs. Knight was bathing his excited temples with eau de Cologne. + +'Oh yes,' Mr. Knight agreed confidently; he had looked in from the shop +for a moment. 'Oh yes! It will pass off. Give him a cup of strong tea in +a quarter of an hour, and he'll be as right as a trivet.' + +'Of course you will, won't you, my dear?' Mrs. Knight demanded fondly of +her son. + +Henry nodded weakly. + +The interesting and singular fact about the situation is that these +three adults, upright, sincere, strictly moral, were all lying, and +consciously lying. They knew that Henry's symptoms differed in no +particular from those of his usual attacks, and that his usual attacks +had a minimum duration of twelve hours. They knew that he was decidedly +worse at half-past three than he had been at half-past two, and they +could have prophesied with assurance that he would be still worse at +half-past four than he was then. They knew that time would betray them. +Yet they persisted in falsehood, because they were incapable of +imagining the Speech Day ceremony without Henry in the midst. If any +impartial friend had approached at that moment and told them that Henry +would spend the evening in bed, and that they might just as well resign +themselves first as last, they would have cried him down, and called him +unfriendly and unfeeling, and, perhaps, in the secrecy of their hearts +thrown rotten eggs at him. + +It proved to be the worst dyspeptic visitation that Henry had ever had. +It was not a mere 'attack'--it was a revolution, beginning with slight +insurrections, but culminating in universal upheaval, the overthrowing +of dynasties, the establishment of committees of public safety, and a +reign of terror. As a series of phenomena it was immense, variegated, +and splendid, and was remembered for months afterwards. + +'Surely he'll be better _now_!' said Mrs. Knight, agonized. + +But no! And so they carried Henry to bed. + +At six the martyr uneasily dozed. + +'He may sleep a couple of hours,' Aunt Annie whispered. + +Not one of the three had honestly and openly withdrawn from the position +that Henry would be able to go to the prize-giving. They seemed to have +silently agreed to bury the futile mendacity of the earlier afternoon in +everlasting forgetfulness. + +'Poor little thing!' observed Mrs. Knight. + +His sufferings had reduced him, in her vision, to about half his +ordinary size. + +At seven Mr. Knight put on his hat. + +'Are you going out, father?' his wife asked, shocked. + +'It is only fair,' said Mr. Knight, 'to warn the school people that +Henry will not be able to be present to-night. They will have to alter +their programme. Of course I shan't stay.' + +In pitying the misfortune of the school, thus suddenly and at so +critical a moment deprived of Henry's presence and help, Mrs. Knight +felt less keenly the pang of her own misfortune and that of her son. +Nevertheless, it was a night sufficiently tragic in Oxford Street. + +Mr. Knight returned with Henry's two prizes--_Self-Help_ and _The +Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas_. + +The boy had wakened once, but dozed again. + +'Put them on the chair where he can see them in the morning,' Aunt Annie +suggested. + +'Yes,' said the father, brightening. 'And I'll wind up his watch for +him.... Bless us! what's he been doing to the watch? What _is_ it, +Annie? + + +'Why did you do it?' Mr. Knight asked Tom. 'That's what I can't +understand. Why did you do it?' + +They were alone together the next morning in the sitting-room. ('I will +speak to that young man privately,' Mr. Knight had said to the two women +in a formidable tone.) Henry was still in bed, but awake and reading +Smiles with precocious gusto. + +'Did the kid tell you all about it, then?' + +'The kid,' said Mr. Knight, marking by a peculiar emphasis his +dissatisfaction with Tom's choice of nouns, 'was very loyal. I had to +drag the story out of him bit by bit. I repeat: why did you do it? Was +this your idea of a joke? If so, I can only say----' + +'You should have seen how he enjoyed them! It was tremendous,' Tom broke +in. 'Tremendous! I've no doubt the afternoon was terrible, but the +morning was worth it. Ask Henry himself. I wanted to give him a treat, +and it seems I gave you all one.' + +'And then the headmaster!' Mr. Knight complained. 'He was very upset. He +told me he didn't know what they should do without Henry last night.' + +'Oh yes. I know old Pingles. Pingles is a great wit. But seriously, +uncle,' said Tom--he gazed at the carpet; 'seriously----' He paused. 'If +I had thought of the dreadful calamity to the school, I would only have +bought half a pound.' + +'Pah!' Mr. Knight whiffed out. + +'It's a mercy we're all still alive,' murmured Tom. + +'And may I ask, sir----' Mr. Knight began afresh, in a new vein, +sarcastic and bitter. 'Of course you're an independent member of +society, and your own master; but may I venture to ask what you were +doing in Hyde Park yesterday at eleven o'clock?' + +'You may,' Tom replied. 'The truth is, Bollingtons Limited and me, just +me, have had a row. I didn't like their style, nor their manners. So the +day before yesterday I told them to go to the devil----' + +'You told them to go to the----!' + +'And I haven't seen anything of Bollingtons since, and I don't want to.' + +'That is where you are going to yourself, sir,' thundered Mr. Knight. +'Mark my words. That is where you are going to yourself. Two guineas a +week, at your age, and you tell them----! I suppose you think you can +get a place like that any day.' + +'Look here, uncle. Listen. Mark my words. I have two to say to you, and +two only. Good-morning.' + +Tom hastened from the room, and went down into the shop by the +shop-stairs. The cashier of the establishment was opening the safe. + +'Mr. Perkins,' said Tom lightly, 'uncle wants change for a ten-pound +note, in gold.' + +'Certainly, Mr. Tom. With pleasure.' + +'Oh!' Tom explained, as though the notion had just struck him, taking +the sovereigns, 'the note! I'll bring it down in a jiffy.' + +'That's all right, Mr. Tom,' said the cashier, smiling with suave +confidence. + +Tom ran up to his room, passing his uncle on the way. He snatched his +hat and stick, and descended rapidly into the street by the +house-stairs. He chose this effective and picturesque method of +departing for ever from the hearth and home of Mr. Knight. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CONTAGIOUS + + +'There's only the one slipper here,' said Aunt Annie, feeling in the +embroidered slipper-bag which depended from a glittering brass nail in +the recess to the right of the fireplace. And this fireplace was on the +ground-floor, and not in Oxford Street. + +'I was mending the other this morning,' said Mrs. Knight, springing up +with all her excessive stoutness from the easy-chair. 'I left it in my +work-basket, I do believe.' + +'I'll get it,' said Aunt Annie. + +'No, I'll get it,' said Mrs. Knight. + +So it occurred that Aunt Annie laid the left slipper (sole upwards) in +front of the brisk red fire, while Mrs. Knight laid the right one. + +Then the servant entered the dining-room--a little simple fat thing of +sixteen or so, proud of her cap and apron and her black afternoon dress. +She was breathing quickly. + +'Please'm, Dr. Dancer says he'll come at nine o'clock, or as soon after +as makes no matter.' + +In delivering the message the servant gave a shrewd, comprehending, +sympathetic smile, as if to say: 'I am just as excited about your plot +as you are.' + +'Thank you, Sarah. That will do.' Aunt Annie dismissed her frigidly. + +'Yes'm.' + +Sarah's departing face fell to humility, and it said now: 'I'm sorry I +presumed to be as excited about your plot as you are.' + +The two sisters looked at each other interrogatively, disturbed, +alarmed, shocked. + +'Can she have been listening at doors?' Aunt Annie inquired in a +whisper. + +Wherever the sisters happened to be, they never discussed Sarah save in +a whisper. If they had been in Alaska and Sarah in Timbuctoo, they would +have mentioned her name in a whisper, lest she might overhear. And, by +the way, Sarah's name was not Sarah, but Susan. It had been altered in +deference to a general opinion that it was not nice for a servant to +bear the same name as her mistress, and, further, that such an anomaly +had a tendency to subvert the social order. + +'I don't know,' said Mrs. Knight 'I put her straight about those lumps +of sugar.' + +'Did you tell her to see to the hot-water bottle?' + +'Bless us, no!' + +Aunt Annie rang the bell. + +'Sarah, put a hot-water bottle in your master's bed. And be sure the +stopper is quite tight.' + +'Yes'm. Master's just coming down the street now, mum.' + +Sarah spoke true. The master was in fact coming down the wintry gaslit +street. And the street was Dawes Road, Fulham, in the day of its +newness. The master stopped at the gate of a house of two storeys with a +cellar-kitchen. He pushed open the creaking iron device and entered the +garden, sixteen foot by four, which was the symbol of the park in which +the house would have stood if it had been a mansion. In a stride he +walked from one end to the other of the path, which would have been a +tree-lined, winding carriage-drive had the garden been a park. As he +fumbled for his latchkey, he could see the beaming face of the +representative of the respectful lower classes in the cellar-kitchen. +The door yielded before him as before its rightful lord, and he passed +into his sacred domestic privacy with an air which plainly asserted: +'Here I am king, absolute, beneficent, worshipped.' + +'Come to the fire, quick, Henry,' said Aunt Annie, fussing round him +actively. + +It would be idle to attempt to conceal, even for a moment, that this was +not Henry the elder, but Henry Shakspere, aged twenty-three, with a face +made grave, perhaps prematurely, by the double responsibilities of a +householder and a man of affairs. Henry had lost some of his boyish +plumpness, and he had that night a short, dry cough. + +'I'm coming,' he replied curtly, taking off his blue Melton. 'Don't +worry.' + +And in a fraction of a second, not only Aunt Annie, but his mother in +the dining-room and his helot in the cellar-kitchen, knew that the +master was in a humour that needed humouring. + +Henry the younger had been the master for six years, since the death of +his father. The sudden decease of its head generally means financial +calamity for a family like the Knights. But somehow the Knights were +different from the average. In the first place Henry Knight was insured +for a couple of thousand pounds. In the second place Aunt Annie had a +little private income of thirty pounds a year. And in the third place +there was Henry Shakspere. The youth had just left school; he left it +without special distinction (the brilliant successes of the marred +Speech Day were never repeated), but the state of his education may be +inferred from the established fact that the headmaster had said that if +he had stayed three months longer he would have gone into logarithms. +Instead of going into logarithms, Henry went into shorthand. And +shorthand, at that date, was a key to open all doors, a cure for every +ill, and the finest thing in the world. Henry had a talent for +shorthand; he took to it; he revelled in it; he dreamt it; he lived for +it alone. He won a speed medal, the gold of which was as pure as the +gold of the medal won by his wicked cousin Tom for mere painting. +Henry's mother was at length justified before all men in her rosy +predictions. + +Among the most regular attendants at the Great Queen Street Wesleyan +Chapel was Mr. George Powell, who himself alone constituted and +comprised the eminent legal firm known throughout Lincoln's Inn Fields, +New Court, the Temple, Broad Street, and Great George Street, as +'Powells.' It is not easy, whatever may be said to the contrary, to +reconcile the exigencies of the modern solicitor's profession with the +exigencies of active Wesleyan Methodism; but Mr. George Powell succeeded +in the difficult attempt, and his fame was, perhaps, due mainly to this +success. All Wesleyan solicitors in large practice achieve renown, +whether they desire it or not; Wesleyans cannot help talking about them, +as one talks about an apparent defiance of natural laws. Most of them +are forced into Parliament, and compelled against their wills to accept +the honour of knighthood. Mr. George Powell, however, had so far escaped +both Parliament and the prefix--a fact which served only to increase his +fame. In fine, Mr. George Powell, within the frontiers of Wesleyan +Methodism, was a lion of immense magnitude, and even beyond the +frontiers, in the vast unregenerate earth, he was no mean figure. Now, +when Mr. Powell heard of the death of Henry Knight, whom he said he had +always respected as an upright tradesman and a sincere Christian, and of +the shorthand speed medal of Henry Shakspere Knight, he benevolently +offered the young Henry a situation in his office at twenty-five +shillings a week, rising to thirty. + +Young Henry's fortune was made. He was in Powells, and under the +protecting ægis of the principal. He shared in the lustre of Powells. +When people mentioned him, they also mentioned Powells, as if that +settled the matter--whatever the matter was. Mr. Powell invested Mrs. +Knight's two thousand pounds on mortgage or freehold security at five +per cent., and upon this interest, with Henry's salary and Aunt Annie's +income, the three lived in comfort at Dawes Road. Nay, they saved, and +Henry travelled second-class between Walham Green and the Temple. The +youth was serious, industrious, and trustworthy, and in shorthand +incomparable. No one acquainted with the facts was surprised when, after +three years, Mr. Powell raised him to the position of his confidential +clerk, and his salary to fifty-two shillings and sixpence. + +And then Mr. Powell, who had fought for so long against meaningless +honours, capitulated and accepted a knighthood. The effect upon Dawes +Road was curious and yet very natural. It was almost as though Henry +himself had accepted a knighthood. Both Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie +seemed to assume that Henry had at least contributed to the knighthood +and that the knighthood was in some subtle way the reward of Henry's +talent, rectitude, and strenuousness. 'Sir George'--those two syllables +which slipped smoothly off the tongue with no effort to the +speaker--entered largely into all conversations in the house at Dawes +Road; and the whole street, beginning with the milkman, knew that Henry +was Sir George's--no, not Sir George's confidential clerk, no such +thing!--private secretary. + +His salary was three guineas a week. He had a banking account at Smith, +Payne and Smiths, and a pew at the Munster Park Wesleyan Chapel. He was +a power at the Regent Street Polytechnic. He bought books, including +encyclopædias and dictionaries. He wrote essays which were read and +debated upon at the sessions of the Debating Society. (One of the essays +was entitled: 'The Tendencies of Modern Fiction'; he was honestly irate +against the Stream of Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the +Press.) He took out a life insurance policy for two hundred and fifty +pounds, and an accident policy which provided enormous sums for all +sorts of queer emergencies. Indeed, Henry was armed at every point. He +could surely snap his fingers at Chance. + +If any young man in London had the right to be bumptious and didactic, +Henry had. And yet he remained simple, unaffected, and fundamentally +kind. But he was very serious. His mother and aunt strained every nerve, +in their idolatrous treatment of him, to turn him into a conceited and +unbearable jackanapes--and their failure to do so was complete. They +only made him more serious. His temper was, and always had been, what is +called even. + +And yet, on this particular evening when Sarah had been instructed to +put a hot-water bottle in his bed, Henry's tone, in greeting his aunt, +had been curt, fretful, peevish, nearly cantankerous. 'Don't worry me!' +he had irascibly protested, well knowing that his good aunt was +guiltless of the slightest intention to worry him. Here was a problem, +an apparent contradiction, in Henry's personality. + +His aunt, in the passage, and his mother, who had overheard in the +dining-room, instantly and correctly solved the problem by saying to +themselves that Henry's tone was a Symptom. They had both been +collecting symptoms for four days. His mother had first discovered that +he had a cold; Aunt Annie went further and found that it was a feverish +cold. Aunt Annie saw that his eyes were running; his mother wormed out +of him that his throat tickled and his mouth was sore. When Aunt Annie +asked him if his eyes ached as well as ran, he could not deny it. On the +third day, at breakfast, he shivered, and the two ladies perceived +simultaneously the existence of a peculiar rash behind Henry's ears. On +the morning of the fourth day Aunt Annie, up early, scored one over her +sister by noticing the same rash at the roots of his still curly hair. +It was the second rash, together with Henry's emphatic and positive +statement that he was perfectly well, which had finally urged his +relatives to a desperate step--a step involving intrigue and +prevarication. And to justify this step had come the crowning symptom +of peevishness--peevishness in Henry! It wanted only that! + +'I've asked Dr. Dancer to call in to-night,' said Aunt Annie casually, +while Henry was assuming his toasted crimson carpet slippers. Mrs. +Knight was brewing tea in the kitchen. + +'What for?' Henry demanded quickly, and as if defensively. Then he +added: 'Is mother wrong again?' + +Mrs. Knight had a recurrent 'complaint.' + +'Well,' said Aunt Annie darkly, 'I thought it would be as well to be on +the safe side....' + +'Certainly,' said Henry. + +This was Aunt Annie's neat contribution to the necessary prevarication. + +They had tea and ham-and-eggs, the latter specially chosen because it +was a dish that Henry doted upon. However, he ate but little. + +'You're overtired, dear,' his mother ventured. + +'Overtired or not, mater,' said Henry with a touch of irony, 'I must do +some work to-night. Sir George has asked me to----' + +'My dear love,' Mrs. Knight cried out, moved, 'you've no right----' + +But Aunt Annie quelled the impulsive creature with a glance full of +meaning. 'Sir George what?' she asked, politely interested. + +'The governor has asked me to look through his Christmas appeal for the +Clerks' Society, and to suggest any alterations that occur to me.' + +It became apparent to the ladies, for the thousand and first time, that +Sir George would be helpless without Henry, utterly helpless. + +After tea the table was cleared, and Henry opened his bag and rustled +papers, and the ladies knitted and sewed with extraordinary precautions +to maintain the silence which was the necessary environment of Henry's +labours. And in the calm and sane domestic interior, under the mild ray +of the evening lamp, the sole sounds were Henry's dry, hacking cough and +the cornet-like blasts of his nose into his cambric handkerchief. + +'I think I'll do no more to-night,' he said at length, yawning. + +'That's right, dear,' his mother ejaculated. + +Then the doctor entered, and, for all the world as if by preconcerted +action, the ladies disappeared. Dr. Dancer was on friendly terms with +the household, and, his age being thirty, he was neither too old nor too +young to address Henry as Old Man. + +'Hallo, old man,' he began, after staring hard at Henry. 'What's the +matter with your forehead?' + +'Forehead?' Henry repeated questioningly. + +'Yes. Let's have a look.' + +The examination was thorough, and it ended with the thrusting of a +thermometer into Henry's unwilling mouth. + +'One hundred and two,' said the doctor, and, smiling faintly, he +whispered something to Henry. + +'You're joking,' Henry replied, aghast. + +'No, I'm not. Of course it's not serious. But it means bed for a +fortnight or so, and you must go immediately.' + +The ladies, who had obviously and shamelessly been doing that which they +so strongly deprecated in Sarah, came back into the room. + +In half an hour Henry was in bed, and a kettle containing eucalyptus was +steaming over a bright fire in the bedroom; and his mother was bent upon +black-currant tea in the kitchen; and Aunt Annie was taking down from +dictation, in her angular Italian hand, a letter which began: 'Dear Sir +George,--I much regret to say'; and little Sarah was standing hooded and +girt up, ready to fly upon errands of the highest importance at a +second's notice. + +'Sarah,' said Mrs. Knight solemnly, when Sarah had returned from the +post and the doctor's, 'I am going to trust you. Your master has got the +measles, but, of course, we don't want anyone to know, so you mustn't +breathe a word.' + +'No'm,' said Sarah. + +'He never had them as a boy,' Mrs. Knight added proudly. + +'Didn't he, mum?' said Sarah. + +The doctor, whose gift for seriousness was not marked, showed a tendency +to see humour in the situation of Sir George's private secretary being +down with measles. But he was soon compelled to perceive his mistake. By +a united and tremendous effort Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie made measles +august. As for Sarah, she let slip the truth to the milkman. It came out +by itself, as the spout of a teapot had once come off by itself in her +hand. + +The accident policy appeared to provide for every emergency except +measles. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CREATIVE + + +The sick-room--all due solemnity and importance must be imported into +the significance of that word--the sick-room became a shrine, served by +two ageing priestesses and a naïve acolyte. Everything was done to make +Henry an invalid in the grand manner. His bed of agony became the pivot +on which the household life flutteringly and soothingly revolved. No +detail of delicate attention which the most ingenious assiduity could +devise was omitted from the course of treatment. And if the chamber had +been at the front instead of at the back, the Fulham Vestry would +certainly have received an application for permission to lay down straw +in the street. + +The sole flaw in the melancholy beauty of the episode was that Henry was +never once within ten miles of being seriously ill. He was incapable of +being seriously ill. He happened to be one of those individuals who, +when they 'take' a disease, seem to touch it only with the tips of their +fingers: such was his constitution. He had the measles, admittedly. His +temperature rose one night to a hundred and three, and for a few brief +moments his mother and Aunt Annie enjoyed visions of fighting the grim +spectre of Death. The tiny round pink spots covered his face and then +ran together into a general vermilion. He coughed exquisitely. His beard +grew. He supported life on black-currant tea and an atmosphere +impregnated with eucalyptus. He underwent the examination of the doctor +every day at eleven. But he was not personally and genuinely ill. He did +not feel ill, and he said so. His most disquieting symptom was boredom. +This energetic organism chafed under the bed-clothes and the +black-currant tea and the hushed eucalyptic calm of the chamber. He +fervently desired to be up and active and stressful. His mother and aunt +cogitated in vain to hit on some method of allaying the itch for work. +And then one day--it was the day before Christmas--his mother chanced to +say: + +'You might try to write out that story you told us about--when you are +a little stronger. It would be something for you to do.' + +Henry shook his head sheepishly. + +'Oh no!' he said; 'I was only joking.' + +'I'm sure you could write it quite nicely,' his mother insisted. + +And Henry shook his head again, and coughed. 'No,' he said. 'I hope I +shall have something better to do than write stories.' + +'But just to pass the time!' pleaded Aunt Annie. + +The fact was that, several weeks before, while his thoughts had been +engaged in analyzing the detrimental qualities of the Stream of Trashy +Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press, Henry had himself been +visited by a notion for a story. He had scornfully ejected it as an +inopportune intruder; but it had returned, and at length, to get rid for +ever of this troublesome guest, he had instinctively related the outline +of the tale over the tea-table. And the outline had been pronounced +wonderful. 'It might be called _Love in Babylon_--Babylon being London, +you know,' he had said. And Aunt Annie had exclaimed: 'What a pretty +title!' Whereupon Henry had remarked contemptuously and dismissingly: +'Oh, it was just an idea I had, that's all!' And the secret thought of +both ladies had been, 'That busy brain is never still.' + +As the shades of Christmas Eve began to fall, Aunt Annie was seated by +the sick-bed, engaged in making entries in the household washing-book +with a lead pencil. Henry lay with his eyes closed. Mrs. Knight was out +shopping. Presently there was a gentle _ting_ of the front-door bell; +then a protracted silence; then another gentle _ting_. + +'Bless the girl! Why doesn't she answer the door?' Aunt Annie whispered +to herself, listening hard. + +A third time the bell rang, and Aunt Annie, anathematizing the whole +race of servants, got up, put the washing-book on the dressing-table, +lighted the gas and turned it low, and descended to answer the door in +person and to behead Sarah. + +More than an hour elapsed before either sister re-entered Henry's +room--events on the ground-floor had been rather exciting--and then they +appeared together, bearing a bird, and some mince-tarts on a plate, and +a card. Henry was wide awake. + +'This _is_ a surprise, dear,' began Mrs. Knight. 'Just listen: "With Sir +George Powell's hearty greetings and best wishes for a speedy recovery!" +A turkey and six mince-tarts. Isn't it thoughtful of him?' + +'It's just like the governor,' said Henry, smiling, and feeling the +tenderness of the turkey. + +'He is a true gentleman,' said Aunt Annie. + +'And we've sent round to the doctor to ask, and he says there's no harm +in your having half a mince-tart; so we've warmed it. And you are to +have a slice off the breast of the turkey to-morrow.' + +'Good!' was Henry's comment. He loved a savoury mouthful, and these +dainties were an unexpected bliss, for the ladies had not dreamt of +Christmas fare in the sad crisis, even for themselves. + +Aunt Annie, as if struck by a sudden blow, glanced aside at the gas. + +'I could have been certain I left the gas turned down,' she remarked. + +'I turned it up,' said Henry. + +'You got out of bed! Oh, Henry! And your temperature was a hundred and +two only the day before yesterday!' + +'I thought I'd begin that thing--just for a lark, you know,' he +explained. + +He drew from under the bed-clothes the household washing-book. And +there, nearly at the top of a page, were Aunt Annie's last interrupted +strokes: + + + '2 Ch----' + + +and underneath: + + + 'LOVE IN BABYLON' + + +and the commencement of the tale. The marvellous man had covered nine +pages of the washing-book. + + +Within twenty-four hours, not only Henry, but his mother and aunt, had +become entirely absorbed in Henry's tale. The ladies wondered how he +thought of it all, and Henry himself wondered a little, too. It seemed +to 'come,' without trouble and almost without invitation. It cost no +effort. The process was as though Henry acted merely as the amanuensis +of a great creative power concealed somewhere in the recesses of his +vital parts. Fortified by two halves of a mince-tart and several slices +of Sir George's turkey, he filled the washing-book full up before dusk +on Christmas Day; and on Boxing Day, despite the faint admiring protests +of his nurses, he made a considerable hole in a quire of the best ruled +essay-paper. Instead of showing signs of fatigue, Henry appeared to grow +stronger every hour, and to revel more and more in the sweet labour of +composition; while the curiosity of the nurses about the exact nature of +what Henry termed the dénouement increased steadily and constantly. The +desires of those friends who had wished a Happy Christmas to the +household were generously gratified. + +It was a love tale, of course. And it began thus, the first line +consisting of a single word, and the second of three words: + +'_Babylon!_ + +'_And in winter!_ + +'_The ladies' waiting-room on the arrival platform of one of our vast +termini was unoccupied save for the solitary figure of a young and +beautiful girl, who, clad in a thin but still graceful costume, crouched +shivering over the morsel of fire which the greed of a great company +alone permitted to its passengers. Outside resounded the roar and shriek +of trains, the ceaseless ebb and flow of the human tide which beats for +ever on the shores of modern Babylon. Enid Anstruther gazed sadly into +the embers. She had come to the end of her resources. Suddenly the door +opened, and Enid looked up, naturally expecting to see one of her own +sex. But it was a man's voice, fresh and strong, which exclaimed: "Oh, I +beg pardon!" The two glanced at each other, and then Enid sank +backwards._' + +Such were the opening sentences of _Love in Babylon_. + +Enid was an orphan, and had come to London in order to obtain a +situation in a draper's shop. Unfortunately, she had lost her purse on +the way. Her reason for sinking back in the waiting-room was that she +had fainted from cold, hunger, and fatigue. Thus she and the man, Adrian +Tempest, became acquainted, and Adrian's first gift to her was seven +drops of brandy, which he forced between her teeth. His second was his +heart. Enid obtained a situation, and Adrian took her to the Crystal +Palace one Saturday afternoon. It was a pity that he had not already +proposed to her, for they got separated in the tremendous Babylonian +crowd, and Enid, unused to the intricacies of locomotion in Babylon, +arrived home at the emporium at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning. She +was dismissed by a proprietor with a face of brass. Adrian sought her in +vain. She sought Adrian in vain--she did not know his address. +Thenceforward the tale split itself into two parts: the one describing +the life of Adrian, a successful barrister, on the heights of Babylon, +and the other the life of Enid, reduced to desperate straits, in the +depths thereof. The contrasts were vivid and terrific. + +Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie could not imagine how Henry would bring the +two lovers, each burning secretly the light torch of love in Babylon, +together again. But Henry did not hesitate over the problem for more +than about fifty seconds. Royal Academy. Private View. Adrian present +thereat as a celebrity. Picture of the year, 'The Enchantress.' He +recognises her portrait. She had, then, been forced to sell her beauty +for eighteenpence an hour as an artist's model. To discover the artist +and Enid's address was for Adrian the work of a few minutes. + +This might have finished the tale, but Henry opined that the tale was a +trifle short. As a fact, it was. He accordingly invented a further and a +still more dramatic situation. When Adrian proposed to Enid, she +conscientiously told him, told him quietly but firmly, that she could +not marry him for the reason that her father, though innocent of a crime +imputed to him, had died in worldly disgrace. She could not consent to +sully Adrian's reputation. Now, Adrian happened to be the real criminal. +But he did not know that Enid's father had suffered for him, and he had +honestly lived down that distant past. 'If there is a man in this world +who has the right to marry you,' cried Adrian, 'I am that man. And if +there is a man in this world whom you have the right to spurn, I am that +man also.' The extreme subtlety of the thing must be obvious to every +reader. Enid forgave and accepted Adrian. They were married in a snowy +January at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and the story ended thus: + +'_Babylon in winter_. + +'_Babylon!_' + +Henry achieved the entire work in seven days, and, having achieved it, +he surveyed it with equal pride and astonishment. It was a matter of +surprise to him that the writing of interesting and wholesome fiction +was so easy. Some parts of the book he read over and over again, for the +sheer joy of reading. + +'Of course it isn't good enough to print,' he said one day, while +sitting up in the arm-chair. + +'I should think any publisher would be glad to print it,' said his +mother. 'I'm not a bit prejudiced, I'm sure, and I think it's one of the +best tales I ever read in all my life.' + +'Do you really?' Henry smiled, his natural modesty fighting against a +sure conviction that his mother was right. + +Aunt Annie said little, but she had copied out _Love in Babylon_ in her +fine, fair Italian hand, keeping pace day by day with Henry's +extraordinary speed, and now she accomplished the transcription of the +last pages. + + +The time arrived for Henry to be restored to a waiting world. He was +cured, well, hearty, vigorous, radiant. But he was still infected, +isolate, one might almost say _taboo_; and everything in his room, and +everything that everyone had worn while in the room, was in the same +condition. Therefore the solemn process, rite, and ceremony of +purification had to be performed. It began upon the last day of the old +year at dusk. + +Aunt Annie made a quantity of paste in a basin; Mrs. Knight bought a +penny brush; and Henry cut up a copy of the _Telegraph_ into long strips +about two inches wide. The sides and sash of the window were then +hermetically sealed; the register of the fireplace was closed, and +sealed also. Clothes were spread out in open order, the bed stripped, +rugs hung over chairs. + +'Henry's book?' Mrs. Knight demanded. + +'Of course it must be disinfected with the other things,' said Aunt +Annie. + +'Yes, of course,' Henry agreed. + +'And it will be safer to lay the sheets separately on the floor,' Aunt +Annie continued. + +There were fifty-nine sheets of Aunt Annie's fine, finicking caligraphy, +and the scribe and her nephew went down on their knees, and laid them in +numerical sequence on the floor. The initiatory '_Babylon_' found itself +in the corner between the window and the fireplace beneath the +dressing-table, and the final '_Babylon_' was hidden in gloomy retreats +under the bed. + +Then Sarah entered, bearing sulphur in a shallow pan, and a box of +matches. The paste and the paste-brush and the remnants of the +_Telegraph_ were carried out into the passage. Henry carefully ignited +the sulphur, and, captain of the ship, was the last to leave. As they +closed the door the odour of burning, microbe-destroying sulphur +impinged on their nostrils. Henry sealed the door on the outside with +'London Day by Day,' 'Sales by Auction,' and a leading article or so. + +'There!' said Henry. + +All was over. + +At intervals throughout the night he thought of the sanative and benign +sulphur smouldering, smouldering always with ghostly yellow flamelets in +the midst of his work of art, while the old year died and the new was +born. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SPRING ONIONS + + +The return to the world and to Powells, while partaking of the nature of +a triumph, was at the same time something of a cold, fume-dispersing, +commonsense-bestowing bath for Henry. He had meant to tell Sir George +casually that he had taken advantage of his enforced leisure to write a +book. 'Taken advantage of his enforced leisure' was the precise phrase +which Henry had in mind to use. But, when he found himself in the +strenuous, stern, staid, sapient and rational atmosphere of Powells, he +felt with a shock of perception that in rattling off _Love in Babylon_ +he had been guilty of one of those charming weaknesses to which great +and serious men are sometimes tempted, but of which great and serious +men never boast. And he therefore confined his personal gossip with Sir +George to the turkey, the mince-tarts, and the question of contagion. He +plunged into his work with a feeling akin to dignified remorse, and Sir +George was vehemently and openly delighted by the proofs which he gave +of undiminished loyalty and devotion. + +Nevertheless Henry continued to believe in the excellence of his book, +and he determined that, in duty to himself, his mother and aunt, and the +cause of wholesome fiction, he must try to get it published. From that +moment he began to be worried, for he had scarcely a notion how +sagaciously to set about the business. He felt like a bachelor of +pronounced views who has been given a baby to hold. He knew no one in +the realms of literature, and no one who knew anyone. Sir George, warily +sounded, appeared to be unaware that such a thing as fiction existed. +Not a soul at the Polytechnic enjoyed the acquaintance of either an +author or a publisher, though various souls had theories about these +classes of persons. Then one day a new edition of the works of Carlyle +burst on the world, and Henry bought the first volume, _Sartor +Resartus_, a book which he much admired, and which he had learnt from +his father to call simply and familiarly--_Sartor_. The edition, though +inexpensive, had a great air of dignity. It met, in short, with Henry's +approval, and he suddenly decided to give the publishers of it the +opportunity of publishing _Love in Babylon_. The deed was done in a +moment. He wrote a letter explaining the motives which had led him to +write _Love in Babylon_, and remarked that, if the publishers cared for +the story, mutually satisfactory terms might be arranged later; and Aunt +Annie did _Love in Babylon_ up in a neat parcel. Henry was in the very +act of taking the parcel to the post, on his way to town, when Aunt +Annie exclaimed: + +'Of course you'll register it?' + +He had not thought of doing so, but the advisability of such a step at +once appealed to him. + +'Perhaps I'd better,' he said. + +'But that only means two pounds if it's lost, doesn't it?' Mrs. Knight +inquired. + +Henry nodded and pondered. + +'Perhaps I'd better insure it,' he suggested. + +'If I were you, I should insure it for a hundred pounds,' said Aunt +Annie positively. + +'But that will cost one and a penny,' said Henry, who had all such +details by heart. 'I could insure it for twenty pounds for fivepence.' + +'Well, say twenty pounds then,' Aunt Annie agreed, relenting. + +So he insured _Love in Babylon_ for twenty pounds and despatched it. In +three weeks it returned like the dove to the ark (but soiled), with a +note to say that, though the publishers' reader regarded it as +promising, the publishers could not give themselves the pleasure of +making an offer for it. Thenceforward Henry and the manuscript suffered +all the usual experiences, and the post-office reaped all the usual +profits. One firm said the story was good, but too short. ('A pitiful +excuse,' thought Henry. 'As if length could affect merit.') Another said +nothing. Another offered to publish it if Henry would pay a hundred +pounds down. (At this point Henry ceased to insure the parcel.) Another +sent it back minus the last leaf, the matter of which Henry had to +reinvent and Aunt Annie to recopy. Another returned it insufficiently +stamped, and there was fourpence to pay. Another kept it four months, +and disgorged it only under threat of a writ; the threat was launched +forth on Powells' formidable notepaper. At length there arrived a day +when even Henry's pertinacity was fatigued, and he forgot, merely +forgot, to send out the parcel again. It was put in a drawer, after a +year of ceaseless adventures, and Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie discreetly +forbore to mention it. During that year Henry's opinion on his work had +fluctuated. There had been moments, days perhaps, of discouragement, +when he regarded it as drivel, and himself as a fool--in so far, that +is, as he had trafficked with literature. On the other hand, his +original view of it reasserted itself with frequency. And in the end he +gloomily and proudly decided, once and for all, that the Stream of +Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press had killed all demand +for wholesome fiction; he came reluctantly to the conclusion that modern +English literature was in a very poor way. He breathed a sigh, and +dismissed the episode utterly from his mind. + +And _Love in Babylon_ languished in the drawer for three months. + +Then, upon an April morning, the following telegram was received at +Dawes Road, Fulham: '_Please bring manuscript me immediately top left +take cab Henry_.' + +Mrs. Knight was alone in the house with Sarah when the imperious summons +of the telegraph-boy and the apparition of the orange envelope threw the +domestic atmosphere into a state of cyclonic confusion. Before tearing +the envelope she had guessed that Aunt Annie had met with an accident, +that Henry was dead, and that her own Aunt Eliza in Glossop had died +without making a will; and these imaginings had done nothing to increase +the efficiency of her intellectual powers. She could not read sense into +the message, not even with the aid of spectacles and Sarah. + +Happily Aunt Annie returned, with her masculine grasp of affairs. + +'He means _Love in Babylon_,' said Aunt Annie. 'It's in the top +left-hand drawer of his desk. That's what he means. Perhaps I'd better +take it. I'm ready dressed.' + +'Oh yes, sister,' Mrs. Knight replied hastily. 'You had better take it.' + +Aunt Annie rang the bell with quick decision. + +'Sarah,' she said, 'run out and get me a cab, a four-wheeler. You +understand, a four-wheeler.' + +'Yes'm. Shall I put my jacket on, mum?' Sarah asked, glancing through +the window. + +'No. Go instantly!' + +'Yes'm.' + +'I wonder what he wants it for,' Aunt Annie remarked, after she had +found the manuscript and put it under her arm. 'Perhaps he has mentioned +it to Sir George, and Sir George is going to do something.' + +'I thought he had forgotten all about it,' said Mrs. Knight. 'But he +never gives a thing up, Henry doesn't.' + +Sarah drove dashingly up to the door in a hansom. + +'Take that back again,' commanded Aunt Annie, cautiously putting her +nose outside the front-door. It was a snowy and sleety April morning, +and she had already had experience of its rigour. 'I said a +four-wheeler.' + +'Please'm, there wasn't one,' Sarah defended herself. + +'None on the stand, lady,' said the cabman brightly. 'You'll never get a +four-wheeler on a day like this.' + +Aunt Annie raised her veil and looked at her sister. Like many +strong-minded and vigorous women, she had a dislike of hansoms which +amounted to dread. She feared a hansom as though it had been a +revolver--something that might go off unexpectedly at any moment and +destroy her. + +'I daren't go in that,' she admitted frankly. She was torn between her +allegiance to the darling Henry and her fear of the terrible machine. + +'Suppose I go with you?' Mrs. Knight suggested. + +'Very well,' said Aunt Annie, clenching her teeth for the sacrifice. + +Sarah flew for Mrs. Knight's bonnet, fur mantle, gloves, and muff; and +with remarkably little delay the sisters and the manuscript started. +First they had the window down because of the snow and the sleet; then +they had it up because of the impure air; and lastly Aunt Annie wedged a +corner of the manuscript between the door and the window, leaving a slit +of an inch or so for ventilation. The main body of the manuscript she +supported by means of her muff. + +Alas! her morbid fear of hansoms was about to be justified--at any +rate, justified in her own eyes. As the machine was passing along Walham +Green, it began to overtake a huge market-cart laden, fraught, and piled +up with an immense cargo of spring onions from Isleworth; and just as +the head of the horse of the hansom drew level with the tail of the +market-cart, the off hind wheel of the cart succumbed, and a ton or more +of spring onions wavered and slanted in the snowy air. The driver of the +hansom did his best, but he could not prevent his horse from premature +burial amid spring onions. The animal nobly resisted several +hundredweight of them, and then tottered and fell and was lost to view +under spring onions. The ladies screamed in concert, and discovered +themselves miraculously in the roadway, unhurt, but white and +breathless. A constable and a knife-grinder picked them up. + +The accident was more amusing than tragic, though neither Mrs. Knight +nor Aunt Annie was capable of perceiving this fact. The horse emerged +gallantly, unharmed, and the window of the hansom was not even cracked. +The constable congratulated everyone and took down the names of the two +drivers, the two ladies, and the knife-grinder. The condition of the +weather fortunately, militated against the formation of a large crowd. + +Quite two minutes elapsed before Aunt Annie made the horrible discovery +that _Love in Babylon_ had disappeared. _Love in Babylon_ was smothered +up in spring onions. + +'Keep your nerve, madam,' said the constable, seeing signs of an +emotional crisis, 'and go and stand in that barber's doorway--both of +you.' + +The ladies obeyed. + +In due course _Love in Babylon_ was excavated, chapter by chapter, and +Aunt Annie held it safely once more, rumpled but complete. + +By the luckiest chance an empty four-wheeler approached. + +The sisters got into it, and Aunt Annie gave the address. + +'As quick as you can,' she said to the driver, 'but do drive slowly.' + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MARK SNYDER + + +Three-quarters of an hour later Henry might have been seen--in fact, was +seen by a number of disinterested wayfarers--to enter a magnificent new +block of offices and flats in Charing Cross Road. _Love in Babylon_ was +firmly gripped under his right arm. Partly this strange burden and +partly the brilliant aspect of the building made him feel self-conscious +and humble and rather unlike his usual calm self. For, although Henry +was accustomed to offices, he was not accustomed to magnificent offices. +There are offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, offices of extreme wealth, +which, were they common lodging-houses, would be instantly condemned by +the County Council. Powells was such a one--and Sir George had a reputed +income of twenty thousand a year. At Powells the old Dickensian +tradition was kept vigorously alive by every possible means. Dirt and +gloom were omnipresent. Cleanliness and ample daylight would have been +deemed unbusinesslike, as revolutionary and dangerous as a typewriter. +One day, in winter, Sir George had taken cold, and he had attributed his +misfortune, in language which he immediately regretted, to the fact that +'that d----d woman had cleaned the windows'--probably with a damp cloth. +'That d----d woman' was the caretaker, a grey-haired person usually +dressed in sackcloth, who washed herself, incidentally, while washing +the stairs. At Powells, nothing but the stairs was ever put to the +indignity of a bath. + +That Henry should be somewhat diffident about invading Kenilworth +Mansions was therefore not surprising. He climbed three granite steps, +passed through a pair of swinging doors, traversed eight feet of +tesselated pavement, climbed three more granite steps, passed through +another pair of swinging doors, and discovered himself in a spacious +marble hall, with a lift-cabinet resembling a confessional, and broad +stairs behind curving up to Paradise. On either side of him, in place +of priceless works by old masters, were great tablets inscribed with +many names in gold characters. He scanned these tablets timidly, and at +length found what he wanted, 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' under the +heading 'Third Floor.' At the same moment a flunkey in chocolate and +cream approached him. + +'Mr. Snyder?' asked Henry. + +'Third-floor, left,' pronounced the flunkey, thus giving the tablets the +force of his authority. + +As Henry was wafted aloft in the elevator, with the beautiful and +innocuous flunkey as travelling companion, he could not help contrasting +that official with the terrible Powellian caretaker who haunted the +Powellian stairs. + +On the third-floor, which seemed to be quite a world by itself, an arrow +with the legend 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' directed his mazed feet +along a corridor to a corner where another arrow with the legend 'Mark +Snyder, Literary Agent,' pointed along another corridor. And as he +progressed, the merry din of typewriters grew louder and louder. At +length he stood in front of a glassy door, and on the face of the door, +in a graceful curve, was painted the legend, 'Mark Snyder, Literary +Agent.' Shadows of vague moving forms could be discerned on the +opalescent glass, and the chatter of typewriters was almost +disconcerting. + +Henry paused. + +That morning Mr. Mark Snyder had been to Powells on the business of one +of his clients, a historian of the Middle Ages, and in the absence of +Sir George had had a little talk with Henry. And Henry had learnt for +the first time what a literary agent was, and, struck by the man's +astuteness and geniality, had mentioned the matter of _Love in Babylon_. +Mr. Snyder had kindly promised to look into the matter of _Love in +Babylon_ himself if Henry could call on him instantly with the +manuscript. The reason for haste was that on the morrow Mr. Snyder was +leaving England for New York on a professional tour of the leading +literary centres of the United States. Hence Henry's telegram to Dawes +Road. + +Standing there in front of Mr. Snyder's door, Henry wondered whether, +after all, he was not making a fool of himself. But he entered. + +Two smart women in tight and elegant bodices, with fluffy bows at the +backs of their necks, looked up from two typewriters, and the one with +golden hair rose smiling and suave. + +'Well, you seem a fairly nice sort of boy--I shall be kind to you,' her +eyes appeared to say. Her voice, however, said nothing except, 'Will you +take a seat a moment?' and not even that until Henry had asked if Mr. +Snyder was in. + +The prospective client examined the room. It had a carpet, and lovely +almanacs on the walls, and in one corner, on a Japanese table, was a +tea-service in blue and white. Tables more massive bore enormous piles +of all shapes and sizes of manuscripts, scores and hundreds or unprinted +literary works, and they all carried labels, 'Mark Snyder, Literary +Agent.' _Love in Babylon_ shrank so small that Henry could scarcely +detect its presence under his arm. + +Then Goldenhair, who had vanished, came back, and, with the most +enchanting smile that Henry had ever seen on the face of a pretty woman, +lured him by delicious gestures into Mr. Mark Snyder's private office. + +'Well,' exclaimed Mr. Snyder, full of good-humour, 'here we are again.' +He was a fair, handsome man of about forty, and he sat at a broad table +playing with a revolver. 'What do you think of that, Mr. Knight?' he +asked sharply, holding out the revolver for inspection. + +'It seems all right,' said Henry lamely. + +Mr. Snyder laughed heartily. 'I'm going to America to-morrow. I told +you, didn't I? Never been there before. So I thought I'd get a revolver. +Never know, you know. Eh?' He laughed again. + +Then he suddenly ceased laughing, and sniffed the air. + +'Is this a business office?' Henry asked himself. 'Or is it a club?' + +His feet were on a Turkey carpet. He was seated in a Chippendale chair. +A glorious fire blazed behind a brass fender, and the receptacle for +coal was of burnished copper. Photogravures in rich oaken frames adorned +the roseate walls. The ceiling was an expanse of ornament, with an +electric chandelier for centre. + +'Have a cigarette?' said Mr. Snyder, pushing across towards Henry a tin +of Egyptians. + +'Thanks,' said Henry, who did not usually smoke, and he put _Love in +Babylon_ on the table. + +Mr. Snyder sniffed the air again. + +'Now, what can I do for you?' said he abruptly. + +Henry explained the genesis, exodus, and vicissitudes of _Love in +Babylon_, and Mr. Snyder stretched out an arm and idly turned over a few +leaves of the manuscript as it lay before its author. + +'Who's your amanuensis?' he demanded, smiling. + +'My aunt,' said Henry. + +'Ah yes!' said Mr. Snyder, smiling still, 'It's too short, you know,' he +added, grave. 'Too short. What length is it?' + +'Nearly three hundred folios.' + +'None of your legal jargon here,' Mr. Snyder laughed again. 'What's a +folio?' + +'Seventy-two words.' + +'About twenty thousand words then, eh? Too short!' + +'Does that matter?' Henry demanded. 'I should have thought----' + +'Of course it matters,' Mr. Snyder snapped. 'If you went to a concert, +and it began at eight and finished at half-past, would you go out +satisfied with the performers' assurance that quality and not quantity +was the thing? Ha, ha!' + +Mr. Snyder sniffed the air yet again, and looked at the fire +inquisitively, still sniffing. + +'There's only one price for novels, six-shillings,' Mr. Snyder +proceeded. 'The public likes six shillings' worth of quality. But it +absolutely insists on six shillings' worth of quantity, and doesn't +object to more. What can I do with this?' he went on, picking up _Love +in Babylon_ and weighing it as in a balance. 'What _can_ I do with a +thing like this?' + +'If Carlyle came to Kenilworth Mansions!' Henry speculated. At the same +time Mr. Snyder's epigrammatic remarks impressed him. He saw the art of +Richardson and Balzac in an entirely new aspect. It was as though he had +walked round the house of literature, and peeped in at the backdoor. + +Mr. Snyder suddenly put _Love in Babylon_ to his nose. + +'Oh, it's _that_!' he murmured, enlightened. + +Henry had to narrate the disaster of the onion-cart, at which Mr. Snyder +was immensely amused. + +'Good!' he ejaculated. 'Good! By the way, might send it to Onions +Winter. Know Onions Winter? No? He's always called Spring Onions in the +trade. Pushing man. What a joke it would be!' Mr. Snyder roared with +laughter. 'But seriously, Winter might----' + +Just then Goldenhair entered the room with a slip of paper, and Mr. +Snyder begged to be excused a moment. During his absence Henry reflected +upon the singularly unbusinesslike nature of the conversation, and +decided that it would be well to import a little business into it. + +'I'm called away,' said Mr. Snyder, re-entering. + +'I must go, too,' said Henry. 'May I ask, Mr. Snyder, what are your +terms for arranging publication?' + +'Ten per cent.,' said Mr. Snyder succinctly. 'On gross receipts. +Generally, to unknown men, I charge a preliminary fee, but, of course, +with you----' + +'Ten per cent.?' Henry inquired. + +'Ten per cent.,' repeated Mr. Snyder. + +'Does that mean--ten per cent.?' Henry demanded, dazed. + +Mr. Snyder nodded. + +'But do you mean to say,' said the author of _Love in Babylon_ +impressively, 'that if a book of mine makes a profit of ten thousand +pounds, you'll take a thousand pounds just for getting it published?' + +'It comes to that,' Mr. Snyder admitted. + +'Oh!' cried Henry, aghast, astounded. 'A thousand pounds!' + +And he kept saying: 'A thousand pounds! A thousand pounds!' + +He saw now where the Turkey carpets and the photogravures and the +Teofani cigarettes came from. + +'A thousand pounds!' + +Mr. Snyder stuck the revolver into a drawer. + +'I'll think it over,' said Henry discreetly. 'How long shall you be in +America?' + +'Oh, about a couple of months!' And Mr. Snyder smiled brightly. Henry +could not find a satisfactory explanation of the man's eternal jollity. + +'Well, I'll think it over,' he said once more, very courteously. 'And +I'm much obliged to you for giving me an interview.' And he took up +_Love in Babylon_ and departed. + +It appeared to have been a futile and ludicrous encounter. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SATIN + + +Yes, there had been something wrong with the interview. It had entirely +failed to tally with his expectations of it. The fact was that he, +Henry, had counted for very little in it. He had sat still and listened, +and, after answering Mr. Mark Snyder's questions, he had made no +original remark except 'A thousand pounds!' And if he was disappointed +with Mr. Snyder, and puzzled by him, too, he was also disappointed with +himself. He felt that he had displayed none of those business qualities +which he knew he possessed. He was a man of affairs, with a sure belief +in his own capacity to handle any matter requiring tact and discretion; +and yet he had lolled like a simpleton in the Chippendale chair of Mr. +Snyder, and contributed naught to the interview save 'A thousand +pounds!' + +Nevertheless, he sincerely thought Mr. Snyder's terms exorbitant. He +was not of the race of literary aspirants who are eager to be published +at any price. Literature had no fatal fascination for him. His wholly +sensible idea now was that, having written a book, he might as well get +it printed and make an honest penny out of it, if possible. However, the +effect of the visit to Kenilworth Mansions was to persuade him to +resolve to abandon the enterprise; Mr. Mark Snyder had indeed +discouraged him. And in the evening, when he reached Dawes Road, he gave +his mother and aunt a truthful account of the episode, and stated, +pleasantly but plainly, that he should burn _Love in Babylon_. And his +mother and aunt, perceiving that he was in earnest, refrained from +comment. + +And after they had gone to bed he took _Love in Babylon_ out of the +brown paper in which he had wrapped it, and folded the brown paper and +tied up the string; and he was in the very act of putting _Love in +Babylon_ bodily on the fire, when he paused. + +'Suppose I give it one more chance?' he reflected. + +He had suddenly thought of the name of Mr. Onions Winter, and of Mr. +Snyder's interrupted observations upon that publisher. He decided to +send _Love in Babylon_ to Mr. Winter. He untied the string, unfolded the +brown paper, indited a brief letter, and made the parcel anew. + +A week later, only a week, Mr. Onions Winter wrote asking Henry to call +upon him without delay, and Henry called. The establishment of Mr. +Onions Winter was in Leicester Square, between the Ottoman Music Hall +and a milliner's shop. Architecturally it presented rather a peculiar +appearance. The leading feature of the ground-floor was a vast arch, +extending across the entire frontage in something more than a +semicircle. Projecting from the keystone of the arch was a wrought-iron +sign bearing a portrait in copper, and under the portrait the words 'Ye +Shakspere Head.' Away beneath the arch was concealed the shop-window, an +affair of small square panes, and in the middle of every small pane was +stuck a small card, 'The Satin Library--Onions Winter.' This mystic +phrase was repeated a hundred and sixty-five times. To the right of the +window was a low green door with a copper handle in the shape of a +sow's tail, and the legend 'Ye Office of Onions Winter.' + +'Is Mr. Winter in?' Henry demanded of a young man in a very high collar, +after he had mastered the mechanism of the sow's tail. + +'Yes, he's _in_,' said the young man rudely, as Henry thought. (How +different from Goldenhair was this high collar!) + +'Do you want to see him?' asked the young man, when he had hummed an air +and stared out of the window. + +'No,' said Henry placidly. 'But he wants to see me. My name is Knight.' + +Henry had these flashes of brilliance from time to time. They came of +themselves, as _Love in Babylon_ came. He felt that he was beginning +better with Mr. Onions Winter than he had begun with Mr. Mark Snyder. + +In another moment he was seated opposite Mr. Winter in a charming but +littered apartment on the first-floor. He came to the conclusion that +all literary offices must be drawing-rooms. + +'And so you are the author of _Love in Babylon_?' began Mr. Winter. He +was a tall man, with burning eyes, grey hair, a grey beard which stuck +out like the sun's rays, but no moustache. The naked grey upper lip was +very deep, and somehow gave him a formidable appearance. He wore a silk +hat at the back of his head, and a Melton overcoat rather like Henry's +own, but much longer. + +'You like it?' said Henry boldly. + +'I think---- The fact is, I will be frank with you, Mr. Knight.' Here +Mr. Onions Winter picked up _Love in Babylon_, which lay before him, and +sniffed at it exactly as Mr. Snyder had done. 'The fact is, I shouldn't +have thought twice about it if it hadn't been for this peculiar +odour----' + +Here Henry explained the odour. + +'Ah yes. Very interesting!' observed Mr. Winter without a smile. 'Very +curious! We might make a par out of that. Onions--onions. The public +likes these coincidences. Well, as I tell you, I shouldn't have thought +twice about it if it hadn't been for this----' (Sniff, sniff.) 'Then I +happened to glance at the title, and the title attracted me. I must +admit that the title attracted me. You have hit on a very pretty title, +Mr. Knight, a very pretty title indeed. I took your book home and read +it myself, Mr. Knight. I didn't send it to any of my readers. Not a soul +in this office has read it except me. I'm a bit superstitious, you know. +We all are--everyone is, when it comes to the point. And that +Onions--onions! And then the pretty title! I like your book, Mr. Knight. +I tell you candidly, I like it. It's graceful and touching, and +original. It's got atmosphere. It's got that indefinable something--_je +ne sais quoi_--that we publishers are always searching for. Of course +it's crude--very crude in places. It might be improved. What do you want +for it, Mr. Knight? What are you asking?' + +Mr. Onions Winter rose and walked to the window in order, apparently, to +drink his fill of the statue of Shakspere in the middle of the square. + +'I don't know,' said Henry, overjoyed but none the less perplexed. 'I +have not considered the question of price.' + +'Will you take twenty-five pounds cash down for it--lock, stock, and +barrel? You know it's very short. In fact, I'm just about the only +publisher in London who would be likely to deal with it.' + +Henry kept silence. + +'Eh?' demanded Mr. Onions Winter, still perusing the Shaksperean +forehead. 'Cash down. Will you take it?' + +'No, I won't, thank you,' said Henry. + +'Then what will you take?' + +'I'll take a hundred.' + +'My dear young man!' Mr. Onions Winter turned suddenly to reason blandly +with Henry. 'Are you aware that that means five pounds a thousand words? +Many authors of established reputation would be glad to receive as much. +No, I should like to publish your book, but I am neither a +philanthropist nor a millionaire.' + +'What I should really prefer,' said Henry, 'would be so much on every +copy sold.' + +'Ah! A royalty?' + +'Yes. A royalty. I think that is fairer to both parties,' said Henry +judicially. + +'So you'd prefer a royalty,' Mr. Onions Winter addressed Shakspere +again. 'Well. Let me begin by telling you that first books by new +authors never pay expenses. Never! Never! I always lose money on them. +But you believe in your book? You believe in it, don't you?' He faced +Henry once more. + +'Yes,' said Henry. + +'Then, you must have the courage of your convictions. I will give you a +royalty of three halfpence in the shilling on every copy after the first +five thousand. Thus, if it succeeds, you will share in the profit. If it +fails, my loss will be the less. That's fair, isn't it?' + +It seemed fair to Henry. But he was not Sir George's private secretary +for nothing. + +'You must make it twopence in the shilling,' he said in an urbane but +ultimatory tone. + +'Very well,' Mr. Onions Winter surrendered at once. 'We'll say twopence, +and end it.' + +'And what will the price of the book be?' Henry inquired. + +'Two shillings, naturally. I intend it for the Satin Library. You know +about the Satin Library? You don't know about the Satin Library? My dear +sir, I hope it's going to be _the_ hit of the day. Here's a dummy copy.' +Mr. Winter picked up an orange-tinted object from a side-table. 'Feel +that cover! Look at it! Doesn't it feel like satin? Doesn't it look like +satin? But it isn't satin. It's paper--a new invention, the latest +thing. You notice the book-marker _is_ of satin--real satin. Now +observe the shape--isn't that original? And yet quite simple--it's +exactly square! And that faint design of sunflowers! These books will be +perfect bibelots; that's what they'll be--bibelots. Of course, between +you and me, there isn't going to be very much for the money--a hundred +and fifty quite small pages. But that's between you and me. And the +satin will carry it off. You'll see these charming bijou volumes in +every West End drawing-room, Mr. Knight, in a few weeks. Take my word +for it. By the way, will you sign our form of agreement now?' + +So Henry perpended legally on the form of agreement, and, finding +nothing in it seriously to offend the legal sense, signed it with due +ceremony. + +'Can you correct the proofs instantly, if I send them?' Mr. Winter asked +at parting. + +'Yes,' said Henry, who had never corrected a proof in his life. 'Are you +in a hurry?' + +'Well,' Mr. Winter replied, 'I had meant to inaugurate the Satin Library +with another book. In fact, I have already bought five books for it. But +I have a fancy to begin it with yours. I have a fancy, and when I have +a fancy, I--I generally act on it. I like the title. It's a very pretty +title. I'm taking the book on the title. And, really, in these days a +pretty, attractive title is half the battle.' + + +Within two months, _Love in Babylon_, by Henry S. Knight, was published +as the first volume of Mr. Onions Winter's Satin Library, and Henry saw +his name in the papers under the heading 'Books Received.' The sight +gave him a passing thrill, but it was impossible for him not to observe +that in all essential respects he remained the same person as before. +The presence of six author's copies of _Love in Babylon_ at Dawes Road +alone indicated the great step in his development. One of these copies +he inscribed to his mother, another to his aunt, and another to Sir +George. Sir George accepted the book with a preoccupied air, and made no +remark on it for a week or more. Then one morning he said: 'By the way, +Knight, I ran through that little thing of yours last night. Capital! +Capital! I congratulate you. Take down this letter.' + +Henry deemed that Sir George's perspective was somewhat awry, but he +said nothing. Worse was in store for him. On the evening of that same +day he bought the _Whitehall Gazette_ as usual to read in the train, and +he encountered the following sentences: + + + 'TWADDLE IN SATIN. + + 'Mr. Onions Winter's new venture, the Satin Library, is a pretty + enough thing in its satinesque way. The _format_ is pleasant, the + book-marker voluptuous, the binding Arty-and-Crafty. We cannot, + however, congratulate Mr. Winter on the literary quality of the + first volume. Mr. Henry S. Knight, the author of _Love in Babylon_ + (2s.), is evidently a beginner, but he is a beginner from whom + nothing is to be expected. That he has a certain gross facility in + the management of sentimental narrative we will not deny. It is + possible that he is destined to be the delight of "the great + public." It is possible--but improbable. He has no knowledge of + life, no feeling for style, no real sense of the dramatic. + Throughout, from the first line to the last, his story moves on the + plane of tawdriness, theatricality, and ballad pathos. There are + some authors of whom it may be said that they will never better + themselves. They are born with a certain rhapsodic gift of + commonness, a gift which neither improves nor deteriorates. Richly + dowered with crass mediocrity, they proceed from the cradle to the + grave at one low dead level. We suspect that Mr. Knight is of + these. In saying that it is a pity that he ever took up a pen, we + have no desire to seem severe. He is doubtless a quite excellent + and harmless person. But he has mistaken his vocation, and that is + always a pity. We do not care so see the admirable grocery trade + robbed by the literary trade of a talent which was clearly intended + by Providence to adorn it. As for the Satin Library, we hope + superior things from the second volume.' + + +Henry had the fortitude to read this pronouncement aloud to his mother +and Aunt Annie at the tea-table. + +'The cowards!' exclaimed Mrs. Knight. + +Aunt Annie flushed. 'Let me look,' she whispered; she could scarcely +control her voice. Having looked, she cast the paper with a magnificent +gesture to the ground. It lay on the hearth-rug, open at a page to which +Henry had not previously turned. From his arm-chair he could read in the +large displayed type of one of Mr. Onions Winter's advertisements: +'Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year. _Love in +Babylon._ By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth +thousand.--Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year. +_Love in Babylon._ By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth +thousand.' + +And so it went on, repeated and repeated, down the whole length of the +twenty inches which constitute a column of the _Whitehall Gazette_. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HIS FAME + + +Henry's sleep was feverish, and shot with the iridescence of strange +dreams. And during the whole of the next day one thought burned in his +brain, the thought of the immense success of _Love in Babylon_. It +burned so fiercely and so brightly, it so completely preoccupied Henry, +that he would not have been surprised to overhear men whisper to each +other in the street as he passed: 'See that extraordinary thought +blazing away there in that fellow's brain?' It was, in fact, curious to +him that people did not stop and gaze at his cranium, so much the thing +felt like a hollowed turnip illuminated by this candle of an idea. But +nobody with whom he came into contact appeared to be aware of the +immense success of _Love in Babylon_. In the office of Powells were +seven full-fledged solicitors and seventeen other clerks, without +counting Henry, and not a man or youth of the educated lot of them made +the slightest reference to _Love in Babylon_ during all that day. (It +was an ordinary, plain, common, unromantic, dismal Tuesday in Lincoln's +Inn Fields.) Eighteen thousand persons had already bought _Love in +Babylon_; possibly several hundreds of copies had been sold since nine +o'clock that morning; doubtless someone was every minute inquiring for +it and demanding it in bookshop or library, just as someone is born +every minute. And yet here was the author, the author himself, the +veritable and only genuine author, going about his daily business +unhonoured, unsung, uncongratulated, even unnoticed! It was incredible, +and, besides being incredible, it was exasperating. Henry was modest, +but there are limits to modesty, and more than once in the course of +that amazing and endless Tuesday Henry had a narrow escape of dragging +_Love in Babylon_ bodily into the miscellaneous conversation of the +office. However, with the aid of his natural diffidence he refrained +from doing so. + +At five-fifty Sir George departed, as usual, to catch the six-five for +Wimbledon, where he had a large residence, which outwardly resembled at +once a Bloomsbury boarding-house, a golf-club, and a Riviera hotel. +Henry, after Sir George's exit, lapsed into his principal's chair and +into meditation. The busy life of the establishment died down until only +the office-boys and Henry were left. And still Henry sat, in the +leathern chair at the big table in Sir George's big room, thinking, +thinking, thinking, in a vague but golden and roseate manner, about the +future. + +Then the door opened, and Foxall, the emperor of the Powellian +office-boys, entered. + +'Here's someone to see you,' Foxall whispered archly; he economized time +by licking envelopes the while. Every night Foxall had to superintend +and participate in the licking of about two hundred envelopes and as +many stamps. + +'Who is it?' Henry asked, instantly perturbed and made self-conscious by +the doggishness, the waggishness, the rakishness, of Foxall's tone. It +must be explained that, since Henry did not happen to be an 'admitted' +clerk, Foxall and himself, despite the difference in their ages and +salaries, were theoretically equals in the social scale of the office. +Foxall would say 'sir' to the meanest articled clerk that ever failed +five times in his intermediate, but he would have expired on the rack +before saying 'sir' to Henry. The favour accorded to Henry in high +quarters, the speciality of his position, gave rise to a certain +jealousy of him--a jealousy, however, which his natural simplicity and +good-temper prevented from ever becoming formidable. Foxall, indeed, +rather liked Henry, and would do favours for him in matters connected +with press-copying, letter-indexing, despatching, and other mysteries of +the office-boy's peculiar craft. + +'It's a girl,' said Foxall, smiling with the omniscience of a man of the +world. + +'A girl!' Somehow Henry had guessed it was a girl. 'What's she like?' + +'She's a bit of all right,' Foxall explained. 'Miss Foster she says her +name is. Better show her in here, hadn't I? The old woman's in your room +now. It's nearly half-past six.' + +'Yes,' said Henry; 'show her in here. Foster? Foster? I don't know----' + +His heart began to beat like an engine under his waistcoat. + +And then Miss Foster tripped in. And she was Goldenhair! + +'Good-afternoon, Mr. Knight,' she said, with a charming affectation of a +little lisp. 'I'm so glad I've caught you. I thought I should. What a +lovely room you've got!' + +He wanted to explain that this was Sir George's room, not his own, and +that any way he did not consider it lovely; but she gave him no chance. + +'I'm awfully nervous, you know, and I always talk fast and loud when I'm +nervous,' she continued rapidly. 'I shall get over it in a few minutes. +Meanwhile you must bear with me. Do you think you can? I want you to do +me a favour, Mr. Knight. Only you can do it. May I sit down? Oh, thanks! +What a huge chair! If I get lost in it, please advertise. Is this where +your clients sit? Yes, I want you to do me a favour. It's quite easy for +you to do. You won't say No, will you? You won't think I'm presuming on +our slight acquaintanceship?' + +The words babbled and purled out of Miss Foster's mouth like a bright +spring out of moss. It was simply wonderful. Henry did not understand +quite precisely how the phenomenon affected him, but he was left in no +doubt that his feelings were pleasurable. She had a manner of +looking--of looking up at him and to him, of relying on him as a great +big wise man who could get poor little silly her out of a difficulty. +And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her +teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden +fluffy hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her +dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice--not a wrinkle in all those curves! + +It is singular how a man may go through life absolutely blind to a +patent, obvious, glaring fact, and then suddenly perceive it. Henry +perceived that his mother and his aunt were badly dressed--in truth, +dowdy. It struck him as a discovery. + +'Anything I can do, I'm sure----' he began. + +'Oh, thank you, Mr. Knight I felt I could count on your good-nature. You +know----' + +She cleared her throat, and then smiled intimately, dazzlingly, and +pushed a thin gold bangle over the wrist of her glove. And as she did so +Henry thought what bliss it would be to slip a priceless diamond +bracelet on to that arm. It was just an arm, the usual feminine arm; +every normal woman in this world has two of them; and yet----! But at +the same time, such is the contradictoriness of human nature, Henry +would have given a considerable sum to have had Miss Foster magically +removed from the room, and to be alone. The whole of his being was +deeply disturbed, as if by an earthquake. And, moreover, he could scarce +speak coherently. + +'You know,' said Miss Foster, 'I want to interview you.' + +He did not take the full meaning of the phrase at first. + +'What about?' he innocently asked. + +'Oh, about yourself, and your work, and your plans, and all that sort of +thing. The usual sort of thing, you know.' + +'For a newspaper?' + +She nodded. + +He took the meaning. He was famous, then! People--that vague, vast +entity known as 'people'--wished to know about him. He had done +something. He had arrested attention--he, Henry, son of the draper's +manager; aged twenty-three; eater of bacon for breakfast every morning +like ordinary men; to be observed daily in the Underground, and daily +in the A.B.C. shop in Chancery Lane. + +'You are thinking of _Love in Babylon_?' he inquired. + +She nodded again. (The nod itself was an enchantment. 'She's just about +my age,' said Henry to himself. And he thought, without realizing that +he thought: 'She's lots older than me _practically_. She could twist me +round her little finger.') + +'Oh, Mr. Knight, she recommenced at a tremendous rate, sitting up in the +great client's chair, 'you must let me tell you what I thought of _Love +in Babylon_! It's the sweetest thing! I read it right off, at one go, +without looking up! And the title! How _did_ you think of it? Oh! if I +could write, I would write a book like that. Old Spring Onions has +produced it awfully well, too, hasn't he? It's a boom, a positive, +unmistakable boom! Everyone's talking about you, Mr. Knight. Personally, +I tell everyone I meet to read your book.' + +Henry mildly protested against this excess of enthusiasm. + +'I must,' Miss Foster explained. 'I can't help it.' + +Her admiration was the most precious thing on earth to him at that +moment. He had not imagined that he could enjoy anything so much as he +enjoyed her admiration. + +'I'm going now, Mr. Knight,' Foxall sang out from the passage. + +'Very well, Foxall,' Henry replied, as who should say: 'Foxall, I +benevolently permit you to go.' + +They were alone together in the great suite of rooms. + +'You know _Home and Beauty_, don't you?' Miss Foster demanded. + +'_Home and Beauty?_' + +'Oh, you don't! I thought perhaps you did. But then, of course, you're a +man. It's one of the new ladies' penny papers. I believe it's doing +rather well now. I write interviews for it. You see, Mr. Knight, I have +a great ambition to be a regular journalist, and in my spare time at Mr. +Snyder's, and in the evenings, I write--things. I'm getting quite a +little connection. What I want to obtain is a regular column in some +really good paper. It's rather awkward, me being engaged all day, +especially for interviews. However, I just thought if I ran away at six +I might catch you before you left. And so here I am. I don't know what +you think of me, Mr. Knight, worrying you and boring you like this with +my foolish chatter.... Ah! I see you don't want to be interviewed.' + +'Yes, I do,' said Henry. 'That is, I shall be most happy to oblige you +in any way, I assure you. If you really think I'm sufficiently----' + +'Why, of course you are, Mr. Knight,' she urged forcefully. 'But, like +most clever men, you're modest; you've no idea of it--of your success, I +mean. By the way, you'll excuse me, but I do trust you made a proper +bargain with Mr. Onions Winter.' + +'I think so,' said Henry. 'You see, I'm in the law, and we understand +these things.' + +'Exactly,' she agreed, but without conviction. 'Then you'll make a lot +of money. You must be very careful about your next contracts. I hope you +didn't agree to let Mr. Winter have a second book on the same terms as +this one.' + +Henry recalled a certain clause of the contract which he had signed. + +'I am afraid I did,' he admitted sheepishly. 'But the terms are quite +fair. I saw to that.' + +'Mr. Knight! Mr. Knight!' she burst out. 'Why are all you young and +clever men the same? Why do you perspire in order that publishers may +grow fat? _I_ know what Spring Onions' terms would be. Seriously, you +ought to employ an agent. He'd double your income. I don't say Mr. +Snyder particularly----' + +'But Mr. Snyder is a very good agent, isn't he?' + +'Yes,' affirmed Miss Foster gravely. 'He acts for all the best men.' + +'Then I shall come to him,' said Henry. 'I had thought of doing so. You +remember when I called that day--it was mentioned then.' + +He made this momentous decision in an instant, and even as he announced +it he wondered why. However, Mr. Snyder's ten per cent no longer +appeared to him outrageous. + +'And now can you give me some paper and a pencil, Mr. Knight? I forgot +mine in my hurry not to miss you. And I'll sit at the table. May I? +Thanks awfully.' + +She sat near to him, while he hastily and fumblingly searched for +paper. The idea of being alone with her in the offices seemed delightful +to him. And just then he heard a step in the passage, and a well-known +dry cough, and the trailing of a long brush on the linoleum. Of course, +the caretaker, the inevitable and omnipresent Mrs. Mawner, had invested +the place, according to her nightly custom. + +Mrs. Mawner opened the door of Sir George's room, and stood on the mat, +calmly gazing within, the brush in one hand and a duster in the other. + +'I beg pardon, sir,' said she inimically. 'I thought Sir George was +gone.' + +'Sir George has gone,' Henry replied. + +Mrs. Mawner enveloped the pair in her sinister glance. + +'Shall you be long, sir?' + +'I can't say.' Henry was firm. + +Giving a hitch to her sackcloth, she departed and banged the door. + +Henry and Miss Foster were solitary again. And as he glanced at her, he +thought deliciously: 'I am a gay spark.' Never before had such a notion +visited him. + +'What first gave you the idea of writing _Love in Babylon_, Mr. +Knight?' began Miss Foster, smiling upon him with a marvellous +allurement. + + +Henry was nearly an hour later than usual in arriving home, but he +offered no explanation to his mother and aunt beyond saying that he had +been detained by a caller, after Sir George's departure. He read in the +faces of his mother and aunt their natural pride that he should be +capable of conducting Sir George's business for him after Sir George's +departure of a night. Yet he found himself incapable of correcting the +false impression which he had wittingly given. In plain terms, he could +not tell the ladies, he could not bring himself to tell them, that a +well-dressed young woman had called upon him at a peculiar hour and +interviewed him in the strict privacy of Sir George's own room on behalf +of a lady's paper called _Home and Beauty_. He wanted very much to +impart to them these quite harmless and, indeed, rather agreeable and +honourable facts, but his lips would not frame the communicating words. +Not even when the talk turned, as of course it did, to _Love in +Babylon_, did he contrive to mention the interview. It was ridiculous; +but so it was. + +'By the way----' he began once, but his mother happened to speak at the +same instant. + +'What were you going to say, Henry?' Aunt Annie asked when Mrs. Knight +had finished. + +'Oh, nothing. I forget,' said the miserable poltroon. + +'The next advertisement will say twentieth thousand, that's what it will +say--you'll see!' remarked Mrs. Knight. + +'What an ass you are!' murmured Henry to Henry. 'You'll have to tell +them some time, so why not now? Besides, what in thunder's the matter?' + +Vaguely, dimly, he saw that Miss Foster's tight-fitting bodice was the +matter. Yes, there was something about that bodice, those teeth, that +tongue, that hair, something about _her_, which seemed to challenge the +whole system of his ideas, all his philosophy, self-satisfaction, +seriousness, smugness, and general invincibility. And he thought of her +continually--no particular thought, but a comprehensive, enveloping, +brooding, static thought. And he was strangely jolly and uplifted, full +of affectionate, absent-minded good humour towards his mother and Aunt +Annie. + +There was a _ting-ting_ of the front-door bell. + +'Perhaps Dr. Dancer has called for a chat,' said Aunt Annie with +pleasant anticipation. + +Sarah was heard to ascend and to run along the hall. Then Sarah entered +the dining-room. + +'Please, sir, there's a young lady to see you.' + +Henry flushed. + +The sisters looked at one another. + +'What name, Sarah?' Aunt Annie whispered. + +'I didn't ask, mum.' + +'How often have I told you always to ask strangers' names when they come +to the door!' Aunt Annie's whisper became angry. 'Go and see.' + +Henry hoped and feared, feared and hoped. But he knew not where to look. + +Sarah returned and said: 'The young lady's name is Foster, sir.' + +'Oh!' said Henry, bursting into speech as some plants burst suddenly and +brilliantly into blossom. 'Miss Foster, eh? It's the lady who called at +the office to-night. Show her into the front-room, Sarah, and light the +gas. I'll come in a minute I wonder what she wants.' + +'You didn't say it was a lady,' said his mother. + +'No,' he admitted; his tongue was unloosed now on the subject. 'And I +didn't say it was a lady-journalist, either. The truth is,' this liar +proceeded with an effrontery which might have been born of incessant +practice, but was not, 'I meant it as a surprise for you. I've been +interviewed this afternoon, for a lady's paper. And I wouldn't mind +betting--I wouldn't mind betting,' he repeated, 'that she's come for my +photograph.' + +All this was whispered. + +Henry had guessed correctly. It was the question of a portrait which +Miss Foster plunged into immediately he entered the drawing-room. She +had forgotten it utterly--she had been so nervous. 'So I ran down here +to-night,' she said, 'because if I send in my stuff and the portrait +to-morrow morning, it may be in time for next week's issue. Now, don't +say you haven't got a photograph of yourself, Mr. Knight. Don't say +that! What a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room! Oh, there's the very +thing!' + +She pointed to a framed photograph on the plush-covered mantelpiece. + +'The very thing, is it?' said Henry. He was feeling his feet now, the +dog. 'Well, you shall have it, then.' And he took the photograph out of +the frame and gave it to her. + +No! she wouldn't stay, not a minute, not a second. One moment her +delicious presence filled the drawing-room (he was relieved to hear her +call it a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room, because, as the +drawing-room of a person important enough to be interviewed, it had +seemed to him somewhat less than mediocre), and the next moment she had +gone. By a singular coincidence, Aunt Annie was descending the stairs +just as Henry showed Miss Foster out of the house; the stairs commanded +the lobby and the front-door. + +On his return to the dining-room and the companionship of his relatives, +Henry was conscious of a self-preserving instinct which drove him to +make conversation as rapidly and in as large quantities as possible. In +a brief space of time he got round to _Home and Beauty_. + +'Do you know it?' he demanded. + +'No,' said Aunt Annie. 'I never heard of it. But I dare say it's a very +good paper.' + +Mrs. Knight rang the bell. + +'What do you want, sister?' Aunt Annie inquired. + +'I'm going to send Sarah out for a copy of _Home and Beauty_,' said Mrs. +Knight, with the air of one who has determined to indulge a wild whim +for once in a way. 'Let's see what it's like.' + +'Don't forget the name, Sarah--_Home and Beauty_!' Aunt Annie enjoined +the girl when Mrs. Knight had given the order. + +'Not me, mum,' said Sarah. 'I know it. It's a beautiful paper. I often +buys it myself. But it's like as if what must be--I lighted the kitchen +fire with this week's this very morning, paper pattern and all.' + +'That will do, thank you, Sarah,' said Aunt Annie crushingly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A LION IN HIS LAIR + + +The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into +two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in +water. One class, the more clashing, dashes into a cold tub every +morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm bath every +Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former class lends tone +and distinction to the country, but the latter is the nation's backbone. +Henry belonged to the Saturday-nighters, to the section which calls a +bath a bath, not a tub, and which contrives to approach godliness +without having to boast of it on frosty mornings. + +Henry performed the weekly rite in a zinc receptacle exactly circular, +in his bedroom, because the house in Dawes Road had been built just +before the craze for dashing had spread to such an extent among the +lower middle-classes that no builder dared build a tenement without +providing for it specially; in brutal terms, the house in Dawes Road had +no bathroom. The preparations for Henry's immersion were always complex +and thorough. Early in the evening Sarah began by putting two kettles +and the largest saucepan to boil on the range. Then she took an old +blanket and spread it out upon the master's bedroom floor, and drew the +bathing-machine from beneath the bed and coaxed it, with considerable +clangour, to the mathematical centre of the blanket. Then she filled +ewers with cold water and arranged them round the machine. Then Aunt +Annie went upstairs to see that the old blanket was well and truly laid, +not too near the bed and not too near the mirror of the wardrobe, and +that the machine did indeed rest in the mathematical centre of the +blanket. (As a fact, Aunt Annie's mathematics never agreed with +Sarah's.) Then Mrs. Knight went upstairs to bear witness that the window +was shut, and to decide the question of towels. Then Sarah went +upstairs, panting, with the kettles and the large saucepan, two journeys +being necessary; and Aunt Annie followed her in order to indicate to +Sarah every step upon which Sarah had spilled boiling-water. Then Mrs. +Knight moved the key of Henry's door from the inside to the outside; she +was always afraid lest he might lock himself in and be seized with a +sudden and fatal illness. Then the women dispersed, and Aunt Annie came +down to the dining-room, and in accents studiously calm (as though the +preparation of Henry's bath was the merest nothing) announced: + +'Henry dear, your bath is waiting.' + +And Henry would disappear at once and begin by mixing his bath, out of +the ewers, the kettles, and the saucepan, according to a recipe of which +he alone had the secret. The hour would be about nine o'clock, or a +little after. It was not his custom to appear again. He would put one +kettle out on an old newspaper, specially placed to that end on the +doormat in the passage, for the purposes of Sunday's breakfast; the rest +of the various paraphernalia remained in his room till the following +morning. He then slept the sleep of one who is aware of being the +nation's backbone. + +Now, he was just putting a toe or so into the zinc receptacle, in order +to test the accuracy of his dispensing of the recipe, when he heard a +sharp tap at the bedroom door. + +'What is it?' he cried, withdrawing the toe. + +'Henry!' + +'Well?' + +'Can I open the door an inch?' It was Aunt Annie's voice. + +'Yes. What's the matter?' + +'There's come a copy of _Home and Beauty_ by the last post, and on the +wrapper it says, "See page 16."' + +'I suppose it contains that--thing?' + +'That interview, you mean?' + +'Yes, I suppose so.' + +'Shall I open it?' + +'If you like,' said Henry. 'Certainly, with pleasure.' + +He stepped quietly and unconcernedly into the bath. He could hear the +sharp ripping of paper. + +'Oh yes!' came Aunt Annie's voice through the chink. 'And there's the +portrait! Oh! and what a smudge across the nose! Henry, it doesn't make +you look at all nice. You're too black. Oh, Henry! what _do_ you think +it's called? "Lions in their Lairs. No. 19. Interview with the +brilliant author of _Love in Babylon_." And you told us her name was +Foster.' + +'Whose name?' Henry demanded, reddening in the hot water. + +'You know--that lady's name, the one that called.' + +'So it is.' + +'No, it isn't, dear. It's Flossie Brighteye. Oh, I beg pardon, Henry! +I'm sure I beg pardon!' + +Aunt Annie, in the excitement of discovering Miss Foster's real name, +and ground withal for her original suspicion that the self-styled Miss +Foster was no better than she ought to be, had leaned too heavily +against the door, and thrust it wide open. She averted her eyes and drew +it to in silence. + +'Shall I show the paper to your mother at once?' she asked, after a fit +pause. + +'Yes, do,' said Henry. + +'And then bring it up to you again for you to read in bed?' + +'Oh,' replied Henry in the grand manner, 'I can read it to-morrow +morning. + +He said to himself that he was not going to get excited about a mere +interview, though it was his first interview. During the past few days +the world had apparently wakened up to his existence. Even the men at +the office had got wind of his achievement, and Sir George had been +obliged to notice it. At Powells everyone pretended that this was the +same old Henry Knight who arrived so punctually each day, and yet +everyone knew secretly that it was not the same old Henry Knight. +Everyone, including Henry, felt--and could not dismiss the feeling--that +Henry was conferring a favour on the office by working as usual. There +seemed to be something provisional, something unreal, something uncanny, +in the continuance of his position there. And Sir George, when he +demanded his services to take down letters in shorthand, had the air of +saying apologetically: 'Of course, I know you're only here for fun; but, +since you are here, we may as well carry out the joke in a practical +manner.' Similar phenomena occurred at Dawes Road. Sarah's awe of Henry, +always great, was enormously increased. His mother went about in a state +of not being quite sure whether she had the right to be his mother, +whether she was not taking a mean advantage of him in remaining his +mother. Aunt Annie did not give herself away, but on her face might be +read a continuous, proud, gentle surprise that Henry should eat as +usual, drink as usual, talk simply as usual, and generally behave as +though he was not one of the finest geniuses in England. + +Further, Mr. Onions Winter had written to ask whether Henry was +proceeding with a new book, and how pleased he was at the prospective +privilege of publishing it. Nine other publishers had written to inform +him that they would esteem it a favour if he would give them the refusal +of his next work. Messrs. Antonio, the eminent photographers of Regent +Street, had written offering to take his portrait gratis, and asking him +to deign to fix an appointment for a séance. The editor of _Which is +Which_, a biographical annual of inconceivable utility, had written for +intimate details of his age, weight, pastimes, works, ideals, and diet. +The proprietary committee of the Park Club in St. James's Square had +written to suggest that he might join the club without the formality of +paying an entrance fee. The editor of a popular magazine had asked him +to contribute his views to a 'symposium' about the proper method of +spending quarter-day. Twenty-five charitable institutions had invited +subscriptions from him. Three press-cutting agencies had sent him +cuttings of reviews of _Love in Babylon_, and the reviews grew kinder +and more laudatory every day. Lastly, Mr. Onions Winter was advertising +the thirty-first thousand of that work. + +It was not to be expected that the recipient of all these overtures, the +courted and sought-for author of _Love in Babylon_, should disarrange +the tenor of his existence in order to read an interview with himself in +a ladies' penny paper. And Henry repeated, as he sat in the midst of the +zinc circle, that he would peruse Flossie Brighteye's article on Sunday +morning at breakfast. Then he began thinking about Flossie's +tight-fitting bodice, and wondered what she had written. Then he +murmured: 'Oh, nonsense! I'll read it to-morrow. Plenty soon enough.' +Then he stopped suddenly and causelessly while applying the towel to the +small of his back, and stood for several moments in a state of fixity, +staring at a particular spot on the wall-paper. And soon he dearly +perceived that he had been too hasty in refusing Aunt Annie's +suggestion. However, he had made his bed, and so he must lie on it, +both figuratively and factually.... + +The next thing was that he found himself, instead of putting on his +pyjamas, putting on his day-clothes. He seemed to be doing this while +wishing not to do it. He did not possess a +dressing-gown--Saturday-nighters and backbones seldom do. Hence he was +compelled to dress himself completely, save that he assumed a silk +muffler instead of a collar and necktie, and omitted the usual stockings +between his slippers and his feet. In another minute he unostentatiously +entered the dining-room. + +'Nay,' his mother was saying, 'I can't read it.' Tears of joyous pride +had rendered her spectacles worse than useless. 'Here, Annie, read it +aloud.' + +Henry smiled, and he tried to make his smile carry so much meaning, of +pleasant indifference, careless amusement, and benevolent joy in the joy +of others, that it ended by being merely foolish. + +And Aunt Annie began: + +'"It is not too much to say that Mr. Henry Knight, the author of _Love +in Babylon_, the initial volume of the already world-famous Satin +Library, is the most-talked-of writer in London at the present moment. +I shall therefore make no apology for offering to my readers an account +of an interview which the young and gifted novelist was kind enough to +give to me the other evening. Mr. Knight is a legal luminary well known +in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the right-hand man of Sir George Powell, the +celebrated lawyer. I found him in his formidable room seated at a----"' + +'What does she mean by "formidable," Henry? 'I don't think that's quite +nice,' said Mrs. Knight. + +'No, it isn't,' said Aunt Annie. 'But perhaps she means it frightened +her.' + +'That's it,' said Henry. 'It was Sir George's room, you know.' + +'She doesn't _look_ as if she would be easily frightened,' said Aunt +Annie. 'However--"seated at a large table littered with legal documents. +He was evidently immersed in business, but he was so good as to place +himself at my disposal for a few minutes. Mr. Knight is twenty-three +years of age. His father was a silk-mercer in Oxford Street, and laid +the foundation of the fortunes of the house now known as Duck and +Peabody Limited."' + +'That's very well put,' said Mrs. Knight. + +'Yes, isn't it?' said Aunt Annie, and continued in her precise, even +tones: + +'"'What first gave you the idea of writing, Mr. Knight?' I inquired, +plunging at once _in medias res_. Mr. Knight hesitated a few seconds, +and then answered: 'I scarcely know. I owe a great deal to my late +father. My father, although first and foremost a business man, was +devoted to literature. He held that Shakspere, besides being our +greatest poet, was the greatest moral teacher that England has ever +produced. I was brought up on Shakspere,' said Mr. Knight, smiling. 'My +father often sent communications to the leading London papers on +subjects of topical interest, and one of my most precious possessions is +a collection of these which he himself put into an album.'"' + +Mrs. Knight removed her spectacles and wiped her eyes. + +'"'With regard to _Love in Babylon_, the idea came to me--I cannot +explain how. And I wrote it while I was recovering from a severe +illness----'"' + +'I didn't say "severe,"' Henry interjected. 'She's got that wrong.' + +'But it _was_ severe, dear,' said Aunt Annie, and once more continued: +'"'I should never have written it had it not been for the sympathy and +encouragement of my dear mother----'"' + +At this point Mrs. Knight sobbed aloud, and waved her hand +deprecatingly. + +'Nay, nay!' she managed to stammer at length. 'Read no more. I can't +stand it. I'll try to read it myself to-morrow morning while you're at +chapel and all's quiet.' + +And she cried freely into her handkerchief. + +Henry and Aunt Annie exchanged glances, and Henry retired to bed with +_Home and Beauty_ under his arm. And he read through the entire +interview twice, and knew by heart what he had said about his plans for +the future, and the state of modern fiction, and the tendency of authors +towards dyspepsia, and the question of realism in literature, and the +Stream of Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press. The whole +thing seemed to him at first rather dignified and effective. He +understood that Miss Foster was no common Fleet Street hack. + +But what most impressed him, and coloured his dreams, was the final +sentence: 'As I left Mr. Knight, I could not dismiss the sensation that +I had been in the presence of a man who is morally certain, at no +distant date, to loom large in the history of English fiction.--FLOSSIE +BRIGHTEYE.' + +A passing remark about his 'pretty suburban home' was the sauce to this +dish. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HER NAME WAS GERALDINE + + +A few mornings later, in his post, whose proportions grew daily nobler +and more imposing, Henry found a letter from Mark Snyder. 'I have been +detained in America by illness,' wrote Mark in his rapid, sprawling, +inexcusable hand, 'and am only just back. I wonder whether you have come +to any decision about the matter which we discussed when you called +here. I see you took my advice and went to Onions Winter. If you could +drop in to-morrow at noon or a little after, I have something to show +you which ought to interest you.' And then there was a postscript: 'My +congratulations on your extraordinary success go without saying.' + +After Henry had deciphered this invitation, he gave a glance at the page +as a whole, which had the air of having been penned by Planchette in a +state of violent hysteria, and he said to himself: 'It's exactly like +Snyder, that is. He's a clever chap. He knows what he's up to. As to my +choosing Onions Winter, yes, of course it was due to him.' + +Henry was simple, but he was not a fool. He was modest and diffident, +but, as is generally the case with modest and diffident persons, there +existed, somewhere within the recesses of his consciousness, a very good +conceit of himself. He had already learnt, the trout, to look up through +the water from his hole and compare the skill of the various anglers on +the bank who were fishing for the rise. And he decided that morning, +finally: 'Snyder shall catch me.' His previous decision to the same +effect, made under the influence of the personal magnetism of Miss +Foster, had been annulled only the day before. And the strange thing was +that it had been annulled because of Miss Foster's share in it, and in +consequence of the interview in _Home and Beauty_. For the more Henry +meditated upon that interview the less he liked it. He could not have +defined its offence in his eyes, but the offence was nevertheless +there. And, further, the interview seemed now scarcely a real +interview. Had it dealt with any other celebrity, it would have been +real enough, but in Henry's view Henry was different. He was only an +imitation celebrity, and Miss Foster's production was an imitation +interview. The entire enterprise, from the moment when he gave her Sir +George's lead pencil to write with, to the moment when he gave her his +own photograph out of the frame on the drawing-room mantelpiece, had +been a pretence, and an imposition on the public. Surely if the public +knew...! And then, 'pretty suburban home'! It wasn't ugly, the house in +Dawes Road; indeed, he esteemed it rather a nice sort of a place, but +'pretty suburban home' meant--well, it meant the exact opposite of Dawes +Road: he was sure of that. As for Miss Foster, he suspected, he allowed +himself to suspect, he audaciously whispered when he was alone in a +compartment on the Underground, that Miss Foster was a pushing little +thing. A reaction had set in against Flossie Brighteye. + +And yet, when he called upon Mark Snyder for the purpose of being +caught, he was decidedly piqued, he was even annoyed, not to find her +in her chair in the outer room. 'She must have known I was coming,' he +reflected swiftly. 'No, perhaps she didn't. The letter was not +dictated.... But then it was press-copied; I am sure of that by the +smudges on it. She must certainly have known I was coming.' And, despite +the verdict that she was a pushing young thing, Henry felt it to be in +the nature of a personal grievance that she was not always waiting for +him there, in that chair, with her golden locks and her smile and her +tight bodice, whenever he cared to look in. His right to expect her +presence seemed part of his heritage as a man, and it could not be +challenged without disturbing the very foundations of human society. He +did not think these thoughts clearly as he crossed the outer room into +the inner under the direction of Miss Foster's unexciting colleague, but +they existed vaguely and furtively in his mind. Had anyone suggested +that he cared twopence whether Miss Foster was there or not, he would +have replied with warm sincerity that he did not care three halfpence, +nor two straws, nor a bilberry, nor even a jot. + +'Well,' cried Mark Snyder, with his bluff and jolly habit of beginning +interviews in the middle, and before the caller had found opportunity +to sit down. 'All you want now is a little bit of judicious +engineering!' And Mark's rosy face said: 'I'll engineer you.' + +Upon demand Henry produced the agreement with Onions Winter, and he +produced it with a shamed countenance. He knew that Mark Snyder would +criticise it. + +'Worse than I expected,' Mr. Snyder observed. 'Worse than I expected. A +royalty of twopence in the shilling is all right. But why did you let +him off the royalty on the first five thousand copies? You call yourself +a lawyer! Listen, young man. I have seen the world, but I have never +seen a lawyer who didn't make a d----d fool of himself when it came to +his own affairs. Supposing _Love in Babylon_ sells fifty thousand--which +it won't; it won't go past forty--you would have saved my ten per cent. +commission by coming to me in the first place, because I should have got +you a royalty on the first five thousand. See?' + +'But you weren't here,' Henry put in. + +'I wasn't here! God bless my soul! Little Geraldine Foster would have +had the sense to get that!' + +(So her name was Geraldine.) + +'It isn't the money,' Mark Snyder proceeded. 'It's the idea of Onions +Winter playing his old game with new men. And then I see you've let +yourself in for a second book on the same terms, if he chooses to take +it. That's another trick of his. Look here,' Mr. Snyder smiled +persuasively, 'I'll thank you to go right home and get that second book +done. Make it as short as you can. When that's out of the way---- Ah!' +He clasped his hands in a sort of ecstasy. + +'I will,' said Henry obediently. But a dreadful apprehension which had +menaced him for several weeks past now definitely seized him. + +'And I perceive further,' said Mr. Snyder, growing sarcastic, 'that in +case Mr. Onions Winter chooses to copyright the book in America, you are +to have half-royalties on all copies sold over there. Now about +America,' Mark continued after an impressive pause, at the same time +opening a drawer and dramatically producing several paper-covered +volumes therefrom. 'See this--and this--and this--and this! What are +they? They're pirated editions of _Love in Babylon_, that's what they +are. You didn't know? No, of course not. I'm told that something like a +couple of hundred thousand copies have been sold in America up to date. +I brought these over with me as specimens.' + +'Then Onions Winter didn't copyright----' + +'No, sir, he didn't. That incredible ass did not. He's just issued what +he calls an authorized edition there at half a dollar, but what will +that do in the face of this at twenty cents, and this wretched pamphlet +at ten cents?' Snyder fingered the piracies. 'Twopence in the shilling +on two hundred thousand copies at half a dollar means over three +thousand pounds. That's what you might well have made if Providence, +doubtless in a moment of abstraction, had not created Onions Winter an +incredible ass, and if you had not vainly imagined that because you were +a lawyer you had nothing to learn about contracts.' + +'Still,' faltered Henry, after he had somewhat recovered from these +shrewd blows, 'I shall do pretty well out of the English edition.' + +'Three thousand pounds is three thousand pounds,' said Mark Snyder with +terrible emphasis. And suddenly he laughed. 'You really wish me to act +for you?' + +'I do,' said Henry. + +'Very well. Go home and finish book number two. And don't let it be a +page longer than the first one. I'll see Onions Winter. With care we may +clear a couple of thousand out of book number two, even on that precious +screed you call an agreement. Perhaps more. Perhaps I may have a +pleasant little surprise for you. Then you shall do a long book, and +we'll begin to make money, real money. Oh, you can do it! I've no fear +at all of you fizzling out. You simply go home and sit down and _write_. +I'll attend to the rest. And if you think Powells can struggle along +without you, I should be inclined to leave.' + +'Surely not yet?' Henry protested. + +'Well,' said Snyder in a different tone, looking up quickly from his +desk, 'perhaps you're right. Perhaps it will be as well to wait a bit, +and just make quite sure about the quality of the next book. Want any +money?' + +'No,' said Henry. + +'Because if you do, I can let you have whatever you need. And you can +carry off these piracies if you like.' + +As he thoughtfully descended the stairways of Kenilworth Mansions, +Henry's mind was an arena of emotions. Undoubtedly, then, a +considerable number of hundreds of pounds were to come from _Love in +Babylon_, to say nothing of three thousand lost! Two thousand from the +next book! And after that, 'money, real money'! Mark Snyder had awakened +the young man's imagination. He had entered the parlour of Mark Snyder +with no knowledge of the Transatlantic glory of _Love in Babylon_ beyond +the fact, gathered from a newspaper cutting, that the book had attracted +attention in America; and in five minutes Mark had opened wide to him +the doors of Paradise. Or, rather, Mark had pointed out to him that the +doors of Paradise were open wide. Mr. Snyder, as Henry perceived, was +apt unwittingly to give the impression that he, and not his clients, +earned the wealth upon which he received ten per cent. commission. But +Henry was not for a single instant blind to the certitude that, if his +next book realized two thousand pounds, the credit would be due to +himself, and to no other person whatever. Henry might be tongue-tied in +front of Mark Snyder, but he was capable of estimating with some +precision their relative fundamental importance in the scheme of things. + +In the clerks' office Henry had observed numerous tin boxes inscribed +in white paint with the names of numerous eminent living authors. He +wondered if Mr. Snyder played to all these great men the same rôle--half +the frank and bluff uncle, half the fairy-godmother. He was surprised +that he could remember no word said about literature, ideas, genius, or +even talent. No doubt Mr. Snyder took such trifles for granted. No doubt +he began where they left off. + +He sighed. He was dazzled by golden visions, but beneath the dizzy and +delicious fabric of the dream, eating away at the foundations, lurked +always that dreadful apprehension. + +As he reached the marble hall on the ground-floor a lady was getting +into the lift. She turned sharply, gave a joyous and yet timid +commencement of a scream, and left the lift to the liftman. + +'I'm so glad I've not missed you,' she said, holding out her small +gloved hand, and putting her golden head on one side, and smiling. 'I +was afraid I should. I had to go out. Don't tell me that interview was +too awful. Don't crush me. I know it was pretty bad.' + +So her name was Geraldine. + +'I thought it was much too good for its subject,' said Henry. He saw in +the tenth of a second that he had been wholly wrong, very unjust, and +somewhat cruel, to set her down as a pushing little thing. She was +nothing of the kind. She was a charming and extremely stylish woman, +exquisitely feminine; and she admired him with a genuine admiration. 'I +was just going to write and thank you,' he added. And he really believed +that he was. + +What followed was due to the liftman. The impatient liftman, noticing +that the pair were enjoying each other's company, made a disgraceful +gesture behind their backs, slammed the gate, and ascended majestically +alone in the lift towards some high altitude whence emanated an odour of +boiled Spanish onions. Geraldine Foster glanced round carelessly at the +rising and beautiful flunkey, and it was the sudden curve of her neck +that did it. It was the sudden curve of her neck, possibly assisted by +Henry's appreciation of the fact that they were now unobserved and +solitary in the hall. + +Henry was made aware that women are the only really interesting +phenomena in the world. And just as he stumbled on this profound truth, +Geraldine, for her part, caught sight of the pirated editions in his +hand, and murmured: 'So Mr. Snyder has told you! _What a shame_, isn't +it?' + +The sympathy in her voice, the gaze of her eyes under the lashes, +finished him. + +'Do you live far from here?' he stammered, he knew not why. + +'In Chenies Street,' she replied. 'I share a little flat with my friend +upstairs. You must come and have tea with me some afternoon--some +Saturday or Sunday. Will you? Dare I ask?' + +He said he should like to, awfully. + +'I was dining out last night, and we were talking about you,' she began +a few seconds later. + +Women! Wine! Wealth! Joy! Life itself! He was swept off his feet by a +sudden and tremendous impulse. + +'I wish,' he blurted out, interrupting her--'I wish you'd come and dine +with _me_ some night, at a restaurant.' + +'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'I should love it.' + +'And we might go somewhere afterwards.' He was certainly capable of +sublime conceptions. + +And she exclaimed again: 'I should love it!' The naïve and innocent +candour of her bliss appealed to him with extraordinary force. + +In a moment or so he had regained his self-control, and he managed to +tell her in a fairly usual tone that he would write and suggest an +evening. + +He parted from her in a whirl of variegated ecstasies. 'Let us eat and +drink, for to-morrow we die,' he remarked to the street. What he meant +was that, after more than a month's excogitation, he had absolutely +failed to get any single shred of a theme for the successor to _Love in +Babylon_--that successor out of which a mere couple of thousand pounds +was to be made; and that he didn't care. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY + + +There was to be an important tea-meeting at the Munster Park Chapel on +the next Saturday afternoon but one, and tea was to be on the tables at +six o'clock. The gathering had some connection with an attempt on the +part of the Wesleyan Connexion to destroy the vogue of Confucius in +China. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie had charge of the department of +sandwiches, and they asked Henry whether he should be present at the +entertainment. They were not surprised, however, when he answered that +the exigencies of literary composition would make his attendance +impossible. They lauded his self-denial, for Henry's literary work was +quite naturally now the most important and the most exacting work in the +world, the crusade against Confucius not excepted. Henry wrote to +Geraldine and invited her to dine with him at the Louvre Restaurant on +that Saturday night, and Geraldine replied that she should be charmed. +Then Henry changed his tailor, and could not help blushing when he gave +his order to the new man, who had a place in Conduit Street and a way of +looking at the clothes Henry wore that reduced those neat garments to +shapeless and shameful rags. + +The first fatal steps in a double life having been irrevocably taken, +Henry drew a long breath, and once more seriously addressed himself to +book number two. But ideas obstinately refused to show themselves above +the horizon. And yet nothing had been left undone which ought to have +been done in order to persuade ideas to arrive. The whole domestic +existence of the house in Dawes Road revolved on Henry's precious brain +as on a pivot. The drawing-room had not only been transformed into a +study; it had been rechristened 'the study.' And in speaking of the +apartment to each other or to Sarah, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie employed +a vocal inflection of peculiar impressiveness. Sarah entered the study +with awe, the ladies with pride. Henry sat in it nearly every night and +laboured hard, with no result whatever. If the ladies ventured to +question him about his progress, he replied with false gaiety that they +must ask him again in a month or so; and they smiled in sure +anticipation of the beautiful thing that was in store for them and the +public. + +He had no one to consult in his dilemma. Every morning he received +several cuttings, chiefly of an amiable character, about himself from +the daily and weekly press; he was a figure in literary circles; he had +actually declined two invitations to be interviewed; and yet he knew no +more of literary circles than Sarah did. His position struck him as +curious, bizarre, and cruel. He sometimes felt that the history of the +last few months was a dream from which he would probably wake up by +falling heavily out of bed, so unreal did the events seem. One day, when +he was at his wits' end, he saw in a newspaper an advertisement of a +book entitled _How to become a Successful Novelist_, price half-a-crown. +Just above it was an advertisement of the thirty-eighth thousand of +_Love in Babylon_. He went into a large bookseller's shop in the Strand +and demanded _How to become a Successful Novelist_. The volume had to +be searched for, and while he was waiting Henry's eyes dwelt on a high +pile of _Love in Babylon_, conspicuously placed near the door. Two +further instalments of the Satin Library had been given to the world +since _Love in Babylon_, but Henry noted with satisfaction that no +excessive prominence was accorded to them in that emporium of +literature. He paid the half-crown and pocketed _How to become a +Successful Novelist_ with a blush, just as if the bookseller had been +his new tailor. He had determined, should the bookseller recognise +him--a not remote contingency--to explain that he was buying _How to +become a Successful Novelist_ on behalf of a young friend. However, the +suspicions of the bookseller happened not to be aroused, and hence there +was no occasion to lull them. + +That same evening, in the privacy of his study, he eagerly read _How to +become a Successful Novelist_. It disappointed him; nay, it desolated +him. He was shocked to discover that he had done nothing that a man must +do who wishes to be a successful novelist. He had not practised style; +he had not paraphrased choice pages from the classics; he had not kept +note-books; he had not begun with short stories; he had not even +performed the elementary, obvious task of studying human nature. He had +never thought of 'atmosphere' as 'atmosphere'; nor had he considered the +important question of the 'functions of dialogue.' As for the +'significance of scenery,' it had never occurred to him. In brief, he +was a lost man. And he could detect in the book no practical hint +towards salvation. 'Having decided upon your theme----' said the writer +in a chapter entitled 'The Composition of a Novel.' But what Henry +desired was a chapter entitled 'The Finding of a Theme.' He suffered the +aggravated distress of a starving man who has picked up a cookery-book. + +There was a knock at the study door, and Henry hastily pushed _How to +become a Successful Novelist_ under the blotting-paper, and assumed a +meditative air. Not for worlds would he have been caught reading it. + +'A letter, dear, by the last post,' said Aunt Annie, entering; and then +discreetly departed. + +The letter was from Mark Snyder, and it enclosed a cheque for a hundred +pounds, saying that Mr. Onions Winter, though under no obligation to +furnish a statement until the end of the year, had sent this cheque on +account out of courtesy to Mr. Knight, and in the hope that Mr. Knight +would find it agreeable; also in the hope that Mr. Knight was proceeding +satisfactorily with book number two. The letter was typewritten, and +signed 'Mark Snyder, per G. F.,' and the 'G. F.' was very large and +distinct. + +Henry instantly settled in his own mind that he would attempt no more +with book number two until the famous dinner with 'G. F.' had come to +pass. He cherished a sort of hopeful feeling that after he had seen her, +and spent that about-to-be-wonderful evening with her, he might be able +to invent a theme. The next day he cashed the cheque. The day after that +was Saturday, and he came home at two o'clock with a large flat box, +which he surreptitiously conveyed to his bedroom. Small parcels had been +arriving for him during the week. At half-past four Mrs. Knight and Aunt +Annie, invading the study, found him reading _Chambers' Encyclopædia_. + +'We're going now, dear,' said Aunt Annie. + +'Sarah will have your tea ready at half-past five,' said his mother. +'And I've told her to be sure and boil the eggs three and three-quarter +minutes.' + +'And we shall be back about half-past nine,' said Aunt Annie. + +'Don't stick at it too closely,' said his mother. 'You ought to take a +little exercise. It's a beautiful afternoon.' + +'I shall see,' Henry answered gravely. 'I shall be all right.' + +He watched the ladies down the road in the direction of the tea-meeting, +and no sooner were they out of sight than he nipped upstairs and locked +himself in his bedroom. At half-past five Sarah tapped at his door and +announced that tea was ready. He descended to tea in his overcoat, and +the collar of his overcoat was turned up and buttoned across his neck. +He poured out some tea, and drank it, and poured some more into the +slop-basin. He crumpled a piece or two of bread-and-butter and spread +crumbs on the cloth. He shelled the eggs very carefully, and, climbing +on to a chair, dropped the eggs themselves into a large blue jar which +stood on the top of the bookcase. After these singular feats he rang the +bell for Sarah. + +'Sarah,' he said in a firm voice, 'I've had my tea, and I'm going out +for a long walk. Tell my mother and aunt that they are on no account to +wait up for me, if I am not back.' + +'Yes, sir,' said Sarah timidly. 'Was the eggs hard enough, sir?' + +'Yes, thank you.' His generous, kindly approval of the eggs cheered this +devotee. + +Henry brushed his silk hat, put it on, and stole out of the house +feeling, as all livers of double lives must feel, a guilty thing. It was +six o'clock. The last domestic sound he heard was Sarah singing in the +kitchen. 'Innocent, simple creature!' he thought, and pitied her, and +turned down the collar of his overcoat. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DURING THE TEA-MEETING + + +In spite of the sincerest intention not to arrive too soon, Henry +reached the Louvre Restaurant a quarter of an hour before the appointed +time. He had meant to come in an omnibus, and descend from it at +Piccadilly Circus, but his attire made him feel self-conscious, and he +had walked on, allowing omnibus after omnibus to pass him, in the hope +of being able to get into an empty one; until at last, afraid that he +was risking his fine reputation for exact promptitude, he had suddenly +yielded to the alluring gesture of a cabman. + +The commissionaire of the Louvre, who stood six feet six and a half +inches high, who wore a coat like the side of a blue house divided by +means of pairs of buttons into eighty-five storeys, who had the face of +a poet addicted to blank verse, and who was one of the glories of the +Louvre, stepped across the pavement in one stride and assisted Henry to +alight. Henry had meant to give the cabman eighteenpence, but the occult +influence of the glorious commissionaire mysteriously compelled him, +much against his will, to make it half a crown. He hesitated whether to +await Geraldine within the Louvre or without; he was rather bashful +about entering (hitherto he had never flown higher than Sweeting's). The +commissionaire, however, attributing this indecision to Henry's +unwillingness to open doors for himself, stepped back across the +pavement in another stride, and held the portal ajar. Henry had no +alternative but to pass beneath the commissionaire's bended and +respectful head. Once within the gorgeous twilit hall of the Louvre, +Henry was set upon by two very diminutive and infantile replicas of the +commissionaire, one of whom staggered away with his overcoat, while the +other secured the remainder of the booty in the shape of his hat, +muffler, and stick, and left Henry naked. I say 'naked' purposely. +Anyone who has dreamed the familiar dream of being discovered in a state +of nudity amid a roomful of clothed and haughty strangers may, by +recalling his sensations, realize Henry's feelings as he stood alone and +unfriended there, exposed for the first time in his life in evening +dress to the vulgar gaze. Several minutes passed before Henry could +conquer the delusion that everybody was staring at him in amused +curiosity. Having conquered it, he sank sternly into a chair, and +surreptitiously felt the sovereigns in his pocket. + +Soon an official bore down on him, wearing a massive silver necklet +which fell gracefully over his chest. Henry saw and trembled. + +'Are you expecting someone, sir?' the man whispered in a velvety and +confidential voice, as who should say: 'Have no secrets from me. I am +discretion itself.' + +'Yes,' answered Henry boldly, and he was inclined to add: 'But it's all +right, you know. I've nothing to be ashamed of.' + +'Have you booked a table, sir?' the official proceeded with relentless +suavity. As he stooped towards Henry's ear his chain swung in the air +and gently clanked. + +'No,' said Henry, and then hastened to assure the official: 'But I want +one.' The idea of booking tables at a restaurant struck him as a +surprising novelty. + +'Upstairs or down, sir? Perhaps you'd prefer the balcony? For two, sir? +I'll _see_, sir. We're always rather full. What name, sir?' + +'Knight,' said Henry majestically. + +He was a bad starter, but once started he could travel fast. Already he +was beginning to feel at home in the princely foyer of the Louvre, and +to stare at new arrivals with a cold and supercilious stare. His +complacency, however, was roughly disturbed by a sudden alarm lest +Geraldine might not come in evening-dress, might not have quite +appreciated what the Louvre was. + +'Table No. 16, sir,' said the chain-wearer in his ear, as if depositing +with him a state-secret. + +'Right,' said Henry, and at the same instant she irradiated the hall +like a vision. + +'Am I not prompt?' she demanded sweetly, as she took a light wrap from +her shoulders. + +Henry began to talk very rapidly and rather loudly. 'I thought you'd +prefer the balcony,' he said with a tremendous air of the man about +town; 'so I got a table upstairs. No. 16, I fancy it is.' + +She was in evening-dress. There could be no doubt about that; it was a +point upon which opinions could not possibly conflict. She was in +evening-dress. + + +'Now tell me all about _your_self,' Henry suggested. They were in the +middle of the dinner. + +'Oh, you can't be interested in the affairs of poor little me!' + +'Can't I!' + +He had never been so ecstatically happy in his life before. In fact, he +had not hitherto suspected even the possibility of that rapture. In the +first place, he perceived that in choosing the Louvre he had builded +better than he knew. He saw that the Louvre was perfect. Such napery, +such argent, such crystal, such porcelain, such flowers, such electric +and glowing splendour, such food and so many kinds of it, such men, such +women, such chattering gaiety, such a conspiracy on the part of menials +to persuade him that he was the Shah of Persia, and Geraldine the +peerless Circassian odalisque! The reality left his fancy far behind. In +the second place, owing to his prudence in looking up the subject in +_Chambers' Encyclopædia_ earlier in the day, he, who was almost a +teetotaler, had cut a more than tolerable figure in handling the +wine-list. He had gathered that champagne was in truth scarcely worthy +of its reputation among the uninitiated, that the greatest of all wines +was burgundy, and that the greatest of all burgundies was Romanée-Conti. +'Got a good Romanée-Conti?' he said casually to the waiter. It was +immense, the look of genuine respect that came into the face of the +waiter. The Louvre had a good Romanée-Conti. Its price, two pounds five +a bottle, staggered Henry, and he thought of his poor mother and aunt at +the tea-meeting, but his impassive features showed no sign of the +internal agitation. And when he had drunk half a glass of the +incomparable fluid, he felt that a hundred and two pounds five a bottle +would not have been too much to pay for it. The physical, moral, and +spiritual effects upon him of that wine were remarkable in the highest +degree. That wine banished instantly all awkwardness, diffidence, +timidity, taciturnity, and meanness. It filled him with generous +emotions and the pride of life. It ennobled him. + +And, in the third place, Geraldine at once furnished him with a new +ideal of the feminine and satisfied it. He saw that the women of Munster +Park were not real women; they were afraid to be real women, afraid to +be joyous, afraid to be pretty, afraid to attract; they held themselves +in instead of letting themselves go; they assumed that every pleasure +was guilty until it was proved innocent, thus transgressing the +fundamental principle of English justice; their watchful eyes seemed to +be continually saying: 'Touch me--and I shall scream for help!' In +costume, any elegance, any elaboration, any coquetry, was eschewed by +them as akin to wantonness. Now Geraldine reversed all that. Her frock +was candidly ornate. She told him she had made it herself, but it +appeared to him that there were more stitches in it than ten women could +have accomplished in ten years. She openly revelled in her charms; she +openly made the most of them. She did not attempt to disguise her wish +to please, to flatter, to intoxicate. Her eyes said nothing about +screaming for help. Her eyes said: 'I'm a woman; you're a man. How +jolly!' Her eyes said: 'I was born to do what I'm doing now.' Her eyes +said: 'Touch me--and we shall see'. But what chiefly enchanted Henry +was her intellectual courage and her freedom from cant. In conversing +with her you hadn't got to tread lightly and warily, lest at any moment +you might put your foot through the thin crust of a false modesty, and +tumble into eternal disgrace. You could talk to her about anything; and +she did not pretend to be blind to the obvious facts of existence, to +the obvious facts of the Louvre Restaurant, for example. Moreover, she +had a way of being suddenly and deliciously serious, and of indicating +by an earnest glance that of course she was very ignorant really, and +only too glad to learn from a man like him. + +'Can't I!' he replied, after she had gazed at him in silence over the +yellow roses and the fowl. + +So she told him that she was an orphan, and had a brother who was a +solicitor in Leicester. Why Henry should have immediately thought that +her brother was a somewhat dull and tedious person cannot easily be +explained; but he did think so. + +She went on to tell him that she had been in London five years, and had +begun in a milliner's shop, had then learnt typewriting and shorthand, +advertised for a post, and obtained her present situation with Mark +Snyder. + +'I was determined to earn my own living,' she said, with a charming +smile. 'My brother would have looked after me, but I preferred to look +after myself.' A bangle slipped down her arm. + +'She's perfectly wonderful!' Henry thought. + +And then she informed him that she was doing fairly well in journalism, +and had attempted sensational fiction, but that none saw more clearly +than she how worthless and contemptible her sort of work was, and none +longed more sincerely than she to produce good work, serious work.... +However, she knew she couldn't. + +'Will you do me a favour?' she coaxed. + +'What is it?' he said. + +'Oh! No! You must promise.' + +'Of course, if I can.' + +'Well, you can. I want to know what your next book's about. I won't +breathe a word to a soul. But I would like you to tell me. I would like +to feel that it was you that had told me. You can't imagine how keen I +am.' + +'Ask me a little later,' he said. 'Will you?' + +'To-night?' + +She put her head on one side. + +And he replied audaciously: 'Yes.' + +'Very well,' she agreed. 'And I shan't forget. I shall hold you to your +promise.' + +Just then two men passed the table, and one of them caught Geraldine's +eye, and Geraldine bowed. + +'Well, Mr. Doxey,' she exclaimed. 'What ages since I saw you!' + +'Yes, isn't it?' said Mr. Doxey. + +They shook hands and talked a moment. + +'Let me introduce you to Mr. Henry Knight,' said Geraldine. 'Mr. +Knight--Mr. Doxey, of the P.A.' + +'_Love in Babylon?_' murmured Mr. Doxey inquiringly. 'Very pleased to +meet you, sir.' + +Henry was not favourably impressed by Mr. Doxey's personal appearance, +which was attenuated and riggish. He wondered what 'P.A.' meant. Not +till later in the evening did he learn that it stood for Press +Association, and had no connection with Pleasant Sunday Afternoons. Mr. +Doxey stated that he was going on to the Alhambra to 'do' the celebrated +Toscato, the inventor of the new vanishing trick, who made his first +public appearance in England at nine forty-five that night. + +'You didn't mind my introducing him to you? He's a decent little man in +some ways,' said Geraldine humbly, when they were alone again. + +'Oh, of course not!' Henry assured her. 'By the way, what would you like +to do to-night?' + +'I don't know,' she said. 'It's awfully late, isn't it? Time flies so +when you're interested.' + +'It's a quarter to nine. What about the Alhambra?' he suggested. + +(He who had never been inside a theatre, not to mention a music-hall!) + +'Oh!' she burst out. 'I adore the Alhambra. What an instinct you have! I +was just hoping you'd say the Alhambra!' + +They had Turkish coffee. He succeeded very well in pretending that he +had been thoroughly accustomed all his life to the spectacle of women +smoking--that, indeed, he was rather discomposed than otherwise when +they did not smoke. He paid the bill, and the waiter brought him half a +crown concealed on a plate in the folds of the receipt; it was the +change out of a five-pound note. + +Being in a hansom with her, though only for two minutes, surpassed even +the rapture of the restaurant. It was the quintessence of Life. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A NOVELIST IN A BOX + + +Perhaps it was just as well that the curtain was falling on the ballet +when Henry and Geraldine took possession of their stalls in the superb +Iberian auditorium of the Alhambra Theatre. The glimpse which Henry had +of the _prima ballerina assoluta_ in her final pose and her costume, and +of the hundred minor choregraphic artists, caused him to turn +involuntarily to Geraldine to see whether she was not shocked. She, +however, seemed to be keeping her nerve fairly well; so he smothered up +his consternation in a series of short, dry coughs, and bought a +programme. He said to himself bravely: 'I'm in for it, and I may as well +go through with it.' The next item, while it puzzled, reassured him. The +stage showed a restaurant, with a large screen on one side. A lady +entered, chattered at an incredible rate in Italian, and disappeared +behind the screen, where she knocked a chair over and rang for the +waiter. Then the waiter entered and disappeared behind the screen, +chattering at an incredible rate in Italian. The waiter reappeared and +made his exit, and then a gentleman appeared, and disappeared behind the +screen, chattering at an incredible rate in Italian. Kissing was heard +behind the screen. Instantly the waiter served a dinner, chattering +always behind the screen with his customers at an incredible rate in +Italian. Then another gentleman appeared, and no sooner had he +disappeared behind the screen, chattering at an incredible rate in +Italian, than a policeman appeared, and he too, chattering at an +incredible rate in Italian, disappeared behind the screen. A fearsome +altercation was now developing behind the screen in the tongue of Dante, +and from time to time one or other of the characters--the lady, the +policeman, the first or second gentleman, the waiter--came from cover +into view of the audience, and harangued the rest at an incredible rate +in Italian. Then a disaster happened behind the screen: a table was +upset, to an accompaniment of yells; and the curtain fell rapidly, amid +loud applause, to rise again with equal rapidity on the spectacle of a +bowing and smiling little man in ordinary evening dress. + +This singular and enigmatic drama disconcerted Henry. + +'What is it?' he whispered. + +'Pauletti,' said Geraldine, rather surprised at the question. + +He gathered from her tone that Pauletti was a personage of some +importance, and, consulting the programme, read: 'Pauletti, the +world-renowned quick-change artiste.' Then he figuratively kicked +himself, like a man kicks himself figuratively in bed when he wakes up +in the middle of the night and sees the point of what has hitherto +appeared to be rather less than a joke. + +'He's very good,' said Henry, as the excellence of Pauletti became more +and more clear to him. + +'He gets a hundred a week,' said Geraldine. + +When Pauletti had performed two other violent dramas, and dressed and +undressed himself thirty-nine times in twenty minutes, he gave way to +his fellow-countryman Toscato. Toscato began gently with a little +prestidigitation, picking five-pound notes out of the air, and +simplicities of that kind. He then borrowed a handkerchief, produced an +orange out of the handkerchief, a vegetable-marrow out of the orange, a +gibus hat out of the vegetable-marrow, a live sucking-pig out of the +gibus hat, five hundred yards of coloured paper out of the sucking-pig, +a Union-jack twelve feet by ten out of the bunch of paper, and a +wardrobe with real doors and full of ladies' dresses out of the +Union-jack. Lastly, a beautiful young girl stepped forth from the +wardrobe. + +'_I never saw anything like it!_' Henry gasped, very truthfully. He had +a momentary fancy that the devil was in this extraordinary defiance of +natural laws. + +'Yes,' Geraldine admitted. 'It's not bad, is it?' + +As Toscato could speak no English, an Englishman now joined him and +announced that Toscato would proceed to perform his latest and greatest +illusion--namely, the unique vanishing trick--for the first time in +England; also that Toscato extended a cordial invitation to members of +the audience to come up on to the stage and do their acutest to pierce +the mystery. + +'Come along,' said a voice in Henry's ear, 'I'm going.' It was Mr. +Doxey's. + +'Oh, no, thanks!' Henry replied hastily. + +'Nothing to be afraid of,' said Mr. Doxey, shrugging his shoulders with +an air which Henry judged slightly patronizing. + +'Oh yes, do go,' Geraldine urged. 'It will be such fun.' + +He hated to go, but there was no alternative, and so he went, stumbling +after Mr. Doxey up the step-ladder which had been placed against the +footlights for the ascending of people who prided themselves on being +acute. There were seven such persons on the stage, not counting himself, +but Henry honestly thought that the eyes of the entire audience were +directed upon him alone. The stage seemed very large, and he was cut off +from the audience by a wall of blinding rays, and at first he could only +distinguish vast vague semicircles and a floor of pale, featureless +faces. However, he depended upon Mr. Doxey. + +But when the trick-box had been brought on to the stage--it was a sort +of a sentry-box raised on four legs--Henry soon began to recover his +self-possession. He examined that box inside and out until he became +thoroughly convinced that it was without guile. The jury of seven stood +round the erection, and the English assistant stated that a sheet +(produced) would be thrown over Toscato, who would then step into the +box and shut the door. The door would then be closed for ten seconds, +whereupon it would be opened and the beautiful young girl would step out +of the box, while Toscato would magically appear in another part of the +house. + +At this point Henry stooped to give a last glance under the box. +Immediately Toscato held him with a fiery eye, as though enraged, and, +going up to him, took eight court cards from Henry's sleeve, a lady's +garter from his waistcoat pocket, and a Bath-bun out of his mouth. The +audience received this professional joke in excellent part, and, indeed, +roared its amusement. Henry blushed, would have given all the money he +had on him--some ninety pounds--to be back in the stalls, and felt a hot +desire to explain to everyone that the cards, the Bath-bun, and +especially the garter, had not really been in his possession at all. +That part of the episode over, the trick ought to have gone forward, but +Toscato's Italian temper was effervescing, and he insisted by signs +that one of the jury should actually get into the box bodily, and so +satisfy the community that the box was a box _et præterea nilil_. The +English assistant pointed to Henry, and Henry, to save argument, +reluctantly entered the box. Toscato shut the door. Henry was in the +dark, and quite mechanically he extended his hands and felt the sides of +the box. His fingers touched a projection in a corner, and he heard a +clicking sound. Then he was aware of Toscato shaking the door of the +box, frantically and more frantically, and of the noise of distant +multitudinous laughter. + +'Don't hold the door,' whispered a voice. + +'I'm not doing so,' Henry whispered in reply. + +The box trembled. + +'I say, old chap, don't hold the door. They want to get on with the +trick.' This time it was Mr. Doxey who addressed him in persuasive +tones. + +'Don't I tell you I'm not holding the door, you silly fool!' retorted +Henry, nettled. + +The box trembled anew and more dangerously. The distant laughter grew +immense and formidable. + +'Carry it off,' said a third voice, 'and get him out in the wings.' + +The box underwent an earthquake; it rocked; Henry was thrown with +excessive violence from side to side; the sound of the laughter receded. + +Happily, the box had no roof; it was laid with all tenderness on its +flank, and the tenant crawled out of it into the midst of an interested +crowd consisting of Toscato, some stage-managers, several +scene-shifters, and many ballerinas. His natural good-temper reasserted +itself at once, and he received apologies in the spirit in which they +were offered, while Toscato set the box to rights. Henry was returning +to the stage in order to escape from the ballerinas, whose proximity +disturbed and frightened him, but he had scarcely shown his face to the +house before he was, as it were, beaten back by a terrific wave of +jubilant cheers. The great vanishing trick was brilliantly accomplished +without his presence on the boards, and an official guided him through +various passages back to the floor of the house. Nobody seemed to +observe him as he sat down beside Geraldine. + +'Of course it was all part of the show, that business,' he heard a man +remark loudly some distance behind him. + +He much enjoyed explaining the whole thing to Geraldine. Now that it was +over, he felt rather proud, rather triumphant. He did not know that he +was very excited, but he observed that Geraldine was excited. + + +'You needn't think you are going to escape from telling me all about +your new book, because you aren't,' said Geraldine prettily. + +They were supping at a restaurant of the discreet sort, divided into +many compartments, and situated, with a charming symbolism, at the back +of St. George's, Hanover Square. Geraldine had chosen it. They did not +need food, but they needed their own unadulterated society. + +'I'm only too pleased to tell you,' Henry replied. 'You're about the +only person that I would tell. It's like this. You must imagine a youth +growing up to manhood, and wanting to be a great artist. I don't mean a +painter. I mean a--an actor. Yes, a very great actor. Shakspere's +tragedies, you know, and all that.' + +She nodded earnestly. + +'What's his name?' she inquired. + +Henry gazed at her. 'His name's Gerald,' he said, and she flushed. +'Well, at sixteen this youth is considerably over six feet in height, +and still growing. At eighteen his figure has begun to excite remark in +the streets. At nineteen he has a severe attack of scarlet fever, and +while ill he grows still more, in bed, like people do, you know. And at +twenty he is six feet eight inches high.' + +'A giant, in fact.' + +'Just so. But he doesn't want to be a giant He wants to be an actor, a +great actor. Nobody will look at him, except to stare. The idea of his +going on the stage is laughed at. He scarcely dare walk out in the +streets because children follow him. But he _is_ a great actor, all the +same, in spirit. He's got the artistic temperament, and he can't be a +clerk. He can only be one thing, and that one thing is made impossible +by his height. He falls in love with a girl. She rather likes him, but +naturally the idea of marrying a giant doesn't appeal to her. So that's +off, too. And he's got no resources, and he's gradually starving in a +garret. See the tragedy?' + +She nodded, reflective, sympathetically silent. + +Henry continued: 'Well, he's starving. He doesn't know what to do. He +isn't quite tall enough to be a show-giant--they have to be over seven +feet--otherwise he might at any rate try the music-hall stage. Then the +manager of a West End restaurant catches sight of him one day, and +offers him a place as doorkeeper at a pound a week and tips. He refuses +it indignantly. But after a week or two more of hunger he changes his +mind and accepts. And this man who has the soul and the brains of a +great artist is reduced to taking sixpences for opening cab-doors.' + +'Does it end there?' + +'No. It's a sad story, I'm afraid. He dies one night in the snow outside +the restaurant, while the rich noodles are gorging themselves inside to +the music of a band. Consumption.' + +'It's the most original story I ever heard in all my life,' said +Geraldine enthusiastically. + +'Do you think so?' + +'I do, honestly. What are you going to call it--if I may ask?' + +'Call it?' He hesitated a second. '_A Question of Cubits_,' he said. + +'You are simply wonderful at titles,' she observed. 'Thank you. Thank +you so much.' + +'No one else knows,' he finished. + + +When he had seen her safely to Chenies Street, and was travelling to +Dawes Road in a cab, he felt perfectly happy. The story had come to him +almost by itself. It had been coming all the evening, even while he was +in the box, even while he was lost in admiration of Geraldine. It had +cost him nothing. He knew he could write it with perfect ease. And +Geraldine admired it! It was the most original story she had ever heard +in all her life! He himself thought it extremely original, too. He saw +now how foolish and premature had been his fears for the future. Of +course he had studied human nature. Of course he had been through the +mill, and practised style. Had he not won the prize for composition at +the age of twelve? And was there not the tangible evidence of his essays +for the Polytechnic, not to mention his continual work for Sir George? + +He crept upstairs to his bedroom joyous, jaunty, exultant. + +'Is that you, Henry?' It was Aunt Annie's inquiry. + +'Yes,' he answered, safely within his room. + +'How late you are! It's half-past twelve and more.' + +'I got lost,' he explained to her. + +But he could not explain to himself what instinct had forced him to +conceal from his adoring relatives the fact that he had bought a suit of +dress-clothes, put them on, and sallied forth in them to spend an +evening with a young lady. + +Just as he was dropping off to sleep and beauteous visions, he sprang up +with a start, and, lighting a candle, descended to the dining-room. +There he stood on a chair, reached for the blue jar on the bookcase, +extracted the two eggs, and carried them upstairs. He opened his window +and threw the eggs into the middle of Dawes Road, but several houses +lower down; they fell with a soft _plup_, and scattered. + +Thus ended the miraculous evening. + + +The next day he was prostrate with one of his very worst dyspeptic +visitations. The Knight pew at Munster Park Chapel was empty at both +services, and Henry learnt from loving lips that he must expect to be +ill if he persisted in working so hard. He meekly acknowledged the +justice of the rebuke. + +On Monday morning at half-past eight, before he had appeared at +breakfast, there came a telegram, which Aunt Annie opened. It had been +despatched from Paris on the previous evening, and it ran: +'_Congratulations on the box trick. Worth half a dozen books with the +dear simple public A sincere admirer._' This telegram puzzled everybody, +including Henry; though perhaps it puzzled Henry a little less than the +ladies. When Aunt Annie suggested that it had been wrongly addressed, he +agreed that no other explanation was possible, and Sarah took it back to +the post-office. + +He departed to business. At all the newspaper-shops, at all the +bookstalls, he saw the placards of morning newspapers with lines +conceived thus: + + + AMUSING INCIDENT AT THE ALHAMBRA. + A NOVELIST'S ADVENTURE. + VANISHING AUTHOR AT A MUSIC-HALL. + A NOVELIST IN A BOX. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HIS JACK-HORNERISM + + +That autumn the Chancelleries of Europe happened to be rather less +egotistic than usual, and the English and American publics, seeing no +war-cloud on the horizon, were enabled to give the whole of their +attention to the balloon sent up into the sky by Mr. Onions Winter. They +stared to some purpose. There are some books which succeed before they +are published, and the commercial travellers of Mr. Onions Winter +reported unhesitatingly that _A Question of Cubits_ was such a book. The +libraries and the booksellers were alike graciously interested in the +rumour of its advent. It was universally considered a 'safe' novel; it +was the sort of novel that the honest provincial bookseller reads +himself for his own pleasure and recommends to his customers with a +peculiar and special smile of sincerity as being not only 'good,' but +'_really_ good.' People mentioned it with casual anticipatory remarks +who had never previously been known to mention any novel later than +_John Halifax Gentleman_. + +This and other similar pleasing phenomena were, of course, due in part +to the mercantile sagacity of Mr. Onions Winter. For during a +considerable period the Anglo-Saxon race was not permitted to forget for +a single day that at a given moment the balloon would burst and rain +down copies of _A Question of Cubits_ upon a thirsty earth. _A Question +of Cubits_ became the universal question, the question of questions, +transcending in its insistence the liver question, the soap question, +the Encyclopædia question, the whisky question, the cigarette question, +the patent food question, the bicycle tyre question, and even the +formidable uric acid question. Another powerful factor in the case was +undoubtedly the lengthy paragraph concerning Henry's adventure at the +Alhambra. That paragraph, having crystallized itself into a fixed form +under the title 'A Novelist in a Box,' had started on a journey round +the press of the entire world, and was making a pace which would have +left Jules Verne's hero out of sight in twenty-four hours. No editor +could deny his hospitality to it. From the New York dailies it travelled +viâ the _Chicago Inter-Ocean_ to the _Montreal Star_, and thence back +again with the rapidity of light by way of the _Boston Transcript_, the +_Philadelphia Ledger_, and the _Washington Post_, down to the _New +Orleans Picayune_. Another day, and it was in the _San Francisco Call_, +and soon afterwards it had reached _La Prensa_ at Buenos Ayres. It then +disappeared for a period amid the Pacific Isles, and was next heard of +in the _Sydney Bulletin_, the _Brisbane Courier_ and the _Melbourne +Argus_. A moment, and it blazed in the _North China Herald_, and was +shooting across India through the columns of the Calcutta _Englishman_ +and the _Allahabad Pioneer_. It arrived in Paris as fresh as a new pin, +and gained acceptance by the Paris edition of the _New York Herald_, +which had printed it two months before and forgotten it, as a brand-new +item of the most luscious personal gossip. Thence, later, it had a +smooth passage to London, and was seen everywhere with a new +frontispiece consisting of the words: 'Our readers may remember.' Mr. +Onions Winter reckoned that it had been worth at least five hundred +pounds to him. + +But there was something that counted more than the paragraph, and more +than Mr. Onions Winter's mercantile sagacity, in the immense preliminary +noise and rattle of _A Question of Cubits_: to wit, the genuine and +ever-increasing vogue of _Love in Babylon_, and the beautiful hopes of +future joy which it aroused in the myriad breast of Henry's public. +_Love in Babylon_ had falsified the expert prediction of Mark Snyder, +and had reached seventy-five thousand in Great Britain alone. What +figure it reached in America no man could tell. The average citizen and +his wife and daughter were truly enchanted by _Love in Babylon_, and +since the state of being enchanted is one of almost ecstatic felicity, +they were extremely anxious that Henry in a second work should repeat +the operation upon them at the earliest possible instant. + +The effect of the whole business upon Henry was what might have been +expected. He was a modest young man, but there are two kinds of modesty, +which may be called the internal and the external, and Henry excelled +more in the former than in the latter. While never free from a secret +and profound amazement that people could really care for his stuff (an +infallible symptom of authentic modesty), Henry gradually lost the +pristine virginity of his early diffidence. His demeanour grew confident +and bold. His glance said: 'I know exactly who I am, and let no one +think otherwise.' His self-esteem as a celebrity, stimulated and +fattened by a tremendous daily diet of press-cuttings, and letters from +feminine admirers all over the vastest of empires, was certainly in no +immediate danger of inanition. Nor did the fact that he was still +outside the rings known as literary circles injure that self-esteem in +the slightest degree; by a curious trick of nature it performed the same +function as the press-cuttings and the correspondence. Mark Snyder said: +'Keep yourself to yourself. Don't be interviewed. Don't do anything +except write. If publishers or editors approach you, refer them to me.' +This suited Henry. He liked to think that he was in the hands of Mark +Snyder, as an athlete in the hands of his trainer. He liked to think +that he was alone with his leviathan public; and he could find a sort of +mild, proud pleasure in meeting every advance with a frigid, courteous +refusal. It tickled his fancy that he, who had shaken a couple of +continents or so with one little book; and had written another and a +better one with the ease and assurance of a novelist born, should be +willing to remain a shorthand clerk earning three guineas a week. (He +preferred now to regard himself as a common shorthand clerk, not as +private secretary to a knight: the piquancy of the situation was thereby +intensified.) And as the day of publication of _A Question of Cubits_ +came nearer and nearer, he more and more resembled a little Jack Horner +sitting in his private corner, and pulling out the plums of fame, and +soliloquizing, 'What a curious, interesting, strange, uncanny, original +boy am I!' + +Then one morning he received a telegram from Mark Snyder requesting his +immediate presence at Kenilworth Mansions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +HE JUSTIFIES HIS FATHER + + +He went at once to Kenilworth Mansions, but he went against his will. +And the reason of his disinclination was that he scarcely desired to +encounter Geraldine. It was an ordeal for him to encounter Geraldine. +The events which had led to this surprising condition of affairs were as +follows: + +Henry was one of those men--and there exist, perhaps, more of them than +may be imagined--who are capable of plunging off the roof of a house, +and then reconsidering the enterprise and turning back. With Henry it +was never too late for discretion. He would stop and think at the most +extraordinary moments. Thirty-six hours after the roseate evening at the +Louvre and the Alhambra, just when he ought to have been laying a +scheme for meeting Geraldine at once by sheer accident, Henry was coldly +remarking to himself: 'Let me see exactly where I am. Let me survey the +position.' He liked Geraldine, but now it was with a sober liking, a +liking which is not too excited to listen to Reason. And Reason said, +after the position had been duly surveyed: 'I have nothing against this +charming lady, and much in her favour. Nevertheless, there need be no +hurry.' Geraldine wrote to thank Henry for the most enjoyable evening +she had ever spent in her life, and Henry found the letter too effusive. +When they next saw each other, Henry meant to keep strictly private the +advice which he had accepted from Reason; but Geraldine knew all about +it within the first ten seconds, and Henry knew that she knew. +Politeness reigned, and the situation was felt to be difficult. +Geraldine intended to be sisterly, but succeeded only in being +resentful, and thus precipitated too soon the second stage of the +entanglement, the stage in which a man, after seeing everything in a +woman, sees nothing in her; this second stage is usually of the +briefest, but circumstances may render it permanent. Then Geraldine +wrote again, and asked Henry to tea at the flat in Chenies Street on a +Saturday afternoon. Henry went, and found the flat closed. He expected +to receive a note of bewitching, cajoling, feminine apology, but he did +not receive it. They met again, always at Kenilworth Mansions, and in an +interview full of pain at the start and full of insincerity at the +finish Henry learnt that Geraldine's invitation had been for Sunday, and +not Saturday, that various people of much importance in her eyes had +been asked to meet him, and that the company was deeply disappointed and +the hostess humiliated. Henry was certain that she had written Saturday. +Geraldine was certain that he had misread the day. He said nothing about +confronting her with the letter itself, but he determined, in his +masculine way, to do so. She gracefully pretended that the incident was +closed, and amicably closed, but the silly little thing had got into her +head the wild, inexcusable idea that Henry had stayed away from her 'at +home' on purpose, and Henry felt this. + +He rushed to Dawes Road to find the letter, but the letter was +undiscoverable; with the spiteful waywardness which often characterizes +such letters, it had disappeared. So Henry thought it would be as well +to leave the incident alone. Their cheery politeness to each other when +they chanced to meet was affecting to witness. As for Henry, he had +always suspected in Geraldine the existence of some element, some +quality, some factor, which was beyond his comprehension, and now his +suspicions were confirmed. + +He fell into a habit of saying, in his inmost heart: 'Women!' + +This meant that he had learnt all that was knowable about them, and that +they were all alike, and that--the third division of the meaning was +somewhat vague. + +Just as he was ascending with the beautiful flunkey in the Kenilworth +lift, a middle-aged and magnificently-dressed woman hastened into the +marble hall from the street, and, seeing the lift in the act of +vanishing with its precious burden, gave a slight scream and then a +laugh. The beautiful flunkey permitted himself a derisive gesture, such +as one male may make to another, and sped the lift more quickly upwards. + +'Who's she?' Henry demanded. + +'_I_ don't know, sir,' said the flunkey. 'But you'll hear her +ting-tinging at the bell in half a second. There!' he added in +triumphant disgust, as the lift-bell rang impatiently. 'There's some +people,' he remarked, 'as thinks a lift can go up and down at once.' + +Geraldine with a few bright and pleasant remarks ushered Henry directly +into the presence of Mark Snyder. Her companion was not in the office. + +'Well,' Mr. Snyder expansively and gaily welcomed him, 'come and sit +down, my young friend.' + +'Anything wrong?' Henry asked. + +'No,' said Mark. 'But I've postponed publication of the _Q. C._ for a +month.' + +In his letters Mr. Snyder always referred to _A Question of Cubits_ as +the _Q. C._ + +'What on earth for?' exclaimed Henry. + +He was not pleased. In strict truth, no one of his innumerable admirers +was more keenly anxious for the appearance of that book than Henry +himself. His appetite for notoriety and boom grew by what it fed on. He +expected something colossal, and he expected it soon. + +'Both in England and America,' said Snyder. + +'But why?' + +'Serial rights,' said Snyder impressively. 'I told you some time since I +might have a surprise for you, and I've got one. I fancied I might sell +the serial rights in England to Macalistairs, at my own price, but they +thought the end was too sad. However, I've done business in New York +with _Gordon's Weekly_. They'll issue the _Q. C._ in four instalments. +It was really settled last week, but I had to arrange with Spring +Onions. They've paid cash. I made 'em. How much d'you think?' + +'I don't know,' Henry said expectantly. + +'Guess,' Mark Snyder commanded him. + +But Henry would not guess, and Snyder rang the bell for Geraldine. + +'Miss Foster,' he addressed the puzzling creature in a casual tone, 'did +you draw that cheque for Mr. Knight?' + +'Yes, Mr. Snyder.' + +'Bring it me, please.' + +And she respectfully brought in a cheque, which Mr. Snyder signed. + +'There!' said he, handing it to Henry. 'What do you think of that?' + +It was a cheque for one thousand and eighty pounds. Gordon and +Brothers, the greatest publishing firm of the United States, had paid +six thousand dollars for the right to publish serially _A Question of +Cubits_, and Mark Snyder's well-earned commission on the transaction +amounted to six hundred dollars. + +'Things are looking up,' Henry stammered, feebly facetious. + +'It's nearly a record price,' said Snyder complacently. 'But you're a +sort of a record man. And when they believe in a thing over there, they +aren't afraid of making money talk and say so.' + +'Nay, nay!' thought Henry. 'This is too much! This beats everything! +Either I shall wake up soon or I shall find myself in a lunatic asylum.' +He was curiously reminded of the conjuring performance at the Alhambra. + +He said: + +'Thanks awfully, I'm sure!' + +A large grandiose notion swept over him that he had a great mission in +the world. + +'That's all I have to say to you,' said Mark Snyder pawkily. + +Henry wanted to breathe instantly the ampler ether of the street, but +on his way out he found Geraldine in rapid converse with the middle-aged +and magnificently-dressed woman who thought that a lift could go up and +down at once. They became silent. + +'_Good_-morning, Miss Foster,' said Henry hurriedly. + +Then a pause occurred, very brief but uncomfortable, and the stranger +glanced in the direction of the window. + +'Let me introduce you to Mrs. Ashton Portway,' said Geraldine. 'Mrs. +Portway, Mr. Knight.' + +Mrs. Portway bent forward her head, showed her teeth, smiled, laughed, +and finally sniggered. + +'So glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Knight!' she burst out loudly +and uncontrollably, as though Geraldine's magic formula had loosened a +valve capable of withstanding enormous strains. Then she smiled, +laughed, and sniggered: not because she imagined that she had achieved +humour, but because that was her way of making herself agreeable. If +anybody had told her that she could not open her mouth without +sniggering, she would have indignantly disbelieved the statement. +Nevertheless it was true. When she said the weather was changeable, she +sniggered; when she hoped you were quite well, she sniggered; and if +circumstances had required her to say that she was sorry to hear of the +death of your mother, she would have sniggered. + +Henry, however, unaccustomed to the phenomena accompanying her speech, +mistook her at first for a woman determined to be witty at any cost. + +'I'm glad to meet you,' he said, and laughed as if to insinuate that +that speech also was funny. + +'I was desolated, simply desolated, not to see you at Miss Foster's "at +home,"' Mrs. Ashton Portway was presently sniggering. 'Now, will you +come to one of my Wednesdays? They begin in November. First and third. I +always try to get interesting people, people who have done something.' + +'Of course I shall be delighted,' Henry agreed. He was in a mood to +scatter largesse among the crowd. + +'That's so good of you,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, apparently overcome +by the merry jest. 'Now remember, I shall hold you to your promise. I +shall write and remind you. I know you great men.' + +When Henry reached the staircase he discovered her card in his hand. He +could not have explained how it came there. Without the portals of +Kenilworth Mansions a pair of fine horses were protesting against the +bearing-rein, and throwing spume across the street. + +He walked straight up to the Louvre, and there lunched to the sound of +wild Hungarian music. It was nearly three o'clock when he returned to +his seat at Powells. + +'The governor's pretty nearly breaking up the happy home,' Foxall +alarmingly greeted him in the inquiry office. + +'Oh!' said Henry with a very passable imitation of guilelessness. +'What's amiss?' + +'He rang for you just after you went out at a quarter-past twelve.' Here +Foxall glanced mischievously at the clock. 'He had his lunch sent in, +and he's been raving ever since.' + +'What did you tell him?' + +'I told him you'd gone to lunch.' + +'Did he say anything?' + +'He asked whether you'd gone to Brighton for lunch. Krikey! He nearly +sacked _me_! You know it's his golfing afternoon.' + +'So it is. I'd forgotten,' Henry observed calmly. + +Then he removed his hat and gloves, found his note-book and pencil, and +strode forward to joust with the knight. + +'Did you want to dictate letters, Sir George?' he asked, opening Sir +George's door. + +The knight was taken aback. + +'Where have you been,' the famous solicitor demanded, 'since the middle +of the morning?' + +'I had some urgent private business to attend to,' said Henry. 'And I've +been to lunch. I went out at a quarter-past twelve.' + +'And it's now three o'clock. Why didn't you tell me you were going out?' + +'Because you were engaged, Sir George.' + +'Listen to me,' said Sir George. 'You've been getting above yourself +lately, my friend. And I won't have it. Understand, I will not have it. +The rules of this office apply just as much to you as to anyone.' + +'I'm sorry,' Henry put in coldly, 'if I've put you to any +inconvenience.' + +'Sorry be d----d, sir!' exclaimed Sir George. + +'Where on earth do you go for your lunch?' + +'That concerns no one but me, Sir George,' was the reply. + +He would have given a five-pound note to know that Foxall and the entire +staff were listening behind the door. + +'You are an insolent puppy,' Sir George stated. + +'If you think so, Sir George,' said Henry, 'I resign my position here.' + +'And a fool!' the knight added. + + +'And did you say anything about the thousand pounds?' Aunt Annie asked, +when, in the evening domesticity of Dawes Road, Henry recounted the +doings of that day so full of emotions. + +'Not I!' Henry replied. 'Not a word!' + +'You did quite right, my dear!' said Aunt Annie. 'A pretty thing, that +you can't go out for a few minutes!' + +'Yes, isn't it?' said Henry. + +'Whatever will Sir George do without you, though?' his mother wondered. + +And later, after he had displayed for her inspection the cheque for a +thousand and eighty pounds, the old lady cried, with moist eyes: + +'My darling, your poor father might well insist on having you called +Shakspere! And to think that I didn't want it! To think that I didn't +want it!' + +'Mark my words!' said Aunt Annie. 'Sir George will ask you to stay on.' + +And Aunt Annie was not deceived. + +'I hope you've come to your senses,' the lawyer began early the next +morning, not unkindly, but rather with an intention obviously pacific. +'Literature, or whatever you call it, may be all very well, but you +won't get another place like this in a hurry. There's many an admitted +solicitor earns less than you, young man.' + +'Thanks very much, Sir George,' Henry answered. 'But I think, on the +whole, I had better leave.' + +'As you wish,' said Sir George, hurt. + +'Still,' Henry proceeded, 'I hope our relations will remain pleasant. I +hope I may continue to employ you.' + +'Continue to employ me?' Sir George gasped. + +'Yes,' said Henry. 'I got you to invest some moneys for me some time +ago. I have another thousand now that I want a sound security for.' + +It was one of those rare flashes of his--rare, but blindingly brilliant. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +PRESS AND PUBLIC + + +At length arrived the eve of the consummation of Mr. Onions Winter's +mercantile labours. Forty thousand copies of _A Question of Cubits_ (No. +8 of the Satin Library) had been printed, and already, twenty-four hours +before they were to shine in booksellers' shops and on the counters of +libraries, every copy had been sold to the trade and a second edition +was in the press. Thus, it was certain that one immortal soul per +thousand of the entire British race would read Henry's story. In +literature, when nine hundred and ninety-nine souls ignore you, but the +thousandth buys your work, or at least borrows it--that is called +enormous popularity. Henry retired to bed in Dawes Road that night sure +of his enormous popularity. But he did not dream of the devoted army of +forty thousand admirers. He dreamt of the reviews, some of which he knew +were to appear on the day of publication itself. A hundred copies of _A +Question of Cubits_ had been sent out for review, and in his dreams he +saw a hundred highly-educated men, who had given their lives to the +study of fiction, bending anxiously over the tome and seeking with +conscientious care the precise phrases in which most accurately to +express their expert appreciation of it. He dreamt much of the reviewer +of the _Daily Tribune_, his favourite morning paper, whom he pictured as +a man of forty-five or so, with gold-rimmed spectacles and an air of +generous enthusiasm. He hoped great things from the article in the +_Daily Tribune_ (which, by a strange accident, had completely ignored +_Love in Babylon_), and when he arose in the morning (he had been lying +awake a long time waiting to hear the scamper of the newsboy on the +steps) he discovered that his hopes were happily realized. The _Daily +Tribune_ had given nearly a column of praise to _A Question of Cubits_, +had quoted some choice extracts, had drawn special attention to the +wonderful originality of the plot, and asserted that the story was an +advance, 'if an advance were possible,' on the author's previous book. +His mother and Aunt Annie consumed the review at breakfast with an +excellent appetite, and lauded the insight of the critic. + +What had happened at the offices of the _Daily Tribune_ was this. At the +very moment when Henry was dreaming of its reviewer--namely, half-past +eleven p.m.--its editor was gesticulating and shouting at the end of a +speaking-tube: + +'Haven't had proof of that review of a book called _A Question of +Cubits_, or some such idiotic title! Send it down at once, instantly. Do +you hear? What? Nonsense!' + +The editor sprang away from the tube, and dashed into the middle of a +vast mass of papers on his desk, turning them all over, first in heaps, +then singly. He then sprang in succession to various side-tables and +served their contents in the same manner. + +'I tell you I sent it up myself before dinner,' he roared into the tube. +'It's Mr. Clackmannan's "copy"--you know that peculiar paper he writes +on. Just look about. Oh, conf----!' + +Then the editor rang a bell. + +'Send Mr. Heeky to me, quick!' he commanded the messenger-boy. + +'I'm just finishing that leaderette,' began Mr. Heeley, when he obeyed +the summons. Mr. Heeley was a young man who had published a book of +verse. + +'Never mind the leaderette,' said the editor. 'Run across to the other +shop yourself, and see if they've got a copy of _A Question of +Cubits_--yes, that's it, _A Question of Cubits_--and do me fifteen +inches on it at once. I've lost Clackmannan's "copy."' (The 'other shop' +was a wing occupied by a separate journal belonging to the proprietors +of the _Tribune_.) + +'What, that thing!' exclaimed Mr. Heeley. 'Won't it do to-morrow? You +know I hate messing my hands with that sort of piffle.' + +'No, it won't do to-morrow. I met Onions Winter at dinner on Saturday +night, and I told him I'd review it on the day of publication. And when +I promise a thing I promise it. Cut, my son! And I say'--the editor +recalled Mr. Heeley, who was gloomily departing--'We're under no +obligations to anyone. Write what you think, but, all the same, no +antics, no spleen. You've got to learn yet that that isn't our +speciality. You're not on the _Whitehall_ now.' + +'Oh, all right, chief--all right!' Mr. Heeley concurred. + +Five minutes later Mr. Heeley entered what he called his private +boudoir, bearing a satinesque volume. + +'Here, boys,' he cried to two other young men who were already there, +smoking clay pipes--'here's a lark! The chief wants fifteen inches on +this charming and pathetic art-work as quick as you can. And no antics, +he says. Here, Jack, here's fifty pages for you'--Mr. Heeley ripped the +beautiful inoffensive volume ruthlessly in pieces--and here's fifty for +you, Clementina. Tell me your parts of the plot I'll deal with the first +fifty my noble self.' + +Presently, after laughter, snipping out of pages with scissors, and some +unseemly language, Mr. Heeley began to write. + +'Oh, he's shot up to six foot eight!' exclaimed Jack, interrupting the +scribe. + +'Snow!' observed the bearded man styled Clementina. 'He dies in the +snow. Listen.' He read a passage from Henry's final scene, ending with +'His spirit had passed.' 'Chuck me the scissors, Jack.' + +Mr. Heeley paused, looked up, and then drew his pen through what he had +written. + +'I say, boys,'he almost whispered, 'I'll praise it, eh? I'll take it +seriously. It'll be simply delicious.' + +'What about the chief?' + +'Oh, the chief won't notice it! It'll be just for us three, and a few at +the club.' + +Then there was hard scribbling, and pasting of extracts into blank +spaces, and more laughter. + +'"If an advance were possible,"' Clementina read, over Mr. Heeley's +shoulder. 'You'll give the show away, you fool!' + +'No, I shan't, Clemmy, my boy,' said Mr. Heeley judicially. 'They'll +stand simply anything. I bet you what you like Onions Winter quotes that +all over the place.' + +And he handed the last sheet of the review to a messenger, and ran off +to the editorial room to report that instructions had been executed. +Jack and Clementina relighted their pipes with select bits of _A +Question of Cubits_, and threw the remaining débris of the volume into +the waste-paper basket. The hour was twenty minutes past midnight.... + +The great majority of the reviews were exceedingly favourable, and even +where praise was diluted with blame, the blame was administered with +respect, as a dentist might respectfully pain a prince in pulling his +tooth out. The public had voted for Henry, and the press, organ of +public opinion, displayed a wise discretion. The daring freshness of +Henry's plot, his inventive power, his skill in 'creating atmosphere,' +his gift for pathos, his unfailing wholesomeness, and his knack in the +management of narrative, were noted and eulogized in dozens of articles. +Nearly every reviewer prophesied brilliant success for him; several +admitted frankly that his equipment revealed genius of the first rank. A +mere handful of papers scorned him. Prominent among this handful was the +_Whitehall Gazette_. The distinguished mouthpiece of the superior +classes dealt with _A Question of Cubits_ at the foot of a column, in a +brief paragraph headed 'Our Worst Fears realized.' The paragraph, which +was nothing but a summary of the plot, concluded in these terms: 'So he +expired, every inch of him, in the snow, a victim to the British +Public's rapacious appetite for the sentimental.' + +The rudeness of the _Whitehall Gazette_, however, did nothing whatever +to impair the wondrous vogue which Henry now began to enjoy. His first +boom had been great, but it was a trifle compared to his second. The +title of the new book became a catchword. When a little man was seen +walking with a tall woman, people exclaimed: 'It's a question of +cubits.' When the recruiting regulations of the British army were +relaxed, people also exclaimed: 'It's a question of cubits.' During a +famous royal procession, sightseers trying to see the sight over the +heads of a crowd five deep shouted to each other all along the route: +'It's a question of cubits.' Exceptionally tall men were nicknamed +'Gerald' by their friends. Henry's Gerald, by the way, had died as +doorkeeper at a restaurant called the Trianon. The Trianon was at once +recognised as the Louvre, and the tall commissionaire at the Louvre +thereby trebled his former renown. 'Not dead in the snow yet?' the wits +of the West End would greet him on descending from their hansoms, and he +would reply, infinitely gratified: 'No, sir. No snow, sir.' A +music-hall star of no mean eminence sang a song with the refrain: + + + 'You may think what you like, + You may say what you like, + It was simply a question of cubits.' + + +The lyric related the history of a new suit of clothes that was worn by +everyone except the person who had ordered it. + +Those benefactors of humanity, the leading advertisers, used 'A Question +of Cubits' for their own exalted ends. A firm of manufacturers of +high-heeled shoes played with it for a month in various forms. The +proprietors of an unrivalled cheap cigarette disbursed thousands of +pounds in order to familiarize the public with certain facts. As thus: +'A Question of Cubits. Every hour of every day we sell as many +cigarettes as, if placed on end one on the top of the other, would make +a column as lofty as the Eiffel Tower. Owing to the fact that cigarettes +are not once mentioned in _A Question of Cubits_, we regret to say that +the author has not authorized us to assert that he was thinking of our +cigarettes when he wrote Chapter VII. of that popular novel.' + +Editors and publishers cried in vain for Henry. They could get from him +neither interviews, short stories, nor novels. They could only get +polite references to Mark Snyder. And Mark Snyder had made his +unalterable plans for the exploitation of this most wonderful racehorse +that he had ever trained for the Fame Stakes. The supply of chatty +paragraphs concerning the hero and the book of the day would have +utterly failed had not Mr. Onions Winter courageously come to the rescue +and allowed himself to be interviewed. And even then respectable +journals were reduced to this sort of paragraph: 'Apropos of Mr. +Knight's phenomenal book, it may not be generally known what the exact +measure of a cubit is. There have been three different cubits--the +Scriptural, the Roman, and the English. Of these, the first-named,' etc. + +So the thing ran on. + +And at the back of it all, supporting it all, was the steady and +prodigious sale of the book, the genuine enthusiasm for it of the +average sensible, healthy-minded woman and man. + +Finally, the information leaked out that Macalistairs had made august +and successful overtures for the reception of Henry into their fold. +Sir Hugh Macalistair, the head of the firm, was (at that time) the only +publisher who had ever been knighted. And the history of Macalistairs +was the history of all that was greatest and purest in English +literature during the nineteenth century. Without Macalistairs, English +literature since Scott would have been nowhere. Henry was to write a +long novel in due course, and Macalistairs were to have the world's +rights of the book, and were to use it as a serial in their venerable +and lusty _Magazine_, and to pay Henry, on delivery of the manuscript, +eight thousand pounds, of which six thousand was to count as in advance +of royalties on the book. + +Mr. Onions Winter was very angry at what he termed an ungrateful +desertion. The unfortunate man died a year or two later of appendicitis, +and his last words were that he, and he alone, had 'discovered' Henry. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +PLAYING THE NEW GAME + + +When Henry had seceded from Powells, and had begun to devote several +dignified hours a day to the excogitation of a theme for his new novel, +and the triumph of _A Question of Cubits_ was at its height, he thought +that there ought to be some change in his secret self to correspond with +the change in his circumstances. But he could perceive none, except, +perhaps, that now and then he was visited by the feeling that he had a +great mission in the world. That feeling, however, came rarely, and, for +the most part, he existed in a state of not being quite able to +comprehend exactly how and why his stories roused the enthusiasm of an +immense public. + +In essentials he remained the same Henry, and the sameness of his simple +self was never more apparent to him than when he got out of a cab one +foggy Wednesday night in November, and rang at the Grecian portico of +Mrs. Ashton Portway's house in Lowndes Square. A crimson cloth covered +the footpath. This was his first entry into the truly great world, and +though he was perfectly aware that as a lion he could not easily be +surpassed in no matter what menagerie, his nervousness and timidity were +so acute as to be painful; they annoyed him, in fact. When, in the wide +hall, a servant respectfully but firmly closed the door after him, thus +cutting off a possible retreat to the homely society of the cabman, he +became resigned, careless, reckless, desperate, as who should say, 'Now +I _have_ done it!' And as at the Louvre, so at Mrs. Ashton Portway's, +his outer garments were taken forcibly from him, and a ticket given to +him in exchange. The ticket startled him, especially as he saw no notice +on the walls that the management would not be responsible for articles +not deposited in the cloakroom. Nobody inquired about his identity, and +without further ritual he was asked to ascend towards regions whence +came the faint sound of music. At the top of the stairs a young and +handsome man, faultless alike in costume and in manners, suavely +accosted him. + +'What name, sir?' + +'Knight,' said Henry gruffly. The young man thought that Henry was on +the point of losing his temper from some cause or causes unknown, +whereas Henry was merely timid. + +Then the music ceased, and was succeeded by violent chatter; the young +man threw open a door, and announced in loud clear tones, which Henry +deemed ridiculously loud and ridiculously clear: + +'MR. KNIGHT!' + +Henry saw a vast apartment full of women's shoulders and black patches +of masculinity; the violent chatter died into a profound silence; every +face was turned towards him. He nearly fell down dead on the doormat, +and then, remembering that life was after all sweet, he plunged into the +room as into the sea. + +When he came up breathless and spluttering, Mrs. Ashton Portway (in +black and silver) was introducing him to her husband, Mr. Ashton +Portway, known to a small circle of readers as Raymond Quick, the author +of several mild novels issued at his own expense. Mr. Portway was rich +in money and in his wife; he had inherited the money, and his literary +instincts had discovered the wife in a publisher's daughter. The union +had not been blessed with children, which was fortunate, since Mrs. +Portway was left free to devote the whole of her time to the +encouragement of literary talent in the most unliterary of cities. + +Henry rather liked Mr. Ashton Portway, whose small black eyes seemed to +say: 'That's all right, my friend. I share your ideas fully. When you +want a quiet whisky, come to me.' + +'And what have you been doing this dark day?' Mrs. Ashton Portway began, +with her snigger. + +'Well,' said Henry, 'I dropped into the National Gallery this afternoon, +but really it was so----' + +'The National Gallery?' exclaimed Mrs. Ashton Portway swiftly. 'I must +introduce you to Miss Marchrose, the author of that charming hand-book +to _Pictures in London_. Miss Marchrose,' she called out, urging Henry +towards a corner of the room, 'this is Mr. Knight.' She sniggered on the +name. 'He's just dropped into the National Gallery.' + +Then Mrs. Ashton Portway sailed off to receive other guests, and Henry +was alone with Miss Marchrose in a nook between a cabinet and a +phonograph. Many eyes were upon them. Miss Marchrose, a woman of thirty, +with a thin face and an amorphous body draped in two shades of olive, +was obviously flattered. + +'Be frank, and admit you've never heard of me,' she said. + +'Oh yes, I have,' he lied. + +'Do you often go to the National Gallery, Mr. Knight?' + +'Not as often as I ought.' + +Pause. + +Several observant women began to think that Miss Marchrose was not +making the best of Henry--that, indeed, she had proved unworthy of an +unmerited honour. + +'I sometimes think----' Miss Marchrose essayed. + +But a young lady got up in the middle of the room, and with +extraordinary self-command and presence of mind began to recite +Wordsworth's 'The Brothers.' She continued to recite and recite until +she had finished it, and then sat down amid universal joy. + +'Matthew Arnold said that was the greatest poem of the century,' +remarked a man near the phonograph. + +'You'll pardon me,' said Miss Marchrose, turning to him. 'If you are +thinking of Matthew Arnold's introduction to the selected poems, you'll +and----' + +'My dear,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, suddenly looming up opposite the +reciter, 'what a memory you have!' + +'Was it so long, then?' murmured a tall man with spectacles and a light +wavy beard. + +'I shall send you back to Paris, Mr. Dolbiac,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, +'if you are too witty.' The hostess smiled and sniggered, but it was +generally felt that Mr. Dolbiac's remark had not been in the best taste. + +For a few moments Henry was alone and uncared for, and he examined his +surroundings. His first conclusion was that there was not a pretty woman +in the room, and his second, that this fact had not escaped the notice +of several other men who were hanging about in corners. Then Mrs. Ashton +Portway, having accomplished the task of receiving, beckoned him, and +intimated to him that, being a lion and the king of beasts, he must +roar. 'I think everyone here has done something,' she said as she took +him round and forced him to roar. His roaring was a miserable fiasco, +but most people mistook it for the latest fashion in roaring, and were +impressed. + +'Now you must take someone down to get something to eat,' she apprised +him, when he had growled out soft nothings to poetesses, paragraphists, +publicists, positivists, penny-a-liners, and other pale persons. 'Whom +shall it be?--Ashton! What have you done?' + +The phonograph had been advertised to give a reproduction of Ternina in +the Liebestod from _Tristan und Isolde_, but instead it broke into the +'Washington Post,' and the room, braced to a great occasion, was +horrified. Mrs. Portway, abandoning Henry, ran to silence the disastrous +consequence of her husband's clumsiness. Henry, perhaps impelled by an +instinctive longing, gazed absently through the open door into the +passage, and there, with two other girls on a settee, he perceived +Geraldine! She smiled, rose, and came towards him. She looked +disconcertingly pretty; she was always at her best in the evening; and +she had such eyes to gaze on him. + +'You here!' she murmured. + +Ordinary words, but they were enveloped in layers of feeling, as a +child's simple gift may be wrapped in lovely tinted tissue-papers! + +'She's the finest woman in the place,' he thought decisively. And he +said to her: 'Will you come down and have something to eat?' + +'I can talk to _her_,' he reflected with satisfaction, as the faultless +young man handed them desired sandwiches in the supper-room. What he +meant was that she could talk to him; but men often make this mistake. + +Before he had eaten half a sandwich, the period of time between that +night and the night at the Louvre had been absolutely blotted out. He +did not know why. He could think of no explanation. It merely was so. + +She told him she had sold a sensational serial for a pound a thousand +words. + +'Not a bad price--for me,' she added. + +'Not half enough!' he exclaimed ardently. + +Her eyes moistened. He thought what a shame it was that a creature like +her should be compelled to earn even a portion of her livelihood by +typewriting for Mark Snyder. The faultless young man unostentatiously +poured more wine into their glasses. No other guests happened to be in +the room.... + + +'Ah, you're here!' It was the hostess, sniggering. + +'You told me to bring someone down,' said Henry, who had no intention of +being outfaced now. + +'We're just coming up,' Geraldine added. + +'That's right!' said Mrs. Ashton Portway. 'A lot of people have gone, +and now that we shall be a little bit more intimate, I want to try that +new game. I don't think it's ever been played in London anywhere yet. I +saw it in the _New York Herald_. Of course, nobody who isn't just a +little clever could play at it.' + +'Oh yes!' Geraldine smiled. 'You mean "Characters." I remember you told +me about it.' + +And Mrs. Ashton Portway said that she did mean 'Characters.' + +In the drawing-room she explained that in playing the game of +'Characters' you chose a subject for discussion, and then each player +secretly thought of a character in fiction, and spoke in the discussion +as he imagined that character would have spoken. At the end of the game +you tried to guess the characters chosen. + +'I think it ought to be classical fiction only,' she said. + +Sundry guests declined to play, on the ground that they lacked the +needful brilliance. Henry declined utterly, but he had the wit not to +give his reasons. It was he who suggested that the non-players should +form a jury. At last seven players were recruited, including Mr. Ashton +Portway, Miss Marchrose, Geraldine, Mr. Dolbiac, and three others. Mrs. +Ashton Portway sat down by Henry as a jurywoman. + +'And now what are you going to discuss?' said she. + +No one could find a topic. + +'Let us discuss love,' Miss Marchrose ventured. + +'Yes,' said Mr. Dolbiac, 'let's. There's nothing like leather.' + +So the seven in the centre of the room assumed attitudes suitable for +the discussion of love. + +'Have you all chosen your characters?' asked the hostess. + +'We have,' replied the seven. + +'Then begin.' + +'Don't all speak at once,' said Mr. Dolbiac, after a pause. + +'Who is that chap?' Henry whispered. + +'Mr. Dolbiac? He's a sculptor from Paris. Quite English, I believe, +except for his grandmother. Intensely clever.' Mrs. Ashton Portway +distilled these facts into Henry's ear, and then turned to the silent +seven. 'It _is_ rather difficult, isn't it?' she breathed encouragingly. + +'Love is not for such as me,' said Mr. Dolbiac solemnly. Then he looked +at his hostess, and called out in an undertone: 'I've begun.' + +'The question,' said Miss Marchrose, clearing her throat, 'is, not what +love is not, but what it is.' + +'You must kindly stand up,' said Mr. Dolbiac. 'I can't hear.' + +Miss Marchrose glanced at Mrs. Ashton Portway, and Mrs. Ashton Portway +told Mr. Dolbiac that he was on no account to be silly. + +Then Mr. Ashton Portway and Geraldine both began to speak at once, and +then insisted on being silent at once, and in the end Mr. Ashton Portway +was induced to say something about Dulcinea. + +'He's chosen Don Quixote,' his wife informed Henry behind her hand. +'It's his favourite novel.' + +The discussion proceeded under difficulties, for no one was loquacious +except Mr. Dolbiac, and all Mr. Dolbiac's utterances were staccato and +senseless. The game had had several narrow escapes of extinction, when +Miss Marchrose galvanized it by means of a long and serious monologue +treating of the sorts of man with whom a self-respecting woman will +never fall in love. There appeared to be about a hundred and +thirty-three sorts of that man. + +'There is one sort of man with whom no woman, self-respecting or +otherwise, will fall in love,' said Mr. Dolbiac, 'and that is the sort +of man she can't kiss without having to stand on the mantelpiece. +Alas!'--he hid his face in his handkerchief--'I am that sort.' + +'Without having to stand on the mantelpiece?' Mrs. Ashton Portway +repeated. 'What can he mean? Mr. Dolbiac, you aren't playing the game.' + +'Yes, I am, gracious lady,' he contradicted her. + +'Well, what character are you, then?' demanded Miss Marchrose, +irritated by his grotesque pendant to her oration. + +'I'm Gerald in _A Question of Cubits_.' + +The company felt extremely awkward. Henry blushed. + +'I said classical fiction,' Mrs. Ashton Portway corrected Mr. Dolbiac +stiffly. 'Of course I don't mean to insinuate that it isn't----' She +turned to Henry. + +'Oh! did you?' observed Dolbiac calmly. 'So sorry. I knew it was a silly +and nincompoopish book, but I thought you wouldn't mind so long as----' + +'_Mr._ Dolbiac!' + +That particular Wednesday of Mrs. Ashton Portway's came to an end in +hurried confusion. Mr. Dolbiac professed to be entirely ignorant of +Henry's identity, and went out into the night. Henry assured his hostess +that really it was nothing, except a good joke. But everyone felt that +the less said, the better. Of such creases in the web of social life +Time is the best smoother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HE LEARNS MORE ABOUT WOMEN + + +When Henry had rendered up his ticket and recovered his garments, he +found Geraldine in the hall, and a servant asking her if she wanted a +four-wheeler or a hansom. He was not quite sure whether she had +descended before him or after him: things were rather misty. + +'I am going your way,' he said. 'Can't I see you home?' + +He was going her way: the idea of going her way had occurred to him +suddenly as a beautiful idea. + +Instead of replying, she looked at him. She looked at him sadly out of +the white shawl which enveloped her head and her golden hair, and +nodded. + +There was a four-wheeler at the kerb, and they entered it and sat down +side by side in that restricted compartment, and the fat old driver, +with his red face popping up out of a barrel consisting of scores of +overcoats and aprons, drove off. It was very foggy, but one could see +the lamp-posts. + +Geraldine coughed. + +'These fogs are simply awful, aren't they?' he remarked. + +She made no answer. + +'It isn't often they begin as early as this,' he proceeded; 'I suppose +it means a bad winter.' + +But she made no answer. + +And then a sort of throb communicated itself to him, and then another, +and then he heard a smothered sound. This magnificent creature, this +independent, experienced, strong-minded, superior, dazzling creature was +crying--was, indeed, sobbing. And cabs are so small, and she was so +close. Pleasure may be so keen as to be agonizing: Henry discovered this +profound truth in that moment. In that moment he learnt more about women +than he had learnt during the whole of his previous life. He knew that +her sobbing had some connection with _A Question of Cubits_, but he +could not exactly determine the connection. + +'What's the matter?' the blundering fool inquired nervously. 'You +aren't well.' + +'I'm so--so ashamed,' she stammered out, when she had patted her eyes +with a fragment of lace. + +'Why? What of?' + +'I introduced her to you. It's my fault.' + +'But what's your fault?' + +'This horrible thing that happened.' + +She sobbed again frequently. + +'Oh, that was nothing!' said Henry kindly. 'You mustn't think about it.' + +'You don't know how I feel,' she managed to tell him. + +'I wish you'd forget it,' he urged her. 'He didn't mean to be rude.' + +'It isn't so much his rudeness,' she wept. 'It's--anyone saying a +thing--like that--about your book. You don't know how I feel.' + +'Oh, come!' Henry enjoined her. 'What's my book, anyhow?' + +'It's yours,' she said, and began to cry gently, resignedly, femininely. + +It had grown dark. The cab had plunged into an opaque sea of blackest +fog. No sound could be heard save the footfalls of the horse, which was +now walking very slowly. They were cut off absolutely from the rest of +the universe. There was no such thing as society, the state, traditions, +etiquette; nothing existed, ever had existed, or ever would exist, +except themselves, twain, in that lost four-wheeler. + +Henry had a box of matches in his overcoat pocket. He struck one, +illuminating their tiny chamber, and he saw her face once more, as +though after long years. And there were little black marks round her +eyes, due to her tears and the fog and the fragment of lace. And those +little black marks appeared to him to be the most delicious, enchanting, +and wonderful little black marks that the mind of man could possibly +conceive. And there was an exquisite, timid, confiding, surrendering +look in her eyes, which said: 'I'm only a weak, foolish, fanciful woman, +and you are a big, strong, wise, great man; my one merit is that I know +_how_ great, _how_ chivalrous, you are!' And mixed up with the timidity +in that look there was something else--something that made him almost +shudder. All this by the light of one match.... + +Good-bye world! Good-bye mother! Good-bye Aunt Annie! Good-bye the +natural course of events! Good-bye correctness, prudence, precedents! +Good-bye all! Good-bye everything! He dropped the match and kissed her. + +And his knowledge of women was still further increased. + +Oh, the unique ecstasy of such propinquity! + +Eternity set in. And in eternity one does not light matches.... + + +The next exterior phenomenon was a blinding flash through the window of +what, after all, was a cab. The door opened. + +'You'd better get out o' this,' said the cabman, surveying them by the +ray of one of his own lamps. + +'Why?' asked Henry. + +'Why?' replied the cabman sourly. 'Look here, governor, do you know +where we are?' + +'No,' said Henry. + +'No. And I'm jiggered if I do, either. You'd better take the other +blessed lamp and ask. No, not me. I don't leave my horse. I ain't agoin' +to lose my horse.' + +So Henry got out of the cab, and took a lamp and moved forward into +nothingness, and found a railing and some steps, and after climbing the +steps saw a star, which proved ultimately to be a light over a +swing-door. He pushed open the swing-door, and was confronted by a +footman. + +'Will you kindly tell me where I am? he asked the footman. + +'This is Marlborough House,' said the footman. + +'Oh, is it? Thanks,' said Henry. + +'Well,' ejaculated the cabman when Henry had luckily regained the +vehicle. 'I suppose that ain't good enough for you! Buckingham Palace is +your doss, I suppose.' + +They could now hear distant sounds, which indicated other vessels in +distress. + +The cabman said he would make an effort to reach Charing Cross, by +leading his horse and sticking to the kerb; but not an inch further than +Charing Cross would he undertake to go. + +The passage over Trafalgar Square was so exciting that, when at length +the aged cabman touched pavement--that is to say, when his horse had +planted two forefeet firmly on the steps of the Golden Cross Hotel--he +announced that that precise point would be the end of the voyage. + +'You go in there and sleep it off,' he advised his passengers. 'Chenies +Street won't see much of you to-night. And make it five bob, governor. +I've done my best.' + +'You must stop the night here,' said Henry in a low voice to Geraldine, +before opening the doors of the hotel. 'And I,' he added quickly, 'will +go to Morley's. It's round the corner, and so I can't lose my way.' + +'Yes, dear,' she acquiesced. 'I dare say that will be best.' + +'Your eyes are a little black with the fog,' he told her. + +'Are they?' she said, wiping them. 'Thanks for telling me.' + +And they entered. + +'Nasty night, sir,' the hall-porter greeted them. + +'Very,' said Henry. 'This lady wants a room. Have you one?' + +'Certainly, sir.' + +At the foot of the staircase they shook hands, and kissed in +imagination. + +'Good-night,' he said, and she said the same. + +But when she had climbed three or four stairs, she gave a little start +and returned to him, smiling, appealing. + +'I've only got a shilling or two,' she whispered. 'Can you lend me some +money to pay the bill with?' + +He produced a sovereign. Since the last kiss in the cab, nothing had +afforded him one hundredth part of the joy which he experienced in +parting with that sovereign. The transfer of the coin, so natural, so +right, so proper, seemed to set a seal on what had occurred, to make it +real and effective. He wished to shower gold upon her. + +As, bathed in joy and bliss, he watched her up the stairs, a little, +obscure compartment of his brain was thinking: 'If anyone had told me +two hours ago that before midnight I should be engaged to be married to +the finest woman I ever saw, I should have said they were off their +chumps. Curious, I've never mentioned her at home since she called! +Rather awkward!' + + +He turned sharply and resolutely to go to Morley's, and collided with +Mr. Dolbiac, who, strangely enough, was standing immediately behind him, +and gazing up the stairs, too. + +'Ah, my bold buccaneer!' said Mr. Dolbiac familiarly. 'Digested those +_marrons glacés_? I've fairly caught you out this time, haven't I?' + +Henry stared at him, startled, and blushed a deep crimson. + +'You don't remember me. You've forgotten me,' said Mr. Dolbiac. + +'It isn't Cousin Tom?' Henry guessed. + +'Oh, isn't it?' said Mr. Dolbiac. 'That's just what it is.' + +Henry shook his hand generously. 'I'm awfully glad to see you,' he +began, and then, feeling that he must be a man of the world: 'Come and +have a drink. Are you stopping here?' + +The episode of Mrs. Ashton Portway's was, then, simply one of Cousin +Tom's jokes, and he accepted it as such without the least demur or +ill-will. + +'It was you who sent that funny telegram, wasn't it?' he asked Cousin +Tom. + +In the smoking-room Tom explained how he had grown a beard in obedience +to the dictates of nature, and changed his name in obedience to the +dictates of art. And Henry, for his part, explained sundry things about +himself, and about Geraldine. + +The next morning, when Henry arrived at Dawes Road, decidedly late, Tom +was already there. And more, he had already told the ladies, evidently +in a highly-decorated narrative, of Henry's engagement! The situation +for Henry was delicate in the extreme, but, anyhow, his mother and aunt +had received the first shock. They knew the naked fact, and that was +something. And of course Cousin Tom always made delicate situations: it +was his privilege to do so. Cousin Tom's two aunts were delighted to see +him again, and in a state so flourishing. He was asked no inconvenient +questions, and he furnished no information. Bygones were bygones. Henry +had never been told about the trifling incident of the ten pounds. + +'She's coming down to-night,' Henry said, addressing his mother, after +the mid-day meal. + +'I'm very glad,' replied his mother. + +'We shall be most pleased to welcome her,' Aunt Annie said. 'Well, +Tom----' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SEPARATION + + +Henry's astonishment at finding himself so suddenly betrothed to the +finest woman in the world began to fade and perish in three days or so. +As he looked into the past with that searching eye of his, he thought he +could see that his relations with Geraldine had never ceased to develop +since their commencement, even when they had not been precisely cordial +and sincere. He remembered strange things that he had read about love in +books, things which had previously struck him as being absurd, but which +now became explanatory commentaries on the puzzling text of the episode +in the cab. It was not long before he decided that the episode in the +cab was almost a normal episode. + +He was very proud and happy, and full of sad superior pity for all +young men who, through incorrect views concerning women, had neglected +to plight themselves. + +He imagined that he was going to settle down and live for ever in a +state of bliss with the finest woman in the world, rich, famous, +honoured; and that life held for him no other experience, and especially +no disconcerting, dismaying experience. But in this supposition he was +mistaken. + +One afternoon he had escorted Tom to Chenies Street, in order that Tom +might formally meet Geraldine. It was rather nervous work, having regard +to Tom's share in the disaster at Lowndes Square; and the more so +because Geraldine's visit to Dawes Road had not been a dazzling success. +Geraldine in Dawes Road had somehow the air, the brazen air, of an +orchid in a clump of violets; the violets, by their mere quality of +being violets, rebuked the orchid, and the orchid could not have +flourished for any extended period in that temperature. Still, Mrs. +Knight and Aunt Annie said to Henry afterwards that Geraldine was very +clever and nice; and Geraldine said to Henry afterwards that his mother +and aunt were delightful old ladies. The ordeal for Geraldine was now +quite a different one. Henry hoped for the best. It did not follow, +because Geraldine had not roused the enthusiasm of Dawes Road, that she +would leave Tom cold. In fact, Henry could not see how Tom could fail to +be enchanted. + +A minor question which troubled Henry, as they ascended the stone stairs +at Chenies Street, was this: Should he kiss Geraldine in front of Tom? +He decided that it was not only his right, but his duty, to kiss her in +the privacy of her own flat, with none but a relative present. 'Kiss her +I will!' his thought ran. And kiss her he did. Nothing untoward +occurred. 'Why, of course!' he reflected. 'What on earth was I worrying +about?' He was conscious of glory. And he soon saw that Tom really was +impressed by Geraldine. Tom's eyes said to him: 'You're not such a fool +as you might have been.' + +Geraldine scolded Tom for his behaviour at Mrs. Ashton Portway's, and +Tom replied in Tom's manner; and then, when they were all at ease, she +turned to Henry. + +'My poor friend,' she said, 'I've got bad news.' + +She handed him a letter from her brother in Leicester, from which it +appeared that the brother's two elder children were down with +scarlatina, while the youngest, three days old, and the mother, were in +a condition to cause a certain anxiety ... and could Geraldine come to +the rescue? + +'Shall you go?' Henry asked. + +'Oh yes,' she said. 'I've arranged with Mr. Snyder, and wired Teddy that +I'll arrive early to-morrow.' + +She spoke in an extremely matter-of-fact tone, as though there were no +such things as love and ecstasy in the world, as though to indicate that +in her opinion life was no joke, after all. + +'And what about me?' said Henry. He thought: 'My shrewd, capable girl +has to sacrifice herself--and me--in order to look after incompetent +persons who can't look after themselves!' + +'You'll be all right,' said she, still in the same tone. + +'Can't I run down and see you?' he suggested. + +She laughed briefly, as at a pleasantry, and so Henry laughed too. + +'With four sick people on my hands!' she exclaimed. + +'How long shall you be away?' he inquired. + +'My dear--can I tell?' + +'You'd better come back to Paris with me for a week or so, my son,' said +Tom. 'I shall leave the day after to-morrow.' + +And now Henry laughed, as at a pleasantry. But, to his surprise, +Geraldine said: + +'Yes, do. What a good idea! I should like you to enjoy yourself, and +Paris is so jolly. You've been, haven't you, dearest?' + +'No,' Henry replied. 'I've never been abroad at all.' + +'_Never?_ Oh, that settles it. You must go.' + +Henry had neither the slightest desire nor the slightest intention to go +to Paris. The idea of him being in Paris, of all places, while Geraldine +was nursing the sick night and day, was not a pleasant one. + +'You really ought to go, you know,' Tom resumed. 'You, a novelist ... +can't see too much! The monuments of Paris, the genius of the French +nation! And there's notepaper and envelopes and stamps, just the same as +in London. Letters posted in Paris before six o'clock will arrive in +Leicester on the following afternoon. Am I not right, Miss Foster?' + +Geraldine smiled. + +'No,' said Henry. 'I'm not going to Paris--not me!' + +'But I wish it,' Geraldine remarked calmly. + +And he saw, amazed, that she did wish it. Pursuing his researches into +the nature of women, he perceived vaguely that she would find pleasure +in martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris; +and pleasure also in the thought of his uncomfortable thought of her +martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris. + +But he said to himself that he did not mean to yield to womanish +whims--he, a man. + +'And my work?' he questioned lightly. + +'Your work will be all the better,' said Geraldine with a firm accent. + +And then it seemed to be borne in upon him that womanish whims needed +delicate handling. And why not yield this once? It would please her. And +he could have been firm had he chosen. + +Hence it was arranged. + +'I'm only going to please you,' he said to her when he was mournfully +seeing her off at St. Pancras the next morning. + +'Yes, I know,' she answered, 'and it's sweet of you. But you want +someone to make you move, dearest.' + +'Oh, do I?' he thought; 'do I?' + +His mother and Aunt Annie were politely surprised at the excursion. But +they succeeded in conveying to him that they had decided to be prepared +for anything now. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +COSETTE + + +Tom and Henry put up at the Grand Hotel, Paris. The idea was Tom's. He +decried the hotel, its clients and its reputation, but he said that it +had one advantage: when you were at the Grand Hotel you knew where you +were. Tom, it appeared, had a studio and bedroom up in Montmartre. He +postponed visiting this abode, however, until the morrow, partly because +it would not be prepared for him, and partly in order to give Henry the +full advantage of his society. They sat on the terrace of the Café de la +Paix, after a very late dinner, and drank bock, and watched the +nocturnal life of the boulevard, and talked. Henry gathered--not from +any direct statement, but by inference--that Tom must have acquired a +position in the art world of Paris. Tom mentioned the Salon as if the +Salon were his pocket, and stated casually that there was work of his in +the Luxembourg. Strange that the cosmopolitan quality of Tom's +reputation--if, in comparison with Henry's, it might be called a +reputation at all--roused the author's envy! He, too, wished to be +famous in France, and to be at home in two capitals. Tom retired at what +he considered an early hour--namely, midnight--the oceanic part of the +journey having saddened him. Before they separated he borrowed a +sovereign from Henry, and this simple monetary transaction had the +singular effect of reducing Henry's envy. + +The next morning Henry wished to begin a systematic course of the +monuments of Paris and the artistic genius of the French nation. But Tom +would not get up. At eleven o'clock Henry, armed with a map and the +English talent for exploration, set forth alone to grasp the general +outlines of the city, and came back successful at half-past one. At +half-past two Tom was inclined to consider the question of getting up, +and Henry strolled out again and lost himself between the Moulin Rouge +and the Church of Sacré Coeur. It was turned four o'clock when he +sighted the façade of the hotel, and by that time Tom had not only +arisen, but departed, leaving a message that he should be back at six +o'clock. So Henry wandered up and down the boulevard, from the Madeleine +to Marguéry's Restaurant, had an automatic tea at the Express-Bar, and +continued to wander up and down the boulevard. + +He felt that he could have wandered up and down the boulevard for ever. + +And then night fell; and all along the boulevard, high on seventh +storeys and low as the street names, there flashed and flickered and +winked, in red and yellow and a most voluptuous purple, electric +invitations to drink inspiriting liqueurs and to go and amuse yourself +in places where the last word of amusement was spoken. There was one +name, a name almost revered by the average healthy Englishman, which +wrote itself magically on the dark blue sky in yellow, then extinguished +itself and wrote itself anew in red, and so on tirelessly: that name was +'Folies-Bergère.' It gave birth to the most extraordinary sensations in +Henry's breast. And other names, such as 'Casino de Paris,' 'Eldorado,' +'Scala,' glittered, with their guiding arrows of light, from bronze +columns full in the middle of the street. And what with these devices, +and the splendid glowing windows of the shops, and the enlarged +photographs of surpassingly beautiful women which hung in heavy frames +from almost every lamp-post, and the jollity of the slowly-moving +crowds, and the incredible illustrations displayed on the newspaper +kiosks, and the moon creeping up the velvet sky, and the thousands of +little tables at which the jolly crowds halted to drink liquids coloured +like the rainbow--what with all that, and what with the curious gay +feeling in the air, Henry felt that possibly Berlin, or Boston, or even +Timbuctoo, might be a suitable and proper place for an engaged young +man, but that decidedly Paris was not. + +At six o'clock there was no sign of Tom. He arrived at half-past seven, +admitted that he was a little late, and said that a friend had given him +tickets for the first performance of the new 'revue' at the +Folies-Bergère, that night. + + +'And now, since we are alone, we can talk,' said Cosette, adding, '_Mon +petit._' + +'Yes,' Henry agreed. + +'Dolbiac has told me you are very rich--_une vogue épatante_.... One +would not say it.... But how your ears are pretty!' Cosette glanced +admiringly at the lobe of his left ear. + +('Anyhow,' Henry reflected, 'she would insist on me coming to Paris. I +didn't want to come.') + +They were alone, and yet not alone. They occupied a 'loge' in the +crammed, gorgeous, noisy Folies-Bergère. But it resembled a box in an +English theatre less than an old-fashioned family pew at the Great Queen +Street Wesleyan Chapel. It was divided from other boxes and from the +stalls and from the jostling promenade by white partitions scarcely as +high as a walking-stick. There were four enamelled chairs in it, and +Henry and Cosette were seated on two of them; the other two were empty. +Tom had led Henry like a sheep to the box, where they were evidently +expected by two excessively stylish young women, whom Tom had introduced +to the overcome Henry as Loulou and Cosette, two artistes of the Théâtre +des Capucines. Loulou was short and fair and of a full habit, and spoke +no English. Cosette was tall and slim and dark, and talked slowly, and +with smiles, a language which was frequently a recognisable imitation of +English. She had learnt it, she said, in Ireland, where she had been +educated in a French convent. She had just finished a long engagement at +the Capucines, and in a fortnight she was to commence at the Scala: this +was an off-night for her. She protested a deep admiration for Tom. + +Cosette and Loulou and Tom had held several colloquies, in +incomprehensible French that raced like a mill-stream over a weir, with +acquaintances who accosted them on the promenade or in the stalls, and +at length Tom and Loulou had left the 'loge' for a few minutes in order +to accept the hospitality of friends in the great hall at the back of +the auditorium. The new 'revue' seemed to be the very last thing that +they were interested in. + +'Don't be afraid,' Tom, departing, had said to Henry. 'She won't eat +you.' + +'You leave me to take care of myself,' Henry had replied, lifting his +chin. + +Cosette transgressed the English code governing the externals of women +in various particulars. And the principal result was to make the +English code seem insular and antique. She had an extremely large white +hat, with a very feathery feather in it, and some large white roses +between the brim and her black hair. Her black hair was positively +sable, and one single immense lock of it was drawn level across her +forehead. With the large white hat she wore a low evening-dress, +lace-covered, with loose sleeves to the elbow, and white gloves running +up into the mystery of the sleeves. Round her neck was a tight string of +pearls. The combination of the hat and the evening-dress startled Henry, +but he saw in the theatre many other women similarly contemptuous of the +English code, and came to the conclusion that, though queer and +un-English, the French custom had its points. Cosette's complexion was +even more audacious in its contempt of Henry's deepest English +convictions. Her lips were most obviously painted, and her eyebrows had +received some assistance, and once, in a manner absolutely ingenuous, +she produced a little bag and gazed at herself in a little mirror, and +patted her chin with a little puff, and then smiled happily at Henry. +Yes, and Henry approved. He was forced to approve, forced to admit the +artificial and decadent but indubitable charm of paint and powder. The +contrast between Cosette's lips and her brilliant teeth was utterly +bewitching. + +She was not beautiful. In facial looks, she was simply not in the same +class with Geraldine. And as to intellect, also, Geraldine was an easy +first. + +But in all other things, in the things that really mattered (such was +the dim thought at the back of Henry's mind), she was to Geraldine what +Geraldine was to Aunt Annie. Her gown was a miracle, her hat was +another, and her coiffure a third. And when she removed a glove--her +rings, and her finger-nails! And the glimpses of her shoes! She was so +_finished_. And in the way of being frankly feminine, Geraldine might go +to school to her. Geraldine had brains and did not hide them; Geraldine +used the weapon of seriousness. But Cosette knew better than that. +Cosette could surround you with a something, an emanation of all the +woman in her, that was more efficient to enchant than the brains of a +Georges Sand could have been. + +And Paris, or that part of the city which constitutes Paris for the +average healthy Englishman, was an open book to this woman of +twenty-four. Nothing was hid from her. Nothing startled her, nothing +seemed unusual to her. Nothing shocked her except Henry's ignorance of +all the most interesting things in the world. + +'Well, what do you think of a French "revue," my son?' asked Tom when he +returned with Loulou. + +'Don't know,' said Henry, with his gibus tipped a little backward. +'Haven't seen it. We've been talking. The music's a fearful din.' He +felt nearly as Parisian as Tom looked. + +'_Tiens!_' Cosette twittered to Loulou, making a gesture towards Henry's +ears. '_Regarde-moi ces oreilles. Sont jolies. Pas?_' + +And she brought her teeth together with a click that seemed to render +somewhat doubtful Tom's assurance that she would not eat Henry. + +Soon afterwards Tom and Henry left the auditorium, and Henry parted from +Cosette with mingled sensations of regret and relief. He might never see +her again. Geraldine.... + +But Tom did not emerge from the outer precincts of the vast music-hall +without several more conversations with fellows-well-met, and when he +and Henry reached the pavement, Cosette and Loulou happened to be just +getting into a cab. Tom did not see them, but Henry and Cosette caught +sight of each other. She beckoned to him. + +'You come and take lunch with me to-morrow? _Hein?_' she almost +whispered in that ear of his. + +'_Avec plaisir_,' said Henry. He had studied French regularly for six +years at school. + +'Rue de Bruxelles, No. 3,' she instructed him. 'Noon.' + +'I know it!' he exclaimed delightedly. He had, in fact, passed through +the street during the day. + +No one had ever told him before that his ears were pretty. + + +When, after parleying nervously with the concierge, he arrived at the +second-floor of No. 3, Rue de Bruxelles, he heard violent high sounds of +altercation through the door at which he was about to ring, and then the +door opened, and a young woman, flushed and weeping, was sped out on to +the landing, Cosette herself being the exterminator. + +'Ah, _mon ami_!' said Cosette, seeing him. 'Enter then.' + +She charmed him inwards and shut the door, breathing quickly. + +'It is my _domestique_, my servant, who steals me,' she explained. 'Come +and sit down in the salon. I will tell you.' + +The salon was a little room about eight feet by ten, silkily furnished. +Besides being the salon, it was clearly also the _salle à manger_, and +when one person had sat down therein it was full. Cosette took Henry's +hat and coat and umbrella and pressed him into a chair by the shoulders, +and then gave him the full history of her unparalleled difficulties with +the exterminated servant. She looked quite a different Cosette now from +the Cosette of the previous evening. Her black hair was loose; her face +pale, and her lips also a little pale; and she was draped from neck to +feet in a crimson peignoir, very fluffy. + +'And now I must buy the lunch,' she said. 'I must go myself. Excuse me.' + +She disappeared into the adjoining room, the bedroom, and Henry could +hear the _fracas_ of silk and stuff. 'What do you eat for lunch?' she +cried out. + +'Anything,' Henry called in reply. + +'Oh! _Que les hommes sont bêtes!_' she murmured, her voice seemingly +lost in the folds of a dress. 'One must choose. Say.' + +'Whatever you like,' said Henry. + +'Rumsteak? Say.' + +'Oh yes,' said Henry. + +She reappeared in a plain black frock, with a reticule in her hand, and +at the same moment a fox-terrier wandered in from somewhere. + +'_Mimisse!_' she cried in ecstasy, snatching up the animal and kissing +it. 'You want to go with your mamma? Yess. What do you think of my +_fox_? She is real English. _Elle est si gentille avec sa mère! Ma +Mimisse! Ma petite fille!_ My little girl! _Dites, mon ami_'--she +abandoned the dog--'have you some money for our lunch? Five francs?' + +'That enough?' Henry asked, handing her the piece. + +'Thank you,' she said. '_Viens, Mimisse._' + +'You haven't put your hat on,' Henry informed her. + +'_Mais, mon pauvre ami_, is it that you take me for a duchess? I come +from the _ouvriers_, me, the working peoples. I avow it. Never can I do +my shops in a hat. I should blush.' + +And with a tremendous flutter, scamper, and chatter, Cosette and her +_fox_ departed, leaving Henry solitary to guard the flat. + +He laughed to himself, at himself. 'Well,' he murmured, looking down +into the court, 'I suppose----' + +Cosette came back with a tin of sardines, a piece of steak, some French +beans, two cakes of the kind called 'nuns,' a bunch of grapes, and a +segment of Brie cheese. She put on an apron, and went into the +kitchenlet, and began to cook, giving Henry instructions the while how +to lay the table and where to find the things. Then she brought him the +coffee-mill full of coffee, and told him to grind it. + +The lunch seemed to be ready in about three minutes, and it was merely +perfection. Such steak, such masterly handling of green vegetables, and +such 'nuns!' And the wine! + +There were three at table, Mimisse being the third. Mimisse partook of +everything except wine. + +'You see I am a woman _pot-au-feu_,' said Cosette, not without +satisfaction, in response to his praises of the meal. He did not exactly +know what a woman _pot-au-feu_ might be, but he agreed enthusiastically +that she was that sort of woman. + +At the stage of coffee--Mimisse had a piece of sugar steeped in +coffee--she produced cigarettes, and made him light his cigarette at +hers, and put her elbows on the table and looked at his ears. She was +still wearing the apron, which appeared to Henry to be an apron of +ineffable grace. + +'So you are _fiancé, mon petit_? Eh?' she said. + +'Who told you?' Henry asked quickly. 'Tom?' + +She nodded; then sighed. He was instructed to describe Geraldine in +detail. Cosette sighed once more. + +'Why do you sigh?' he demanded. + +'Who knows?' she answered. '_Dites!_ English ladies are cold? Like +that?' She affected the supercilious gestures of Englishwomen whom she +had seen in the streets and elsewhere. 'No?' + +'Perhaps,' Henry said. + +'Frenchwomen are better? Yes? _Dites-moi franchement._ You think?' + +'In some ways,' Henry agreed. + +'You like Frenchwomen more than those cold Englishwomen who have no +_chic_?' + +'When I'm in Paris I do,' said Henry. + +'_Ah! Comme tous les Anglais!_' + +She rose, and just grazed his ear with her little finger. '_Va!_' she +said. + +He felt that she was beyond anything in his previous experience. + +A little later she told him she had to go to the Scala to sign her +contract, and she issued an order that he was to take Mimisse out for a +little exercise, and return for her in half an hour, when she would be +dressed. So Henry went forth with Mimisse at the end of a strap. + +In the Boulevard de Clichy who should accost him but Tom, whom he had +left asleep as usual at the hotel! + +'What dog is that?' Tom asked. + +'Cosette's,' said Henry, unsuccessfully trying to assume a demeanour at +once natural and tranquil. + +'My young friend,' said Tom, 'I perceive that it will be necessary to +look after you. I was just going to my studio, but I will accompany you +in your divagations.' + +They returned to the Rue de Bruxelles together. Cosette was dressed in +all her afternoon splendour, for the undoing of theatrical managers. +The rôle of woman _pot-au-feu_ was finished for that day. + +'I'm off to Monte Carlo to-morrow,' said Tom to her. 'I'm going to paint +a portrait there. And Henry will come with me.' + +'To Monte Carlo?' Henry gasped. + +'To Monte Carlo.' + +'But----' + +'Do you suppose I'm going to leave you here?' Tom inquired. 'And you +can't return to London yet.' + +'No,' said Cosette thoughtfully, 'not London.' + + +They left her in the Boulevard de Strasbourg, and then Tom suggested a +visit to the Luxembourg Gallery. It was true: a life-sized statue of +Sappho, signed 'Dolbiac,' did in feet occupy a prominent place in the +sculpture-room. Henry was impressed; so also was Tom, who explained to +his young cousin all the beauties of the work. + +'What else is there to see here?' Henry asked, when the stream of +explanations had slackened. + +'Oh, there's nothing much else,' said Tom dejectedly. + +They came away. This was the beginning and the end of Henry's studies +in the monuments of Paris. + +At the hotel he found opportunity to be alone. + +He wished to know exactly where he stood, and which way he was looking. +It was certain that the day had been unlike any other day in his career. + +'I suppose that's what they call Bohemia,' he exclaimed wistfully, +solitary in his bedroom. + +And then later: + +'Jove! I've never written to Geraldine to-day!' + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE RAKE'S PROGRESS + + +'_Faites vos jeux, messieurs_,' said the chief croupier of the table. + +Henry's fingers touched a solitary five-franc piece in his pocket, +large, massive, seductive. + +Yes, he was at Monte Carlo. He could scarcely believe it, but it was so. +Tom had brought him. The curious thing about Tom was that, though he +lied frequently and casually, just as some men hitch their collars, his +wildest statements had a way of being truthful. Thus, a work of his had +in fact been purchased by the French Government and placed on exhibition +in the Luxembourg. And thus he had in fact come to Monte Carlo to paint +a portrait--the portrait of a Sicilian Countess, he said, and Henry +believed, without actually having seen the alleged Countess--at a high +price. There were more complexities in Tom's character than Henry could +unravel. Henry had paid the entire bill at the Grand Hotel, had lent Tom +a sovereign, another sovereign, and a five-pound note, and would +certainly have been mulcted in Tom's fare on the expensive _train de +luxe_ had he not sagaciously demanded money from Tom before entering the +ticket-office. Without being told, Henry knew that money lent to Tom was +money dropped down a grating in the street. During the long journey +southwards Tom had confessed, with a fine appreciation of the fun, that +he lived in Paris until his creditors made Paris disagreeable, and then +went elsewhere, Rome or London, until other creditors made Rome or +London disagreeable, and then he returned to Paris. + +Henry had received this remark in silence. + +As the train neared Monte Carlo--the hour was roseate and +matutinal--Henry had observed Tom staring at the scenery through the +window, his coffee untasted, and tears in his rapt eyes. 'What's up?' +Henry had innocently inquired. Tom turned on him fiercely. 'Silly ass!' +Tom growled with scathing contempt. 'Can't you feel how beautiful it all +is?' + +And this remark, too, Henry had received in silence. + +'Do you reckon yourself a great artist?' Tom had asked, and Henry had +laughed. 'No, I'm not joking,' Tom had insisted. 'Do you honestly reckon +yourself a great artist? I reckon myself one. There's candour for you. +Now tell me, frankly.' There was a wonderful and rare charm in Tom's +manner as he uttered these words. 'I don't know,' Henry had replied. +'Yes, you do,' Tom had insisted. 'Speak the truth. I won't let it go any +further. Do you think yourself as big as George Eliot, for example?' +Henry had hesitated, forced into sincerity by Tom's persuasive and +serious tone. 'It's not a fair question,' Henry had said at length. +Whereupon Tom, without the least warning, had burst into loud laughter: +'My bold buccaneer, you take the cake. You always did. You always will. +There is something about you that is colossal, immense, and +magnificent.' + +And this third remark also Henry had received in silence. + +It was their second day at Monte Carlo, and Tom, after getting Henry's +card of admission for him, had left him in the gaming-rooms, and gone +off to the alleged Countess. The hour was only half-past eleven, and +none of the roulette tables was crowded; two of the trente-et-quarante +tables had not even begun to operate. For some minutes Henry watched a +roulette table, fascinated by the munificent style of the croupiers in +throwing five-franc pieces, louis, and bank-notes about the green cloth, +and the neat twist of the thumb and finger with which the chief croupier +spun the ball. There were thirty or forty persons round the table, all +solemn and intent, and most of them noting the sequence of winning +numbers on little cards. 'What fools!' thought Henry. 'They know the +Casino people make a profit of two thousand a day. They know the chances +are mathematically against them. And yet they expect to win!' + +It was just at this point in his meditations upon the spectacle of human +foolishness that he felt the five-franc piece in his pocket. An idea +crossed his mind that he would stake it, merely in order to be able to +say that he had gambled at Monte Carlo. Absurd! How much more effective +to assert that he had visited the tables and not gambled!... And then he +knew that something within him more powerful than his common-sense +would force him to stake that five-franc piece. He glanced furtively at +the crowd to see whether anyone was observing him. No. Well, it having +been decided to bet, the next question was, how to bet? Now, Henry had +read a magazine article concerning the tables at Monte Carlo, and, being +of a mathematical turn, had clearly grasped the principles of the game. +He said to himself, with his characteristic caution: 'I'll wait till red +wins four times running, and then I'll stake on the black.' + +('But surely,' remarked the logical superior person in him, 'you don't +mean to argue that a spin of the ball is affected by the spins that have +preceded it? You don't mean to argue that, because red wins four times, +or forty times, running, black is any the more likely to win at the next +spin?' 'You shut up!' retorted the human side of him crossly. 'I know +all about that.') + +At last, after a considerable period of waiting, red won four times in +succession. Henry felt hot and excited. He pulled the great coin out of +his pocket, and dropped it in again, and then the croupier spun the ball +and exhorted the company several times to make their games, and +precisely as the croupier was saying sternly, _'Rien ne va plus_,' +Henry took the coin again, and with a tremendous effort of will, leaning +over an old man seated in front of him, pitched it into the meadow +devoted to black stakes. He blushed; his hair tingled at the root; he +was convinced that everybody round the table was looking at him with +sardonic amusement. + +'_Quatre, noir, pair, et manque_,' cried the croupier. + +Black had won. + +Henry's heart was beating like a hammer. Even now he was afraid lest one +of the scoundrels who, according to the magazine article, infested the +rooms, might lean over his shoulder and snatch his lawful gains. He kept +an eye lifting. The croupier threw a five-franc piece to join his own, +and Henry, with elaborate calmness, picked both pieces up. His +temperature fell; he breathed more easily. 'It's nothing, after all,' he +thought. 'Of course, on that system I'm bound to win.' + +Soon afterwards the old man in front of him grunted and left, and Henry +slipped into the vacant chair. In half an hour he had made twenty +francs; his demeanour had hardened; he felt as though he had frequented +Monte Carlo steadily for years; and what he did not know about the art +and craft of roulette was apocryphal. + +'Place this for me,' said a feminine voice. + +He turned swiftly. It was Cosette's voice! There she stood, exquisitely +and miraculously dressed, behind his chair, holding a note of the Bank +of France in her gloved hand! + +'When did you come?' he asked loudly, in his extreme astonishment. + +'_Pstt!_' she smilingly admonished him for breaking the rule of the +saloons. 'Place this for me.' + +It was a note for a thousand francs. + +'This?' he said. + +'Yes.' + +'But where?' + +'Choose,' she whispered. 'You are lucky. You will bring happiness.' + +He did not know what he was doing, so madly whirled his brain, and, as +the black enclosure happened to be nearest to him, he dropped the note +there. The croupier at the end of the table manoeuvred it with his +rake, and called out to the centre: '_Billet de mille francs._' Then, +when it was too late, Henry recollected that black had already turned +up three times together. But in a moment black had won. + +'I can quite understand the fascination this game has for people,' Henry +thought. + +'Leave them there,' said Cosette, pointing to the two notes for a +thousand francs each. 'I like to follow the run.' + +Black won again. + +'Leave them there,' said Cosette, pointing to the four notes for a +thousand francs each. 'I did say you would bring happiness.' They smiled +at each other happily. + +Black won again. + +Cosette repeated her orders. Such a method of playing was entirely +contrary to Henry's expert opinion. Nevertheless, black, in defiance of +rules, continued to win. When sixteen thousand francs of paper lay +before Henry, the croupier addressed him sharply, and he gathered, with +Cosette's assistance, that the maximum stake was twelve thousand francs. + +'Put four thousand on the odd numbers,' said Cosette. 'Eh? You think?' + +'No,' said Henry. 'Evens.' + +And the number four turned up again. + +At a stroke he had won sixteen thousand francs, six hundred and forty +pounds, for Cosette, and the total gains were one thousand two hundred +and forty pounds. + +The spectators were at last interested in Henry's play. It was no longer +an illusion on his part that people stared at him. + +'Say a number,' whispered Cosette. 'Shut the eyes and say a number.' + +'Twenty-four,' said Henry. She had told him it was her age. + +'_Bien! Voilà huit louis!_' she exclaimed, opening her purse of netted +gold; and he took the eight coins and put them on number twenty-four. +Eight notes for a thousand francs each remained on the even numbers. The +other notes were in Henry's hip-pocket, a crushed mass. + +Twenty-four won. It was nothing but black that morning. '_Mais c'est +épatant!_' murmured several on lookers anxiously. + +A croupier counted out innumerable notes, and sundry noble and glorious +gold _plaques_ of a hundred francs each. Henry could not check the +totals, but he knew vaguely that another three hundred pounds or so had +accrued to him, on behalf of Cosette. + +'I fancy red now,' he said, sighing. + +And feeling a terrible habitué, he said to the croupier in French: +'_Maximum. Rouge._' + +'_Maximum. Rouge_,' repeated the croupier. + +Instantly the red enclosure was covered with the stakes of a quantity of +persons who had determined to partake of Henry's luck. + +And red won; it was the number fourteen. + +Henry was so absorbed that he did not observe a colloquy between two of +the croupiers at the middle of the table. The bank was broken, and every +soul in every room knew it in the fraction of a second. + +'Come,' said Cosette, as soon as Henry had received the winnings. +'Come,' she repeated, pulling his sleeve nervously. + +'I've broken the bank at Monte Carlo!' he thought as they hurried out of +the luxurious halls. 'I've broken the bank at Monte Carlo! I've broken +the bank at Monte Carlo!' + +If he had succeeded to the imperial throne of China, he would have felt +much the same as he felt then. + +Quite by chance he remembered the magazine article, and a statement +therein that prudent people, when they had won a large sum, drove +straight to Smith's Bank and banked it _coram publico_, so that +scoundrels might be aware that assault with violence in the night hours +would be futile. + +'If we lunch?' Cosette suggested, while Henry was getting his hat. + +'No, not yet,' he said importantly. + +At Smith's Bank he found that he had sixty-three thousand francs of +hers. + +'You dear,' she murmured in ecstasy, and actually pressed a light kiss +on his ear in the presence of the bank clerk! 'You let me keep the three +thousand?' she pleaded, like a charming child. + +So he let her keep the three thousand. The sixty thousand was banked in +her name. + +'You offer me a lunch?' she chirruped deliciously, in the street. 'I +gave you a lunch. You give me one. It is why I am come to Monte Carlo, +for that lunch.' + +They lunched at the Hôtel de Paris. + + +He was intoxicated that afternoon, though not with the Heidsieck they +had consumed. They sat out on the terrace. It was December, but like an +English June. And the pride of life, and the beauty of the world and of +women and of the costumes of women, informed and uplifted his soul. He +thought neither of the past nor of the future, but simply and intensely +of the present. He would not even ask himself why, really, Cosette had +come to Monte Carlo. She said she had come with Loulou, because they +both wanted to come; and Loulou was in bed with _migraine_; but as for +Cosette, she never had the _migraine_, she was never ill. And then the +sun touched the Italian hills, and the sea slept, and ... and ... what a +planet, this earth! He could almost understand why Tom had wept between +Cannes and Nice. + +It was arranged that the four should dine together that evening, if +Loulou had improved and Tom was discoverable. Henry promised to discover +him. Cosette announced that she must visit Loulou, and they parted for a +few brief hours. + +'_Mon petit!_' she threw after him. + +To see that girl tripping along the terrace in the sunset was a sight! + +Henry went to the Hôtel des Anglais, but Tom had not been seen there. +He strolled back to the Casino gardens. The gardeners were drawing +suspended sheets over priceless blossoms. When that operation was +finished, he yawned, and decided that he might as well go into the +Casino for half an hour, just to watch the play. + +The atmosphere of the gay but unventilated rooms was heavy and noxious. + +He chose a different table to watch, a table far from the scene of his +early triumph. In a few minutes he said that he might as well play, to +pass the time. So he began to play, feeling like a giant among pigmies. +He lost two hundred francs in five spins. + +'Steady, my friend!' he enjoined himself. + +Now, two hundred francs should be the merest trifle to a man who has won +sixty-three thousand francs. Henry, however, had not won sixty-three +thousand francs. On the other hand, it was precisely Henry who had paid +sixty-five francs for lunch for two that day, and Henry who had lent Tom +a hundred and seventy-five francs, and Henry who had paid Tom's hotel +bill in Paris, and Henry who had left England with just fifty-five +pounds--a sum which he had imagined to be royally ample for his needs on +the Continent. + +He considered the situation. + +He had his return-ticket from Monte Carlo to Paris, and his +return-ticket from Paris to London. He probably owed fifty francs at the +hotel, and he possessed a note for a hundred francs, two notes for fifty +francs, some French gold and silver, and some English silver. + +Continuing to play upon his faultless system, he lost another fifty +francs. + +'I can ask her to lend me something. I won all that lot for her,' he +said. + +'You know perfectly well you can't ask her to lend you something,' said +an abstract reasoning power within him. 'It's just because you won all +that lot for her that you can't. You'd be afraid lest she should think +you were sponging on her. Can you imagine yourself asking her?' + +'Well, I can ask Tom,' he said. + +'Tom!' exclaimed the abstract reasoning power. + +'I can wire to Snyder,' he said. + +'That would look a bit thick,' replied the abstract reasoning power, +'telegraphing for money--from Monte Carlo.' + +Henry took the note for a hundred francs, and put it on red, and went +icy cold in the feet and hands, and swore a horrid oath. + +Black won. + +He had sworn, and he was a man of his word. He walked straight out of +the Casino; but uncertainly, feebly, as a man who has received a +staggering blow between the eyes, as a man who has been pitched into a +mountain-pool in January, as a somnambulist who has wakened to find +himself on the edge of a precipice. + +He paid his bill at the hotel, and asked the time of the next train to +Paris. There was no next train to Paris that night, but there was a +train to Marseilles. He took it. Had it been a train only to Nice, or to +the Plutonian realms, he would have taken it. He said no good-byes. He +left no messages, no explanations. He went. On the next afternoon but +one he arrived at Victoria with fivepence in his pocket. Twopence he +paid to deposit his luggage in the cloakroom, and threepence for the +Underground fare to Charing Cross. From Charing Cross he walked up to +Kenilworth Mansions and got a sovereign from Mark Snyder. Coutts's, +where Mark financed himself, was closed, and a sovereign was all that +Mark had. + +Henry was thankful that the news had not yet reached London--at any +rate, it had not reached Mark Snyder. It was certain to do so, however. +Henry had read in that morning's Paris edition of the _New York Herald_: +'Mr. Henry S. Knight, the famous young English novelist, broke the bank +at Monte Carlo the other day. He was understood to be playing in +conjunction with Mademoiselle Cosette, the well-known Parisian +_divette_, who is also on a visit to Monte Carlo. I am told that the +pair have netted over a hundred and sixty thousand francs.' + +He reflected upon Cosette, and he reflected upon Geraldine. It was like +returning to two lumps of sugar in one's tea after having got accustomed +to three. + +He was very proud of himself for having so ruthlessly abandoned Monte +Carlo, Cosette, Loulou, Tom, and the whole apparatus. And he had the +right to be. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE NEW LIFE + + +They were nervous, both of them. Although they had been legally and +publicly married and their situation was in every way regular, although +the new flat in Ashley Gardens was spacious, spotless, and luxurious to +an extraordinary degree, although they had a sum of nearly seven +thousand pounds at the bank, although their consciences were clear and +their persons ornamental, Henry and Geraldine were decidedly nervous as +they sat in their drawing-room awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie, who had accepted an invitation to afternoon tea and dinner. + +It was the third day after the conclusion of their mysterious honeymoon. + +'Have one, dearest?' said Geraldine, determined to be gay, holding up a +morsel which she took from a coloured box by her side. And Henry took +it with his teeth from between her charming fingers. 'Lovely, aren't +they?' she mumbled, munching another morsel herself, and he mumbled that +they were. + +She was certainly charming, if English. Thoughts of Cosette, which used +to flit through his brain with a surprising effect that can only be +likened to an effect of flamingoes sweeping across an English meadow, +had now almost entirely ceased to disturb him. He had but to imagine +what Geraldine's attitude towards Cosette would have been had the two +met, in order to perceive the overpowering balance of advantages in +Geraldine's favour. + +Much had happened since Cosette. + +As a consequence of natural reaction, he had at once settled down to be +extremely serious, and to take himself seriously. He had been assisted +in the endeavour by the publication of an article in a monthly review, +entitled 'The Art of Henry Shakspere Knight.' The article explained to +him how wonderful he was, and he was ingenuously and sincerely thankful +for the revelation. It also, incidentally, showed him that 'Henry +Shakspere Knight' was a better signature for his books than 'Henry S. +Knight,' and he decided to adopt it in his next work. Further, it had +enormously quickened in him the sense of his mission in the world, of +his duty to his colossal public, and his potentiality for good. + +He put aside a book which he had already haltingly commenced, and began +a new one, in which a victim to the passion for gambling was redeemed by +the love of a pure young girl. It contained dramatic scenes in Paris, in +the _train de luxe_, and in Monte Carlo. One of the most striking scenes +was a harmony of moonlight and love on board a yacht in the +Mediterranean, in which sea Veronica prevailed upon Hubert to submerge +an ill-gotten gain of six hundred and sixty-three thousand francs, +although the renunciation would leave Hubert penniless. Geraldine +watched the progress of this book with absolute satisfaction. She had no +fault to find with it. She gazed at Henry with large admiring eyes as he +read aloud to her chapter after chapter. + +'What do you think I'm going to call it?' he had demanded of her once, +gleefully. + +'I don't know,' she said. + +'_Red and Black_,' he told her. 'Isn't that a fine title?' + +'Yes,' she said. 'But it's been used before;' and she gave him +particulars of Stendhal's novel, of which he had never heard. + +'Oh, well!' he exclaimed, somewhat dashed. 'As Stendhal was a Frenchman, +and his book doesn't deal with gambling at all, I think I may stick to +my title. I thought of it myself, you know.' + +'Oh yes, dearest. I _know_ you did,' Geraldine said eagerly. + +'You think I'd better alter it?' + +Geraldine glanced at the floor. 'You see,' she murmured, 'Stendhal was a +really great writer.' + +He started, shocked. She had spoken in such a way that he could not be +sure whether she meant, 'Stendhal was a really _great_ writer,' or, +'_Stendhal_ was a _really_ great writer.' If the former, he did not +mind, much. But if the latter--well, he thought uncomfortably of what +Tom had said to him in the train. And he perceived again, and more +clearly than ever before, that there was something in Geraldine which +baffled him--something which he could not penetrate, and never would +penetrate. + +'Suppose I call it _Black and Red_? Will that do?' he asked forlornly. + +'It would do,' she answered; 'but it doesn't sound so well.' + +'I've got it!' he cried exultantly. 'I've got it! _The Plague-Spot._ +Monte Carlo the plague-spot of Europe, you know.' + +'Splendid!' she said with enthusiasm. 'You are always magnificent at +titles.' + +And it was universally admitted that he was. + +The book had been triumphantly finished, and the manuscript delivered to +Macalistairs viâ Mark Snyder, and the huge cheque received under cover +of a letter full of compliments on Henry's achievement. Macalistairs +announced that their _Magazine_ would shortly contain the opening +chapters of Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight's great romance, _The +Plague-Spot_, which would run for one year, and which combined a +tremendous indictment of certain phases of modern life with an original +love-story by turns idyllic and dramatic. _Gordon's Monthly_ was +serializing the novel in America. About this time, an interview with +Henry, suggested by Sir Hugh Macalistair himself, appeared in an +important daily paper. 'It is quite true,' said Henry in the interview, +'that I went to Monte Carlo to obtain first-hand material for my book. +The stories of my breaking the bank there, however, are wildly +exaggerated. Of course, I played a little, in order to be able to put +myself in the place of my hero. I should explain that I was in Monte +Carlo with my cousin, Mr. Dolbiac, the well-known sculptor and painter, +who was painting portraits there. Mr. Dolbiac is very much at home in +Parisian artistic society, and he happened to introduce me to a famous +French lady singer who was in Monte Carlo at the time. This lady and I +found ourselves playing at the same table. From time to time I put down +her stakes for her; that was all. She certainly had an extraordinary run +of luck, but the bank was actually broken at last by the united bets of +a number of people. That is the whole story, and I'm afraid it is much +less exciting and picturesque than the rumours which have been flying +about. I have never seen the lady since that day.' + +Then his marriage had filled the air. + +At an early stage in the preparations for that event his mother and +Aunt Annie became passive--ceased all activity. Perfect peace was +maintained, but they withdrew. Fundamentally and absolutely, Geraldine's +ideas were not theirs, and Geraldine did as she liked with Henry. +Geraldine and Henry interrogated Mark Snyder as to the future. 'Shall we +be justified in living at the rate of two thousand a year?' they asked +him. 'Yes,' he said, 'and four times that!' He had just perused _The +Plague-Spot_ in manuscript. 'Let's make it three thousand, then,' said +Geraldine to Henry. And she had planned the establishment of their home +on that scale. Henry did not tell the ladies at Dawes Road that the rent +of the flat was three hundred a year, and that the furniture had cost +over a thousand, and that he was going to give Geraldine two hundred a +year for dress. He feared apoplexy in his mother, and a nervous crisis +in Aunt Annie. + +The marriage took place in a church. It was not this that secretly +pained Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie; all good Wesleyan Methodists marry +themselves in church. What secretly pained them was the fact that Henry +would not divulge, even to his own mother, the locality of the +honeymoon. He did say that Geraldine had been bent upon Paris, and that +he had completely barred Paris ('Quite right,' Aunt Annie remarked), but +he would say no more. And so after the ceremony the self-conscious pair +had disappeared for a fortnight into the unknown and the unknowable. + +And now they had reappeared out of the unknown and the unknowable, and, +with the help of four servants, meant to sustain life in Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie for a period of some five hours. + +They heard a ring in the distance of the flat. + +'Prepare to receive cavalry,' said Geraldine, sitting erect in her blue +dress on the green settee in the middle of the immense drawing-room. + +Then, seeing Henry's face, she jumped up, crossed over to her husband, +and gave him a smacking kiss between the eyes. 'Dearest, I didn't mean +it!' she whispered enchantingly. He smiled. She flew back to her seat +just as the door opened. + +'Mr. Doxey,' said a new parlourmaid, intensely white and black, and +intensely aware of the eminence of her young employers. And little +Doxey of the P.A. came in, rather shabby and insinuating as usual, and +obviously impressed by the magnificence of his surroundings. + +'My good Doxey,' exclaimed the chatelaine. 'How delicious of you to have +found us out so soon!' + +'How d'you do, Doxey?' said Henry, rising. + +'Awfully good of you to see me!' began Doxey, depositing his +well-preserved hat on a chair. 'Hope I don't interrupt.' He smiled. +'Can't stop a minute. Got a most infernal bazaar on at the Cecil. Look +here, old man,' he addressed Henry: 'I've been reading your _Love in +Babylon_ again, and I fancied I could make a little curtain-raiser out +of it--out of the picture incident, you know. I mentioned the idea to +Pilgrim, of the Prince's Theatre, and he's fearfully stuck on it.' + +'You mean, you think he is,' Geraldine put in. + +'Well, he is,' Doxey pursued, after a brief pause. 'I'm sure he is. I've +sketched out a bit of a scenario. Now, if you'd give permission and go +shares, I'd do it, old chap.' + +'A play, eh?' was all that Henry said. + +Doxey nodded. 'There's nothing like the theatre, you know.' + +'What do you mean--there's nothing like the theatre?' + +'For money, old chap. Not short pieces, of course, but long ones; only, +short ones lead to long ones.' + +'I tell you what you'd better do,' said Henry, when they had discussed +the matter. 'You'd better write the thing, and I'll have a look at it, +and then decide.' + +'Very well, if you like,' said Doxey slowly. 'What about shares?' + +'If it comes to anything, I don't mind halving it,' Henry replied. + +'I see,' said Doxey. 'Of course, I've had some little experience of the +stage,' he added. + +His name was one of those names which appear from time to time in the +theatrical gossip of the newspapers as having adapted, or as being about +to adapt, something or other for the stage which was not meant for the +stage. It had never, however, appeared on the playbills of the theatres; +except once, when, at a benefit matinée, the great John Pilgrim, whom to +mention is to worship, had recited verses specially composed for the +occasion by Alfred Doxey. + +'And the signature, dear?' Geraldine glanced up at her husband, +offering him a suggestion humbly, as a wife should in the presence of +third parties. + +'Oh!' said Henry. 'Of course, Mr. Doxey's name must go with mine, as one +of the authors of the piece. Certainly.' + +'Dearest,' Geraldine murmured when Doxey had gone, 'you are perfect. You +don't really need an agent.' + +He laughed. 'There's rather too much "old chap" about Doxey,' he said. +'Who's Doxey?' + +'He's quite harmless, the little creature,' said Geraldine +good-naturedly. + +They sat silent for a time. + +'Miles Robinson makes fifteen thousand a year out of plays,' Geraldine +murmured reflectively. + +'Does he?' Henry murmured reflectively. + +The cavalry arrived, in full panoply of war. + + +'I am thankful Sarah stays with us,' said Mrs. Knight. 'Servants are so +much more difficult to get now than they were in my time.' + +Tea was nearly over; the cake-stand in four storeys had been depleted +from attic to basement, and, after admiring the daintiness and taste +displayed throughout Mrs. Henry's drawing-room, the ladies from Dawes +Road had reached the most fascinating of all topics. + +'When you keep several,' said Geraldine, 'they are not so hard to get. +It's loneliness they object to.' + +'How many shall you have, dear?' Aunt Annie asked. + +'Forty,' said Henry, looking up from a paper. + +'Don't be silly, dearest!' Geraldine protested. (She seemed so young and +interesting and bright and precious, and so competent, as she sat there, +behind the teapot, between her mature visitors in their black and their +grey: this was what Henry thought.) 'No, Aunt Annie; I have four at +present.' + +'Four!' repeated Aunt Annie, aghast. 'But----' + +'But, my dear!' exclaimed Mrs. Knight. 'Surely----' + +Geraldine glanced with respectful interest at Mrs. Knight. + +'Surely you'll find it a great trial to manage them all?' said Aunt +Annie. + +'No,' said Geraldine. 'At least, I hope not. I never allow myself to be +bothered by servants. I just tell them what they are to do. If they do +it, well and good. If they don't, they must leave. I give an hour a day +to domestic affairs. My time is too occupied to give more.' + +'She likes to spend her time going up and down in the lift,' Henry +explained. + +Geraldine put her hand over her husband's mouth and silenced him. It was +a pretty spectacle, and reconciled the visitors to much. + +Aunt Annie examined Henry's face. 'Are you quite well, Henry?' she +inquired. + +'I'm all right,' he said, yawning. 'But I want a little exercise. I +haven't been out much to-day. I think I'll go for a short walk.' + +'Yes, do, dearest.' + +'Do, my dear.' + +As he approached the door, having kissed his wife, his mother, without +looking at him, remarked in a peculiarly dry tone, which she employed +only at the rarest intervals: 'You haven't told me anything about your +honeymoon yet, Henry.' + +'You forget, sister,' said Aunt Annie stiffly, 'it's a secret.' + +'Not now--not now!' cried Geraldine brightly. 'Well, we'll tell you. +Where do you think we drove after leaving you? To the Savoy Hotel.' + +'But why?' asked Mrs. Knight ingenuously. + +'We spent our honeymoon there, right in the middle of London. We +pretended we were strangers to London, and we saw all the sights that +Londoners never do see. Wasn't it a good idea?' + +'I--I don't know,' said Mrs. Knight. + +'It seems rather queer--for a honeymoon,' Aunt Annie observed. + +'Oh, but it was splendid!' continued Geraldine. 'We went to the theatre +or the opera every night, and lived on the fat of the land in the best +hotel in Europe, and saw everything--even the Tower and the Mint and the +Thames Tunnel and the Tate Gallery. We enjoyed every moment.' + +'And think of the saving in fares!' Henry put in, swinging the door to +and fro. + +'Yes, there was that, certainly,' Aunt Annie agreed. + +'And we went everywhere that omnibuses go,' Henry proceeded. 'Once even +we got as far as the Salisbury, Fulham.' + +'Well, dear,' Mrs. Knight said sharply, 'I do think you might have +popped in.' + +'But, mamma,' Geraldine tried to explain, 'that would have spoilt it.' + +'Spoilt what?' asked Mrs. Knight. 'The Salisbury isn't three minutes off +our house. I do think you might have popped in. There I was--and me +thinking you were gone abroad!' + +'See you later,' said Henry, and disappeared. + +'He doesn't look quite well, does he, Annie?' said Mrs. Knight. + +'I know how it used to be,' Aunt Annie said. 'Whenever he began to make +little jokes, we knew he was in for a bilious attack.' + +'My dear people,' Geraldine endeavoured to cheer them, 'I assure you +he's perfectly well--perfectly.' + +'I've decided not to go out, after all,' said Henry, returning +surprisingly to the room. 'I don't feel like it.' And he settled into an +ear-flap chair that had cost sixteen pounds ten. + +'Have one?' said Geraldine, offering him the coloured box from which she +had just helped herself. + +'No, thanks,' said he, shutting his eyes. + +'I beg your pardon, I'm sure;' Geraldine turned to her visitors and +extended the box. 'Won't you have a _marron glacé_?' + +And the visitors gazed at each other in startled, affrighted silence. + +'Has Henry eaten some?' Mrs. Knight asked, shaken. + +'He had one or two before tea,' Geraldine answered. 'Why?' + +'I _knew_ he was going to be ill!' said Aunt Annie. + +'But he's been eating _marrons glacés_ every day for a fortnight. +Haven't you, sweetest?' said Geraldine. + +'I can believe it,' Aunt Annie murmured, 'from his face.' + +'Oh dear! Women! Women!' Henry whispered facetiously. + +'He's only saving his appetite for dinner,' said Geraldine, with +intrepid calm. + +'My dear girl,' Mrs. Knight observed, again in that peculiar dry tone, +'if I know anything about your husband, and I've had him under my care +for between twenty and thirty years, he will eat nothing more to-day.' + +'Now, mater,' said Henry, 'don't get excited. By the way, we haven't +told you that I'm going to write a play.' + +'A play, Henry?' + +'Yes. So you'll have to begin going to theatres in your old age, after +all.' + +There was a pause. + +'Shan't you?' Henry persisted. + +'I don't know, dear. What place of worship are you attending?' + +There was another pause. + +'St. Philip's, Regent Street, I think we shall choose,' said Geraldine. + +'But surely that's a _church_?' + +'Yes,' said Geraldine. 'It is a very good one. I have belonged to the +Church of England all my life.' + +'Not High, I hope,' said Aunt Annie. + +'Certainly, High.' + +The beneficent Providence which always watched over Henry, watched over +him then. A gong resounded through the flat, and stopped the +conversation. Geraldine put her lips together. + +'There's the dressing-bell, dearest,' said she, controlling herself. + +'I won't dress to-night,' Henry replied feebly. 'I'm not equal to it. +You go. I'll stop with mother and auntie.' + +'Don't you fret yourself, mater,' he said as soon as the chatelaine had +left them. 'Sir George has gone to live at Redhill, and given up his pew +at Great Queen Street. I shall return to the old place and take it.' + +'I am very glad,' said Mrs. Knight. 'Very glad.' + +'And Geraldine?' Aunt Annie asked. + +'Leave me to look after the little girl,' said Henry. He then dozed for +a few moments. + +The dinner, with the Arctic lamps dotted about the table, and two +servants to wait, began in the most stately and effective fashion +imaginable. But it had got no further than the host's first spoonful of +_soupe aux moules_, when the host rose abruptly, and without a word +departed from the room. + +The sisters nodded to each other with the cheerful gloom of prophetesses +who find themselves in the midst of a disaster which they have +predicted. + +'You poor, foolish boy!' exclaimed Geraldine, running after Henry. She +was adorably attired in white. + + * * * * * + +The clash of creeds was stilled in the darkened and sumptuous chamber, +as the three women bent with murmurous affection over the bed on which +lay, swathed in a redolent apparatus of eau-de-Cologne and fine linen, +their hope and the hope of English literature. Towards midnight, when +the agony had somewhat abated, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie reluctantly +retired in a coupé which Geraldine had ordered for them by telephone. + +And in the early June dawn Henry awoke, refreshed and renewed, full of +that languid but genuine interest in mortal things which is at once the +compensation and the sole charm of a dyspepsy. By reaching out an arm he +could just touch the hand of his wife as she slept in her twin couch. He +touched it; she awoke, and they exchanged the morning smile. + +'I'm glad that's over,' he said. + +But whether he meant the _marrons glacés_ or the first visit of his +beloved elders to the glorious flat cannot be decided. + +Certain it is, however, that deep in the minds of both the spouses was +the idea that the new life, the new heaven on the new earth, had now +fairly begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +HE IS NOT NERVOUS + + +'Yes,' said Henry with judicial calm, after he had read Mr. Doxey's +stage version of _Love in Babylon_, 'it makes a nice little piece.' + +'I'm glad you like it, old chap,' said Doxey. 'I thought you would.' + +They were in Henry's study, seated almost side by side at Henry's great +American roll-top desk. + +'You've got it a bit hard in places,' Henry pursued. 'But I'll soon put +that right.' + +'Can you do it to-day?' asked the adapter. + +'Why?' + +'Because I know old Johnny Pilgrim wants to shove a new curtain-raiser +into the bill at once. If I could take him this to-morrow----' + +'I'll post it to you to-night,' said Henry. 'But I shall want to see Mr. +Pilgrim myself before anything is definitely arranged.' + +'Oh, of course,' Mr. Doxey agreed. 'Of course. I'll tell him.' + +Henry softened the rigour of his collaborator's pen in something like +half an hour. The perusal of this trifling essay in the dramatic form +(it certainly did not exceed four thousand words, and could be played in +twenty-five minutes) filled his mind with a fresh set of ideas. He +suspected that he could write for the stage rather better than Mr. +Doxey, and he saw, with the eye of faith, new plumes waving in his cap. +He was aware, because he had read it in the papers, that the English +drama needed immediate assistance, and he determined to render that +assistance. The first instalment of _The Plague-Spot_ had just come out +in the July number of _Macalistair's Magazine_, and the extraordinary +warmth of its reception had done nothing to impair Henry's belief in his +gift for pleasing the public. Hence he stretched out a hand to the West +End stage with a magnanimous gesture of rescuing the fallen. + + +And yet, curiously enough, when he entered the stage-door of Prince's +Theatre one afternoon, to see John Pilgrim, he was as meek as if the +world had never heard of him. + +He informed the doorkeeper that he had an appointment with Mr. Pilgrim, +whereupon the doorkeeper looked him over, took a pull at a glass of +rum-and-milk, and said he would presently inquire whether Mr. Pilgrim +could see anyone. The passage from the portals of the theatre to Mr. +Pilgrim's private room occupied exactly a quarter of an hour. + +Then, upon beholding the figure of John Pilgrim, he seemed suddenly to +perceive what fame and celebrity and renown really were. Here was the +man whose figure and voice were known to every theatre-goer in England +and America, and to every idler who had once glanced at a +photograph-window; the man who for five-and-twenty years had stilled +unruly crowds by a gesture, conquered the most beautiful women with a +single smile, died for the fatherland, and lived for love, before a +nightly audience of two thousand persons; who existed absolutely in the +eye of the public, and who long ago had formed a settled, honest, +serious conviction that he was the most interesting and remarkable +phenomenon in the world. In the ingenuous mind of Mr. Pilgrim the +universe was the frame, and John Pilgrim was the picture: his countless +admirers had forced him to think so. + +Mr. Pilgrim greeted Henry as though in a dream. + +'What name?' he whispered, glancing round, apparently not quite sure +whether they were alone and unobserved. + +He seemed to be trying to awake from his dream, to recall the mundane +and the actual, without success. + +He said, still whispering, that the little play pleased him. + +'Let me see,' he reflected. 'Didn't Doxey say that you had written other +things?' + +'Several books,' Henry informed him. + +'Books? Ah!' Mr. Pilgrim had the air of trying to imagine what sort of +thing books were. 'That's very interesting. Novels?' + +'Yes,' said Henry. + +Mr. Pilgrim, opening his magnificent chest and passing a hand through +his brown hair, grew impressively humble. 'You must excuse my +ignorance,' he explained. 'I am afraid I'm not quite abreast of modern +literature. I never read.' And he repeated firmly: 'I never read. Not +even the newspapers. What time have I for reading?' he whispered sadly. +'In my brougham, I snatch a glance at the contents-bills of the evening +papers. No more.' + +Henry had the idea that even to be ignored by John Pilgrim was more +flattering than to be admired by the rest of mankind. + +Mr. Pilgrim rose and walked several times across the room; then +addressed Henry mysteriously and imposingly: + +'I've got the finest theatre in London.' + +'Yes?' said Henry. + +'In the world,' Mr. Pilgrim corrected himself. + +Then he walked again, and again stopped. + +'I'll produce your piece,' he whispered. 'Yes, I'll produce it.' + +He spoke as if saying also: 'You will have a difficulty in crediting +this extraordinary and generous decision: nevertheless you must +endeavour to do so.' + +Henry thanked him lamely. + +'Of course I shan't play in it myself,' added Mr. Pilgrim, laughing as +one laughs at a fantastic conceit. + +'No, naturally not,' said Henry. + +'Nor will Jane,' said Mr. Pilgrim. + +Jane Map was Mr. Pilgrim's leading lady, for the time being. + +'And about terms, young man?' Mr. Pilgrim demanded, folding his arms. +'What is your notion of terms?' + +Now, Henry had taken the precaution of seeking advice concerning fair +terms. + +'One pound a performance is my notion,' he answered. + +'I never give more than ten shillings a night for a curtain-raiser,' +said Mr. Pilgrim ultimatively, 'Never. I can't afford to.' + +'I'm afraid that settles it, then, Mr. Pilgrim,' said Henry. + +'You'll take ten shillings?' + +'I'll take a pound. I can't take less. I'm like you, I can't afford to.' + +John Pilgrim showed a faint interest in Henry's singular--indeed, +incredible--attitude. + +'You don't mean to say,' he mournfully murmured, 'that you'll miss the +chance of having your play produced in my theatre for the sake of half a +sovereign?' + +Before Henry could reply to this grieved question, Jane Map burst into +the room. She was twenty-five, tall, dark, and arresting. John Pilgrim +had found her somewhere. + +'Jane,' said Mr. Pilgrim sadly, 'this is Mr. Knight.' + +'Not the author of _The Plague-Spot_?' asked Jane Map, clasping her +jewelled fingers. + +'_Are_ you the author of _The Plague-Spot_?' Mr. Pilgrim +whispered--'whatever _The Plague-Spot_ is.' + +The next moment Jane Map was shaking hands effusively with Henry. 'I +just adore you!' she told him. 'And your _Love in Babylon_--oh, Mr. +Knight, how _do_ you think of such beautiful stories?' + +John Pilgrim sank into a chair and closed his eyes. + +'Oh, you must take it! you must take it!' cried Jane to John, as soon as +she learnt that a piece based on _Love in Babylon_ was under discussion. +'I shall play Enid Anstruther myself. Don't you see me in it, Mr. +Knight?' + +'Mr. Knight's terms are twice mine,' John Pilgrim intoned, without +opening his eyes. 'He wants a pound a night.' + +'He must have it,' said Jane Map. 'If I'm in the piece----' + +'But, Jane----' + +'I insist!' said Jane, with fire. + +'Very well, Mr. Knight,' John Pilgrim continued to intone, his eyes +still shut, his legs stretched out, his feet resting perpendicularly on +the heels. 'Jane insists. You understand--Jane insists. Take your pound, +I call the first rehearsal for Monday.' + + +Thenceforward Henry lived largely in the world of the theatre, a +pariah's life, the life almost of a poor relation. Doxey appeared to +enjoy the existence; it was Doxey's brief hour of bliss. But Henry, +spoilt by editors, publishers, and the reading public, could not easily +reconcile himself to the classical position of an author in the world of +the theatre. It hurt him to encounter the prevalent opinion that, just +as you cannot have a dog without a tail or a stump, so you cannot have a +play without an author. The actors and actresses were the play, and when +they were pleased with themselves the author was expected to fulfil his +sole function of wagging. + +Even Jane Map, Henry's confessed adorer, was the victim, Henry thought, +of a highly-distorted sense of perspective. The principal comfort which +he derived from Jane Map was that she ignored Doxey entirely. + +The preliminary rehearsals were desolating. Henry went away from the +first one convinced that the piece would have to be rewritten from end +to end. No performer could make anything of his own part, and yet each +was sure that all the other parts were effective in the highest degree. + +At the fourth rehearsal John Pilgrim came down to direct. He sat in the +dim stalls by Henry's side, and Henry could hear him murmuring softly +and endlessly: + + + 'Punch, brothers, punch with care-- + Punch in the presence of the passenjare!' + + +The scene was imagined to represent a studio, and Jane Map, as Enid +Anstruther, was posing on the model's throne. + +'Jane,' Mr. Pilgrim hissed out, 'you pose for all the world like an +artist's model!' + +'Well,' Jane retorted, 'I am an artist's model.' + +'No, you aren't,' said John. 'You're an actress on my stage, and you +must pose like one.' + +Whereupon Mr. Pilgrim ascended to the stage and began to arrange Jane's +limbs. By accident Jane's delightful elbow came into contact with John +Pilgrim's eye. The company was horror-struck as Mr. Pilgrim lowered his +head and pressed a handkerchief to that eye. + +'Jane, Jane!' he complained in his hoarse and conspiratorial whisper, +'I've been teaching you the elements of your art for two years, and all +you have achieved is to poke your elbow in my eye. The rehearsal is +stopped.' + +And everybody went home. + +Such is a specimen of the incidents which were continually happening. + +However, as the first night approached, the condition of affairs +improved a little, and Henry saw with satisfaction that the resemblance +of Prince's Theatre to a lunatic asylum was more superficial than real. +Also, the tone of the newspapers in referring to the imminent production +convinced even John Pilgrim that Henry was perhaps not quite an ordinary +author. John Pilgrim cancelled a proof of a poster which he had already +passed, and ordered a double-crown, thus: + + + LOVE IN BABYLON. + + A PLAY IN ONE ACT, FOUNDED ON + + HENRY SHAKSPERE KNIGHT'S + + FAMOUS NOVEL. + + BY + + HENRY SHAKSPERE KNIGHT AND ALFRED DOXEY. + + ENID ANSTRUTHER--MISS JANE MAP. + + +Geraldine met Jane, and asked her to tea at the flat. And Geraldine +hired a brougham at thirty pounds a month. From that day Henry's +reception at the theatre was all that he could have desired, and more +than any mere author had the right to expect. At the final rehearsals, +in the absence of John Pilgrim, his word was law. It was whispered in +the green-room that he earned ten thousand a year by writing things +called novels. 'Well, dear old pal,' said one old actor to another old +actor, 'it takes all sorts to make a world. But ten thousand! Johnny +himself don't make more than that, though he spends more.' + +The mischief was that Henry's digestion, what with the irregular hours +and the irregular drinks, went all to pieces. + + +'You don't _look_ nervous, Harry,' said Geraldine when he came into the +drawing-room before dinner on the evening of the production. + +'Nervous?' said Henry. 'Of course I'm not.' + +'Then, why have you forgotten to brush your hair, dearest?' she asked. + +He glanced in a mirror. Yes, he had certainly forgotten to brush his +hair. + +'Sheer coincidence,' he said, and ate a hearty meal. + +Geraldine drove to the theatre. She was to meet there Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie, in whose breasts pride and curiosity had won a tardy victory +over the habits of a lifetime; they had a stage-box. Henry remarked that +it was a warm night and that he preferred to walk; he would see them +afterwards. + +No one could have been more surprised than Henry, when he arrived at +Prince's Theatre, to discover that he was incapable of entering that +edifice. He honestly and physically tried to go in by the stage-door, +but he could not, and, instead of turning within, he kept a straight +course along the footpath. It was as though an invisible barrier had +been raised to prevent his ingress. + +'Never mind!' he said. 'I'll walk to the Circus and back again, and then +I'll go in.' + +He walked to the Circus and back again, and once more failed to get +himself inside Prince's Theatre. + +'This is the most curious thing that ever happened to me,' he thought, +as he stood for the second time in Piccadilly Circus. 'Why the devil +can't I go into that theatre? I'm not nervous. I'm not a bit nervous.' +It was so curious that he felt an impulse to confide to someone how +curious it was. + +Then he went into the Criterion bar and sat down. The clock showed +seventeen minutes to nine. His piece was advertised to start at +eight-thirty precisely. The Criterion Bar is never empty, but it has its +moments of lassitude, and seventeen minutes to nine is one of them. +After an interval a waiter slackly approached him. + +'Brandy-and-soda!' Henry ordered, well knowing that brandy-and-soda +never suited him. + +He glanced away from the clock, repeated 'Punch, brothers, punch with +care,' twenty times, recited 'God save the Queen,' took six small sips +at the brandy-and-soda, and then looked at the clock again, and it was +only fourteen minutes to nine. He had guessed it might be fourteen +minutes to ten. + +He caught the eye of a barmaid, and she seemed to be saying to him +sternly: 'If you think you can occupy this place all night on a +ninepenny drink, you are mistaken. Either you ought to order another or +hook it.' He braved it for several more ages, then paid, and went; and +still it was only ten minutes to nine. All mundane phenomena were +inexplicably contorted that night. As he was passing the end of the +short street which contains the stage-door of Prince's Theatre, a man, +standing at the door on the lookout, hailed him loudly. He hesitated, +and the man--it was the doorkeeper--flew forward and seized him and +dragged him in. + +'Drink this, Mr. Knight,' commanded the doorkeeper. + +'I'm all right,' said Henry. 'What's up?' + +'Yes, I know you're all right. Drink it.' + +And he drank a whisky-and-soda. + +'Come upstairs,' said the doorkeeper. 'You'll be wanted, Mr. Knight.' + +As he approached the wings of the stage, under the traction of the +breathless doorkeeper, he was conscious of the falling of the curtain, +and of the noisiest noise beyond the curtain that he had ever heard. + +'Here, Mr. Knight, drink this,' said someone in his ear. 'Keep steady. +It's nothing.' + +And he drank a glass of port. + +His overcoat was jerked off by a mysterious agency. + +The noise continued to be terrible: it rose and fell like the sea. + +Then he was aware of Jane Map rushing towards him and of Jane Map +kissing him rapturously on the mouth. 'Come _on_,' cried Jane Map, and +pulled him by the hand, helter-skelter, until they came in front of a +blaze of light and the noise crashed at his ears. + +'I've been through this before somewhere,' he thought, while Jane Map +wrung his hand. 'Was it in a previous existence? No. The Alhambra!' What +made him remember the Alhambra was the figure of little Doxey sheepishly +joining himself and Jane. Doxey, with a disastrous lack of foresight, +had been in the opposite wing, and had had to run round the stage in +order to come before the curtain. Doxey's share in the triumph was +decidedly less than half.... + +'No,' Henry said later, with splendid calm, when Geraldine, Jane, Doxey, +and himself were drinking champagne in Jane's Empire dressing-room, 'it +wasn't nervousness. I don't quite know what it was.' + +He gathered that the success had been indescribable. + +Jane radiated bliss. + +'I tell you what, old man,' said Doxey: 'we must adapt _The +Plague-Spot_, eh?' + +'We'll see about that,' said Henry. + + +Two days afterwards Henry arose from a bed of pain, and was able to +consume a little tea and dry toast. Geraldine regaled his spiritual man +with the press notices, which were tremendous. But more tremendous than +the press notices was John Pilgrim's decision to put _Love in Babylon_ +after the main piece in the bill of Prince's Theatre. _Love in Babylon_ +was to begin at the honourable hour of ten-forty in future, for the +benefit of the stalls and the dress-circle. + +'Have you thought about Mr. Doxey's suggestion?' Geraldine asked him. + +'Yes,' said Henry; 'but I don't quite see the point of it.' + +'Don't see the point of it, sweetheart?' she protested, stroking his +dressing-gown. 'But it would be bound to be a frightful success, after +this.' + +'I know,' said Henry. 'But why drag in Doxey? I can write the next play +myself.' + +She kissed him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +HE SHORTENS HIS NAME + + +One day Geraldine needed a doctor. Henry was startled, frightened, +almost shocked. But when the doctor, having seen Geraldine, came into +the study to chat with Geraldine's husband, Henry put on a calm +demeanour, said he had been expecting the doctor's news, said also that +he saw no cause for anxiety or excitement, and generally gave the doctor +to understand that he was in no way disturbed by the work of Nature to +secure a continuance of the British Empire. The conversation shifted to +Henry's self, and soon Henry was engaged in a detailed description of +his symptoms. + +'Purely nervous,' remarked the doctor--'purely nervous.' + +'You think so?' + +'I am sure of it.' + +'Then, of course, there is no cure for it. I must put up with it.' + +'Pardon me,' said the doctor, 'there is an absolutely certain cure for +nervous dyspepsia--at any rate, in such a case as yours.' + +'What is it?' + +'Go without breakfast' + +'But I don't eat too much, doctor,' Henry said plaintively. + +'Yes, you do,' said the doctor. 'We all do.' + +'And I'm always hungry at meal-times. If a meal is late it makes me +quite ill.' + +'You'll feel somewhat uncomfortable for a few days,' the doctor blandly +continued. 'But in a month you'll be cured.' + +'You say that professionally?' + +'I guarantee it.' + +The doctor shook hands, departed, and then returned. 'And eat rather +less lunch than usual,' said he. 'Mind that.' + +Within three days Henry was informing his friends: 'I never have any +breakfast. No, none. Two meals a day.' It was astonishing how frequently +the talk approached the great food topic. He never sought an opportunity +to discuss the various methods and processes of sustaining life, yet, +somehow, he seemed to be always discussing them. Some of his +acquaintances annoyed him excessively--for example, Doxey. + +'That won't last long, old chap,' said Doxey, who had called about +finance. 'I've known other men try that. Give me the good old English +breakfast. Nothing like making a good start.' + +'Ass!' thought Henry, and determined once again, and more decisively, +that Doxey should pass out of his life. + +His preoccupation with this matter had the happy effect of preventing +him from worrying too much about the perils which lay before Geraldine. +Discovering the existence of an Anti-Breakfast League, he joined it, and +in less than a week every newspaper in the land announced that the ranks +of the Anti-Breakfasters had secured a notable recruit in the person of +Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight. It was widely felt that the Anti-Breakfast +Movement had come to stay. + +Still, he was profoundly interested in Geraldine, too. And between his +solicitude for her and his scientific curiosity concerning the secret +recesses of himself the flat soon overflowed with medical literature. + +The entire world of the theatre woke up suddenly and simultaneously to +the colossal fact of Henry's genius. One day they had never thought of +him; the next they could think of nothing else. Every West End manager, +except two, wrote to him to express pleasure at the prospect of +producing a play by him; the exceptional two telegraphed. Henry, +however, had decided upon his arrangements. He had grasped the important +truth that there was only one John Pilgrim in the world. + +He threw the twenty-five chapters of _The Plague-Spot_ into a scheme of +four acts, and began to write a drama without the aid of Mr. Alfred +Doxey. It travelled fast, did the drama; and the author himself was +astonished at the ease with which he put it together out of little +pieces of the novel. The scene of the third act was laid in the +gaming-saloons of Monte Carlo; the scene of the fourth disclosed the +deck of a luxurious private yacht at sea under a full Mediterranean +moon. Such flights of imagination had hitherto been unknown in the +serious drama of London. When Henry, after three months' labour, showed +the play to John Pilgrim, John Pilgrim said: + +'This is the play I have waited twenty years for!' + +'You think it will do, then?' said Henry. + +'It will enable me,' observed John Pilgrim, 'to show the British public +what acting is.' + +Henry insisted on an agreement which gave him ten per cent. of the gross +receipts. Soon after the news of the signed contract had reached the +press, Mr. Louis Lewis, the English agent of Lionel Belmont, of the +United States Theatrical Trust, came unostentatiously round to Ashley +Gardens, and obtained the American rights on the same terms. + +Then Pilgrim said that he must run through the manuscript with Henry, +and teach him those things about the theatre which he did not know. +Henry arrived at Prince's at eleven o'clock, by appointment; Mr. Pilgrim +came at a quarter to twelve. + +'You have the sense _du théâtre_, my friend,' said Pilgrim, turning over +the leaves of the manuscript. 'That precious and incommunicable +gift--you have it. But you are too fond of explanations. Now, the public +won't stand explanations. No long speeches. And so whenever I glance +through a play I can tell instantly whether it is an acting play. If I +see a lot of speeches over four lines long, I say, Dull! Useless! Won't +do! For instance, here. That speech of Veronica's while she's at the +piano. Dull! I see it. I feel it. It must go! The last two lines must +go!' + +So saying, he obliterated the last two lines with a large and imperial +blue pencil. + +'But it's impossible,' Henry protested. 'You've not read them.' + +'I don't need to read them,' said John Pilgrim. 'I know they won't do. I +know the public won't have them. It must be give and take--give and take +between the characters. The ball must be kept in the air. Ah! The +theatre!' He paused, and gave Henry a piercing glance. 'Do you know how +I came to be _du théâtre_--of the theatre, young man?' he demanded. 'No? +I will tell you. My father was an old fox-hunting squire in the Quorn +country. One of the best English families, the Pilgrims, related to the +Earls of Waverley. Poor, unfortunately. My eldest brother was brought up +to inherit the paternal mortgages. My second brother went into the army. +And they wanted me to go into the Church. I refused. "Well," said my +old father, "damn it, Jack! if you won't go to heaven, you may as well +ride straight to hell. Go on the stage." And I did, sir. I did. Idea for +a book there, isn't there?' + +The blue-pencilling of the play proceeded. But whenever John Pilgrim +came to a long speech by Hubert, the part which he destined for himself, +he hesitated to shorten it. 'It's too long! It's too long!' he +whispered. 'I feel it's too long. But, somehow, that seems to me +essential to the action. I must try to carry it off as best I can.' + +At the end of the second act Henry suggested an interval for lunch, but +John Pilgrim, opening Act III. accidentally, and pouncing on a line with +his blue pencil, exclaimed with profound interest: + +'Ah! I remember noting this when I read it. You've got Hubert saying +here: "I know I'm a silly fool." Now, I don't think that's quite in the +part. You must understand that when I study a character I become that +character. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that I know more +about that character than the author does. I merge myself into the +character with an intense effort. Now, I can't see Hubert saying "I +know I'm a silly fool." Of course I've no objection whatever to the +words, but it seemed to me--you understand what I mean? Shall we strike +that out?' + +A little farther on Henry had given Veronica a little epigram: 'When a +man has to stand on his dignity, you may be sure his moral stature is +very small.' + +'That's more like the sort of thing that Hubert would say,' John Pilgrim +whispered. 'Women never say those things. It's not true to nature. But +it seems to fit in exactly with the character of Hubert. Shall +we--transfer----?' His pencil waved in the air.... + +'Heavenly powers!' Mr. Pilgrim hoarsely murmured, as they attained the +curtain of Act III., 'it's four o'clock. And I had an appointment for +lunch at two. But I never think of food when I am working. Never!' + +Henry, however, had not broken his fast since the previous evening. + + +The third and the greatest crisis in the unparalleled popularity of +Henry Shakspere Knight began to prepare itself. The rumour of its +coming was heard afar off, and every literary genius in England and +America who was earning less than ten thousand pounds a year ground his +teeth and clenched his hands in impotent wrath. The boom and resounding +of _The Plague-Spot_ would have been deafening and immense in any case; +but Henry had an idea, and executed it, which multiplied the +advertisement tenfold. It was one of those ideas, at once quite simple +and utterly original, which only occur to the favourites of the gods. + +The serial publication of _The Plague-Spot_ finished in June, and it had +been settled that the book should be issued simultaneously in England +and America in August. Now, that summer John Pilgrim was illuminating +the provinces, and he had fixed a definite date, namely, the tenth of +October, for the reopening of Prince's Theatre with the dramatic version +of _The Plague-Spot_. Henry's idea was merely to postpone publication of +the book until the production of the play. Mark Snyder admitted himself +struck by the beauty of this scheme, and he made a special journey to +America in connection with it, a journey which cost over a hundred +pounds. The result was an arrangement under which the book was to be +issued in London and New York, and the play to be produced by John +Pilgrim at Prince's Theatre, London, and by Lionel Belmont at the +Madison Square Theatre, New York, simultaneously on one golden date. + +The splendour of the conception appealed to all that was fundamental in +the Anglo-Saxon race. + +John Pilgrim was a finished master of advertisement, but if any man in +the wide world could give him lessons in the craft, that man was Lionel +Belmont. Macalistairs, too, in their stately, royal way, knew how to +impress facts upon, the public. + +Add to these things that Geraldine bore twins, boys. + +No earthly power could have kept those twins out of the papers, and +accordingly they had their share in the prodigious, unsurpassed and +unforgettable publicity which their father enjoyed without any apparent +direct effort of his own. + +He had declined to be interviewed; but one day, late in September, his +good-nature forced him to yield to the pressure of a journalist. That +journalist was Alfred Doxey, who had married on the success of _Love in +Babylon_, and was already in financial difficulties. He said he could +get twenty-five pounds for an interview with Henry, and Henry gave him +the interview. The interview accomplished, he asked Henry whether he +cared to acquire for cash his, Doxey's, share of the amateur rights of +_Love in Babylon_. Doxey demanded fifty pounds, and Henry amiably wrote +out the cheque on the spot and received Doxey's lavish gratitude. _Love +in Babylon_ is played on the average a hundred and fifty times a year by +the amateur dramatic societies of Great Britain and Ireland, and for +each performance Henry touches a guinea. The piece had run for two +hundred nights at Prince's, so that the authors got a hundred pounds +each from John Pilgrim. + +On the morning of the tenth of October Henry strolled incognito round +London. Every bookseller's shop displayed piles upon piles of _The +Plague-Spot_. Every newspaper had a long review of it. The _Whitehall +Gazette_ was satirical as usual, but most people felt that it was the +_Whitehall Gazette_, and not Henry, that thereby looked ridiculous. +Nearly every other omnibus carried the legend of _The Plague-Spot_; +every hoarding had it. At noon Henry passed by Prince's Theatre. Two +small crowds had already taken up positions in front of the entrances to +the pit and the gallery; and several women, seated on campstools, were +diligently reading the book in order the better to appreciate the play. + +Twelve hours later John Pilgrim was thanking his kind patrons for a +success unique even in his rich and gorgeous annals. He stated that he +should cable the verdict of London to the Madison Square Theatre, New +York, where the representation of the noble work of art which he had had +the honour of interpreting to them was about to begin. + +'It was a lucky day for you when you met me, young man,' he whispered +grandiosely and mysteriously, yet genially, to Henry. + +On the façade of Prince's there still blazed the fiery sign, which an +excited electrician had forgotten to extinguish: + + + THE PLAGUE-SPOT. + + SHAKSPERE KNIGHT. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE PRESIDENT + + +Prince's Theatre, when it was full, held three hundred and forty pounds' +worth of solid interest in the British drama. Of _The Plague-Spot_ six +evening and two morning performances were given every week for nearly a +year, and Henry's tenth averaged more than two hundred pounds a week. +His receipts from Lionel Belmont's various theatres averaged rather +more. The book had a circulation of a hundred and twenty thousand in +England, and two hundred thousand in America, and on every copy Henry +got one shilling and sixpence. The magnificent and disconcerting total +of his income from _The Plague-Spot_ within the first year, excluding +the eight thousand pounds which he had received in advance from +Macalistairs, was thirty-eight thousand pounds. I say disconcerting +because it emphatically did disconcert Henry. He could not cope with +it. He was like a child who has turned on a tap and can't turn it off +again, and finds the water covering the floor and rising, rising, over +its little shoe-tops. Not even with the help of Sir George could he +quite successfully cope with this deluge of money which threatened to +drown him each week. Sir George, accustomed to keep his nerve in such +crises, bored one hole in the floor and called it India Three per +Cents., bored a second and called it Freehold Mortgages, bored a third +and called it Great Northern Preference, and so on; but, still, Henry +was never free from danger. And the worst of it was that, long before +_The Plague-Spot_ had exhausted its geyser-like activity of throwing up +money, Henry had finished another book and another play. Fortunately, +Geraldine was ever by his side to play the wife's part. + +From this point his artistic history becomes monotonous. It is the +history of his investments alone which might perchance interest the +public. + +Of course, it was absolutely necessary to abandon the flat in Ashley +Gardens. A man burdened with an income of forty thousand a year, and +never secure against a sudden rise of it to fifty, sixty, or even +seventy thousand, cannot possibly live in a flat in Ashley Gardens. +Henry exists in a superb mansion in Cumberland Place. He also possesses +a vast country-house at Hindhead, Surrey. He employs a secretary, though +he prefers to dictate his work into a phonograph. His wife employs a +secretary, whose chief duty is, apparently, to see to the flowers. The +twins have each a nurse, and each a perambulator; but when they are good +they are permitted to crowd themselves into one perambulator, as a +special treat. In the newspapers they are invariably referred to as Mr. +Shakspere Knight's 'pretty children' or Mrs. Shakspere Knight's +'charming twins.' Geraldine, who has abandoned the pen, is undisputed +ruler of the material side of Henry's life. The dinners and the +receptions at Cumberland Place are her dinners and receptions. Henry has +no trouble; he does what he is told, and does it neatly. Only once did +he indicate to her, in his mild, calm way, that he could draw a line +when he chose. He chose to draw the line when Geraldine spoke of +engaging a butler, and perhaps footmen. + +'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry. + +'But, dearest, a great house like this----' + +'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry. + +'As you wish, dearest, of course.' + +He would not have minded the butler, perhaps, had not his mother and +Aunt Annie been in the habit of coming up to Cumberland Place for tea. + +Upon the whole the newspapers and periodicals were very kind to Henry, +and even the rudest organs were deeply interested in him. Each morning +his secretary opened an enormous packet of press-cuttings. In a good +average year he was referred to in print as a genius about a thousand +times, and as a charlatan about twenty times. He was not thin-skinned; +and he certainly was good-tempered and forgiving; and he could make +allowances for jealousy and envy. Nevertheless, now and then, some +casual mention of him, or some omission of his name from a list of +names, would sting him into momentary bitterness. + +He endeavoured to enforce his old rule against interviews. But he could +not. The power of public opinion was too strong, especially the power of +American public opinion. As for photographs, they increased. He was +photographed alone, with Geraldine, with the twins, and with Geraldine +and the twins. It had to be. For permission to reproduce the most +pleasing groups, Messrs. Antonio, the eminent firm in Regent Street, +charged weekly papers a fee of two guineas. + +'And this is fame!' he sometimes said to himself. And he decided that, +though fame was pleasant in many ways, it did not exactly coincide with +his early vision of it. He felt himself to be so singularly +unchangeable! It was always the same he! And he could only wear one suit +of clothes at a time, after all; and in the matter of eating, he ate +less, much less, than in the era of Dawes Road. He persisted in his +scheme of two meals a day, for it had fulfilled the doctor's prediction. +He was no longer dyspeptic. That fact alone contributed much to his +happiness. + +Yes, he was happy, because he had a good digestion and a kind heart. The +sole shadow on his career was a spasmodic tendency to be bored. 'I miss +the daily journey on the Underground,' he once said to his wife. 'I +always feel that I ought to be going to the office in the morning.' 'You +dear thing!' Geraldine caressed him with her voice. 'Fancy anyone with +a gift like yours going to an office!' + +Ah, that gift! That gift utterly puzzled him. 'I just sit down and +write,' he thought. 'And there it is! They go mad over it!' + +At Dawes Road they worshipped him, but they worshipped the twins more. +Occasionally the twins, in state, visited Dawes Road, where Henry's +mother was a little stouter and Aunt Annie a little thinner and a little +primmer, but where nothing else was changed. Henry would have allowed +his mother fifty pounds a week or so without an instant's hesitation, +but she would not accept a penny over three pounds; she said she did not +want to be bothered. + + +One day Henry read in the _Times_ that the French Government had made +Tom a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and that Tom had been elected +President of the newly-formed Cosmopolitan Art Society, which was to +hold exhibitions both in London and Paris. And the _Times_ seemed to +assume that in these transactions the honour was the French Government's +and the Cosmopolitan Art Society's. + +Frankly, Henry could not understand it. Tom did not even pay his +creditors. + +'Well, of course,' said Geraldine, 'everybody knows that Tom _is_ a +genius.' + +This speech slightly disturbed Henry. And the thought floated again +vaguely through his mind that there was something about Geraldine which +baffled him. 'But, then,' he argued, 'I expect all women are like that.' + +A few days later his secretary brought him a letter. + +'I say, Geraldine,' he cried, genuinely moved, on reading it. 'What do +you think? The Anti-Breakfast League want me to be the President of the +League.' + +'And shall you accept?' she asked. + +'Oh, certainly!' said Henry. 'And I shall suggest that it's called the +National Anti-Breakfast League in future.' + +'That will be much better, dearest,' Geraldine smiled. + + +BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Great Man, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GREAT MAN *** + +***** This file should be named 29860-8.txt or 29860-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/6/29860/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + +Title: A Great Man + A Frolic + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: August 30, 2009 [EBook #29860] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GREAT MAN *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>A GREAT MAN</h1> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h2>A FROLIC</h2> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ARNOLD BENNETT</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF<br />'THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL,' 'ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS,'<br />'LEONORA,' ETC.</h3> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/i001.jpg" width='141' height='146' alt="decoration" /></div> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>LONDON</h3> + +<h2>CHATTO & WINDUS</h2> + +<h3>1904</h3> + +<hr /> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + + +<h3>TO</h3> + +<h3>MY DEAR FRIEND</h3> + +<h2>FREDERICK MARRIOTT</h2> + +<h3>AND TO</h3> + +<h3>THE IMPERISHABLE MEMORY</h3> + +<h3>OF</h3> + +<h3>OLD TIMES</h3> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><span class="mono">CHAPTER</span></li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></span> HIS BIRTH</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></span> TOM</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></span> HIS CHRISTENING</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></span> AGED TWELVE</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></span> MARRONS GLACÉS</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></span> A CALAMITY FOR THE SCHOOL</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></span> CONTAGIOUS</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></span> CREATIVE</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></span> SPRING ONIONS</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></span> MARK SNYDER</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></span> SATIN</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></span> HIS FAME</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></span> A LION IN HIS LAIR</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></span> HER NAME WAS GERALDINE</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></span> HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></span> DURING THE TEA-MEETING</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></span> A NOVELIST IN A BOX</li> +<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></span> HIS JACK-HORNERISM</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></span> HE JUSTIFIES HIS FATHER</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></span> PRESS AND PUBLIC</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></span> PLAYING THE NEW GAME</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></span> HE LEARNS MORE ABOUT WOMEN</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></span> SEPARATION</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></span> COSETTE</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></span> THE RAKE'S PROGRESS</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></span> THE NEW LIFE</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></span> HE IS NOT NERVOUS</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></span> HE SHORTENS HIS NAME</li> +<li><span class="mono"> <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></span> THE PRESIDENT</li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h1>A GREAT MAN</h1> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>HIS BIRTH</h3> + +<p>On an evening in 1866 (exactly eight hundred years after the Battle of +Hastings) Mr. Henry Knight, a draper's manager, aged forty, dark, +clean-shaven, short, but not stout, sat in his sitting-room on the +second-floor over the shop which he managed in Oxford Street, London. He +was proud of that sitting-room, which represented the achievement of an +ideal, and he had a right to be proud of it. The rich green wall-paper +covered with peonies in full bloom (poisoning by arsenical wall-paper +had not yet been invented, or Mr. Knight's peonies would certainly have +had to flourish over a different hue) matched the magenta table-cloth of +the table at which Mr. Knight was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> writing, and the magenta table-cloth +matched the yellow roses which grew to more than exhibition size on the +Axminster carpet; and the fine elaborate effect thus produced was in no +way impaired, but rather enhanced and invigorated, by the mahogany +bookcase full of imperishable printed matter, the horsehair sofa netted +in a system of antimacassars, the waxen flowers in their glassy domes on +the marble mantelpiece, the Canterbury with its spiral columns, the +rosewood harmonium, and the posse of chintz-protected chairs. Mr. +Knight, who was a sincere and upright man, saw beauty in this apartment. +It uplifted his soul, like soft music in the gloaming, or a woman's face.</p> + +<p>Mr. Knight was writing in a large book. He paused in the act of +composition, and, putting the pen between his teeth, glanced through the +pages of the volume. They were filled with the drafts of letters which +he had addressed during the previous seven years to the editors of +various newspapers, including the <i>Times</i>, and several other organs +great then but now extinct. In a space underneath each letter had been +neatly gummed the printed copy, but here and there a letter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> lacked this +certificate of success, for Mr. Knight did not always contrive to reach +his public. The letters were signed with pseudonyms, such as A British +Citizen, Fiat Justitia, Audi Alteram Partem, Indignant, Disgusted, One +Who Knows, One Who Would Like to Know, Ratepayer, Taxpayer, Puzzled, and +Pro Bono Publico—especially Pro Bono Publico. Two letters, to a trade +periodical, were signed A Draper's Manager of Ten Years' Standing, and +one, to the <i>Clerkenwell News</i>, bore his own real name.</p> + +<p>The letter upon which he was now engaged was numbered seventy-five in +the series, and made its appeal to the editor of the <i>Standard</i>. Having +found inspiration, Mr. Knight proceeded, in a hand distinguished by many +fine flourishes:</p> + +<blockquote><p>' ... It is true that last year we only paid off some four +millions, but the year before we paid, I am thankful to say, more +than nine millions. Why, then, this outcry against the allocation +of somewhat less than nine millions out of our vast national +revenue towards the further extinction of the National Debt? <i>It is +not the duty of the State, as well as of the individual, to pay its +debts?</i> In order to support the argument with which I began this +communication, perhaps you will permit me, sir, to briefly outline +the history of the National Debt, our national shame. In 1688 the +National Debt was little more than six hundred thousand pounds....'</p></blockquote> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p><p>After briefly outlining the history of the National Debt, Mr. Knight +began a new paragraph thus:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>'In the immortal words of Shakspere, wh——'</div> +</div></div> + +<p>But at this point he was interrupted. A young and pleasant woman in a +white apron pushed open the door.</p> + +<p>'Henry,' she called from the doorway.</p> + +<p>'Well?'</p> + +<p>'You'd better go now.'</p> + +<p>'Very well, Annie; I'll go instantly.'</p> + +<p>He dropped the pen, reduced the gas to a speck of blue, and in half a +minute was hurrying along Oxford Street. The hour was ten o'clock, and +the month was July; the evening favoured romance. He turned into Bury +Street, and knocked like fate at a front-door with a brass tablet on it, +No. 8 of the street.</p> + +<p>'No, sir. He isn't in at the moment, sir,' said the maid who answered +Mr. Knight's imperious summons.</p> + +<p>'Not in!' exclaimed Mr. Knight.</p> + +<p>'No, sir. He was called away half an hour ago or hardly, and may be out +till very late.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p><p>'Called away!' exclaimed Mr. Knight. He was astounded, shocked, pained. +'But I warned him three months ago!'</p> + +<p>'Did you, sir? Is it anything very urgent, sir?'</p> + +<p>'It's——' Mr. Knight hesitated, blushing. The girl looked so young and +innocent.</p> + +<p>'Because if it is, master left word that anyone was to go to Dr. +Christopher's, 22, Argyll Street.'</p> + +<p>'You will be sure to tell your master that I came,' said Mr. Knight +frigidly, departing.</p> + +<p>At 22, Argyll Street he was informed that Dr. Christopher had likewise +been called away, and had left a recommendation that urgent cases, if +any, should apply to Dr. Quain Short, 15, Bury Street. His anger was +naturally increased by the absence of this second doctor, but it was far +more increased by the fact that Dr. Quain Short happened to live in Bury +Street. At that moment the enigma of the universe was wrapped up for him +in the question, Why should he have been compelled to walk all the way +from Bury Street to Argyll Street merely in order to walk all the way +back again? And he became a trinity consisting of Disgusted, Indignant, +and One Who Would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> Like to Know, the middle term predominating. When he +discovered that No. 15, Bury Street, was exactly opposite No. 8, Bury +Street, his feelings were such as break bell-wires.</p> + +<p>'Dr. Quain Short is at the Alhambra Theatre this evening with the +family,' a middle-aged and formidable housekeeper announced in reply to +Mr. Knight's query. 'In case of urgency he is to be fetched. His box is No. 3.'</p> + +<p>'The Alhambra Theatre! Where is that?' gasped Mr. Knight.</p> + +<p>It should be explained that he held the stage in abhorrence, and, +further, that the Alhambra had then only been opened for a very brief period.</p> + +<p>'Two out, and the third at the theatre!' Mr. Knight mused grimly, +hastening through Seven Dials. 'At the theatre, of all places!'</p> + +<p>A letter to the <i>Times</i> about the medical profession was just shaping +itself in his mind as he arrived at the Alhambra and saw that a piece +entitled <i>King Carrot</i> filled the bill.</p> + +<p>'<i>King Karrot!</i>' he muttered scornfully, emphasizing the dangerously +explosive consonants in a manner which expressed with complete adequacy, +not only his indignation against the entire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> medical profession, but his +utter and profound contempt for the fatuities of the modern stage.</p> + +<p>The politeness of the officials and the prompt appearance of Dr. Quain +Short did something to mollify the draper's manager of ten years' +standing, though he was not pleased when the doctor insisted on going +first to his surgery for certain requisites. It was half-past eleven +when he returned home; Dr. Quain Short was supposed to be hard behind.</p> + +<p>'How long you've been!' said a voice on the second flight of stairs, +'It's all over. A boy. And dear Susan is doing splendidly. Mrs. +Puddiphatt says she never saw such a——'</p> + +<p>From the attic floor came the sound of a child crying shrilly and lustily:</p> + +<p>'Aunt Annie! Aunt Annie! Aunt <i>Annie</i>!'</p> + +<p>'Run up and quieten him!' Mr. Knight commanded. 'It's like him to begin +making a noise just now. I'll take a look at Susan—and my firstborn.'</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>TOM</h3> + +<p>In the attic a child of seven years was sitting up in a cot placed by +the side of his dear Aunt Annie's bed. He had an extremely intelligent, +inquisitorial, and agnostical face, and a fair, curled head of hair, +which he scratched with one hand as Aunt Annie entered the room and held +the candle on high in order to survey him.</p> + +<p>'Well?' inquired Aunt Annie firmly.</p> + +<p>'Well?' said Tom Knight, determined not to commit himself, and waiting +wanly for a chance, like a duellist.</p> + +<p>'What's all this noise for? I told you I specially wanted you to go to +sleep at once to-night.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Tom, staring at the counterpane and picking imaginary bits +off it. 'And you might have known I shouldn't go to sleep after <i>that</i>!'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p><p>'And here it's nearly midnight!' Aunt Annie proceeded. 'What do you +want?'</p> + +<p>'You—you've left the comb in my hair,' said Tom. He nearly cried.</p> + +<p>Every night Aunt Annie curled Tom's hair.</p> + +<p>'Is it such a tiny boy that it couldn't take it out itself?' Aunt Annie +said kindly, going to the cot and extracting the comb. 'Now try to +sleep.' She kissed him.</p> + +<p>'And I've heard burglars,' Tom continued, without moving.</p> + +<p>'Oh no, you've not,' Aunt Annie pronounced sharply. 'You can't hear +burglars every night, you know.'</p> + +<p>'I heard running about, and doors shutting and things.'</p> + +<p>'That was Uncle Henry and me. Will you promise to be a good boy if I +tell you a secret?'</p> + +<p>'I shan't <i>promise</i>,' Tom replied. 'But if it's a good secret I'll +try—hard.'</p> + +<p>'Well, you've got a cousin, a little boy, ever so little! There! What do +you think of that?'</p> + +<p>'I knew someone had got into the house!' was Tom's dispassionate remark. +'What's his name?'</p> + +<p>'He hasn't any name yet, but he will have soon.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p><p>'Did he come up the stairs?' Tom asked.</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie laughed. 'No,' she said.</p> + +<p>'Then, he must have come through the window or down the chimney; and he +wouldn't come down the chimney 'cause of the soot. So he came through +the window. Whose little boy is he? Yours?'</p> + +<p>'No. Aunt Susan's.'</p> + +<p>'I suppose she knows he's come?'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes. She knows. And she's very glad. Now go to sleep. And I'll tell +Aunt Susan you'll be a good boy.'</p> + +<p>'You'd better not,' Tom warned her. 'I don't feel sure. And I say, +auntie, will there come any more little boys to-night?'</p> + +<p>'I don't think so, dear.' Aunt Annie smiled. She was half way through +the door, and spoke into the passage.</p> + +<p>'But are you sure?' Tom persisted.</p> + +<p>'Yes, I'm sure. Go to sleep.'</p> + +<p>'Doesn't Aunt Susan want another one?'</p> + +<p>'No, she doesn't. Go to sleep, I say.'</p> + +<p>''Cause, when I came, another little boy came just afterwards, and he +died, that little boy did. And mamma, too. Father told me.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p><p>'Yes, yes,' said Aunt Annie, closing the door. 'Bee-by.'</p> + +<p>'I didn't promise,' Tom murmured to his conscience. 'But it's a good +secret,' he added brazenly. He climbed over the edge of the cot, and let +himself down gently till his feet touched the floor. He found his +clothes, which Aunt Annie invariably placed on a chair in a certain +changeless order, and he put some of them on, somehow. Then he softly +opened the door and crept down the stairs to the second-floor. He was an +adventurous and incalculable child, and he desired to see the baby.</p> + +<p>Persons who called on Mr. Henry Knight in his private capacity rang at +the side-door to the right of the shop, and were instructed by the +shop-caretaker to mount two flights of stairs, having mounted which they +would perceive in front of them a door, where they were to ring again. +This door was usually closed, but to-night Tom found it ajar. He peeped +out and downwards, and thought of the vast showroom below and the +wonderful regions of the street. Then he drew in his head, and concealed +himself behind the plush portière. From his hiding-place he could watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +the door of Uncle Henry's and Aunt Susan's bedroom, and he could also, +whenever he felt inclined, glance down the stairway.</p> + +<p>He waited, with the patience and the fatalism of infancy, for something to happen.</p> + +<p>After an interval of time not mathematically to be computed, Tom heard a +step on the stairs, and looked forth. A tall gentleman wearing a high +hat and carrying a black bag was ascending. In a flash Tom recollected a +talk with his dead father, in which that glorious and gay parent had +explained to him that he, Tom, had been brought to his mother's room by +the doctor in a black bag.</p> + +<p>Tom pulled open the door at the head of the stairs, went outside, and +drew the door to behind him.</p> + +<p>'Are you the doctor?' he demanded, staring intently at the bag to see +whether anything wriggled within.</p> + +<p>'Yes, my man,' said the doctor. It was Quain Short, wrenched from the Alhambra.</p> + +<p>'Well, they don't want another one. They've got one,' Tom asserted, +still observing the bag.</p> + +<p>'You're sure?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p><p>'Yes. Aunt Annie said particularly that they didn't want another one.'</p> + +<p>'Who is it that has come? Do you know his name? Christopher—is that it?'</p> + +<p>'I don't know his name. But he's come, and he's in the bedroom now, with +Aunt Susan.'</p> + +<p>'How annoying!' said Dr. Quain Short under his breath, and he went.</p> + +<p>Tom re-entered, and took up his old position behind the portière.</p> + +<p>Presently he heard another step on the stair, and issued out again to +reconnoitre. And, lo! another tall gentleman wearing another high hat +and carrying another black bag was ascending.</p> + +<p>'This makes three,' Tom said.</p> + +<p>'What's that, my little man?' asked the gentleman, smiling. It was Dr. Christopher.</p> + +<p>'This makes three. And they only want one. The first one came ever such +a long time ago. And I can tell you Aunt Susan was very glad when he did come.'</p> + +<p>'Dear, dear!' exclaimed Dr. Christopher. 'Then I'm too late, my little +man. I was afraid I might be. Everything all right, eh?'</p> + +<p>Tom nodded, and Dr. Christopher departed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p><p>And then, after a further pause, up came another tall gentleman, high +hat, and black bag.</p> + +<p>'This is four,' said Tom.</p> + +<p>'What's that, Tommy?' asked Mr. Henry Knight's regular physician and +surgeon. 'What are you doing there?'</p> + +<p>'One came hours since,' Tom said. 'And they don't want any more.' Then +he gazed at the bag, which was larger and glossier than its +predecessors. 'Have you brought a <i>very</i> nice one?' he inquired. 'They +don't really want another, but perhaps if it's <i>very</i>——'</p> + +<p>It was this momentary uncertainty on Tom's part that possibly saved my +hero's life. For the parents were quite inexperienced, and Mrs. +Puddiphatt was an accoucheuse of the sixties, and the newborn child was +near to dying in the bedroom without anybody being aware of the fact.</p> + +<p>'A very nice what?' the doctor questioned gruffly.</p> + +<p>'Baby. In that bag,' Tom stammered.</p> + +<p>'Out of the way, my bold buccaneer,' said the doctor, striding across +the mat into the corridor.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock the next morning, Tom being asleep, and all going well +with wife and child,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> Mr. Henry Knight returned at length to his +sitting-room, and resumed the composition of the letter to the editor of +the <i>Standard</i>. The work existed as an artistic whole in his head, and +he could not persuade himself to seek rest until he had got it down in +black-and-white; for, though he wrote letters instead of sonnets, he was +nevertheless a sort of a poet by temperament. You behold him calm now, +master once more of his emotions, and not that agitated, pompous, and +slightly ridiculous person who lately stamped over Oxford Street and +stormed the Alhambra Theatre. And in order to help the excellent father +of my hero back into your esteem, let me point out that the imminence +and the actuality of fatherhood constitute a somewhat disturbing +experience, which does not occur to a man every day.</p> + +<p>Mr. Knight dipped pen in ink, and continued:</p> + +<blockquote><p>' ... who I hold to be not only the greatest poet, but also the +greatest moral teacher that England has ever produced,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>'"To thine own self be true,</div> +<div>And it must follow, as the night the day,</div> +<div>Thou canst not then be false to any man."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>'In conclusion, sir, I ask, without fear of contradiction,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> are we +or are we not, in this matter of the National Debt, to be true to +our national selves?</p> + +<p class="center">'Yours obediently,</p> + +<p class="right">'A <span class="smcap">Conscientious Taxpayer</span>.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>The signature troubled him. His pen hovered threateningly over it, and +finally he struck it out and wrote instead: 'Paterfamilias.' He felt +that this pseudonym was perhaps a little inapposite, but some impulse +stronger than himself forced him to employ it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>HIS CHRISTENING</h3> + +<p>'But haven't I told you that I was just writing the very name when Annie +came in to warn me?'</p> + +<p>Mr. Knight addressed the question, kindly and mildly, yet with a hint of +annoyance, to his young wife, who was nursing their son with all the +experience of three months' practice. It was Sunday morning, and they +had finished breakfast in the sitting-room. Within an hour or two the +heir was to be taken to the Great Queen Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel +for the solemn rite of baptism.</p> + +<p>'Yes, lovey,' said Mrs. Knight. 'You've told me, time and again. But, oh +Henry! Your name's just Henry Knight, and I want his to be just Henry +Knight, too! I want him to be called after you.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p><p>And the mother, buxom, simple, and adoring, glanced appealingly with +bright eyes at the man who for her epitomized the majesty and +perfections of his sex.</p> + +<p>'He will be Henry Knight,' the father persisted, rather coldly.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Knight shook her head.</p> + +<p>Then Aunt Annie came into the room, pushing Tom before her. Tom was +magnificently uncomfortable in his best clothes.</p> + +<p>'What's the matter, Sue?' Aunt Annie demanded, as soon as she had +noticed her sister's face.</p> + +<p>And in a moment, in the fraction of a second, and solely by reason of +Aunt Annie's question, the situation became serious. It jumped up, as +domestic situations sometimes do, suddenly to the temperature at which +thunderstorms are probable. It grew close, heavy, and perilous.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight shook her head again. 'Nothing,' she managed to reply.</p> + +<p>'Susan wants——' Mr. Knight began suavely to explain.</p> + +<p>'He keeps on saying he would like him to be called——' Mrs. Knight +burst out.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p><p>'No I don't—no I don't!' Mr. Knight interrupted. 'Not if you don't +wish it!'</p> + +<p>A silence followed. Mr. Knight drummed lightly and nervously on the +table-cloth. Mrs. Knight sniffed, threw back her head so that the tears +should not fall out of her eyes, and gently patted the baby's back with +her right hand. Aunt Annie hesitated whether to speak or not to speak.</p> + +<p>Tom remarked in a loud voice:</p> + +<p>'If I were you, I should call him Tom, like me. Then, as soon as he can +talk, I could say, "How do, Cousin Tom?" and he could say back, "How do, Cousin Tom?"'</p> + +<p>'But we should always be getting mixed up between you, you silly boy!' +said Aunt Annie, smiling, and trying to be bright and sunny.</p> + +<p>'No, you wouldn't,' Tom replied. 'Because I should be Big Tom, and of +course he'd only be Little Tom. And I don't think I'm a silly boy, either.'</p> + +<p>'Will you be silent, sir!' Mr. Knight ordered in a voice of wrath. And, +by way of indicating that the cord of tension had at last snapped, he +boxed Tom's left ear, which happened to be the nearest.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Knight lost control of her tears, and they escaped. She offered +the baby to Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'Take him. He's asleep. Put him in the cradle,' she sobbed.</p> + +<p>'Yes, dear,' said Aunt Annie intimately, in a tone to show how well she +knew that poor women must always cling together in seasons of stress and +times of oppression.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight hurried out of the room. Mr. Knight cherished an injury. He +felt aggrieved because Susan could not see that, though six months ago +she had been entitled to her whims and fancies, she was so no longer. He +felt, in fact, that Susan was taking an unfair advantage of him. The +logic of the thing was spread out plainly and irrefutably in his mind. +And then, quite swiftly, the logic of the thing vanished, and Mr. Knight +rose and hastened after his wife.</p> + +<p>'You deserved it, you know,' said Aunt Annie to Tom.</p> + +<p>'Did I?' The child seemed to speculate.</p> + +<p>They both stared at the baby, who lay peacefully in his cradle, for +several minutes.</p> + +<p>'Annie, come here a moment.' Mr. Knight was calling from another room.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p><p>'Yes, Henry. Now, Tom, don't touch the cradle. And if baby begins to +cry, run and tell me.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, auntie.'</p> + +<p>And Aunt Annie went. She neglected to close the door behind her; Tom +closed it, noiselessly.</p> + +<p>Never before had he been left alone with the baby. He examined with +minute care such parts of the living organism as were visible, and then, +after courageously fighting temptation, and suffering defeat, he touched +the baby's broad, flat nose. He scarcely touched it, yet the baby +stirred and mewed faintly. Tom began to rock the cradle, at first +gently, then with nervous violence. The faint mew became a regular and sustained cry.</p> + +<p>He glanced at the door, and decided that he would make a further effort +to lull the ridiculous agitation of this strange and mysterious being. +Bending down, he seized the baby in both hands, and tried to nurse it as +his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it +exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process +of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and +now lay on its beam-ends.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>'Hsh—hsh!' Tom entreated, shooing and balancing as best he could.</p> + +<p>Then, without warning, Tom's spirit leapt into anger.</p> + +<p>'Will you be silent, sir!' he demanded fiercely from the baby, imitating +Uncle Henry's tone. 'Will you be silent, sir!' He shook the infant, who +was astounded into a momentary silence.</p> + +<p>The next thing was the sound of footsteps approaching rapidly along the +passage. Tom had no leisure to right the cradle; he merely dropped the +baby on the floor by the side of it, and sprang to the window.</p> + +<p>'You naughty, naughty boy!' Aunt Annie shrieked. 'You've taken baby out +of his cradle! Oh, my pet! my poor darling! my mumsy! Did they, then?'</p> + +<p>'I didn't! I didn't!' Tom asserted passionately. 'I've never stirred +from here all the time you were out. It fell out itself!'</p> + +<p>'Oh!' screamed Aunt Annie. 'There's a black place on his poor little forehead!'</p> + +<p>In an instant the baby's parents were to the rescue, and Tom was +declaring his innocence to the united family.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>'It fell out itself!' he repeated; and soon he began to think of +interesting details. 'I saw it. It put its hand on the edge of the +cradle and pulled up, and then it leaned to one side, and then the +cradle toppled over.'</p> + +<p>Of course the preposterous lie was credited by nobody.</p> + +<p>'There's one thing!' said Mrs. Knight, weeping for the second time that +morning. 'I won't have him christened with a black forehead, that I won't!'</p> + +<p>At this point, Aunt Annie, who had scurried to the kitchen for some +butter, flew back and anointed the bruise.</p> + +<p>'It fell out itself!' Tom said again.</p> + +<p>'Whatever would the minister think?' Mrs. Knight wondered.</p> + +<p>'It fell out itself!' said Tom.</p> + +<p>Mr. Knight whipped Tom, and his Aunt Annie put him to bed for the rest +of the day. In the settled opinion of Mrs. Knight, Tom was punished for +attempting to murder her baby. But Mr. Knight insisted that the +punishment was for lying. As for the baptism, it had necessarily to be +postponed for four weeks, since the ceremony was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>performed at the Great +Queen Street Chapel only on the first Sunday in the month.</p> + +<p>'I never touched it!' Tom asseverated solemnly the next day. 'It fell out itself!'</p> + +<p>And he clung to the statement, day after day, with such obstinacy that +at length the three adults, despite the protests of reason, began to +think that conceivably, just conceivably, the impossible was +possible—in regard to one particular baby. Mrs. Knight had often +commented on the perfectly marvellous muscular power of her baby's hand +when it clutched hers, and signs were not wanting to convince the +parents and the aunt that the infant was no ordinary infant, but indeed +extraordinary and wonderful to the last degree.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day, when Tom had asserted for about the hundredth time, +'It fell out itself,' his Aunt Susan kissed him and gave him a +sweetmeat. Tom threw it away, but in the end, after much coaxing, he +consented to enjoy it. Aunt Susan detected the finger of Providence in +recent events, and one night she whispered to her husband: 'Lovey, I +want you to call him what you said.'</p> + +<p>And so it occurred, at the christening, that when the minister leaned +over the Communion-rail to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> take the wonder-child from its mother's +arms, its father whispered into the minister's ear a double name.</p> + +<p>'Henry Shakspere——' began the minister with lifted hand.</p> + +<p>And the baby smiled confidently upwards.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>AGED TWELVE</h3> + +<p>'Quick! He's coming!'</p> + +<p>It was Aunt Annie who uttered the dramatic whisper, and as she did so +she popped a penknife on to an empty plate in front of an empty chair at +the breakfast-table. Mr. Knight placed a silver watch and also, +separately, a silver chain by the side of the weapon; and, lastly, Mrs. +Knight had the happy inspiration of covering these articles with the +empty slop-basin.</p> + +<p>The plotters sat back in their chairs and tried to keep their guilty +eyes off the overturned basin. 'Two slices, Annie?' said Mr. Knight in a +loud tone, elaborately casual. 'Yes, please,' said Aunt Annie. Mrs. +Knight began to pour out coffee. They all three looked at each other, +joyous, naughty, strategic; and the thing of which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> were least +conscious, in that moment of expectancy, was precisely the thing that +the lustrous trifles hidden beneath the basin were meant to signalize: +namely, the passage of years and the approach of age. Mr. Knight's hair +was grey; Mrs. Knight, once a slim bride of twenty-seven, was now a +stout matron of thirty-nine, with a tendency to pant after the most +modest feats of stair-climbing; and Aunt Annie, only the other day a +pretty girl with a head full of what is wrongly called nonsense, was a +spinster—a spinster. Fortunately, they were blind to these obvious +facts. Even Mr. Knight, accustomed as he was to survey fundamental +truths with the detachment of a philosopher, would have been shocked to +learn that his hair was grey. Before the glass, of a morning, he +sometimes remarked, in the tone of a man whose passion for candour +permits him to conceal nothing: 'It's <i>getting</i> grey.'</p> + +<p>Then young Henry burst into the room.</p> + +<p>It was exactly twelve years since he had been born, a tiny, shapeless, +senseless, helpless, toothless, speechless, useless, feeble, deaf, +myopic creature; and now he was a school-boy, strong, healthy, big, and +clever, who could define a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>dodecahedron and rattle off the rivers of +Europe like a house on fire. The change amounted to a miracle, and it +was esteemed as such by those who had spent twelve years chiefly in +watching it. One evening, in the very earliest stages, while his mother +was nursing him, his father had come into the darkened chamber, and, +after bending over the infant, had struck a match to ignite a cigar; and +the eyes of the infant had blinked in the sudden light. '<i>See how he +takes notice!</i> the mother had cried in ecstatic wonderment. And from +that moment she, and the other two, had never ceased to marvel, and to +fear. It seemed impossible that this extraordinary fragment of humanity, +which at first could not be safely ignored for a single instant night or +day, should survive the multitudinous perils that surrounded it. But it +did survive, and it became an intelligence. At eighteen months the +intelligence could walk, sit up, and say 'Mum.' These performances were +astounding. And the fact that fifty thousand other babies of eighteen +months in London were similarly walking, sitting up, and saying 'Mum,' +did not render these performances any the less astounding. And when, +half a year later, the child could point to a letter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> and identify it +plainly and unmistakably—'O'—the parents' cup was full. The mother +admitted frankly that she had not expected this final proof of +understanding. Aunt Annie and father pretended not to be surprised, but +it was a pretence merely. Why, it seemed scarcely a month since the +miraculous child had not even sense enough to take milk out of a spoon! +And here he was identifying 'O' every time he tried, with the absolute +assurance of a philologist! True, he had once or twice shrieked 'O' +while putting a finger on 'Q,' but that was the fault of the printers, +who had printed the tail too small.</p> + +<p>After that the miracles had followed one another so rapidly, each more +amazing than the last, that the watchers had unaffectedly abandoned +themselves to an attitude of permanent delighted astonishment. They +lived in a world of magic. And their entire existence was based on the +tacit assumption—tacit because the truth of it was so manifest—that +their boy was the most prodigious boy that ever was. He went into +knickerbockers. He learnt hymns. He went to school—and came back alive +at the end of the first day and said he had enjoyed it! Certainly, other +boys went to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> school. Yes, but there was something special, something +indefinable, something incredible, about Henry's going to school that +separated his case from all the other cases, and made it precious in its +wonder. And he began to study arithmetic, geometry, geography, history, +chemistry, drawing, Latin, French, mensuration, composition, physics, +Scripture, and fencing. His singular brain could grapple simultaneously +with these multifarious subjects. And all the time he was growing, +growing, growing. More than anything else it was his growth that +stupefied and confounded and enchanted his mother. His limbs were +enormous to her, and the breadth of his shoulders and the altitude of +his head. It puzzled her to imagine where the flesh came from. Already +he was as tail as she, and up to Aunt Annie's lips, and up to his +father's shoulder. She simply adored his colossal bigness. But somehow +the fact that a giant was attending the Bloomsbury Middle School never leaked out.</p> + +<p>'What's this?' Henry demanded, mystified, as he sat down to breakfast. +There was a silence.</p> + +<p>'What's what?' said his father gruffly. 'Get your breakfast.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p><p>'Oh my!' Henry had lifted the basin.</p> + +<p>'Had you forgotten it was your birthday?' Mrs. Knight asked, beaming.</p> + +<p>'Well, I'm blest!' He had in truth forgotten that it was his birthday.</p> + +<p>'You've been so wrapped up in this Speech Day business, haven't you?' +said Aunt Annie, as if wishful to excuse him to himself for the +extraordinary lapse.</p> + +<p>They all luxuriated in his surprise, his exclamations, his blushes of +delight, as he fingered the presents. For several days, as Henry had +made no reference to his approaching anniversary, they had guessed that +he had overlooked it in the exciting preparations for Speech Day, and +they had been anticipating this moment with the dreadful joy of +conspirators. And now they were content. No hitch, no anticlimax had occurred.</p> + +<p>'I know,' said Henry. 'The watch is from father, and you've given me the +chain, mother, and the knife is from Aunt Annie. Is there a thing in it +for pulling stones out of horses' hoofs, auntie?' (Happily, there was.)</p> + +<p>'You must make a good breakfast, dear; you've got a big day before you,' +enjoined his mother,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> when he had thanked them politely, and assumed the +watch and chain, and opened all the blades and other pleasant devices of the penknife.</p> + +<p>'Yes, mother,' he answered obediently.</p> + +<p>He always obeyed injunctions to eat well. But it would be unfair to +Henry not to add that he was really a most obedient boy—in short, a +good boy, a nice boy. The strangest thing of all in Henry's case was +that, despite their united and unceasing efforts, his three relatives +had quite failed to spoil him. He was too self-possessed for his years, +too prone to add the fanciful charm of his ideas to no matter what +conversation might be proceeding in his presence; but spoiled he was not.</p> + +<p>The Speech Day which had just dawned marked a memorable point in his +career. According to his mother's private notion, it would be a +demonstration, and a triumphant demonstration, that, though the mills of +God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small. For until that term, of +which the Speech Day was the glittering conclusion, the surpassing +merits and talents of her son had escaped recognition at the Bloomsbury +Middle School. He had never reached the top of a form;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> he had never +received a prize; he had never earned pedagogic praise more generous +than 'Conduct fair—progress fair.' But now, out of the whole school, he +had won the prize for Good Conduct. And, as if this was not sufficiently +dazzling, he had also taken to himself, for an essay on 'Streets,' the +prize for English Composition. And, thirdly, he had been chosen to +recite a Shaksperean piece at the ceremony of prize-giving. It was the +success in Composition which tickled his father's pride, for was not +this a proof of heredity? Aunt Annie flattered herself on the Good +Conduct prize. Mrs. Knight exulted in everything, but principally in the +prospective sight of her son at large on the platform delivering +Shakspere to a hushed, attentive audience of other boys' parents. It was +to be the apotheosis of Henry, was that night!</p> + +<p>'Will you hear me, father?' Henry requested meekly, when he had finished +the first preparations for his big day, and looked at the time, and cut +a piece of skin from the palm of his hand, to the horror of his mother +and aunt. 'Will you hear me, father?'</p> + +<p>(No! I assure you he was not a detestable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> little prig. He had been +brought up like that.)</p> + +<p>And Mr. Knight took Staunton's Shakspere from the bookcase and opened it +at <i>Othello</i>, Act I., scene iii., and Henry arose and began to explain +to the signiors of Venice in what manner Desdemona had fallen in love +with him and he with Desdemona; how he told Desdemona that even from his +boyish days he had experienced moving accidents by flood and field, and +had been sold into slavery, and all about the cannibals and the—but he +came to utter grief at the word Anthropophagi.'</p> + +<p>'An-thro-poph-a-gi,' said his father.</p> + +<p>'It's a very difficult word, I'm sure,' said his mother.</p> + +<p>Difficult or not, Henry mastered it, and went on to the distressful +strokes his youth had suffered, and then to Desdemona's coy hint:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i3">'Upon this hint I spoke—spake, I mean;</div> +<div>She loved me for the dangers I had passed,</div> +<div>And I loved her that she did pity them.</div> +<div>This only is the witchcraft I have used.</div> +<div>Here comes the lady; let her witness it.'</div> +</div></div> + +<p>'Have a bit of toast, my pet,' Mrs. Knight suggested.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p><p>The door opened at the same moment.</p> + +<p>'Enter Desdemona,' said a voice. 'Now do go light on the buttered toast, +Othello. You know you'll be ill.'</p> + +<p>It was Cousin Tom. He was always very late for breakfast.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>MARRONS GLACÉS</h3> + +<p>And Tom was always being inconvenient, always producing intellectual +discomfort. On this occasion there can be no doubt that if Tom had not +come in just then Henry would have accepted and eaten the buttered +toast, and would have enjoyed it; and his father, mother, and aunt would +have enjoyed the spectacle of his bliss; and all four of them would have +successfully pretended to their gullible consciences that an +indiscretion had not been committed. Here it must be said that the +Achilles' heel of Henry Shakspere Knight lay in his stomach. Despite his +rosy cheeks and pervading robustness, despite the fact that his infancy +had been almost immune from the common ailments—even measles—he +certainly suffered from a form of chronic dyspepsia. Authorities +differed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> upon the cause of the ailment. Some, such as Tom, diagnosed +the case in a single word. Mr. Knight, less abrupt, ascribed the evil to +Mrs. Knight's natural but too solicitous endeavours towards keeping up +the strength of her crescent son. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie regarded it +as a misfortune simply, inexplicable, unjust, and cruel. But even Mrs. +Knight and Aunt Annie had perceived that there was at least an apparent +connection between hot buttered toast and the recurrence of the malady. +Hence, though the two women would not admit that this connection was +more than a series of unfortunate coincidences, Henry had been advised +to deprive himself of hot buttered toast. And here came Tom, with his +characteristic inconvenience, to catch them in the very midst of their +folly, and to make even Mr. Knight, that mask of stern rectitude, a +guilty accessory before the fact.</p> + +<p>'It's only this once!' Mrs. Knight protested.</p> + +<p>'You're quite right,'said Tom. 'It's only this once.'</p> + +<p>Henry took the piece of toast, and then, summoning for one supreme +effort all the spiritual courage which he had doubtless inherited from +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> long line of Puritan ancestors, he nobly relinquished it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Knight's eyes indicated to Tom that a young man who was constantly +half an hour late for breakfast had no moral right to preach abstinence +to a growing boy, especially on his birthday. But the worst thing about +Tom was that he was never under any circumstances abashed.</p> + +<p>'As nothing is worse than hot toast cold,' Tom imperturbably remarked, +'I'll eat it at once.' And he ate the piece of toast.</p> + +<p>No one could possibly blame Tom. Nevertheless, every soul round the +table did the impossible and blamed him. The atmosphere lost some of its +festive quality.</p> + +<p>Tom Knight was nineteen, thin, pale, and decidedly tall; and his fair +hair still curled slightly on the top of his head. In twelve years his +development, too, had amounted to a miracle, or would have amounted to a +miracle had there been anyone present sufficiently interested to observe +and believe in it. Miracles, however, do not begin to exist until at +least one person believes, and the available credence in the household +had been monopolized by Tom's young cousin. The great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> difference +between Tom and Henry was that Tom had faults, whereas Henry had +none—yet Tom was the elder by seven years and ought to have known +better! Mr. Knight had always seen Tom's faults, but it was only since +the advent of Henry that Mrs. Knight, and particularly Aunt Annie, had +begun to see them. Before Henry arrived, Tom had been Aunt Annie's +darling. The excellent spinster took pains never to show that Henry had +supplanted him; nevertheless, she showed it all the time. Tom's faults +flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, +untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; +he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be +overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not +'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave +him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a +shocking liar, he was lavish of truth whenever truth happened to be +disconcerting and inopportune. He it was who told the forewoman of his +uncle's millinery department, in front of a customer, that she had a +moustache. His uncle threshed him. 'She <i>has</i> a moustache,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> anyhow!' +said this Galileo when his uncle had finished. Mr. Knight wished Tom to +go into the drapery, but Tom would not. Tom wanted to be an artist; he +was always drawing. Mr. Knight had only heard of artists; he had never +seen one. He thought Tom's desire for art was mere wayward naughtiness. +However, after Tom had threatened to burn the house down if he was not +allowed to go to an art-school, and had carried out his threat so far as +to set fire to a bale of cotton-goods in the cellar, Mr. Knight yielded +to the whim for the sake of peace and a low temperature. He expansively +predicted ultimate disaster for Tom. But at the age of eighteen and a +half, Tom, with his habit of inconvenience, simply fell into a post as +designer to a firm of wholesale stationers. His task was to design +covers for coloured boxes of fancy notepaper, and his pay was two +guineas a week. The richness of the salary brought Mr. Knight to his +senses; it staggered, sobered, and silenced him. Two guineas a week at +eighteen and a half! It was beyond the verge of the horizons of the +drapery trade. Mr. Knight had a shop-walker, aged probably thirty-eight +and a half, who was receiving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> precisely two guineas a week, and working +thirty hours a week longer than Tom.</p> + +<p>On the strength of this amazing two guineas, Tom, had he chosen, might +easily have regained the long-lost esteem of his relatives. But he did +not choose. He became more than ever a mystery to them, and a troubling +mystery, not a mystery that one could look squarely in the face and then +pass by. His ideals, if they could be called ideals, were always in +collision with those of the rest of the house. Neither his aunts nor his +uncle could ever be quite sure that he was not enjoying some joke which +they were not enjoying. Once he had painted Aunt Annie's portrait. +'Never let me see that thing again!' she exclaimed when she beheld it +complete. She deemed it an insult, and she was not alone in her opinion. +'Do you call this art?' said Mr. Knight. 'If this is art, then all I can +say is I'm glad I wasn't brought up to understand art, as you call it.' +Nevertheless, somehow the painting was exhibited at South Kensington in +the national competition of students works, and won a medal. 'Portrait +of my Aunt,' Tom had described it in the catalogue, and Aunt Annie was +furious a second time. 'However,' she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> said, 'no one'll recognise me, +that's one comfort!' Still, the medal weighed heavily; it was a gold +medal. Difficult to ignore its presence in the house!</p> + +<p>Tom's crowning sin was that he was such a bad example to Henry. Henry +worshipped him, and the more Tom was contemned the more Henry worshipped.</p> + +<p>'You'll surely be very late, Tom,' Mrs. Knight ventured to remark at half-past nine.</p> + +<p>Mr. Knight had descended into the shop, and Aunt Annie also.</p> + +<p>'Oh no,' said Tom—'not more than is necessary.' And then he glanced at +Henry. 'Look here, my bold buccaneer, you've got nothing to do just now, +have you? You can stroll along with me a bit, and we'll see if we can +buy you a twopenny toy for a birthday present.'</p> + +<p>Tom always called Henry his 'bold buccaneer.' He had picked up the term +of endearment from the doctor with the black bag twelve years ago. Henry +had his cap on in two seconds, and Mrs. Knight beamed at this unusual +proof of kindly thought on Tom's part.</p> + +<p>In the street Tom turned westwards instead of to the City, where his +daily work lay.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p><p>'Aren't you going to work to-day?' Henry asked in surprise.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Tom. 'I told my benevolent employers last night that it was +your birthday to-day, and I asked whether I could have a holiday. What +do you think they answered?'</p> + +<p>'You didn't ask them,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'They answered that I could have forty holidays. And they requested me +to wish you, on behalf of the firm, many happy returns of the day.'</p> + +<p>'Don't rot,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful morning, sunny, calm, inspiriting, and presently Tom +began to hum. After a time Henry perceived that Tom was humming the same +phrase again and again: 'Some streets are longer than others. Some +streets are longer than others.'</p> + +<p>'<i>Don't rot</i>, Tom,' Henry pleaded.</p> + +<p>The truth was that Tom was intoning a sentence from Henry's prize essay +on streets. Tom had read the essay and pronounced it excellent, and till +this very moment on the pavement of Oxford Street Henry had imagined +Tom's verdict to be serious. He now knew that it was not serious.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p><p>Tom continued to chant, with pauses: 'Some streets are longer than +others.... Very few streets are straight.... But we read in the Bible of +the street which is called Straight.... Oxford Street is nearly +straight.... A street is what you go along.... It has a road and two footpaths.'</p> + +<p>Henry would have given his penknife not to have written that essay. The +worst of Tom was that he could make anything look silly without saying +that it was silly—a trick that Henry envied.</p> + +<p>Tom sang further: 'In the times before the French Revolution the streets +of Paris had no pavements ... <i>e.g.</i>, they were all road.... It was no +infrequent occurrence for people to be maimed for life, or even +seriously injured, against walls by passing carriages of haughty nobles.'</p> + +<p>'I didn't put "haughty,"' Henry cried passionately.</p> + +<p>'Didn't you?' Tom said with innocence. 'But you put "or even seriously injured."'</p> + +<p>'Well?' said Henry dubiously.</p> + +<p>'And you put "It was no infrequent occurrence." Where did you steal that +from, my bold buccaneer?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p><p>'I didn't steal it,' Henry asserted. 'I made it up.'</p> + +<p>'Then you will be a great writer,' Tom said. 'If I were you, I should +send a telegram to Tennyson, and tell him to look out for himself. +Here's a telegraph-office. Come on.'</p> + +<p>And Tom actually did enter a doorway. But it proved to be the entrance +to a large and magnificent confectioner's shop. Henry followed him timidly.</p> + +<p>'A pound of marrons glacés,' Tom demanded.</p> + +<p>'What are they?' Henry whispered up at Tom's ear.</p> + +<p>'Taste,' said Tom, boldly taking a sample from the scales while the +pound was being weighed out.</p> + +<p>'It's like chestnuts,' Harry mumbled through the delicious brown frosted +morsel. 'But nicer.'</p> + +<p>'They are rather like chestnuts, aren't they?' said Tom.</p> + +<p>The marrons glacés were arranged neatly in a beautiful box; the box was +wrapped in paper of one colour, and then further wrapped in paper of +another colour, and finally bound in pink ribbon.</p> + +<p>'Golly!' murmured Henry in amaze, for Tom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> had put down a large silver +coin in payment, and received no change.</p> + +<p>They came out, Henry carrying the parcel.</p> + +<p>'But will they do me any harm?' the boy asked apprehensively.</p> + +<p>The two cousins had reached Hyde Park, and were lying on the grass, and +Tom had invited Henry to begin the enterprise of eating his birthday present.</p> + +<p>'Harm! I should think not. They are the best things out for the +constitution. Not like sweets at all. Doctors often give them to +patients when they are getting better. And they're very good for +sea-sickness too.'</p> + +<p>So Henry opened the box and feasted. One half of the contents had +disappeared within twenty minutes, and Tom had certainly not eaten more +than two marrons.</p> + +<p>'They're none so dusty!' said Henry, perhaps enigmatically. 'I could go +on eating these all day.'</p> + +<p>A pretty girl of eighteen or so wandered past them.</p> + +<p>'Nice little bit of stuff, that!' Tom remarked reflectively.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p><p>'What say?'</p> + +<p>'That little thing there!' Tom explained, pointing with his elbow to the girl.</p> + +<p>'Oh!' Henry grunted. 'I thought you said a nice little bit of stuff.'</p> + +<p>And he bent to his chestnuts again. By slow and still slower degrees +they were reduced to one.</p> + +<p>'Have this,' he invited Tom.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Tom. 'Don't want it. You finish up.'</p> + +<p>'I think I can't eat any more,' Henry sighed.</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, you can,' Tom encouraged him. 'You've shifted about fifty. +Surely you can manage fifty-one.'</p> + +<p>Henry put the survivor to his lips, but withdrew it.</p> + +<p>'No,' he said. 'I tell you what I'll do: I'll put it in the box and save it.'</p> + +<p>'But you can't cart that box about for the sake of one chestnut, my bold buccaneer.'</p> + +<p>'Well, I'll put it in my pocket.'</p> + +<p>And he laid it gently by the side of the watch in his waistcoat pocket.</p> + +<p>'You can find your way home, can't you?' said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Tom. 'It's just occurred +to me that I've got some business to attend to.'</p> + +<p>A hundred yards off the pretty girl was reading on a seat. His business +led him in that direction.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>A CALAMITY FOR THE SCHOOL</h3> + +<p>It was a most fortunate thing that there was cold mutton for dinner. The +economic principle governing the arrangement of the menu was that the +simplicity of the mutton atoned for the extravagance of the birthday +pudding, while the extravagance of the birthday pudding excused the +simplicity of the mutton. Had the first course been anything richer than +cold mutton, Henry could not have pretended even to begin the repast. As +it was, he ate a little of the lean, leaving a wasteful margin of lean +round the fat, which he was not supposed to eat; he also nibbled at the +potatoes, and compressed the large remnant of them into the smallest +possible space on the plate; then he unobtrusively laid down his knife and fork.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p><p>'Come, Henry,' said Aunt Annie, 'don't leave a saucy plate.'</p> + +<p>Henry had already pondered upon a plausible explanation of his condition.</p> + +<p>'I'm too excited to eat,' he promptly answered.</p> + +<p>'You aren't feeling ill, are you?' his mother asked sharply.</p> + +<p>'No,' he said. 'But can I have my birthday pudding for supper, after +it's all over, instead of now?'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie looked at one another. 'That might be safer,' +said Aunt Annie, and she added: 'You can have some cold rice pudding now, Henry.'</p> + +<p>'No, thank you, auntie; I don't want any.'</p> + +<p>'The boy's ill,' Mrs. Knight exclaimed. 'Annie, where's the Mother Seigel?'</p> + +<p>'The boy's no such thing,' said Mr. Knight, pouring calmness and +presence of mind over the table like oil. 'Give him some Seigel by all +means, if you think fit; but don't go and alarm yourself about nothing. +The boy's as well as I am.'</p> + +<p>'I think I <i>should</i> like some Seigel,' said the boy.</p> + +<p>Tom was never present at the mid-day meal; only Mrs. Knight knew that +Henry had been out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> with him; and Mrs. Knight was far too simple a soul +to suspect the horrid connection between the morning ramble and this +passing malaise of Henry's. As for Henry, he volunteered nothing.</p> + +<p>'It will pass off soon,' said Aunt Annie two hours later. The time was +then half-past three; the great annual ceremony of Speech Day began at +half-past seven. Henry reclined on the sofa, under an antimacassar, and +Mrs. Knight was bathing his excited temples with eau de Cologne.</p> + +<p>'Oh yes,' Mr. Knight agreed confidently; he had looked in from the shop +for a moment. 'Oh yes! It will pass off. Give him a cup of strong tea in +a quarter of an hour, and he'll be as right as a trivet.'</p> + +<p>'Of course you will, won't you, my dear?' Mrs. Knight demanded fondly of her son.</p> + +<p>Henry nodded weakly.</p> + +<p>The interesting and singular fact about the situation is that these +three adults, upright, sincere, strictly moral, were all lying, and +consciously lying. They knew that Henry's symptoms differed in no +particular from those of his usual attacks, and that his usual attacks +had a minimum duration of twelve hours. They knew that he was decidedly +worse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> at half-past three than he had been at half-past two, and they +could have prophesied with assurance that he would be still worse at +half-past four than he was then. They knew that time would betray them. +Yet they persisted in falsehood, because they were incapable of +imagining the Speech Day ceremony without Henry in the midst. If any +impartial friend had approached at that moment and told them that Henry +would spend the evening in bed, and that they might just as well resign +themselves first as last, they would have cried him down, and called him +unfriendly and unfeeling, and, perhaps, in the secrecy of their hearts +thrown rotten eggs at him.</p> + +<p>It proved to be the worst dyspeptic visitation that Henry had ever had. +It was not a mere 'attack'—it was a revolution, beginning with slight +insurrections, but culminating in universal upheaval, the overthrowing +of dynasties, the establishment of committees of public safety, and a +reign of terror. As a series of phenomena it was immense, variegated, +and splendid, and was remembered for months afterwards.</p> + +<p>'Surely he'll be better <i>now</i>!' said Mrs. Knight, agonized.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p><p>But no! And so they carried Henry to bed.</p> + +<p>At six the martyr uneasily dozed.</p> + +<p>'He may sleep a couple of hours,' Aunt Annie whispered.</p> + +<p>Not one of the three had honestly and openly withdrawn from the position +that Henry would be able to go to the prize-giving. They seemed to have +silently agreed to bury the futile mendacity of the earlier afternoon in +everlasting forgetfulness.</p> + +<p>'Poor little thing!' observed Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>His sufferings had reduced him, in her vision, to about half his ordinary size.</p> + +<p>At seven Mr. Knight put on his hat.</p> + +<p>'Are you going out, father?' his wife asked, shocked.</p> + +<p>'It is only fair,' said Mr. Knight, 'to warn the school people that +Henry will not be able to be present to-night. They will have to alter +their programme. Of course I shan't stay.'</p> + +<p>In pitying the misfortune of the school, thus suddenly and at so +critical a moment deprived of Henry's presence and help, Mrs. Knight +felt less keenly the pang of her own misfortune and that of her son. +Nevertheless, it was a night sufficiently tragic in Oxford Street.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Knight returned with Henry's two prizes—<i>Self-Help</i> and <i>The +Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas</i>.</p> + +<p>The boy had wakened once, but dozed again.</p> + +<p>'Put them on the chair where he can see them in the morning,' Aunt Annie suggested.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said the father, brightening. 'And I'll wind up his watch for +him.... Bless us! what's he been doing to the watch? What <i>is</i> it, Annie?</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'Why did you do it?' Mr. Knight asked Tom. 'That's what I can't +understand. Why did you do it?'</p> + +<p>They were alone together the next morning in the sitting-room. ('I will +speak to that young man privately,' Mr. Knight had said to the two women +in a formidable tone.) Henry was still in bed, but awake and reading +Smiles with precocious gusto.</p> + +<p>'Did the kid tell you all about it, then?'</p> + +<p>'The kid,' said Mr. Knight, marking by a peculiar emphasis his +dissatisfaction with Tom's choice of nouns, 'was very loyal. I had to +drag the story out of him bit by bit. I repeat: why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> did you do it? Was +this your idea of a joke? If so, I can only say——'</p> + +<p>'You should have seen how he enjoyed them! It was tremendous,' Tom broke +in. 'Tremendous! I've no doubt the afternoon was terrible, but the +morning was worth it. Ask Henry himself. I wanted to give him a treat, +and it seems I gave you all one.'</p> + +<p>'And then the headmaster!' Mr. Knight complained. 'He was very upset. He +told me he didn't know what they should do without Henry last night.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes. I know old Pingles. Pingles is a great wit. But seriously, +uncle,' said Tom—he gazed at the carpet; 'seriously——' He paused. 'If +I had thought of the dreadful calamity to the school, I would only have +bought half a pound.'</p> + +<p>'Pah!' Mr. Knight whiffed out.</p> + +<p>'It's a mercy we're all still alive,' murmured Tom.</p> + +<p>'And may I ask, sir——' Mr. Knight began afresh, in a new vein, +sarcastic and bitter. 'Of course you're an independent member of +society, and your own master; but may I venture to ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> what you were +doing in Hyde Park yesterday at eleven o'clock?'</p> + +<p>'You may,' Tom replied. 'The truth is, Bollingtons Limited and me, just +me, have had a row. I didn't like their style, nor their manners. So the +day before yesterday I told them to go to the devil——'</p> + +<p>'You told them to go to the——!'</p> + +<p>'And I haven't seen anything of Bollingtons since, and I don't want to.'</p> + +<p>'That is where you are going to yourself, sir,' thundered Mr. Knight. +'Mark my words. That is where you are going to yourself. Two guineas a +week, at your age, and you tell them——! I suppose you think you can +get a place like that any day.'</p> + +<p>'Look here, uncle. Listen. Mark my words. I have two to say to you, and +two only. Good-morning.'</p> + +<p>Tom hastened from the room, and went down into the shop by the +shop-stairs. The cashier of the establishment was opening the safe.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Perkins,' said Tom lightly, 'uncle wants change for a ten-pound +note, in gold.'</p> + +<p>'Certainly, Mr. Tom. With pleasure.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>'Oh!' Tom explained, as though the notion had just struck him, taking +the sovereigns, 'the note! I'll bring it down in a jiffy.'</p> + +<p>'That's all right, Mr. Tom,' said the cashier, smiling with suave +confidence.</p> + +<p>Tom ran up to his room, passing his uncle on the way. He snatched his +hat and stick, and descended rapidly into the street by the +house-stairs. He chose this effective and picturesque method of +departing for ever from the hearth and home of Mr. Knight.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>CONTAGIOUS</h3> + +<p>'There's only the one slipper here,' said Aunt Annie, feeling in the +embroidered slipper-bag which depended from a glittering brass nail in +the recess to the right of the fireplace. And this fireplace was on the +ground-floor, and not in Oxford Street.</p> + +<p>'I was mending the other this morning,' said Mrs. Knight, springing up +with all her excessive stoutness from the easy-chair. 'I left it in my +work-basket, I do believe.'</p> + +<p>'I'll get it,' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'No, I'll get it,' said Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>So it occurred that Aunt Annie laid the left slipper (sole upwards) in +front of the brisk red fire, while Mrs. Knight laid the right one.</p> + +<p>Then the servant entered the dining-room—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> little simple fat thing of +sixteen or so, proud of her cap and apron and her black afternoon dress. +She was breathing quickly.</p> + +<p>'Please'm, Dr. Dancer says he'll come at nine o'clock, or as soon after +as makes no matter.'</p> + +<p>In delivering the message the servant gave a shrewd, comprehending, +sympathetic smile, as if to say: 'I am just as excited about your plot +as you are.'</p> + +<p>'Thank you, Sarah. That will do.' Aunt Annie dismissed her frigidly.</p> + +<p>'Yes'm.'</p> + +<p>Sarah's departing face fell to humility, and it said now: 'I'm sorry I +presumed to be as excited about your plot as you are.'</p> + +<p>The two sisters looked at each other interrogatively, disturbed, +alarmed, shocked.</p> + +<p>'Can she have been listening at doors?' Aunt Annie inquired in a whisper.</p> + +<p>Wherever the sisters happened to be, they never discussed Sarah save in +a whisper. If they had been in Alaska and Sarah in Timbuctoo, they would +have mentioned her name in a whisper, lest she might overhear. And, by +the way, Sarah's name was not Sarah, but Susan. It had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> altered in +deference to a general opinion that it was not nice for a servant to +bear the same name as her mistress, and, further, that such an anomaly +had a tendency to subvert the social order.</p> + +<p>'I don't know,' said Mrs. Knight 'I put her straight about those lumps of sugar.'</p> + +<p>'Did you tell her to see to the hot-water bottle?'</p> + +<p>'Bless us, no!'</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie rang the bell.</p> + +<p>'Sarah, put a hot-water bottle in your master's bed. And be sure the +stopper is quite tight.'</p> + +<p>'Yes'm. Master's just coming down the street now, mum.'</p> + +<p>Sarah spoke true. The master was in fact coming down the wintry gaslit +street. And the street was Dawes Road, Fulham, in the day of its +newness. The master stopped at the gate of a house of two storeys with a +cellar-kitchen. He pushed open the creaking iron device and entered the +garden, sixteen foot by four, which was the symbol of the park in which +the house would have stood if it had been a mansion. In a stride he +walked from one end to the other of the path, which would have been a +tree-lined, winding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> carriage-drive had the garden been a park. As he +fumbled for his latchkey, he could see the beaming face of the +representative of the respectful lower classes in the cellar-kitchen. +The door yielded before him as before its rightful lord, and he passed +into his sacred domestic privacy with an air which plainly asserted: +'Here I am king, absolute, beneficent, worshipped.'</p> + +<p>'Come to the fire, quick, Henry,' said Aunt Annie, fussing round him actively.</p> + +<p>It would be idle to attempt to conceal, even for a moment, that this was +not Henry the elder, but Henry Shakspere, aged twenty-three, with a face +made grave, perhaps prematurely, by the double responsibilities of a +householder and a man of affairs. Henry had lost some of his boyish +plumpness, and he had that night a short, dry cough.</p> + +<p>'I'm coming,' he replied curtly, taking off his blue Melton. 'Don't worry.'</p> + +<p>And in a fraction of a second, not only Aunt Annie, but his mother in +the dining-room and his helot in the cellar-kitchen, knew that the +master was in a humour that needed humouring.</p> + +<p>Henry the younger had been the master for six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> years, since the death of +his father. The sudden decease of its head generally means financial +calamity for a family like the Knights. But somehow the Knights were +different from the average. In the first place Henry Knight was insured +for a couple of thousand pounds. In the second place Aunt Annie had a +little private income of thirty pounds a year. And in the third place +there was Henry Shakspere. The youth had just left school; he left it +without special distinction (the brilliant successes of the marred +Speech Day were never repeated), but the state of his education may be +inferred from the established fact that the headmaster had said that if +he had stayed three months longer he would have gone into logarithms. +Instead of going into logarithms, Henry went into shorthand. And +shorthand, at that date, was a key to open all doors, a cure for every +ill, and the finest thing in the world. Henry had a talent for +shorthand; he took to it; he revelled in it; he dreamt it; he lived for +it alone. He won a speed medal, the gold of which was as pure as the +gold of the medal won by his wicked cousin Tom for mere painting. +Henry's mother was at length justified before all men in her rosy predictions.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>Among the most regular attendants at the Great Queen Street Wesleyan +Chapel was Mr. George Powell, who himself alone constituted and +comprised the eminent legal firm known throughout Lincoln's Inn Fields, +New Court, the Temple, Broad Street, and Great George Street, as +'Powells.' It is not easy, whatever may be said to the contrary, to +reconcile the exigencies of the modern solicitor's profession with the +exigencies of active Wesleyan Methodism; but Mr. George Powell succeeded +in the difficult attempt, and his fame was, perhaps, due mainly to this +success. All Wesleyan solicitors in large practice achieve renown, +whether they desire it or not; Wesleyans cannot help talking about them, +as one talks about an apparent defiance of natural laws. Most of them +are forced into Parliament, and compelled against their wills to accept +the honour of knighthood. Mr. George Powell, however, had so far escaped +both Parliament and the prefix—a fact which served only to increase his +fame. In fine, Mr. George Powell, within the frontiers of Wesleyan +Methodism, was a lion of immense magnitude, and even beyond the +frontiers, in the vast unregenerate earth, he was no mean figure. Now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +when Mr. Powell heard of the death of Henry Knight, whom he said he had +always respected as an upright tradesman and a sincere Christian, and of +the shorthand speed medal of Henry Shakspere Knight, he benevolently +offered the young Henry a situation in his office at twenty-five +shillings a week, rising to thirty.</p> + +<p>Young Henry's fortune was made. He was in Powells, and under the +protecting ægis of the principal. He shared in the lustre of Powells. +When people mentioned him, they also mentioned Powells, as if that +settled the matter—whatever the matter was. Mr. Powell invested Mrs. +Knight's two thousand pounds on mortgage or freehold security at five +per cent., and upon this interest, with Henry's salary and Aunt Annie's +income, the three lived in comfort at Dawes Road. Nay, they saved, and +Henry travelled second-class between Walham Green and the Temple. The +youth was serious, industrious, and trustworthy, and in shorthand +incomparable. No one acquainted with the facts was surprised when, after +three years, Mr. Powell raised him to the position of his confidential +clerk, and his salary to fifty-two shillings and sixpence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>And then Mr. Powell, who had fought for so long against meaningless +honours, capitulated and accepted a knighthood. The effect upon Dawes +Road was curious and yet very natural. It was almost as though Henry +himself had accepted a knighthood. Both Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie +seemed to assume that Henry had at least contributed to the knighthood +and that the knighthood was in some subtle way the reward of Henry's +talent, rectitude, and strenuousness. 'Sir George'—those two syllables +which slipped smoothly off the tongue with no effort to the +speaker—entered largely into all conversations in the house at Dawes +Road; and the whole street, beginning with the milkman, knew that Henry +was Sir George's—no, not Sir George's confidential clerk, no such +thing!—private secretary.</p> + +<p>His salary was three guineas a week. He had a banking account at Smith, +Payne and Smiths, and a pew at the Munster Park Wesleyan Chapel. He was +a power at the Regent Street Polytechnic. He bought books, including +encyclopædias and dictionaries. He wrote essays which were read and +debated upon at the sessions of the Debating Society. (One of the essays +was entitled: 'The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> Tendencies of Modern Fiction'; he was honestly irate +against the Stream of Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the +Press.) He took out a life insurance policy for two hundred and fifty +pounds, and an accident policy which provided enormous sums for all +sorts of queer emergencies. Indeed, Henry was armed at every point. He +could surely snap his fingers at Chance.</p> + +<p>If any young man in London had the right to be bumptious and didactic, +Henry had. And yet he remained simple, unaffected, and fundamentally +kind. But he was very serious. His mother and aunt strained every nerve, +in their idolatrous treatment of him, to turn him into a conceited and +unbearable jackanapes—and their failure to do so was complete. They +only made him more serious. His temper was, and always had been, what is called even.</p> + +<p>And yet, on this particular evening when Sarah had been instructed to +put a hot-water bottle in his bed, Henry's tone, in greeting his aunt, +had been curt, fretful, peevish, nearly cantankerous. 'Don't worry me!' +he had irascibly protested, well knowing that his good aunt was +guiltless of the slightest intention to worry him. Here was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> problem, +an apparent contradiction, in Henry's personality.</p> + +<p>His aunt, in the passage, and his mother, who had overheard in the +dining-room, instantly and correctly solved the problem by saying to +themselves that Henry's tone was a Symptom. They had both been +collecting symptoms for four days. His mother had first discovered that +he had a cold; Aunt Annie went further and found that it was a feverish +cold. Aunt Annie saw that his eyes were running; his mother wormed out +of him that his throat tickled and his mouth was sore. When Aunt Annie +asked him if his eyes ached as well as ran, he could not deny it. On the +third day, at breakfast, he shivered, and the two ladies perceived +simultaneously the existence of a peculiar rash behind Henry's ears. On +the morning of the fourth day Aunt Annie, up early, scored one over her +sister by noticing the same rash at the roots of his still curly hair. +It was the second rash, together with Henry's emphatic and positive +statement that he was perfectly well, which had finally urged his +relatives to a desperate step—a step involving intrigue and +prevarication. And to justify this step had come the crowning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> symptom +of peevishness—peevishness in Henry! It wanted only that!</p> + +<p>'I've asked Dr. Dancer to call in to-night,' said Aunt Annie casually, +while Henry was assuming his toasted crimson carpet slippers. Mrs. +Knight was brewing tea in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>'What for?' Henry demanded quickly, and as if defensively. Then he +added: 'Is mother wrong again?'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight had a recurrent 'complaint.'</p> + +<p>'Well,' said Aunt Annie darkly, 'I thought it would be as well to be on +the safe side....'</p> + +<p>'Certainly,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>This was Aunt Annie's neat contribution to the necessary prevarication.</p> + +<p>They had tea and ham-and-eggs, the latter specially chosen because it +was a dish that Henry doted upon. However, he ate but little.</p> + +<p>'You're overtired, dear,' his mother ventured.</p> + +<p>'Overtired or not, mater,' said Henry with a touch of irony, 'I must do +some work to-night. Sir George has asked me to——'</p> + +<p>'My dear love,' Mrs. Knight cried out, moved, 'you've no right——'</p> + +<p>But Aunt Annie quelled the impulsive creature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> with a glance full of +meaning. 'Sir George what?' she asked, politely interested.</p> + +<p>'The governor has asked me to look through his Christmas appeal for the +Clerks' Society, and to suggest any alterations that occur to me.'</p> + +<p>It became apparent to the ladies, for the thousand and first time, that +Sir George would be helpless without Henry, utterly helpless.</p> + +<p>After tea the table was cleared, and Henry opened his bag and rustled +papers, and the ladies knitted and sewed with extraordinary precautions +to maintain the silence which was the necessary environment of Henry's +labours. And in the calm and sane domestic interior, under the mild ray +of the evening lamp, the sole sounds were Henry's dry, hacking cough and +the cornet-like blasts of his nose into his cambric handkerchief.</p> + +<p>'I think I'll do no more to-night,' he said at length, yawning.</p> + +<p>'That's right, dear,' his mother ejaculated.</p> + +<p>Then the doctor entered, and, for all the world as if by preconcerted +action, the ladies disappeared. Dr. Dancer was on friendly terms with +the household, and, his age being thirty, he was neither too old nor too +young to address Henry as Old Man.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p><p>'Hallo, old man,' he began, after staring hard at Henry. 'What's the +matter with your forehead?'</p> + +<p>'Forehead?' Henry repeated questioningly.</p> + +<p>'Yes. Let's have a look.'</p> + +<p>The examination was thorough, and it ended with the thrusting of a +thermometer into Henry's unwilling mouth.</p> + +<p>'One hundred and two,' said the doctor, and, smiling faintly, he +whispered something to Henry.</p> + +<p>'You're joking,' Henry replied, aghast.</p> + +<p>'No, I'm not. Of course it's not serious. But it means bed for a +fortnight or so, and you must go immediately.'</p> + +<p>The ladies, who had obviously and shamelessly been doing that which they +so strongly deprecated in Sarah, came back into the room.</p> + +<p>In half an hour Henry was in bed, and a kettle containing eucalyptus was +steaming over a bright fire in the bedroom; and his mother was bent upon +black-currant tea in the kitchen; and Aunt Annie was taking down from +dictation, in her angular Italian hand, a letter which began: 'Dear Sir +George,—I much regret to say'; and little Sarah was standing hooded and +girt up, ready to fly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> upon errands of the highest importance at a +second's notice.</p> + +<p>'Sarah,' said Mrs. Knight solemnly, when Sarah had returned from the +post and the doctor's, 'I am going to trust you. Your master has got the +measles, but, of course, we don't want anyone to know, so you mustn't +breathe a word.'</p> + +<p>'No'm,' said Sarah.</p> + +<p>'He never had them as a boy,' Mrs. Knight added proudly.</p> + +<p>'Didn't he, mum?' said Sarah.</p> + +<p>The doctor, whose gift for seriousness was not marked, showed a tendency +to see humour in the situation of Sir George's private secretary being +down with measles. But he was soon compelled to perceive his mistake. By +a united and tremendous effort Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie made measles +august. As for Sarah, she let slip the truth to the milkman. It came out +by itself, as the spout of a teapot had once come off by itself in her hand.</p> + +<p>The accident policy appeared to provide for every emergency except measles.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>CREATIVE</h3> + +<p>The sick-room—all due solemnity and importance must be imported into +the significance of that word—the sick-room became a shrine, served by +two ageing priestesses and a naïve acolyte. Everything was done to make +Henry an invalid in the grand manner. His bed of agony became the pivot +on which the household life flutteringly and soothingly revolved. No +detail of delicate attention which the most ingenious assiduity could +devise was omitted from the course of treatment. And if the chamber had +been at the front instead of at the back, the Fulham Vestry would +certainly have received an application for permission to lay down straw +in the street.</p> + +<p>The sole flaw in the melancholy beauty of the episode was that Henry was +never once within ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> miles of being seriously ill. He was incapable of +being seriously ill. He happened to be one of those individuals who, +when they 'take' a disease, seem to touch it only with the tips of their +fingers: such was his constitution. He had the measles, admittedly. His +temperature rose one night to a hundred and three, and for a few brief +moments his mother and Aunt Annie enjoyed visions of fighting the grim +spectre of Death. The tiny round pink spots covered his face and then +ran together into a general vermilion. He coughed exquisitely. His beard +grew. He supported life on black-currant tea and an atmosphere +impregnated with eucalyptus. He underwent the examination of the doctor +every day at eleven. But he was not personally and genuinely ill. He did +not feel ill, and he said so. His most disquieting symptom was boredom. +This energetic organism chafed under the bed-clothes and the +black-currant tea and the hushed eucalyptic calm of the chamber. He +fervently desired to be up and active and stressful. His mother and aunt +cogitated in vain to hit on some method of allaying the itch for work. +And then one day—it was the day before Christmas—his mother chanced to +say:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p><p>'You might try to write out that story you told us about—when you are +a little stronger. It would be something for you to do.'</p> + +<p>Henry shook his head sheepishly.</p> + +<p>'Oh no!' he said; 'I was only joking.'</p> + +<p>'I'm sure you could write it quite nicely,' his mother insisted.</p> + +<p>And Henry shook his head again, and coughed. 'No,' he said. 'I hope I +shall have something better to do than write stories.'</p> + +<p>'But just to pass the time!' pleaded Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>The fact was that, several weeks before, while his thoughts had been +engaged in analyzing the detrimental qualities of the Stream of Trashy +Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press, Henry had himself been +visited by a notion for a story. He had scornfully ejected it as an +inopportune intruder; but it had returned, and at length, to get rid for +ever of this troublesome guest, he had instinctively related the outline +of the tale over the tea-table. And the outline had been pronounced +wonderful. 'It might be called <i>Love in Babylon</i>—Babylon being London, +you know,' he had said. And Aunt Annie had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> exclaimed: 'What a pretty +title!' Whereupon Henry had remarked contemptuously and dismissingly: +'Oh, it was just an idea I had, that's all!' And the secret thought of +both ladies had been, 'That busy brain is never still.'</p> + +<p>As the shades of Christmas Eve began to fall, Aunt Annie was seated by +the sick-bed, engaged in making entries in the household washing-book +with a lead pencil. Henry lay with his eyes closed. Mrs. Knight was out +shopping. Presently there was a gentle <i>ting</i> of the front-door bell; +then a protracted silence; then another gentle <i>ting</i>.</p> + +<p>'Bless the girl! Why doesn't she answer the door?' Aunt Annie whispered +to herself, listening hard.</p> + +<p>A third time the bell rang, and Aunt Annie, anathematizing the whole +race of servants, got up, put the washing-book on the dressing-table, +lighted the gas and turned it low, and descended to answer the door in +person and to behead Sarah.</p> + +<p>More than an hour elapsed before either sister re-entered Henry's +room—events on the ground-floor had been rather exciting—and then they +appeared together, bearing a bird, and some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>mince-tarts on a plate, and +a card. Henry was wide awake.</p> + +<p>'This <i>is</i> a surprise, dear,' began Mrs. Knight. 'Just listen: "With Sir +George Powell's hearty greetings and best wishes for a speedy recovery!" +A turkey and six mince-tarts. Isn't it thoughtful of him?'</p> + +<p>'It's just like the governor,' said Henry, smiling, and feeling the +tenderness of the turkey.</p> + +<p>'He is a true gentleman,' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'And we've sent round to the doctor to ask, and he says there's no harm +in your having half a mince-tart; so we've warmed it. And you are to +have a slice off the breast of the turkey to-morrow.'</p> + +<p>'Good!' was Henry's comment. He loved a savoury mouthful, and these +dainties were an unexpected bliss, for the ladies had not dreamt of +Christmas fare in the sad crisis, even for themselves.</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie, as if struck by a sudden blow, glanced aside at the gas.</p> + +<p>'I could have been certain I left the gas turned down,' she remarked.</p> + +<p>'I turned it up,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'You got out of bed! Oh, Henry! And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> your temperature was a hundred and +two only the day before yesterday!'</p> + +<p>'I thought I'd begin that thing—just for a lark, you know,' he explained.</p> + +<p>He drew from under the bed-clothes the household washing-book. And +there, nearly at the top of a page, were Aunt Annie's last interrupted +strokes:</p> + +<p class="center">'2 Ch——'</p> + +<p>and underneath:</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">'Love in Babylon</span>'</p> + +<p>and the commencement of the tale. The marvellous man had covered nine +pages of the washing-book.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Within twenty-four hours, not only Henry, but his mother and aunt, had +become entirely absorbed in Henry's tale. The ladies wondered how he +thought of it all, and Henry himself wondered a little, too. It seemed +to 'come,' without trouble and almost without invitation. It cost no +effort. The process was as though Henry acted merely as the amanuensis +of a great creative power concealed somewhere in the recesses of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +vital parts. Fortified by two halves of a mince-tart and several slices +of Sir George's turkey, he filled the washing-book full up before dusk +on Christmas Day; and on Boxing Day, despite the faint admiring protests +of his nurses, he made a considerable hole in a quire of the best ruled +essay-paper. Instead of showing signs of fatigue, Henry appeared to grow +stronger every hour, and to revel more and more in the sweet labour of +composition; while the curiosity of the nurses about the exact nature of +what Henry termed the dénouement increased steadily and constantly. The +desires of those friends who had wished a Happy Christmas to the +household were generously gratified.</p> + +<p>It was a love tale, of course. And it began thus, the first line +consisting of a single word, and the second of three words:</p> + +<p>'<i>Babylon!</i></p> + +<p>'<i>And in winter!</i></p> + +<p>'<i>The ladies' waiting-room on the arrival platform of one of our vast +termini was unoccupied save for the solitary figure of a young and +beautiful girl, who, clad in a thin but still graceful costume, crouched +shivering over the morsel of fire which the greed of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> a great company +alone permitted to its passengers. Outside resounded the roar and shriek +of trains, the ceaseless ebb and flow of the human tide which beats for +ever on the shores of modern Babylon. Enid Anstruther gazed sadly into +the embers. She had come to the end of her resources. Suddenly the door +opened, and Enid looked up, naturally expecting to see one of her own +sex. But it was a man's voice, fresh and strong, which exclaimed: "Oh, I +beg pardon!" The two glanced at each other, and then Enid sank backwards.</i>'</p> + +<p>Such were the opening sentences of <i>Love in Babylon</i>.</p> + +<p>Enid was an orphan, and had come to London in order to obtain a +situation in a draper's shop. Unfortunately, she had lost her purse on +the way. Her reason for sinking back in the waiting-room was that she +had fainted from cold, hunger, and fatigue. Thus she and the man, Adrian +Tempest, became acquainted, and Adrian's first gift to her was seven +drops of brandy, which he forced between her teeth. His second was his +heart. Enid obtained a situation, and Adrian took her to the Crystal +Palace one Saturday afternoon. It was a pity that he had not already +proposed to her, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> they got separated in the tremendous Babylonian +crowd, and Enid, unused to the intricacies of locomotion in Babylon, +arrived home at the emporium at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning. She +was dismissed by a proprietor with a face of brass. Adrian sought her in +vain. She sought Adrian in vain—she did not know his address. +Thenceforward the tale split itself into two parts: the one describing +the life of Adrian, a successful barrister, on the heights of Babylon, +and the other the life of Enid, reduced to desperate straits, in the +depths thereof. The contrasts were vivid and terrific.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie could not imagine how Henry would bring the +two lovers, each burning secretly the light torch of love in Babylon, +together again. But Henry did not hesitate over the problem for more +than about fifty seconds. Royal Academy. Private View. Adrian present +thereat as a celebrity. Picture of the year, 'The Enchantress.' He +recognises her portrait. She had, then, been forced to sell her beauty +for eighteenpence an hour as an artist's model. To discover the artist +and Enid's address was for Adrian the work of a few minutes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>This might have finished the tale, but Henry opined that the tale was a +trifle short. As a fact, it was. He accordingly invented a further and a +still more dramatic situation. When Adrian proposed to Enid, she +conscientiously told him, told him quietly but firmly, that she could +not marry him for the reason that her father, though innocent of a crime +imputed to him, had died in worldly disgrace. She could not consent to +sully Adrian's reputation. Now, Adrian happened to be the real criminal. +But he did not know that Enid's father had suffered for him, and he had +honestly lived down that distant past. 'If there is a man in this world +who has the right to marry you,' cried Adrian, 'I am that man. And if +there is a man in this world whom you have the right to spurn, I am that +man also.' The extreme subtlety of the thing must be obvious to every +reader. Enid forgave and accepted Adrian. They were married in a snowy +January at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and the story ended thus:</p> + +<p>'<i>Babylon in winter</i>.</p> + +<p>'<i>Babylon!</i>'</p> + +<p>Henry achieved the entire work in seven days, and, having achieved it, +he surveyed it with equal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> pride and astonishment. It was a matter of +surprise to him that the writing of interesting and wholesome fiction +was so easy. Some parts of the book he read over and over again, for the +sheer joy of reading.</p> + +<p>'Of course it isn't good enough to print,' he said one day, while +sitting up in the arm-chair.</p> + +<p>'I should think any publisher would be glad to print it,' said his +mother. 'I'm not a bit prejudiced, I'm sure, and I think it's one of the +best tales I ever read in all my life.'</p> + +<p>'Do you really?' Henry smiled, his natural modesty fighting against a +sure conviction that his mother was right.</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie said little, but she had copied out <i>Love in Babylon</i> in her +fine, fair Italian hand, keeping pace day by day with Henry's +extraordinary speed, and now she accomplished the transcription of the last pages.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The time arrived for Henry to be restored to a waiting world. He was +cured, well, hearty, vigorous, radiant. But he was still infected, +isolate, one might almost say <i>taboo</i>; and everything in his room, and +everything that everyone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> had worn while in the room, was in the same +condition. Therefore the solemn process, rite, and ceremony of +purification had to be performed. It began upon the last day of the old +year at dusk.</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie made a quantity of paste in a basin; Mrs. Knight bought a +penny brush; and Henry cut up a copy of the <i>Telegraph</i> into long strips +about two inches wide. The sides and sash of the window were then +hermetically sealed; the register of the fireplace was closed, and +sealed also. Clothes were spread out in open order, the bed stripped, +rugs hung over chairs.</p> + +<p>'Henry's book?' Mrs. Knight demanded.</p> + +<p>'Of course it must be disinfected with the other things,' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'Yes, of course,' Henry agreed.</p> + +<p>'And it will be safer to lay the sheets separately on the floor,' Aunt +Annie continued.</p> + +<p>There were fifty-nine sheets of Aunt Annie's fine, finicking caligraphy, +and the scribe and her nephew went down on their knees, and laid them in +numerical sequence on the floor. The initiatory '<i>Babylon</i>' found itself +in the corner between the window and the fireplace beneath the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>dressing-table, and the final '<i>Babylon</i>' was hidden in gloomy retreats +under the bed.</p> + +<p>Then Sarah entered, bearing sulphur in a shallow pan, and a box of +matches. The paste and the paste-brush and the remnants of the +<i>Telegraph</i> were carried out into the passage. Henry carefully ignited +the sulphur, and, captain of the ship, was the last to leave. As they +closed the door the odour of burning, microbe-destroying sulphur +impinged on their nostrils. Henry sealed the door on the outside with +'London Day by Day,' 'Sales by Auction,' and a leading article or so.</p> + +<p>'There!' said Henry.</p> + +<p>All was over.</p> + +<p>At intervals throughout the night he thought of the sanative and benign +sulphur smouldering, smouldering always with ghostly yellow flamelets in +the midst of his work of art, while the old year died and the new was born.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>SPRING ONIONS</h3> + +<p>The return to the world and to Powells, while partaking of the nature of +a triumph, was at the same time something of a cold, fume-dispersing, +commonsense-bestowing bath for Henry. He had meant to tell Sir George +casually that he had taken advantage of his enforced leisure to write a +book. 'Taken advantage of his enforced leisure' was the precise phrase +which Henry had in mind to use. But, when he found himself in the +strenuous, stern, staid, sapient and rational atmosphere of Powells, he +felt with a shock of perception that in rattling off <i>Love in Babylon</i> +he had been guilty of one of those charming weaknesses to which great +and serious men are sometimes tempted, but of which great and serious +men never boast. And he therefore confined his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> personal gossip with Sir +George to the turkey, the mince-tarts, and the question of contagion. He +plunged into his work with a feeling akin to dignified remorse, and Sir +George was vehemently and openly delighted by the proofs which he gave +of undiminished loyalty and devotion.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless Henry continued to believe in the excellence of his book, +and he determined that, in duty to himself, his mother and aunt, and the +cause of wholesome fiction, he must try to get it published. From that +moment he began to be worried, for he had scarcely a notion how +sagaciously to set about the business. He felt like a bachelor of +pronounced views who has been given a baby to hold. He knew no one in +the realms of literature, and no one who knew anyone. Sir George, warily +sounded, appeared to be unaware that such a thing as fiction existed. +Not a soul at the Polytechnic enjoyed the acquaintance of either an +author or a publisher, though various souls had theories about these +classes of persons. Then one day a new edition of the works of Carlyle +burst on the world, and Henry bought the first volume, <i>Sartor +Resartus</i>, a book which he much admired, and which he had learnt from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +his father to call simply and familiarly—<i>Sartor</i>. The edition, though +inexpensive, had a great air of dignity. It met, in short, with Henry's +approval, and he suddenly decided to give the publishers of it the +opportunity of publishing <i>Love in Babylon</i>. The deed was done in a +moment. He wrote a letter explaining the motives which had led him to +write <i>Love in Babylon</i>, and remarked that, if the publishers cared for +the story, mutually satisfactory terms might be arranged later; and Aunt +Annie did <i>Love in Babylon</i> up in a neat parcel. Henry was in the very +act of taking the parcel to the post, on his way to town, when Aunt Annie exclaimed:</p> + +<p>'Of course you'll register it?'</p> + +<p>He had not thought of doing so, but the advisability of such a step at +once appealed to him.</p> + +<p>'Perhaps I'd better,' he said.</p> + +<p>'But that only means two pounds if it's lost, doesn't it?' Mrs. Knight +inquired.</p> + +<p>Henry nodded and pondered.</p> + +<p>'Perhaps I'd better insure it,' he suggested.</p> + +<p>'If I were you, I should insure it for a hundred pounds,' said Aunt +Annie positively.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>'But that will cost one and a penny,' said Henry, who had all such +details by heart. 'I could insure it for twenty pounds for fivepence.'</p> + +<p>'Well, say twenty pounds then,' Aunt Annie agreed, relenting.</p> + +<p>So he insured <i>Love in Babylon</i> for twenty pounds and despatched it. In +three weeks it returned like the dove to the ark (but soiled), with a +note to say that, though the publishers' reader regarded it as +promising, the publishers could not give themselves the pleasure of +making an offer for it. Thenceforward Henry and the manuscript suffered +all the usual experiences, and the post-office reaped all the usual +profits. One firm said the story was good, but too short. ('A pitiful +excuse,' thought Henry. 'As if length could affect merit.') Another said +nothing. Another offered to publish it if Henry would pay a hundred +pounds down. (At this point Henry ceased to insure the parcel.) Another +sent it back minus the last leaf, the matter of which Henry had to +reinvent and Aunt Annie to recopy. Another returned it insufficiently +stamped, and there was fourpence to pay.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> Another kept it four months, +and disgorged it only under threat of a writ; the threat was launched +forth on Powells' formidable notepaper. At length there arrived a day +when even Henry's pertinacity was fatigued, and he forgot, merely +forgot, to send out the parcel again. It was put in a drawer, after a +year of ceaseless adventures, and Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie discreetly +forbore to mention it. During that year Henry's opinion on his work had +fluctuated. There had been moments, days perhaps, of discouragement, +when he regarded it as drivel, and himself as a fool—in so far, that +is, as he had trafficked with literature. On the other hand, his +original view of it reasserted itself with frequency. And in the end he +gloomily and proudly decided, once and for all, that the Stream of +Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press had killed all demand +for wholesome fiction; he came reluctantly to the conclusion that modern +English literature was in a very poor way. He breathed a sigh, and +dismissed the episode utterly from his mind.</p> + +<p>And <i>Love in Babylon</i> languished in the drawer for three months.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p><p>Then, upon an April morning, the following telegram was received at +Dawes Road, Fulham: '<i>Please bring manuscript me immediately top left +take cab Henry</i>.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight was alone in the house with Sarah when the imperious summons +of the telegraph-boy and the apparition of the orange envelope threw the +domestic atmosphere into a state of cyclonic confusion. Before tearing +the envelope she had guessed that Aunt Annie had met with an accident, +that Henry was dead, and that her own Aunt Eliza in Glossop had died +without making a will; and these imaginings had done nothing to increase +the efficiency of her intellectual powers. She could not read sense into +the message, not even with the aid of spectacles and Sarah.</p> + +<p>Happily Aunt Annie returned, with her masculine grasp of affairs.</p> + +<p>'He means <i>Love in Babylon</i>,' said Aunt Annie. 'It's in the top +left-hand drawer of his desk. That's what he means. Perhaps I'd better +take it. I'm ready dressed.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, sister,' Mrs. Knight replied hastily. 'You had better take it.'</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie rang the bell with quick decision.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p><p>'Sarah,' she said, 'run out and get me a cab, a four-wheeler. You +understand, a four-wheeler.'</p> + +<p>'Yes'm. Shall I put my jacket on, mum?' Sarah asked, glancing through the window.</p> + +<p>'No. Go instantly!'</p> + +<p>'Yes'm.'</p> + +<p>'I wonder what he wants it for,' Aunt Annie remarked, after she had +found the manuscript and put it under her arm. 'Perhaps he has mentioned +it to Sir George, and Sir George is going to do something.'</p> + +<p>'I thought he had forgotten all about it,' said Mrs. Knight. 'But he +never gives a thing up, Henry doesn't.'</p> + +<p>Sarah drove dashingly up to the door in a hansom.</p> + +<p>'Take that back again,' commanded Aunt Annie, cautiously putting her +nose outside the front-door. It was a snowy and sleety April morning, +and she had already had experience of its rigour. 'I said a four-wheeler.'</p> + +<p>'Please'm, there wasn't one,' Sarah defended herself.</p> + +<p>'None on the stand, lady,' said the cabman brightly. 'You'll never get a +four-wheeler on a day like this.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>Aunt Annie raised her veil and looked at her sister. Like many +strong-minded and vigorous women, she had a dislike of hansoms which +amounted to dread. She feared a hansom as though it had been a +revolver—something that might go off unexpectedly at any moment and destroy her.</p> + +<p>'I daren't go in that,' she admitted frankly. She was torn between her +allegiance to the darling Henry and her fear of the terrible machine.</p> + +<p>'Suppose I go with you?' Mrs. Knight suggested.</p> + +<p>'Very well,' said Aunt Annie, clenching her teeth for the sacrifice.</p> + +<p>Sarah flew for Mrs. Knight's bonnet, fur mantle, gloves, and muff; and +with remarkably little delay the sisters and the manuscript started. +First they had the window down because of the snow and the sleet; then +they had it up because of the impure air; and lastly Aunt Annie wedged a +corner of the manuscript between the door and the window, leaving a slit +of an inch or so for ventilation. The main body of the manuscript she +supported by means of her muff.</p> + +<p>Alas! her morbid fear of hansoms was about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> to be justified—at any +rate, justified in her own eyes. As the machine was passing along Walham +Green, it began to overtake a huge market-cart laden, fraught, and piled +up with an immense cargo of spring onions from Isleworth; and just as +the head of the horse of the hansom drew level with the tail of the +market-cart, the off hind wheel of the cart succumbed, and a ton or more +of spring onions wavered and slanted in the snowy air. The driver of the +hansom did his best, but he could not prevent his horse from premature +burial amid spring onions. The animal nobly resisted several +hundredweight of them, and then tottered and fell and was lost to view +under spring onions. The ladies screamed in concert, and discovered +themselves miraculously in the roadway, unhurt, but white and +breathless. A constable and a knife-grinder picked them up.</p> + +<p>The accident was more amusing than tragic, though neither Mrs. Knight +nor Aunt Annie was capable of perceiving this fact. The horse emerged +gallantly, unharmed, and the window of the hansom was not even cracked. +The constable congratulated everyone and took down the names of the two +drivers, the two ladies, and the knife-grinder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> The condition of the +weather fortunately, militated against the formation of a large crowd.</p> + +<p>Quite two minutes elapsed before Aunt Annie made the horrible discovery +that <i>Love in Babylon</i> had disappeared. <i>Love in Babylon</i> was smothered +up in spring onions.</p> + +<p>'Keep your nerve, madam,' said the constable, seeing signs of an +emotional crisis, 'and go and stand in that barber's doorway—both of you.'</p> + +<p>The ladies obeyed.</p> + +<p>In due course <i>Love in Babylon</i> was excavated, chapter by chapter, and +Aunt Annie held it safely once more, rumpled but complete.</p> + +<p>By the luckiest chance an empty four-wheeler approached.</p> + +<p>The sisters got into it, and Aunt Annie gave the address.</p> + +<p>'As quick as you can,' she said to the driver, 'but do drive slowly.'</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>MARK SNYDER</h3> + +<p>Three-quarters of an hour later Henry might have been seen—in fact, was +seen by a number of disinterested wayfarers—to enter a magnificent new +block of offices and flats in Charing Cross Road. <i>Love in Babylon</i> was +firmly gripped under his right arm. Partly this strange burden and +partly the brilliant aspect of the building made him feel self-conscious +and humble and rather unlike his usual calm self. For, although Henry +was accustomed to offices, he was not accustomed to magnificent offices. +There are offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, offices of extreme wealth, +which, were they common lodging-houses, would be instantly condemned by +the County Council. Powells was such a one—and Sir George had a reputed +income of twenty thousand a year. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Powells the old Dickensian +tradition was kept vigorously alive by every possible means. Dirt and +gloom were omnipresent. Cleanliness and ample daylight would have been +deemed unbusinesslike, as revolutionary and dangerous as a typewriter. +One day, in winter, Sir George had taken cold, and he had attributed his +misfortune, in language which he immediately regretted, to the fact that +'that d——d woman had cleaned the windows'—probably with a damp cloth. +'That d——d woman' was the caretaker, a grey-haired person usually +dressed in sackcloth, who washed herself, incidentally, while washing +the stairs. At Powells, nothing but the stairs was ever put to the +indignity of a bath.</p> + +<p>That Henry should be somewhat diffident about invading Kenilworth +Mansions was therefore not surprising. He climbed three granite steps, +passed through a pair of swinging doors, traversed eight feet of +tesselated pavement, climbed three more granite steps, passed through +another pair of swinging doors, and discovered himself in a spacious +marble hall, with a lift-cabinet resembling a confessional, and broad +stairs behind curving up to Paradise. On either side of him, in place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +of priceless works by old masters, were great tablets inscribed with +many names in gold characters. He scanned these tablets timidly, and at +length found what he wanted, 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' under the +heading 'Third Floor.' At the same moment a flunkey in chocolate and +cream approached him.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Snyder?' asked Henry.</p> + +<p>'Third-floor, left,' pronounced the flunkey, thus giving the tablets the +force of his authority.</p> + +<p>As Henry was wafted aloft in the elevator, with the beautiful and +innocuous flunkey as travelling companion, he could not help contrasting +that official with the terrible Powellian caretaker who haunted the +Powellian stairs.</p> + +<p>On the third-floor, which seemed to be quite a world by itself, an arrow +with the legend 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' directed his mazed feet +along a corridor to a corner where another arrow with the legend 'Mark +Snyder, Literary Agent,' pointed along another corridor. And as he +progressed, the merry din of typewriters grew louder and louder. At +length he stood in front of a glassy door, and on the face of the door, +in a graceful curve, was painted the legend, 'Mark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> Snyder, Literary +Agent.' Shadows of vague moving forms could be discerned on the +opalescent glass, and the chatter of typewriters was almost disconcerting.</p> + +<p>Henry paused.</p> + +<p>That morning Mr. Mark Snyder had been to Powells on the business of one +of his clients, a historian of the Middle Ages, and in the absence of +Sir George had had a little talk with Henry. And Henry had learnt for +the first time what a literary agent was, and, struck by the man's +astuteness and geniality, had mentioned the matter of <i>Love in Babylon</i>. +Mr. Snyder had kindly promised to look into the matter of <i>Love in +Babylon</i> himself if Henry could call on him instantly with the +manuscript. The reason for haste was that on the morrow Mr. Snyder was +leaving England for New York on a professional tour of the leading +literary centres of the United States. Hence Henry's telegram to Dawes Road.</p> + +<p>Standing there in front of Mr. Snyder's door, Henry wondered whether, +after all, he was not making a fool of himself. But he entered.</p> + +<p>Two smart women in tight and elegant bodices, with fluffy bows at the +backs of their necks, looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> up from two typewriters, and the one with +golden hair rose smiling and suave.</p> + +<p>'Well, you seem a fairly nice sort of boy—I shall be kind to you,' her +eyes appeared to say. Her voice, however, said nothing except, 'Will you +take a seat a moment?' and not even that until Henry had asked if Mr. Snyder was in.</p> + +<p>The prospective client examined the room. It had a carpet, and lovely +almanacs on the walls, and in one corner, on a Japanese table, was a +tea-service in blue and white. Tables more massive bore enormous piles +of all shapes and sizes of manuscripts, scores and hundreds or unprinted +literary works, and they all carried labels, 'Mark Snyder, Literary +Agent.' <i>Love in Babylon</i> shrank so small that Henry could scarcely +detect its presence under his arm.</p> + +<p>Then Goldenhair, who had vanished, came back, and, with the most +enchanting smile that Henry had ever seen on the face of a pretty woman, +lured him by delicious gestures into Mr. Mark Snyder's private office.</p> + +<p>'Well,' exclaimed Mr. Snyder, full of good-humour, 'here we are again.' +He was a fair, handsome man of about forty, and he sat at a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> broad table +playing with a revolver. 'What do you think of that, Mr. Knight?' he +asked sharply, holding out the revolver for inspection.</p> + +<p>'It seems all right,' said Henry lamely.</p> + +<p>Mr. Snyder laughed heartily. 'I'm going to America to-morrow. I told +you, didn't I? Never been there before. So I thought I'd get a revolver. +Never know, you know. Eh?' He laughed again.</p> + +<p>Then he suddenly ceased laughing, and sniffed the air.</p> + +<p>'Is this a business office?' Henry asked himself. 'Or is it a club?'</p> + +<p>His feet were on a Turkey carpet. He was seated in a Chippendale chair. +A glorious fire blazed behind a brass fender, and the receptacle for +coal was of burnished copper. Photogravures in rich oaken frames adorned +the roseate walls. The ceiling was an expanse of ornament, with an +electric chandelier for centre.</p> + +<p>'Have a cigarette?' said Mr. Snyder, pushing across towards Henry a tin of Egyptians.</p> + +<p>'Thanks,' said Henry, who did not usually smoke, and he put <i>Love in +Babylon</i> on the table.</p> + +<p>Mr. Snyder sniffed the air again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p><p>'Now, what can I do for you?' said he abruptly.</p> + +<p>Henry explained the genesis, exodus, and vicissitudes of <i>Love in +Babylon</i>, and Mr. Snyder stretched out an arm and idly turned over a few +leaves of the manuscript as it lay before its author.</p> + +<p>'Who's your amanuensis?' he demanded, smiling.</p> + +<p>'My aunt,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'Ah yes!' said Mr. Snyder, smiling still, 'It's too short, you know,' he +added, grave. 'Too short. What length is it?'</p> + +<p>'Nearly three hundred folios.'</p> + +<p>'None of your legal jargon here,' Mr. Snyder laughed again. 'What's a folio?'</p> + +<p>'Seventy-two words.'</p> + +<p>'About twenty thousand words then, eh? Too short!'</p> + +<p>'Does that matter?' Henry demanded. 'I should have thought——'</p> + +<p>'Of course it matters,' Mr. Snyder snapped. 'If you went to a concert, +and it began at eight and finished at half-past, would you go out +satisfied with the performers' assurance that quality and not quantity +was the thing? Ha, ha!'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Snyder sniffed the air yet again, and looked at the fire +inquisitively, still sniffing.</p> + +<p>'There's only one price for novels, six-shillings,' Mr. Snyder +proceeded. 'The public likes six shillings' worth of quality. But it +absolutely insists on six shillings' worth of quantity, and doesn't +object to more. What can I do with this?' he went on, picking up <i>Love +in Babylon</i> and weighing it as in a balance. 'What <i>can</i> I do with a +thing like this?'</p> + +<p>'If Carlyle came to Kenilworth Mansions!' Henry speculated. At the same +time Mr. Snyder's epigrammatic remarks impressed him. He saw the art of +Richardson and Balzac in an entirely new aspect. It was as though he had +walked round the house of literature, and peeped in at the backdoor.</p> + +<p>Mr. Snyder suddenly put <i>Love in Babylon</i> to his nose.</p> + +<p>'Oh, it's <i>that</i>!' he murmured, enlightened.</p> + +<p>Henry had to narrate the disaster of the onion-cart, at which Mr. Snyder +was immensely amused.</p> + +<p>'Good!' he ejaculated. 'Good! By the way, might send it to Onions +Winter. Know Onions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Winter? No? He's always called Spring Onions in the +trade. Pushing man. What a joke it would be!' Mr. Snyder roared with +laughter. 'But seriously, Winter might——'</p> + +<p>Just then Goldenhair entered the room with a slip of paper, and Mr. +Snyder begged to be excused a moment. During his absence Henry reflected +upon the singularly unbusinesslike nature of the conversation, and +decided that it would be well to import a little business into it.</p> + +<p>'I'm called away,' said Mr. Snyder, re-entering.</p> + +<p>'I must go, too,' said Henry. 'May I ask, Mr. Snyder, what are your +terms for arranging publication?'</p> + +<p>'Ten per cent.,' said Mr. Snyder succinctly. 'On gross receipts. +Generally, to unknown men, I charge a preliminary fee, but, of course, +with you——'</p> + +<p>'Ten per cent.?' Henry inquired.</p> + +<p>'Ten per cent.,' repeated Mr. Snyder.</p> + +<p>'Does that mean—ten per cent.?' Henry demanded, dazed.</p> + +<p>Mr. Snyder nodded.</p> + +<p>'But do you mean to say,' said the author of <i>Love in Babylon</i> +impressively, 'that if a book of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> mine makes a profit of ten thousand +pounds, you'll take a thousand pounds just for getting it published?'</p> + +<p>'It comes to that,' Mr. Snyder admitted.</p> + +<p>'Oh!' cried Henry, aghast, astounded. 'A thousand pounds!'</p> + +<p>And he kept saying: 'A thousand pounds! A thousand pounds!'</p> + +<p>He saw now where the Turkey carpets and the photogravures and the +Teofani cigarettes came from.</p> + +<p>'A thousand pounds!'</p> + +<p>Mr. Snyder stuck the revolver into a drawer.</p> + +<p>'I'll think it over,' said Henry discreetly. 'How long shall you be in +America?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, about a couple of months!' And Mr. Snyder smiled brightly. Henry +could not find a satisfactory explanation of the man's eternal jollity.</p> + +<p>'Well, I'll think it over,' he said once more, very courteously. 'And +I'm much obliged to you for giving me an interview.' And he took up +<i>Love in Babylon</i> and departed.</p> + +<p>It appeared to have been a futile and ludicrous encounter.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>SATIN</h3> + +<p>Yes, there had been something wrong with the interview. It had entirely +failed to tally with his expectations of it. The fact was that he, +Henry, had counted for very little in it. He had sat still and listened, +and, after answering Mr. Mark Snyder's questions, he had made no +original remark except 'A thousand pounds!' And if he was disappointed +with Mr. Snyder, and puzzled by him, too, he was also disappointed with +himself. He felt that he had displayed none of those business qualities +which he knew he possessed. He was a man of affairs, with a sure belief +in his own capacity to handle any matter requiring tact and discretion; +and yet he had lolled like a simpleton in the Chippendale chair of Mr. +Snyder, and contributed naught to the interview save 'A thousand pounds!'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p><p>Nevertheless, he sincerely thought Mr. Snyder's terms exorbitant. He +was not of the race of literary aspirants who are eager to be published +at any price. Literature had no fatal fascination for him. His wholly +sensible idea now was that, having written a book, he might as well get +it printed and make an honest penny out of it, if possible. However, the +effect of the visit to Kenilworth Mansions was to persuade him to +resolve to abandon the enterprise; Mr. Mark Snyder had indeed +discouraged him. And in the evening, when he reached Dawes Road, he gave +his mother and aunt a truthful account of the episode, and stated, +pleasantly but plainly, that he should burn <i>Love in Babylon</i>. And his +mother and aunt, perceiving that he was in earnest, refrained from comment.</p> + +<p>And after they had gone to bed he took <i>Love in Babylon</i> out of the +brown paper in which he had wrapped it, and folded the brown paper and +tied up the string; and he was in the very act of putting <i>Love in +Babylon</i> bodily on the fire, when he paused.</p> + +<p>'Suppose I give it one more chance?' he reflected.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p><p>He had suddenly thought of the name of Mr. Onions Winter, and of Mr. +Snyder's interrupted observations upon that publisher. He decided to +send <i>Love in Babylon</i> to Mr. Winter. He untied the string, unfolded the +brown paper, indited a brief letter, and made the parcel anew.</p> + +<p>A week later, only a week, Mr. Onions Winter wrote asking Henry to call +upon him without delay, and Henry called. The establishment of Mr. +Onions Winter was in Leicester Square, between the Ottoman Music Hall +and a milliner's shop. Architecturally it presented rather a peculiar +appearance. The leading feature of the ground-floor was a vast arch, +extending across the entire frontage in something more than a +semicircle. Projecting from the keystone of the arch was a wrought-iron +sign bearing a portrait in copper, and under the portrait the words 'Ye +Shakspere Head.' Away beneath the arch was concealed the shop-window, an +affair of small square panes, and in the middle of every small pane was +stuck a small card, 'The Satin Library—Onions Winter.' This mystic +phrase was repeated a hundred and sixty-five times. To the right of the +window was a low green door with a copper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> handle in the shape of a +sow's tail, and the legend 'Ye Office of Onions Winter.'</p> + +<p>'Is Mr. Winter in?' Henry demanded of a young man in a very high collar, +after he had mastered the mechanism of the sow's tail.</p> + +<p>'Yes, he's <i>in</i>,' said the young man rudely, as Henry thought. (How +different from Goldenhair was this high collar!)</p> + +<p>'Do you want to see him?' asked the young man, when he had hummed an air +and stared out of the window.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Henry placidly. 'But he wants to see me. My name is Knight.'</p> + +<p>Henry had these flashes of brilliance from time to time. They came of +themselves, as <i>Love in Babylon</i> came. He felt that he was beginning +better with Mr. Onions Winter than he had begun with Mr. Mark Snyder.</p> + +<p>In another moment he was seated opposite Mr. Winter in a charming but +littered apartment on the first-floor. He came to the conclusion that +all literary offices must be drawing-rooms.</p> + +<p>'And so you are the author of <i>Love in Babylon</i>?' began Mr. Winter. He +was a tall man, with burning eyes, grey hair, a grey beard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> which stuck +out like the sun's rays, but no moustache. The naked grey upper lip was +very deep, and somehow gave him a formidable appearance. He wore a silk +hat at the back of his head, and a Melton overcoat rather like Henry's +own, but much longer.</p> + +<p>'You like it?' said Henry boldly.</p> + +<p>'I think—— The fact is, I will be frank with you, Mr. Knight.' Here +Mr. Onions Winter picked up <i>Love in Babylon</i>, which lay before him, and +sniffed at it exactly as Mr. Snyder had done. 'The fact is, I shouldn't +have thought twice about it if it hadn't been for this peculiar odour——'</p> + +<p>Here Henry explained the odour.</p> + +<p>'Ah yes. Very interesting!' observed Mr. Winter without a smile. 'Very +curious! We might make a par out of that. Onions—onions. The public +likes these coincidences. Well, as I tell you, I shouldn't have thought +twice about it if it hadn't been for this——' (Sniff, sniff.) 'Then I +happened to glance at the title, and the title attracted me. I must +admit that the title attracted me. You have hit on a very pretty title, +Mr. Knight, a very pretty title indeed. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> took your book home and read +it myself, Mr. Knight. I didn't send it to any of my readers. Not a soul +in this office has read it except me. I'm a bit superstitious, you know. +We all are—everyone is, when it comes to the point. And that +Onions—onions! And then the pretty title! I like your book, Mr. Knight. +I tell you candidly, I like it. It's graceful and touching, and +original. It's got atmosphere. It's got that indefinable something—<i>je +ne sais quoi</i>—that we publishers are always searching for. Of course +it's crude—very crude in places. It might be improved. What do you want +for it, Mr. Knight? What are you asking?'</p> + +<p>Mr. Onions Winter rose and walked to the window in order, apparently, to +drink his fill of the statue of Shakspere in the middle of the square.</p> + +<p>'I don't know,' said Henry, overjoyed but none the less perplexed. 'I +have not considered the question of price.'</p> + +<p>'Will you take twenty-five pounds cash down for it—lock, stock, and +barrel? You know it's very short. In fact, I'm just about the only +publisher in London who would be likely to deal with it.'</p> + +<p>Henry kept silence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p><p>'Eh?' demanded Mr. Onions Winter, still perusing the Shaksperean +forehead. 'Cash down. Will you take it?'</p> + +<p>'No, I won't, thank you,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'Then what will you take?'</p> + +<p>'I'll take a hundred.'</p> + +<p>'My dear young man!' Mr. Onions Winter turned suddenly to reason blandly +with Henry. 'Are you aware that that means five pounds a thousand words? +Many authors of established reputation would be glad to receive as much. +No, I should like to publish your book, but I am neither a +philanthropist nor a millionaire.'</p> + +<p>'What I should really prefer,' said Henry, 'would be so much on every copy sold.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! A royalty?'</p> + +<p>'Yes. A royalty. I think that is fairer to both parties,' said Henry judicially.</p> + +<p>'So you'd prefer a royalty,' Mr. Onions Winter addressed Shakspere +again. 'Well. Let me begin by telling you that first books by new +authors never pay expenses. Never! Never! I always lose money on them. +But you believe in your book? You believe in it, don't you?' He faced Henry once more.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p><p>'Yes,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'Then, you must have the courage of your convictions. I will give you a +royalty of three halfpence in the shilling on every copy after the first +five thousand. Thus, if it succeeds, you will share in the profit. If it +fails, my loss will be the less. That's fair, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>It seemed fair to Henry. But he was not Sir George's private secretary for nothing.</p> + +<p>'You must make it twopence in the shilling,' he said in an urbane but ultimatory tone.</p> + +<p>'Very well,' Mr. Onions Winter surrendered at once. 'We'll say twopence, and end it.'</p> + +<p>'And what will the price of the book be?' Henry inquired.</p> + +<p>'Two shillings, naturally. I intend it for the Satin Library. You know +about the Satin Library? You don't know about the Satin Library? My dear +sir, I hope it's going to be <i>the</i> hit of the day. Here's a dummy copy.' +Mr. Winter picked up an orange-tinted object from a side-table. 'Feel +that cover! Look at it! Doesn't it feel like satin? Doesn't it look like +satin? But it isn't satin. It's paper—a new invention, the latest +thing. You notice the book-marker <i>is</i> of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>satin—real satin. Now +observe the shape—isn't that original? And yet quite simple—it's +exactly square! And that faint design of sunflowers! These books will be +perfect bibelots; that's what they'll be—bibelots. Of course, between +you and me, there isn't going to be very much for the money—a hundred +and fifty quite small pages. But that's between you and me. And the +satin will carry it off. You'll see these charming bijou volumes in +every West End drawing-room, Mr. Knight, in a few weeks. Take my word +for it. By the way, will you sign our form of agreement now?'</p> + +<p>So Henry perpended legally on the form of agreement, and, finding +nothing in it seriously to offend the legal sense, signed it with due ceremony.</p> + +<p>'Can you correct the proofs instantly, if I send them?' Mr. Winter asked at parting.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Henry, who had never corrected a proof in his life. 'Are you in a hurry?'</p> + +<p>'Well,' Mr. Winter replied, 'I had meant to inaugurate the Satin Library +with another book. In fact, I have already bought five books for it. But +I have a fancy to begin it with yours. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> a fancy, and when I have +a fancy, I—I generally act on it. I like the title. It's a very pretty +title. I'm taking the book on the title. And, really, in these days a +pretty, attractive title is half the battle.'</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Within two months, <i>Love in Babylon</i>, by Henry S. Knight, was published +as the first volume of Mr. Onions Winter's Satin Library, and Henry saw +his name in the papers under the heading 'Books Received.' The sight +gave him a passing thrill, but it was impossible for him not to observe +that in all essential respects he remained the same person as before. +The presence of six author's copies of <i>Love in Babylon</i> at Dawes Road +alone indicated the great step in his development. One of these copies +he inscribed to his mother, another to his aunt, and another to Sir +George. Sir George accepted the book with a preoccupied air, and made no +remark on it for a week or more. Then one morning he said: 'By the way, +Knight, I ran through that little thing of yours last night. Capital! +Capital! I congratulate you. Take down this letter.'</p> + +<p>Henry deemed that Sir George's perspective<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> was somewhat awry, but he +said nothing. Worse was in store for him. On the evening of that same +day he bought the <i>Whitehall Gazette</i> as usual to read in the train, and +he encountered the following sentences:</p> + +<blockquote><p class="center"><span class="smcap">'Twaddle in Satin</span>.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Onions Winter's new venture, the Satin Library, is a pretty +enough thing in its satinesque way. The <i>format</i> is pleasant, the +book-marker voluptuous, the binding Arty-and-Crafty. We cannot, +however, congratulate Mr. Winter on the literary quality of the +first volume. Mr. Henry S. Knight, the author of <i>Love in Babylon</i> +(2s.), is evidently a beginner, but he is a beginner from whom +nothing is to be expected. That he has a certain gross facility in +the management of sentimental narrative we will not deny. It is +possible that he is destined to be the delight of "the great +public." It is possible—but improbable. He has no knowledge of +life, no feeling for style, no real sense of the dramatic. +Throughout, from the first line to the last, his story moves on the +plane of tawdriness, theatricality, and ballad pathos. There are +some authors of whom it may be said that they will never better +themselves. They are born with a certain rhapsodic gift of +commonness, a gift which neither improves nor deteriorates. Richly +dowered with crass mediocrity, they proceed from the cradle to the +grave at one low dead level. We suspect that Mr. Knight is of +these. In saying that it is a pity that he ever took up a pen, we +have no desire to seem severe. He is doubtless a quite excellent +and harmless person. But he has mistaken his vocation, and that is +always a pity. We do not care so see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> the admirable grocery trade +robbed by the literary trade of a talent which was clearly intended +by Providence to adorn it. As for the Satin Library, we hope +superior things from the second volume.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Henry had the fortitude to read this pronouncement aloud to his mother +and Aunt Annie at the tea-table.</p> + +<p>'The cowards!' exclaimed Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie flushed. 'Let me look,' she whispered; she could scarcely +control her voice. Having looked, she cast the paper with a magnificent +gesture to the ground. It lay on the hearth-rug, open at a page to which +Henry had not previously turned. From his arm-chair he could read in the +large displayed type of one of Mr. Onions Winter's advertisements: +'Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year. <i>Love in +Babylon.</i> By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth +thousand.—Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year. +<i>Love in Babylon.</i> By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth thousand.'</p> + +<p>And so it went on, repeated and repeated, down the whole length of the +twenty inches which constitute a column of the <i>Whitehall Gazette</i>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>HIS FAME</h3> + +<p>Henry's sleep was feverish, and shot with the iridescence of strange +dreams. And during the whole of the next day one thought burned in his +brain, the thought of the immense success of <i>Love in Babylon</i>. It +burned so fiercely and so brightly, it so completely preoccupied Henry, +that he would not have been surprised to overhear men whisper to each +other in the street as he passed: 'See that extraordinary thought +blazing away there in that fellow's brain?' It was, in fact, curious to +him that people did not stop and gaze at his cranium, so much the thing +felt like a hollowed turnip illuminated by this candle of an idea. But +nobody with whom he came into contact appeared to be aware of the +immense success of <i>Love in Babylon</i>. In the office of Powells were +seven full-fledged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> solicitors and seventeen other clerks, without +counting Henry, and not a man or youth of the educated lot of them made +the slightest reference to <i>Love in Babylon</i> during all that day. (It +was an ordinary, plain, common, unromantic, dismal Tuesday in Lincoln's +Inn Fields.) Eighteen thousand persons had already bought <i>Love in +Babylon</i>; possibly several hundreds of copies had been sold since nine +o'clock that morning; doubtless someone was every minute inquiring for +it and demanding it in bookshop or library, just as someone is born +every minute. And yet here was the author, the author himself, the +veritable and only genuine author, going about his daily business +unhonoured, unsung, uncongratulated, even unnoticed! It was incredible, +and, besides being incredible, it was exasperating. Henry was modest, +but there are limits to modesty, and more than once in the course of +that amazing and endless Tuesday Henry had a narrow escape of dragging +<i>Love in Babylon</i> bodily into the miscellaneous conversation of the +office. However, with the aid of his natural diffidence he refrained from doing so.</p> + +<p>At five-fifty Sir George departed, as usual, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> catch the six-five for +Wimbledon, where he had a large residence, which outwardly resembled at +once a Bloomsbury boarding-house, a golf-club, and a Riviera hotel. +Henry, after Sir George's exit, lapsed into his principal's chair and +into meditation. The busy life of the establishment died down until only +the office-boys and Henry were left. And still Henry sat, in the +leathern chair at the big table in Sir George's big room, thinking, +thinking, thinking, in a vague but golden and roseate manner, about the future.</p> + +<p>Then the door opened, and Foxall, the emperor of the Powellian office-boys, entered.</p> + +<p>'Here's someone to see you,' Foxall whispered archly; he economized time +by licking envelopes the while. Every night Foxall had to superintend +and participate in the licking of about two hundred envelopes and as many stamps.</p> + +<p>'Who is it?' Henry asked, instantly perturbed and made self-conscious by +the doggishness, the waggishness, the rakishness, of Foxall's tone. It +must be explained that, since Henry did not happen to be an 'admitted' +clerk, Foxall and himself, despite the difference in their ages and +salaries, were theoretically equals in the social scale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> of the office. +Foxall would say 'sir' to the meanest articled clerk that ever failed +five times in his intermediate, but he would have expired on the rack +before saying 'sir' to Henry. The favour accorded to Henry in high +quarters, the speciality of his position, gave rise to a certain +jealousy of him—a jealousy, however, which his natural simplicity and +good-temper prevented from ever becoming formidable. Foxall, indeed, +rather liked Henry, and would do favours for him in matters connected +with press-copying, letter-indexing, despatching, and other mysteries of +the office-boy's peculiar craft.</p> + +<p>'It's a girl,' said Foxall, smiling with the omniscience of a man of the world.</p> + +<p>'A girl!' Somehow Henry had guessed it was a girl. 'What's she like?'</p> + +<p>'She's a bit of all right,' Foxall explained. 'Miss Foster she says her +name is. Better show her in here, hadn't I? The old woman's in your room +now. It's nearly half-past six.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Henry; 'show her in here. Foster? Foster? I don't know——'</p> + +<p>His heart began to beat like an engine under his waistcoat.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p><p>And then Miss Foster tripped in. And she was Goldenhair!</p> + +<p>'Good-afternoon, Mr. Knight,' she said, with a charming affectation of a +little lisp. 'I'm so glad I've caught you. I thought I should. What a +lovely room you've got!'</p> + +<p>He wanted to explain that this was Sir George's room, not his own, and +that any way he did not consider it lovely; but she gave him no chance.</p> + +<p>'I'm awfully nervous, you know, and I always talk fast and loud when I'm +nervous,' she continued rapidly. 'I shall get over it in a few minutes. +Meanwhile you must bear with me. Do you think you can? I want you to do +me a favour, Mr. Knight. Only you can do it. May I sit down? Oh, thanks! +What a huge chair! If I get lost in it, please advertise. Is this where +your clients sit? Yes, I want you to do me a favour. It's quite easy for +you to do. You won't say No, will you? You won't think I'm presuming on +our slight acquaintanceship?'</p> + +<p>The words babbled and purled out of Miss Foster's mouth like a bright +spring out of moss. It was simply wonderful. Henry did not understand +quite precisely how the phenomenon affected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> him, but he was left in no +doubt that his feelings were pleasurable. She had a manner of +looking—of looking up at him and to him, of relying on him as a great +big wise man who could get poor little silly her out of a difficulty. +And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her +teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden +fluffy hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her +dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice—not a wrinkle in all those curves!</p> + +<p>It is singular how a man may go through life absolutely blind to a +patent, obvious, glaring fact, and then suddenly perceive it. Henry +perceived that his mother and his aunt were badly dressed—in truth, +dowdy. It struck him as a discovery.</p> + +<p>'Anything I can do, I'm sure——' he began.</p> + +<p>'Oh, thank you, Mr. Knight I felt I could count on your good-nature. You +know——'</p> + +<p>She cleared her throat, and then smiled intimately, dazzlingly, and +pushed a thin gold bangle over the wrist of her glove. And as she did so +Henry thought what bliss it would be to slip a priceless diamond +bracelet on to that arm. It was just an arm, the usual feminine arm; +every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> normal woman in this world has two of them; and yet——! But at +the same time, such is the contradictoriness of human nature, Henry +would have given a considerable sum to have had Miss Foster magically +removed from the room, and to be alone. The whole of his being was +deeply disturbed, as if by an earthquake. And, moreover, he could scarce speak coherently.</p> + +<p>'You know,' said Miss Foster, 'I want to interview you.'</p> + +<p>He did not take the full meaning of the phrase at first.</p> + +<p>'What about?' he innocently asked.</p> + +<p>'Oh, about yourself, and your work, and your plans, and all that sort of +thing. The usual sort of thing, you know.'</p> + +<p>'For a newspaper?'</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>He took the meaning. He was famous, then! People—that vague, vast +entity known as 'people'—wished to know about him. He had done +something. He had arrested attention—he, Henry, son of the draper's +manager; aged twenty-three; eater of bacon for breakfast every morning +like ordinary men; to be observed daily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> in the Underground, and daily +in the A.B.C. shop in Chancery Lane.</p> + +<p>'You are thinking of <i>Love in Babylon</i>?' he inquired.</p> + +<p>She nodded again. (The nod itself was an enchantment. 'She's just about +my age,' said Henry to himself. And he thought, without realizing that +he thought: 'She's lots older than me <i>practically</i>. She could twist me +round her little finger.')</p> + +<p>'Oh, Mr. Knight, she recommenced at a tremendous rate, sitting up in the +great client's chair, 'you must let me tell you what I thought of <i>Love +in Babylon</i>! It's the sweetest thing! I read it right off, at one go, +without looking up! And the title! How <i>did</i> you think of it? Oh! if I +could write, I would write a book like that. Old Spring Onions has +produced it awfully well, too, hasn't he? It's a boom, a positive, +unmistakable boom! Everyone's talking about you, Mr. Knight. Personally, +I tell everyone I meet to read your book.'</p> + +<p>Henry mildly protested against this excess of enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>'I must,' Miss Foster explained. 'I can't help it.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p><p>Her admiration was the most precious thing on earth to him at that +moment. He had not imagined that he could enjoy anything so much as he +enjoyed her admiration.</p> + +<p>'I'm going now, Mr. Knight,' Foxall sang out from the passage.</p> + +<p>'Very well, Foxall,' Henry replied, as who should say: 'Foxall, I +benevolently permit you to go.'</p> + +<p>They were alone together in the great suite of rooms.</p> + +<p>'You know <i>Home and Beauty</i>, don't you?' Miss Foster demanded.</p> + +<p>'<i>Home and Beauty?</i>'</p> + +<p>'Oh, you don't! I thought perhaps you did. But then, of course, you're a +man. It's one of the new ladies' penny papers. I believe it's doing +rather well now. I write interviews for it. You see, Mr. Knight, I have +a great ambition to be a regular journalist, and in my spare time at Mr. +Snyder's, and in the evenings, I write—things. I'm getting quite a +little connection. What I want to obtain is a regular column in some +really good paper. It's rather awkward, me being engaged all day, +especially for interviews. However, I just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> thought if I ran away at six +I might catch you before you left. And so here I am. I don't know what +you think of me, Mr. Knight, worrying you and boring you like this with +my foolish chatter.... Ah! I see you don't want to be interviewed.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I do,' said Henry. 'That is, I shall be most happy to oblige you +in any way, I assure you. If you really think I'm sufficiently——'</p> + +<p>'Why, of course you are, Mr. Knight,' she urged forcefully. 'But, like +most clever men, you're modest; you've no idea of it—of your success, I +mean. By the way, you'll excuse me, but I do trust you made a proper +bargain with Mr. Onions Winter.'</p> + +<p>'I think so,' said Henry. 'You see, I'm in the law, and we understand these things.'</p> + +<p>'Exactly,' she agreed, but without conviction. 'Then you'll make a lot +of money. You must be very careful about your next contracts. I hope you +didn't agree to let Mr. Winter have a second book on the same terms as this one.'</p> + +<p>Henry recalled a certain clause of the contract which he had signed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p><p>'I am afraid I did,' he admitted sheepishly. 'But the terms are quite +fair. I saw to that.'</p> + +<p>'Mr. Knight! Mr. Knight!' she burst out. 'Why are all you young and +clever men the same? Why do you perspire in order that publishers may +grow fat? <i>I</i> know what Spring Onions' terms would be. Seriously, you +ought to employ an agent. He'd double your income. I don't say Mr. +Snyder particularly——'</p> + +<p>'But Mr. Snyder is a very good agent, isn't he?'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' affirmed Miss Foster gravely. 'He acts for all the best men.'</p> + +<p>'Then I shall come to him,' said Henry. 'I had thought of doing so. You +remember when I called that day—it was mentioned then.'</p> + +<p>He made this momentous decision in an instant, and even as he announced +it he wondered why. However, Mr. Snyder's ten per cent no longer +appeared to him outrageous.</p> + +<p>'And now can you give me some paper and a pencil, Mr. Knight? I forgot +mine in my hurry not to miss you. And I'll sit at the table. May I? Thanks awfully.'</p> + +<p>She sat near to him, while he hastily and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> fumblingly searched for +paper. The idea of being alone with her in the offices seemed delightful +to him. And just then he heard a step in the passage, and a well-known +dry cough, and the trailing of a long brush on the linoleum. Of course, +the caretaker, the inevitable and omnipresent Mrs. Mawner, had invested +the place, according to her nightly custom.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mawner opened the door of Sir George's room, and stood on the mat, +calmly gazing within, the brush in one hand and a duster in the other.</p> + +<p>'I beg pardon, sir,' said she inimically. 'I thought Sir George was gone.'</p> + +<p>'Sir George has gone,' Henry replied.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mawner enveloped the pair in her sinister glance.</p> + +<p>'Shall you be long, sir?'</p> + +<p>'I can't say.' Henry was firm.</p> + +<p>Giving a hitch to her sackcloth, she departed and banged the door.</p> + +<p>Henry and Miss Foster were solitary again. And as he glanced at her, he +thought deliciously: 'I am a gay spark.' Never before had such a notion visited him.</p> + +<p>'What first gave you the idea of writing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span><i>Love in Babylon</i>, Mr. +Knight?' began Miss Foster, smiling upon him with a marvellous allurement.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Henry was nearly an hour later than usual in arriving home, but he +offered no explanation to his mother and aunt beyond saying that he had +been detained by a caller, after Sir George's departure. He read in the +faces of his mother and aunt their natural pride that he should be +capable of conducting Sir George's business for him after Sir George's +departure of a night. Yet he found himself incapable of correcting the +false impression which he had wittingly given. In plain terms, he could +not tell the ladies, he could not bring himself to tell them, that a +well-dressed young woman had called upon him at a peculiar hour and +interviewed him in the strict privacy of Sir George's own room on behalf +of a lady's paper called <i>Home and Beauty</i>. He wanted very much to +impart to them these quite harmless and, indeed, rather agreeable and +honourable facts, but his lips would not frame the communicating words. +Not even when the talk turned, as of course it did, to <i>Love in +Babylon</i>, did he contrive to mention the interview. It was ridiculous; +but so it was.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p><p>'By the way——' he began once, but his mother happened to speak at the +same instant.</p> + +<p>'What were you going to say, Henry?' Aunt Annie asked when Mrs. Knight +had finished.</p> + +<p>'Oh, nothing. I forget,' said the miserable poltroon.</p> + +<p>'The next advertisement will say twentieth thousand, that's what it will +say—you'll see!' remarked Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>'What an ass you are!' murmured Henry to Henry. 'You'll have to tell +them some time, so why not now? Besides, what in thunder's the matter?'</p> + +<p>Vaguely, dimly, he saw that Miss Foster's tight-fitting bodice was the +matter. Yes, there was something about that bodice, those teeth, that +tongue, that hair, something about <i>her</i>, which seemed to challenge the +whole system of his ideas, all his philosophy, self-satisfaction, +seriousness, smugness, and general invincibility. And he thought of her +continually—no particular thought, but a comprehensive, enveloping, +brooding, static thought. And he was strangely jolly and uplifted, full +of affectionate, absent-minded good humour towards his mother and Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p><p>There was a <i>ting-ting</i> of the front-door bell.</p> + +<p>'Perhaps Dr. Dancer has called for a chat,' said Aunt Annie with +pleasant anticipation.</p> + +<p>Sarah was heard to ascend and to run along the hall. Then Sarah entered +the dining-room.</p> + +<p>'Please, sir, there's a young lady to see you.'</p> + +<p>Henry flushed.</p> + +<p>The sisters looked at one another.</p> + +<p>'What name, Sarah?' Aunt Annie whispered.</p> + +<p>'I didn't ask, mum.'</p> + +<p>'How often have I told you always to ask strangers' names when they come +to the door!' Aunt Annie's whisper became angry. 'Go and see.'</p> + +<p>Henry hoped and feared, feared and hoped. But he knew not where to look.</p> + +<p>Sarah returned and said: 'The young lady's name is Foster, sir.'</p> + +<p>'Oh!' said Henry, bursting into speech as some plants burst suddenly and +brilliantly into blossom. 'Miss Foster, eh? It's the lady who called at +the office to-night. Show her into the front-room, Sarah, and light the +gas. I'll come in a minute I wonder what she wants.'</p> + +<p>'You didn't say it was a lady,' said his mother.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>'No,' he admitted; his tongue was unloosed now on the subject. 'And I +didn't say it was a lady-journalist, either. The truth is,' this liar +proceeded with an effrontery which might have been born of incessant +practice, but was not, 'I meant it as a surprise for you. I've been +interviewed this afternoon, for a lady's paper. And I wouldn't mind +betting—I wouldn't mind betting,' he repeated, 'that she's come for my photograph.'</p> + +<p>All this was whispered.</p> + +<p>Henry had guessed correctly. It was the question of a portrait which +Miss Foster plunged into immediately he entered the drawing-room. She +had forgotten it utterly—she had been so nervous. 'So I ran down here +to-night,' she said, 'because if I send in my stuff and the portrait +to-morrow morning, it may be in time for next week's issue. Now, don't +say you haven't got a photograph of yourself, Mr. Knight. Don't say +that! What a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room! Oh, there's the very thing!'</p> + +<p>She pointed to a framed photograph on the plush-covered mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>'The very thing, is it?' said Henry. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> feeling his feet now, the +dog. 'Well, you shall have it, then.' And he took the photograph out of +the frame and gave it to her.</p> + +<p>No! she wouldn't stay, not a minute, not a second. One moment her +delicious presence filled the drawing-room (he was relieved to hear her +call it a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room, because, as the +drawing-room of a person important enough to be interviewed, it had +seemed to him somewhat less than mediocre), and the next moment she had +gone. By a singular coincidence, Aunt Annie was descending the stairs +just as Henry showed Miss Foster out of the house; the stairs commanded +the lobby and the front-door.</p> + +<p>On his return to the dining-room and the companionship of his relatives, +Henry was conscious of a self-preserving instinct which drove him to +make conversation as rapidly and in as large quantities as possible. In +a brief space of time he got round to <i>Home and Beauty</i>.</p> + +<p>'Do you know it?' he demanded.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Aunt Annie. 'I never heard of it. But I dare say it's a very good paper.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight rang the bell.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>'What do you want, sister?' Aunt Annie inquired.</p> + +<p>'I'm going to send Sarah out for a copy of <i>Home and Beauty</i>,' said Mrs. +Knight, with the air of one who has determined to indulge a wild whim +for once in a way. 'Let's see what it's like.'</p> + +<p>'Don't forget the name, Sarah—<i>Home and Beauty</i>!' Aunt Annie enjoined +the girl when Mrs. Knight had given the order.</p> + +<p>'Not me, mum,' said Sarah. 'I know it. It's a beautiful paper. I often +buys it myself. But it's like as if what must be—I lighted the kitchen +fire with this week's this very morning, paper pattern and all.'</p> + +<p>'That will do, thank you, Sarah,' said Aunt Annie crushingly.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>A LION IN HIS LAIR</h3> + +<p>The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into +two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in +water. One class, the more clashing, dashes into a cold tub every +morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm bath every +Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former class lends tone +and distinction to the country, but the latter is the nation's backbone. +Henry belonged to the Saturday-nighters, to the section which calls a +bath a bath, not a tub, and which contrives to approach godliness +without having to boast of it on frosty mornings.</p> + +<p>Henry performed the weekly rite in a zinc receptacle exactly circular, +in his bedroom, because the house in Dawes Road had been built just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +before the craze for dashing had spread to such an extent among the +lower middle-classes that no builder dared build a tenement without +providing for it specially; in brutal terms, the house in Dawes Road had +no bathroom. The preparations for Henry's immersion were always complex +and thorough. Early in the evening Sarah began by putting two kettles +and the largest saucepan to boil on the range. Then she took an old +blanket and spread it out upon the master's bedroom floor, and drew the +bathing-machine from beneath the bed and coaxed it, with considerable +clangour, to the mathematical centre of the blanket. Then she filled +ewers with cold water and arranged them round the machine. Then Aunt +Annie went upstairs to see that the old blanket was well and truly laid, +not too near the bed and not too near the mirror of the wardrobe, and +that the machine did indeed rest in the mathematical centre of the +blanket. (As a fact, Aunt Annie's mathematics never agreed with +Sarah's.) Then Mrs. Knight went upstairs to bear witness that the window +was shut, and to decide the question of towels. Then Sarah went +upstairs, panting, with the kettles and the large saucepan, two journeys +being necessary;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> and Aunt Annie followed her in order to indicate to +Sarah every step upon which Sarah had spilled boiling-water. Then Mrs. +Knight moved the key of Henry's door from the inside to the outside; she +was always afraid lest he might lock himself in and be seized with a +sudden and fatal illness. Then the women dispersed, and Aunt Annie came +down to the dining-room, and in accents studiously calm (as though the +preparation of Henry's bath was the merest nothing) announced:</p> + +<p>'Henry dear, your bath is waiting.'</p> + +<p>And Henry would disappear at once and begin by mixing his bath, out of +the ewers, the kettles, and the saucepan, according to a recipe of which +he alone had the secret. The hour would be about nine o'clock, or a +little after. It was not his custom to appear again. He would put one +kettle out on an old newspaper, specially placed to that end on the +doormat in the passage, for the purposes of Sunday's breakfast; the rest +of the various paraphernalia remained in his room till the following +morning. He then slept the sleep of one who is aware of being the nation's backbone.</p> + +<p>Now, he was just putting a toe or so into the zinc receptacle, in order +to test the accuracy of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> dispensing of the recipe, when he heard a +sharp tap at the bedroom door.</p> + +<p>'What is it?' he cried, withdrawing the toe.</p> + +<p>'Henry!'</p> + +<p>'Well?'</p> + +<p>'Can I open the door an inch?' It was Aunt Annie's voice.</p> + +<p>'Yes. What's the matter?'</p> + +<p>'There's come a copy of <i>Home and Beauty</i> by the last post, and on the +wrapper it says, "See page 16."'</p> + +<p>'I suppose it contains that—thing?'</p> + +<p>'That interview, you mean?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I suppose so.'</p> + +<p>'Shall I open it?'</p> + +<p>'If you like,' said Henry. 'Certainly, with pleasure.'</p> + +<p>He stepped quietly and unconcernedly into the bath. He could hear the +sharp ripping of paper.</p> + +<p>'Oh yes!' came Aunt Annie's voice through the chink. 'And there's the +portrait! Oh! and what a smudge across the nose! Henry, it doesn't make +you look at all nice. You're too black. Oh, Henry! what <i>do</i> you think +it's called? "Lions in their Lairs. No. 19. Interview with the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>brilliant author of <i>Love in Babylon</i>." And you told us her name was +Foster.'</p> + +<p>'Whose name?' Henry demanded, reddening in the hot water.</p> + +<p>'You know—that lady's name, the one that called.'</p> + +<p>'So it is.'</p> + +<p>'No, it isn't, dear. It's Flossie Brighteye. Oh, I beg pardon, Henry! +I'm sure I beg pardon!'</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie, in the excitement of discovering Miss Foster's real name, +and ground withal for her original suspicion that the self-styled Miss +Foster was no better than she ought to be, had leaned too heavily +against the door, and thrust it wide open. She averted her eyes and drew +it to in silence.</p> + +<p>'Shall I show the paper to your mother at once?' she asked, after a fit pause.</p> + +<p>'Yes, do,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'And then bring it up to you again for you to read in bed?'</p> + +<p>'Oh,' replied Henry in the grand manner, 'I can read it to-morrow morning.</p> + +<p>He said to himself that he was not going to get excited about a mere +interview, though it was his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> first interview. During the past few days +the world had apparently wakened up to his existence. Even the men at +the office had got wind of his achievement, and Sir George had been +obliged to notice it. At Powells everyone pretended that this was the +same old Henry Knight who arrived so punctually each day, and yet +everyone knew secretly that it was not the same old Henry Knight. +Everyone, including Henry, felt—and could not dismiss the feeling—that +Henry was conferring a favour on the office by working as usual. There +seemed to be something provisional, something unreal, something uncanny, +in the continuance of his position there. And Sir George, when he +demanded his services to take down letters in shorthand, had the air of +saying apologetically: 'Of course, I know you're only here for fun; but, +since you are here, we may as well carry out the joke in a practical +manner.' Similar phenomena occurred at Dawes Road. Sarah's awe of Henry, +always great, was enormously increased. His mother went about in a state +of not being quite sure whether she had the right to be his mother, +whether she was not taking a mean advantage of him in remaining his +mother. Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Annie did not give herself away, but on her face might be +read a continuous, proud, gentle surprise that Henry should eat as +usual, drink as usual, talk simply as usual, and generally behave as +though he was not one of the finest geniuses in England.</p> + +<p>Further, Mr. Onions Winter had written to ask whether Henry was +proceeding with a new book, and how pleased he was at the prospective +privilege of publishing it. Nine other publishers had written to inform +him that they would esteem it a favour if he would give them the refusal +of his next work. Messrs. Antonio, the eminent photographers of Regent +Street, had written offering to take his portrait gratis, and asking him +to deign to fix an appointment for a séance. The editor of <i>Which is +Which</i>, a biographical annual of inconceivable utility, had written for +intimate details of his age, weight, pastimes, works, ideals, and diet. +The proprietary committee of the Park Club in St. James's Square had +written to suggest that he might join the club without the formality of +paying an entrance fee. The editor of a popular magazine had asked him +to contribute his views to a 'symposium' about the proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> method of +spending quarter-day. Twenty-five charitable institutions had invited +subscriptions from him. Three press-cutting agencies had sent him +cuttings of reviews of <i>Love in Babylon</i>, and the reviews grew kinder +and more laudatory every day. Lastly, Mr. Onions Winter was advertising +the thirty-first thousand of that work.</p> + +<p>It was not to be expected that the recipient of all these overtures, the +courted and sought-for author of <i>Love in Babylon</i>, should disarrange +the tenor of his existence in order to read an interview with himself in +a ladies' penny paper. And Henry repeated, as he sat in the midst of the +zinc circle, that he would peruse Flossie Brighteye's article on Sunday +morning at breakfast. Then he began thinking about Flossie's +tight-fitting bodice, and wondered what she had written. Then he +murmured: 'Oh, nonsense! I'll read it to-morrow. Plenty soon enough.' +Then he stopped suddenly and causelessly while applying the towel to the +small of his back, and stood for several moments in a state of fixity, +staring at a particular spot on the wall-paper. And soon he dearly +perceived that he had been too hasty in refusing Aunt Annie's +suggestion. However, he had made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> his bed, and so he must lie on it, +both figuratively and factually....</p> + +<p>The next thing was that he found himself, instead of putting on his +pyjamas, putting on his day-clothes. He seemed to be doing this while +wishing not to do it. He did not possess a +dressing-gown—Saturday-nighters and backbones seldom do. Hence he was +compelled to dress himself completely, save that he assumed a silk +muffler instead of a collar and necktie, and omitted the usual stockings +between his slippers and his feet. In another minute he unostentatiously +entered the dining-room.</p> + +<p>'Nay,' his mother was saying, 'I can't read it.' Tears of joyous pride +had rendered her spectacles worse than useless. 'Here, Annie, read it aloud.'</p> + +<p>Henry smiled, and he tried to make his smile carry so much meaning, of +pleasant indifference, careless amusement, and benevolent joy in the joy +of others, that it ended by being merely foolish.</p> + +<p>And Aunt Annie began:</p> + +<p>'"It is not too much to say that Mr. Henry Knight, the author of <i>Love +in Babylon</i>, the initial volume of the already world-famous Satin +Library, is the most-talked-of writer in London at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> present moment. +I shall therefore make no apology for offering to my readers an account +of an interview which the young and gifted novelist was kind enough to +give to me the other evening. Mr. Knight is a legal luminary well known +in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the right-hand man of Sir George Powell, the +celebrated lawyer. I found him in his formidable room seated at a——"'</p> + +<p>'What does she mean by "formidable," Henry? 'I don't think that's quite +nice,' said Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>'No, it isn't,' said Aunt Annie. 'But perhaps she means it frightened her.'</p> + +<p>'That's it,' said Henry. 'It was Sir George's room, you know.'</p> + +<p>'She doesn't <i>look</i> as if she would be easily frightened,' said Aunt +Annie. 'However—"seated at a large table littered with legal documents. +He was evidently immersed in business, but he was so good as to place +himself at my disposal for a few minutes. Mr. Knight is twenty-three +years of age. His father was a silk-mercer in Oxford Street, and laid +the foundation of the fortunes of the house now known as Duck and Peabody Limited."'</p> + +<p>'That's very well put,' said Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p><p>'Yes, isn't it?' said Aunt Annie, and continued in her precise, even +tones:</p> + +<p>'"'What first gave you the idea of writing, Mr. Knight?' I inquired, +plunging at once <i>in medias res</i>. Mr. Knight hesitated a few seconds, +and then answered: 'I scarcely know. I owe a great deal to my late +father. My father, although first and foremost a business man, was +devoted to literature. He held that Shakspere, besides being our +greatest poet, was the greatest moral teacher that England has ever +produced. I was brought up on Shakspere,' said Mr. Knight, smiling. 'My +father often sent communications to the leading London papers on +subjects of topical interest, and one of my most precious possessions is +a collection of these which he himself put into an album.'"'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Knight removed her spectacles and wiped her eyes.</p> + +<p>'"'With regard to <i>Love in Babylon</i>, the idea came to me—I cannot +explain how. And I wrote it while I was recovering from a severe +illness——'"'</p> + +<p>'I didn't say "severe,"' Henry interjected. 'She's got that wrong.'</p> + +<p>'But it <i>was</i> severe, dear,' said Aunt Annie,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> and once more continued: +'"'I should never have written it had it not been for the sympathy and +encouragement of my dear mother——'"'</p> + +<p>At this point Mrs. Knight sobbed aloud, and waved her hand deprecatingly.</p> + +<p>'Nay, nay!' she managed to stammer at length. 'Read no more. I can't +stand it. I'll try to read it myself to-morrow morning while you're at +chapel and all's quiet.'</p> + +<p>And she cried freely into her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>Henry and Aunt Annie exchanged glances, and Henry retired to bed with +<i>Home and Beauty</i> under his arm. And he read through the entire +interview twice, and knew by heart what he had said about his plans for +the future, and the state of modern fiction, and the tendency of authors +towards dyspepsia, and the question of realism in literature, and the +Stream of Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press. The whole +thing seemed to him at first rather dignified and effective. He +understood that Miss Foster was no common Fleet Street hack.</p> + +<p>But what most impressed him, and coloured his dreams, was the final +sentence: 'As I left Mr. Knight, I could not dismiss the sensation that +I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> had been in the presence of a man who is morally certain, at no +distant date, to loom large in the history of English fiction.—<span class="smcap">Flossie +Brighteye</span>.'</p> + +<p>A passing remark about his 'pretty suburban home' was the sauce to this dish.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>HER NAME WAS GERALDINE</h3> + +<p>A few mornings later, in his post, whose proportions grew daily nobler +and more imposing, Henry found a letter from Mark Snyder. 'I have been +detained in America by illness,' wrote Mark in his rapid, sprawling, +inexcusable hand, 'and am only just back. I wonder whether you have come +to any decision about the matter which we discussed when you called +here. I see you took my advice and went to Onions Winter. If you could +drop in to-morrow at noon or a little after, I have something to show +you which ought to interest you.' And then there was a postscript: 'My +congratulations on your extraordinary success go without saying.'</p> + +<p>After Henry had deciphered this invitation, he gave a glance at the page +as a whole, which had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> the air of having been penned by Planchette in a +state of violent hysteria, and he said to himself: 'It's exactly like +Snyder, that is. He's a clever chap. He knows what he's up to. As to my +choosing Onions Winter, yes, of course it was due to him.'</p> + +<p>Henry was simple, but he was not a fool. He was modest and diffident, +but, as is generally the case with modest and diffident persons, there +existed, somewhere within the recesses of his consciousness, a very good +conceit of himself. He had already learnt, the trout, to look up through +the water from his hole and compare the skill of the various anglers on +the bank who were fishing for the rise. And he decided that morning, +finally: 'Snyder shall catch me.' His previous decision to the same +effect, made under the influence of the personal magnetism of Miss +Foster, had been annulled only the day before. And the strange thing was +that it had been annulled because of Miss Foster's share in it, and in +consequence of the interview in <i>Home and Beauty</i>. For the more Henry +meditated upon that interview the less he liked it. He could not have +defined its offence in his eyes, but the offence was nevertheless +there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> And, further, the interview seemed now scarcely a real +interview. Had it dealt with any other celebrity, it would have been +real enough, but in Henry's view Henry was different. He was only an +imitation celebrity, and Miss Foster's production was an imitation +interview. The entire enterprise, from the moment when he gave her Sir +George's lead pencil to write with, to the moment when he gave her his +own photograph out of the frame on the drawing-room mantelpiece, had +been a pretence, and an imposition on the public. Surely if the public +knew...! And then, 'pretty suburban home'! It wasn't ugly, the house in +Dawes Road; indeed, he esteemed it rather a nice sort of a place, but +'pretty suburban home' meant—well, it meant the exact opposite of Dawes +Road: he was sure of that. As for Miss Foster, he suspected, he allowed +himself to suspect, he audaciously whispered when he was alone in a +compartment on the Underground, that Miss Foster was a pushing little +thing. A reaction had set in against Flossie Brighteye.</p> + +<p>And yet, when he called upon Mark Snyder for the purpose of being +caught, he was decidedly piqued, he was even annoyed, not to find her +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> her chair in the outer room. 'She must have known I was coming,' he +reflected swiftly. 'No, perhaps she didn't. The letter was not +dictated.... But then it was press-copied; I am sure of that by the +smudges on it. She must certainly have known I was coming.' And, despite +the verdict that she was a pushing young thing, Henry felt it to be in +the nature of a personal grievance that she was not always waiting for +him there, in that chair, with her golden locks and her smile and her +tight bodice, whenever he cared to look in. His right to expect her +presence seemed part of his heritage as a man, and it could not be +challenged without disturbing the very foundations of human society. He +did not think these thoughts clearly as he crossed the outer room into +the inner under the direction of Miss Foster's unexciting colleague, but +they existed vaguely and furtively in his mind. Had anyone suggested +that he cared twopence whether Miss Foster was there or not, he would +have replied with warm sincerity that he did not care three halfpence, +nor two straws, nor a bilberry, nor even a jot.</p> + +<p>'Well,' cried Mark Snyder, with his bluff and jolly habit of beginning +interviews in the middle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> and before the caller had found opportunity +to sit down. 'All you want now is a little bit of judicious +engineering!' And Mark's rosy face said: 'I'll engineer you.'</p> + +<p>Upon demand Henry produced the agreement with Onions Winter, and he +produced it with a shamed countenance. He knew that Mark Snyder would criticise it.</p> + +<p>'Worse than I expected,' Mr. Snyder observed. 'Worse than I expected. A +royalty of twopence in the shilling is all right. But why did you let +him off the royalty on the first five thousand copies? You call yourself +a lawyer! Listen, young man. I have seen the world, but I have never +seen a lawyer who didn't make a d——d fool of himself when it came to +his own affairs. Supposing <i>Love in Babylon</i> sells fifty thousand—which +it won't; it won't go past forty—you would have saved my ten per cent. +commission by coming to me in the first place, because I should have got +you a royalty on the first five thousand. See?'</p> + +<p>'But you weren't here,' Henry put in.</p> + +<p>'I wasn't here! God bless my soul! Little Geraldine Foster would have +had the sense to get that!'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>(So her name was Geraldine.)</p> + +<p>'It isn't the money,' Mark Snyder proceeded. 'It's the idea of Onions +Winter playing his old game with new men. And then I see you've let +yourself in for a second book on the same terms, if he chooses to take +it. That's another trick of his. Look here,' Mr. Snyder smiled +persuasively, 'I'll thank you to go right home and get that second book +done. Make it as short as you can. When that's out of the way—— Ah!' +He clasped his hands in a sort of ecstasy.</p> + +<p>'I will,' said Henry obediently. But a dreadful apprehension which had +menaced him for several weeks past now definitely seized him.</p> + +<p>'And I perceive further,' said Mr. Snyder, growing sarcastic, 'that in +case Mr. Onions Winter chooses to copyright the book in America, you are +to have half-royalties on all copies sold over there. Now about +America,' Mark continued after an impressive pause, at the same time +opening a drawer and dramatically producing several paper-covered +volumes therefrom. 'See this—and this—and this—and this! What are +they? They're pirated editions of <i>Love in Babylon</i>, that's what they +are. You didn't know? No, of course not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> I'm told that something like a +couple of hundred thousand copies have been sold in America up to date. +I brought these over with me as specimens.'</p> + +<p>'Then Onions Winter didn't copyright——'</p> + +<p>'No, sir, he didn't. That incredible ass did not. He's just issued what +he calls an authorized edition there at half a dollar, but what will +that do in the face of this at twenty cents, and this wretched pamphlet +at ten cents?' Snyder fingered the piracies. 'Twopence in the shilling +on two hundred thousand copies at half a dollar means over three +thousand pounds. That's what you might well have made if Providence, +doubtless in a moment of abstraction, had not created Onions Winter an +incredible ass, and if you had not vainly imagined that because you were +a lawyer you had nothing to learn about contracts.'</p> + +<p>'Still,' faltered Henry, after he had somewhat recovered from these +shrewd blows, 'I shall do pretty well out of the English edition.'</p> + +<p>'Three thousand pounds is three thousand pounds,' said Mark Snyder with +terrible emphasis. And suddenly he laughed. 'You really wish me to act for you?'</p> + +<p>'I do,' said Henry.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>'Very well. Go home and finish book number two. And don't let it be a +page longer than the first one. I'll see Onions Winter. With care we may +clear a couple of thousand out of book number two, even on that precious +screed you call an agreement. Perhaps more. Perhaps I may have a +pleasant little surprise for you. Then you shall do a long book, and +we'll begin to make money, real money. Oh, you can do it! I've no fear +at all of you fizzling out. You simply go home and sit down and <i>write</i>. +I'll attend to the rest. And if you think Powells can struggle along +without you, I should be inclined to leave.'</p> + +<p>'Surely not yet?' Henry protested.</p> + +<p>'Well,' said Snyder in a different tone, looking up quickly from his +desk, 'perhaps you're right. Perhaps it will be as well to wait a bit, +and just make quite sure about the quality of the next book. Want any money?'</p> + +<p>'No,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'Because if you do, I can let you have whatever you need. And you can +carry off these piracies if you like.'</p> + +<p>As he thoughtfully descended the stairways of Kenilworth Mansions, +Henry's mind was an arena<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> of emotions. Undoubtedly, then, a +considerable number of hundreds of pounds were to come from <i>Love in +Babylon</i>, to say nothing of three thousand lost! Two thousand from the +next book! And after that, 'money, real money'! Mark Snyder had awakened +the young man's imagination. He had entered the parlour of Mark Snyder +with no knowledge of the Transatlantic glory of <i>Love in Babylon</i> beyond +the fact, gathered from a newspaper cutting, that the book had attracted +attention in America; and in five minutes Mark had opened wide to him +the doors of Paradise. Or, rather, Mark had pointed out to him that the +doors of Paradise were open wide. Mr. Snyder, as Henry perceived, was +apt unwittingly to give the impression that he, and not his clients, +earned the wealth upon which he received ten per cent. commission. But +Henry was not for a single instant blind to the certitude that, if his +next book realized two thousand pounds, the credit would be due to +himself, and to no other person whatever. Henry might be tongue-tied in +front of Mark Snyder, but he was capable of estimating with some +precision their relative fundamental importance in the scheme of things.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>In the clerks' office Henry had observed numerous tin boxes inscribed +in white paint with the names of numerous eminent living authors. He +wondered if Mr. Snyder played to all these great men the same rôle—half +the frank and bluff uncle, half the fairy-godmother. He was surprised +that he could remember no word said about literature, ideas, genius, or +even talent. No doubt Mr. Snyder took such trifles for granted. No doubt +he began where they left off.</p> + +<p>He sighed. He was dazzled by golden visions, but beneath the dizzy and +delicious fabric of the dream, eating away at the foundations, lurked +always that dreadful apprehension.</p> + +<p>As he reached the marble hall on the ground-floor a lady was getting +into the lift. She turned sharply, gave a joyous and yet timid +commencement of a scream, and left the lift to the liftman.</p> + +<p>'I'm so glad I've not missed you,' she said, holding out her small +gloved hand, and putting her golden head on one side, and smiling. 'I +was afraid I should. I had to go out. Don't tell me that interview was +too awful. Don't crush me. I know it was pretty bad.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>So her name was Geraldine.</p> + +<p>'I thought it was much too good for its subject,' said Henry. He saw in +the tenth of a second that he had been wholly wrong, very unjust, and +somewhat cruel, to set her down as a pushing little thing. She was +nothing of the kind. She was a charming and extremely stylish woman, +exquisitely feminine; and she admired him with a genuine admiration. 'I +was just going to write and thank you,' he added. And he really believed that he was.</p> + +<p>What followed was due to the liftman. The impatient liftman, noticing +that the pair were enjoying each other's company, made a disgraceful +gesture behind their backs, slammed the gate, and ascended majestically +alone in the lift towards some high altitude whence emanated an odour of +boiled Spanish onions. Geraldine Foster glanced round carelessly at the +rising and beautiful flunkey, and it was the sudden curve of her neck +that did it. It was the sudden curve of her neck, possibly assisted by +Henry's appreciation of the fact that they were now unobserved and +solitary in the hall.</p> + +<p>Henry was made aware that women are the only really interesting +phenomena in the world. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> just as he stumbled on this profound truth, +Geraldine, for her part, caught sight of the pirated editions in his +hand, and murmured: 'So Mr. Snyder has told you! <i>What a shame</i>, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>The sympathy in her voice, the gaze of her eyes under the lashes, finished him.</p> + +<p>'Do you live far from here?' he stammered, he knew not why.</p> + +<p>'In Chenies Street,' she replied. 'I share a little flat with my friend +upstairs. You must come and have tea with me some afternoon—some +Saturday or Sunday. Will you? Dare I ask?'</p> + +<p>He said he should like to, awfully.</p> + +<p>'I was dining out last night, and we were talking about you,' she began +a few seconds later.</p> + +<p>Women! Wine! Wealth! Joy! Life itself! He was swept off his feet by a +sudden and tremendous impulse.</p> + +<p>'I wish,' he blurted out, interrupting her—'I wish you'd come and dine +with <i>me</i> some night, at a restaurant.'</p> + +<p>'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'I should love it.'</p> + +<p>'And we might go somewhere afterwards.' He was certainly capable of +sublime conceptions.</p> + +<p>And she exclaimed again: 'I should love it!'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> The naïve and innocent +candour of her bliss appealed to him with extraordinary force.</p> + +<p>In a moment or so he had regained his self-control, and he managed to +tell her in a fairly usual tone that he would write and suggest an evening.</p> + +<p>He parted from her in a whirl of variegated ecstasies. 'Let us eat and +drink, for to-morrow we die,' he remarked to the street. What he meant +was that, after more than a month's excogitation, he had absolutely +failed to get any single shred of a theme for the successor to <i>Love in +Babylon</i>—that successor out of which a mere couple of thousand pounds +was to be made; and that he didn't care.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY</h3> + +<p>There was to be an important tea-meeting at the Munster Park Chapel on +the next Saturday afternoon but one, and tea was to be on the tables at +six o'clock. The gathering had some connection with an attempt on the +part of the Wesleyan Connexion to destroy the vogue of Confucius in +China. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie had charge of the department of +sandwiches, and they asked Henry whether he should be present at the +entertainment. They were not surprised, however, when he answered that +the exigencies of literary composition would make his attendance +impossible. They lauded his self-denial, for Henry's literary work was +quite naturally now the most important and the most exacting work in the +world, the crusade against Confucius not excepted. Henry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> wrote to +Geraldine and invited her to dine with him at the Louvre Restaurant on +that Saturday night, and Geraldine replied that she should be charmed. +Then Henry changed his tailor, and could not help blushing when he gave +his order to the new man, who had a place in Conduit Street and a way of +looking at the clothes Henry wore that reduced those neat garments to +shapeless and shameful rags.</p> + +<p>The first fatal steps in a double life having been irrevocably taken, +Henry drew a long breath, and once more seriously addressed himself to +book number two. But ideas obstinately refused to show themselves above +the horizon. And yet nothing had been left undone which ought to have +been done in order to persuade ideas to arrive. The whole domestic +existence of the house in Dawes Road revolved on Henry's precious brain +as on a pivot. The drawing-room had not only been transformed into a +study; it had been rechristened 'the study.' And in speaking of the +apartment to each other or to Sarah, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie employed +a vocal inflection of peculiar impressiveness. Sarah entered the study +with awe, the ladies with pride. Henry sat in it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> nearly every night and +laboured hard, with no result whatever. If the ladies ventured to +question him about his progress, he replied with false gaiety that they +must ask him again in a month or so; and they smiled in sure +anticipation of the beautiful thing that was in store for them and the public.</p> + +<p>He had no one to consult in his dilemma. Every morning he received +several cuttings, chiefly of an amiable character, about himself from +the daily and weekly press; he was a figure in literary circles; he had +actually declined two invitations to be interviewed; and yet he knew no +more of literary circles than Sarah did. His position struck him as +curious, bizarre, and cruel. He sometimes felt that the history of the +last few months was a dream from which he would probably wake up by +falling heavily out of bed, so unreal did the events seem. One day, when +he was at his wits' end, he saw in a newspaper an advertisement of a +book entitled <i>How to become a Successful Novelist</i>, price half-a-crown. +Just above it was an advertisement of the thirty-eighth thousand of +<i>Love in Babylon</i>. He went into a large bookseller's shop in the Strand +and demanded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> <i>How to become a Successful Novelist</i>. The volume had to +be searched for, and while he was waiting Henry's eyes dwelt on a high +pile of <i>Love in Babylon</i>, conspicuously placed near the door. Two +further instalments of the Satin Library had been given to the world +since <i>Love in Babylon</i>, but Henry noted with satisfaction that no +excessive prominence was accorded to them in that emporium of +literature. He paid the half-crown and pocketed <i>How to become a +Successful Novelist</i> with a blush, just as if the bookseller had been +his new tailor. He had determined, should the bookseller recognise +him—a not remote contingency—to explain that he was buying <i>How to +become a Successful Novelist</i> on behalf of a young friend. However, the +suspicions of the bookseller happened not to be aroused, and hence there +was no occasion to lull them.</p> + +<p>That same evening, in the privacy of his study, he eagerly read <i>How to +become a Successful Novelist</i>. It disappointed him; nay, it desolated +him. He was shocked to discover that he had done nothing that a man must +do who wishes to be a successful novelist. He had not practised style; +he had not paraphrased choice pages from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> the classics; he had not kept +note-books; he had not begun with short stories; he had not even +performed the elementary, obvious task of studying human nature. He had +never thought of 'atmosphere' as 'atmosphere'; nor had he considered the +important question of the 'functions of dialogue.' As for the +'significance of scenery,' it had never occurred to him. In brief, he +was a lost man. And he could detect in the book no practical hint +towards salvation. 'Having decided upon your theme——' said the writer +in a chapter entitled 'The Composition of a Novel.' But what Henry +desired was a chapter entitled 'The Finding of a Theme.' He suffered the +aggravated distress of a starving man who has picked up a cookery-book.</p> + +<p>There was a knock at the study door, and Henry hastily pushed <i>How to +become a Successful Novelist</i> under the blotting-paper, and assumed a +meditative air. Not for worlds would he have been caught reading it.</p> + +<p>'A letter, dear, by the last post,' said Aunt Annie, entering; and then +discreetly departed.</p> + +<p>The letter was from Mark Snyder, and it enclosed a cheque for a hundred +pounds, saying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> that Mr. Onions Winter, though under no obligation to +furnish a statement until the end of the year, had sent this cheque on +account out of courtesy to Mr. Knight, and in the hope that Mr. Knight +would find it agreeable; also in the hope that Mr. Knight was proceeding +satisfactorily with book number two. The letter was typewritten, and +signed 'Mark Snyder, per G. F.,' and the 'G. F.' was very large and distinct.</p> + +<p>Henry instantly settled in his own mind that he would attempt no more +with book number two until the famous dinner with 'G. F.' had come to +pass. He cherished a sort of hopeful feeling that after he had seen her, +and spent that about-to-be-wonderful evening with her, he might be able +to invent a theme. The next day he cashed the cheque. The day after that +was Saturday, and he came home at two o'clock with a large flat box, +which he surreptitiously conveyed to his bedroom. Small parcels had been +arriving for him during the week. At half-past four Mrs. Knight and Aunt +Annie, invading the study, found him reading <i>Chambers' Encyclopædia</i>.</p> + +<p>'We're going now, dear,' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'Sarah will have your tea ready at half-past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> five,' said his mother. +'And I've told her to be sure and boil the eggs three and three-quarter minutes.'</p> + +<p>'And we shall be back about half-past nine,' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'Don't stick at it too closely,' said his mother. 'You ought to take a +little exercise. It's a beautiful afternoon.'</p> + +<p>'I shall see,' Henry answered gravely. 'I shall be all right.'</p> + +<p>He watched the ladies down the road in the direction of the tea-meeting, +and no sooner were they out of sight than he nipped upstairs and locked +himself in his bedroom. At half-past five Sarah tapped at his door and +announced that tea was ready. He descended to tea in his overcoat, and +the collar of his overcoat was turned up and buttoned across his neck. +He poured out some tea, and drank it, and poured some more into the +slop-basin. He crumpled a piece or two of bread-and-butter and spread +crumbs on the cloth. He shelled the eggs very carefully, and, climbing +on to a chair, dropped the eggs themselves into a large blue jar which +stood on the top of the bookcase. After these singular feats he rang the +bell for Sarah.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p><p>'Sarah,' he said in a firm voice, 'I've had my tea, and I'm going out +for a long walk. Tell my mother and aunt that they are on no account to +wait up for me, if I am not back.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, sir,' said Sarah timidly. 'Was the eggs hard enough, sir?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, thank you.' His generous, kindly approval of the eggs cheered this devotee.</p> + +<p>Henry brushed his silk hat, put it on, and stole out of the house +feeling, as all livers of double lives must feel, a guilty thing. It was +six o'clock. The last domestic sound he heard was Sarah singing in the +kitchen. 'Innocent, simple creature!' he thought, and pitied her, and +turned down the collar of his overcoat.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>DURING THE TEA-MEETING</h3> + +<p>In spite of the sincerest intention not to arrive too soon, Henry +reached the Louvre Restaurant a quarter of an hour before the appointed +time. He had meant to come in an omnibus, and descend from it at +Piccadilly Circus, but his attire made him feel self-conscious, and he +had walked on, allowing omnibus after omnibus to pass him, in the hope +of being able to get into an empty one; until at last, afraid that he +was risking his fine reputation for exact promptitude, he had suddenly +yielded to the alluring gesture of a cabman.</p> + +<p>The commissionaire of the Louvre, who stood six feet six and a half +inches high, who wore a coat like the side of a blue house divided by +means of pairs of buttons into eighty-five storeys, who had the face of +a poet addicted to blank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> verse, and who was one of the glories of the +Louvre, stepped across the pavement in one stride and assisted Henry to +alight. Henry had meant to give the cabman eighteenpence, but the occult +influence of the glorious commissionaire mysteriously compelled him, +much against his will, to make it half a crown. He hesitated whether to +await Geraldine within the Louvre or without; he was rather bashful +about entering (hitherto he had never flown higher than Sweeting's). The +commissionaire, however, attributing this indecision to Henry's +unwillingness to open doors for himself, stepped back across the +pavement in another stride, and held the portal ajar. Henry had no +alternative but to pass beneath the commissionaire's bended and +respectful head. Once within the gorgeous twilit hall of the Louvre, +Henry was set upon by two very diminutive and infantile replicas of the +commissionaire, one of whom staggered away with his overcoat, while the +other secured the remainder of the booty in the shape of his hat, +muffler, and stick, and left Henry naked. I say 'naked' purposely. +Anyone who has dreamed the familiar dream of being discovered in a state +of nudity amid a roomful of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> clothed and haughty strangers may, by +recalling his sensations, realize Henry's feelings as he stood alone and +unfriended there, exposed for the first time in his life in evening +dress to the vulgar gaze. Several minutes passed before Henry could +conquer the delusion that everybody was staring at him in amused +curiosity. Having conquered it, he sank sternly into a chair, and +surreptitiously felt the sovereigns in his pocket.</p> + +<p>Soon an official bore down on him, wearing a massive silver necklet +which fell gracefully over his chest. Henry saw and trembled.</p> + +<p>'Are you expecting someone, sir?' the man whispered in a velvety and +confidential voice, as who should say: 'Have no secrets from me. I am +discretion itself.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' answered Henry boldly, and he was inclined to add: 'But it's all +right, you know. I've nothing to be ashamed of.'</p> + +<p>'Have you booked a table, sir?' the official proceeded with relentless +suavity. As he stooped towards Henry's ear his chain swung in the air +and gently clanked.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Henry, and then hastened to assure the official: 'But I want +one.' The idea of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> booking tables at a restaurant struck him as a +surprising novelty.</p> + +<p>'Upstairs or down, sir? Perhaps you'd prefer the balcony? For two, sir? +I'll <i>see</i>, sir. We're always rather full. What name, sir?'</p> + +<p>'Knight,' said Henry majestically.</p> + +<p>He was a bad starter, but once started he could travel fast. Already he +was beginning to feel at home in the princely foyer of the Louvre, and +to stare at new arrivals with a cold and supercilious stare. His +complacency, however, was roughly disturbed by a sudden alarm lest +Geraldine might not come in evening-dress, might not have quite +appreciated what the Louvre was.</p> + +<p>'Table No. 16, sir,' said the chain-wearer in his ear, as if depositing +with him a state-secret.</p> + +<p>'Right,' said Henry, and at the same instant she irradiated the hall +like a vision.</p> + +<p>'Am I not prompt?' she demanded sweetly, as she took a light wrap from +her shoulders.</p> + +<p>Henry began to talk very rapidly and rather loudly. 'I thought you'd +prefer the balcony,' he said with a tremendous air of the man about +town; 'so I got a table upstairs. No. 16, I fancy it is.'</p> + +<p>She was in evening-dress. There could be no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> doubt about that; it was a +point upon which opinions could not possibly conflict. She was in evening-dress.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'Now tell me all about <i>your</i>self,' Henry suggested. They were in the +middle of the dinner.</p> + +<p>'Oh, you can't be interested in the affairs of poor little me!'</p> + +<p>'Can't I!'</p> + +<p>He had never been so ecstatically happy in his life before. In fact, he +had not hitherto suspected even the possibility of that rapture. In the +first place, he perceived that in choosing the Louvre he had builded +better than he knew. He saw that the Louvre was perfect. Such napery, +such argent, such crystal, such porcelain, such flowers, such electric +and glowing splendour, such food and so many kinds of it, such men, such +women, such chattering gaiety, such a conspiracy on the part of menials +to persuade him that he was the Shah of Persia, and Geraldine the +peerless Circassian odalisque! The reality left his fancy far behind. In +the second place, owing to his prudence in looking up the subject in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span><i>Chambers' Encyclopædia</i> earlier in the day, he, who was almost a +teetotaler, had cut a more than tolerable figure in handling the +wine-list. He had gathered that champagne was in truth scarcely worthy +of its reputation among the uninitiated, that the greatest of all wines +was burgundy, and that the greatest of all burgundies was Romanée-Conti. +'Got a good Romanée-Conti?' he said casually to the waiter. It was +immense, the look of genuine respect that came into the face of the +waiter. The Louvre had a good Romanée-Conti. Its price, two pounds five +a bottle, staggered Henry, and he thought of his poor mother and aunt at +the tea-meeting, but his impassive features showed no sign of the +internal agitation. And when he had drunk half a glass of the +incomparable fluid, he felt that a hundred and two pounds five a bottle +would not have been too much to pay for it. The physical, moral, and +spiritual effects upon him of that wine were remarkable in the highest +degree. That wine banished instantly all awkwardness, diffidence, +timidity, taciturnity, and meanness. It filled him with generous +emotions and the pride of life. It ennobled him.</p> + +<p>And, in the third place, Geraldine at once <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>furnished him with a new +ideal of the feminine and satisfied it. He saw that the women of Munster +Park were not real women; they were afraid to be real women, afraid to +be joyous, afraid to be pretty, afraid to attract; they held themselves +in instead of letting themselves go; they assumed that every pleasure +was guilty until it was proved innocent, thus transgressing the +fundamental principle of English justice; their watchful eyes seemed to +be continually saying: 'Touch me—and I shall scream for help!' In +costume, any elegance, any elaboration, any coquetry, was eschewed by +them as akin to wantonness. Now Geraldine reversed all that. Her frock +was candidly ornate. She told him she had made it herself, but it +appeared to him that there were more stitches in it than ten women could +have accomplished in ten years. She openly revelled in her charms; she +openly made the most of them. She did not attempt to disguise her wish +to please, to flatter, to intoxicate. Her eyes said nothing about +screaming for help. Her eyes said: 'I'm a woman; you're a man. How +jolly!' Her eyes said: 'I was born to do what I'm doing now.' Her eyes +said: 'Touch me—and we shall see'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> But what chiefly enchanted Henry +was her intellectual courage and her freedom from cant. In conversing +with her you hadn't got to tread lightly and warily, lest at any moment +you might put your foot through the thin crust of a false modesty, and +tumble into eternal disgrace. You could talk to her about anything; and +she did not pretend to be blind to the obvious facts of existence, to +the obvious facts of the Louvre Restaurant, for example. Moreover, she +had a way of being suddenly and deliciously serious, and of indicating +by an earnest glance that of course she was very ignorant really, and +only too glad to learn from a man like him.</p> + +<p>'Can't I!' he replied, after she had gazed at him in silence over the +yellow roses and the fowl.</p> + +<p>So she told him that she was an orphan, and had a brother who was a +solicitor in Leicester. Why Henry should have immediately thought that +her brother was a somewhat dull and tedious person cannot easily be +explained; but he did think so.</p> + +<p>She went on to tell him that she had been in London five years, and had +begun in a milliner's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> shop, had then learnt typewriting and shorthand, +advertised for a post, and obtained her present situation with Mark Snyder.</p> + +<p>'I was determined to earn my own living,' she said, with a charming +smile. 'My brother would have looked after me, but I preferred to look +after myself.' A bangle slipped down her arm.</p> + +<p>'She's perfectly wonderful!' Henry thought.</p> + +<p>And then she informed him that she was doing fairly well in journalism, +and had attempted sensational fiction, but that none saw more clearly +than she how worthless and contemptible her sort of work was, and none +longed more sincerely than she to produce good work, serious work.... +However, she knew she couldn't.</p> + +<p>'Will you do me a favour?' she coaxed.</p> + +<p>'What is it?' he said.</p> + +<p>'Oh! No! You must promise.'</p> + +<p>'Of course, if I can.'</p> + +<p>'Well, you can. I want to know what your next book's about. I won't +breathe a word to a soul. But I would like you to tell me. I would like +to feel that it was you that had told me. You can't imagine how keen I am.'</p> + +<p>'Ask me a little later,' he said. 'Will you?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p><p>'To-night?'</p> + +<p>She put her head on one side.</p> + +<p>And he replied audaciously: 'Yes.'</p> + +<p>'Very well,' she agreed. 'And I shan't forget. I shall hold you to your promise.'</p> + +<p>Just then two men passed the table, and one of them caught Geraldine's +eye, and Geraldine bowed.</p> + +<p>'Well, Mr. Doxey,' she exclaimed. 'What ages since I saw you!'</p> + +<p>'Yes, isn't it?' said Mr. Doxey.</p> + +<p>They shook hands and talked a moment.</p> + +<p>'Let me introduce you to Mr. Henry Knight,' said Geraldine. 'Mr. +Knight—Mr. Doxey, of the P.A.'</p> + +<p>'<i>Love in Babylon?</i>' murmured Mr. Doxey inquiringly. 'Very pleased to +meet you, sir.'</p> + +<p>Henry was not favourably impressed by Mr. Doxey's personal appearance, +which was attenuated and riggish. He wondered what 'P.A.' meant. Not +till later in the evening did he learn that it stood for Press +Association, and had no connection with Pleasant Sunday Afternoons. Mr. +Doxey stated that he was going on to the Alhambra to 'do' the celebrated +Toscato, the inventor of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> new vanishing trick, who made his first +public appearance in England at nine forty-five that night.</p> + +<p>'You didn't mind my introducing him to you? He's a decent little man in +some ways,' said Geraldine humbly, when they were alone again.</p> + +<p>'Oh, of course not!' Henry assured her. 'By the way, what would you like +to do to-night?'</p> + +<p>'I don't know,' she said. 'It's awfully late, isn't it? Time flies so +when you're interested.'</p> + +<p>'It's a quarter to nine. What about the Alhambra?' he suggested.</p> + +<p>(He who had never been inside a theatre, not to mention a music-hall!)</p> + +<p>'Oh!' she burst out. 'I adore the Alhambra. What an instinct you have! I +was just hoping you'd say the Alhambra!'</p> + +<p>They had Turkish coffee. He succeeded very well in pretending that he +had been thoroughly accustomed all his life to the spectacle of women +smoking—that, indeed, he was rather discomposed than otherwise when +they did not smoke. He paid the bill, and the waiter brought him half a +crown concealed on a plate in the folds of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> receipt; it was the +change out of a five-pound note.</p> + +<p>Being in a hansom with her, though only for two minutes, surpassed even +the rapture of the restaurant. It was the quintessence of Life.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>A NOVELIST IN A BOX</h3> + +<p>Perhaps it was just as well that the curtain was falling on the ballet +when Henry and Geraldine took possession of their stalls in the superb +Iberian auditorium of the Alhambra Theatre. The glimpse which Henry had +of the <i>prima ballerina assoluta</i> in her final pose and her costume, and +of the hundred minor choregraphic artists, caused him to turn +involuntarily to Geraldine to see whether she was not shocked. She, +however, seemed to be keeping her nerve fairly well; so he smothered up +his consternation in a series of short, dry coughs, and bought a +programme. He said to himself bravely: 'I'm in for it, and I may as well +go through with it.' The next item, while it puzzled, reassured him. The +stage showed a restaurant, with a large screen on one side. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> lady +entered, chattered at an incredible rate in Italian, and disappeared +behind the screen, where she knocked a chair over and rang for the +waiter. Then the waiter entered and disappeared behind the screen, +chattering at an incredible rate in Italian. The waiter reappeared and +made his exit, and then a gentleman appeared, and disappeared behind the +screen, chattering at an incredible rate in Italian. Kissing was heard +behind the screen. Instantly the waiter served a dinner, chattering +always behind the screen with his customers at an incredible rate in +Italian. Then another gentleman appeared, and no sooner had he +disappeared behind the screen, chattering at an incredible rate in +Italian, than a policeman appeared, and he too, chattering at an +incredible rate in Italian, disappeared behind the screen. A fearsome +altercation was now developing behind the screen in the tongue of Dante, +and from time to time one or other of the characters—the lady, the +policeman, the first or second gentleman, the waiter—came from cover +into view of the audience, and harangued the rest at an incredible rate +in Italian. Then a disaster happened behind the screen: a table was +upset, to an accompaniment of yells;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> and the curtain fell rapidly, amid +loud applause, to rise again with equal rapidity on the spectacle of a +bowing and smiling little man in ordinary evening dress.</p> + +<p>This singular and enigmatic drama disconcerted Henry.</p> + +<p>'What is it?' he whispered.</p> + +<p>'Pauletti,' said Geraldine, rather surprised at the question.</p> + +<p>He gathered from her tone that Pauletti was a personage of some +importance, and, consulting the programme, read: 'Pauletti, the +world-renowned quick-change artiste.' Then he figuratively kicked +himself, like a man kicks himself figuratively in bed when he wakes up +in the middle of the night and sees the point of what has hitherto +appeared to be rather less than a joke.</p> + +<p>'He's very good,' said Henry, as the excellence of Pauletti became more +and more clear to him.</p> + +<p>'He gets a hundred a week,' said Geraldine.</p> + +<p>When Pauletti had performed two other violent dramas, and dressed and +undressed himself thirty-nine times in twenty minutes, he gave way to +his fellow-countryman Toscato. Toscato began gently with a little +prestidigitation, picking five-pound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> notes out of the air, and +simplicities of that kind. He then borrowed a handkerchief, produced an +orange out of the handkerchief, a vegetable-marrow out of the orange, a +gibus hat out of the vegetable-marrow, a live sucking-pig out of the +gibus hat, five hundred yards of coloured paper out of the sucking-pig, +a Union-jack twelve feet by ten out of the bunch of paper, and a +wardrobe with real doors and full of ladies' dresses out of the +Union-jack. Lastly, a beautiful young girl stepped forth from the wardrobe.</p> + +<p>'<i>I never saw anything like it!</i>' Henry gasped, very truthfully. He had +a momentary fancy that the devil was in this extraordinary defiance of natural laws.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' Geraldine admitted. 'It's not bad, is it?'</p> + +<p>As Toscato could speak no English, an Englishman now joined him and +announced that Toscato would proceed to perform his latest and greatest +illusion—namely, the unique vanishing trick—for the first time in +England; also that Toscato extended a cordial invitation to members of +the audience to come up on to the stage and do their acutest to pierce the mystery.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p><p>'Come along,' said a voice in Henry's ear, 'I'm going.' It was Mr. +Doxey's.</p> + +<p>'Oh, no, thanks!' Henry replied hastily.</p> + +<p>'Nothing to be afraid of,' said Mr. Doxey, shrugging his shoulders with +an air which Henry judged slightly patronizing.</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, do go,' Geraldine urged. 'It will be such fun.'</p> + +<p>He hated to go, but there was no alternative, and so he went, stumbling +after Mr. Doxey up the step-ladder which had been placed against the +footlights for the ascending of people who prided themselves on being +acute. There were seven such persons on the stage, not counting himself, +but Henry honestly thought that the eyes of the entire audience were +directed upon him alone. The stage seemed very large, and he was cut off +from the audience by a wall of blinding rays, and at first he could only +distinguish vast vague semicircles and a floor of pale, featureless +faces. However, he depended upon Mr. Doxey.</p> + +<p>But when the trick-box had been brought on to the stage—it was a sort +of a sentry-box raised on four legs—Henry soon began to recover his +self-possession. He examined that box inside and out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> until he became +thoroughly convinced that it was without guile. The jury of seven stood +round the erection, and the English assistant stated that a sheet +(produced) would be thrown over Toscato, who would then step into the +box and shut the door. The door would then be closed for ten seconds, +whereupon it would be opened and the beautiful young girl would step out +of the box, while Toscato would magically appear in another part of the house.</p> + +<p>At this point Henry stooped to give a last glance under the box. +Immediately Toscato held him with a fiery eye, as though enraged, and, +going up to him, took eight court cards from Henry's sleeve, a lady's +garter from his waistcoat pocket, and a Bath-bun out of his mouth. The +audience received this professional joke in excellent part, and, indeed, +roared its amusement. Henry blushed, would have given all the money he +had on him—some ninety pounds—to be back in the stalls, and felt a hot +desire to explain to everyone that the cards, the Bath-bun, and +especially the garter, had not really been in his possession at all. +That part of the episode over, the trick ought to have gone forward, but +Toscato's Italian temper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> was effervescing, and he insisted by signs +that one of the jury should actually get into the box bodily, and so +satisfy the community that the box was a box <i>et præterea nilil</i>. The +English assistant pointed to Henry, and Henry, to save argument, +reluctantly entered the box. Toscato shut the door. Henry was in the +dark, and quite mechanically he extended his hands and felt the sides of +the box. His fingers touched a projection in a corner, and he heard a +clicking sound. Then he was aware of Toscato shaking the door of the +box, frantically and more frantically, and of the noise of distant +multitudinous laughter.</p> + +<p>'Don't hold the door,' whispered a voice.</p> + +<p>'I'm not doing so,' Henry whispered in reply.</p> + +<p>The box trembled.</p> + +<p>'I say, old chap, don't hold the door. They want to get on with the +trick.' This time it was Mr. Doxey who addressed him in persuasive tones.</p> + +<p>'Don't I tell you I'm not holding the door, you silly fool!' retorted +Henry, nettled.</p> + +<p>The box trembled anew and more dangerously. The distant laughter grew +immense and formidable.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p><p>'Carry it off,' said a third voice, 'and get him out in the wings.'</p> + +<p>The box underwent an earthquake; it rocked; Henry was thrown with +excessive violence from side to side; the sound of the laughter receded.</p> + +<p>Happily, the box had no roof; it was laid with all tenderness on its +flank, and the tenant crawled out of it into the midst of an interested +crowd consisting of Toscato, some stage-managers, several +scene-shifters, and many ballerinas. His natural good-temper reasserted +itself at once, and he received apologies in the spirit in which they +were offered, while Toscato set the box to rights. Henry was returning +to the stage in order to escape from the ballerinas, whose proximity +disturbed and frightened him, but he had scarcely shown his face to the +house before he was, as it were, beaten back by a terrific wave of +jubilant cheers. The great vanishing trick was brilliantly accomplished +without his presence on the boards, and an official guided him through +various passages back to the floor of the house. Nobody seemed to +observe him as he sat down beside Geraldine.</p> + +<p>'Of course it was all part of the show, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> business,' he heard a man +remark loudly some distance behind him.</p> + +<p>He much enjoyed explaining the whole thing to Geraldine. Now that it was +over, he felt rather proud, rather triumphant. He did not know that he +was very excited, but he observed that Geraldine was excited.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'You needn't think you are going to escape from telling me all about +your new book, because you aren't,' said Geraldine prettily.</p> + +<p>They were supping at a restaurant of the discreet sort, divided into +many compartments, and situated, with a charming symbolism, at the back +of St. George's, Hanover Square. Geraldine had chosen it. They did not +need food, but they needed their own unadulterated society.</p> + +<p>'I'm only too pleased to tell you,' Henry replied. 'You're about the +only person that I would tell. It's like this. You must imagine a youth +growing up to manhood, and wanting to be a great artist. I don't mean a +painter. I mean a—an actor. Yes, a very great actor. Shakspere's +tragedies, you know, and all that.'</p> + +<p>She nodded earnestly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p><p>'What's his name?' she inquired.</p> + +<p>Henry gazed at her. 'His name's Gerald,' he said, and she flushed. +'Well, at sixteen this youth is considerably over six feet in height, +and still growing. At eighteen his figure has begun to excite remark in +the streets. At nineteen he has a severe attack of scarlet fever, and +while ill he grows still more, in bed, like people do, you know. And at +twenty he is six feet eight inches high.'</p> + +<p>'A giant, in fact.'</p> + +<p>'Just so. But he doesn't want to be a giant He wants to be an actor, a +great actor. Nobody will look at him, except to stare. The idea of his +going on the stage is laughed at. He scarcely dare walk out in the +streets because children follow him. But he <i>is</i> a great actor, all the +same, in spirit. He's got the artistic temperament, and he can't be a +clerk. He can only be one thing, and that one thing is made impossible +by his height. He falls in love with a girl. She rather likes him, but +naturally the idea of marrying a giant doesn't appeal to her. So that's +off, too. And he's got no resources, and he's gradually starving in a +garret. See the tragedy?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p><p>She nodded, reflective, sympathetically silent.</p> + +<p>Henry continued: 'Well, he's starving. He doesn't know what to do. He +isn't quite tall enough to be a show-giant—they have to be over seven +feet—otherwise he might at any rate try the music-hall stage. Then the +manager of a West End restaurant catches sight of him one day, and +offers him a place as doorkeeper at a pound a week and tips. He refuses +it indignantly. But after a week or two more of hunger he changes his +mind and accepts. And this man who has the soul and the brains of a +great artist is reduced to taking sixpences for opening cab-doors.'</p> + +<p>'Does it end there?'</p> + +<p>'No. It's a sad story, I'm afraid. He dies one night in the snow outside +the restaurant, while the rich noodles are gorging themselves inside to +the music of a band. Consumption.'</p> + +<p>'It's the most original story I ever heard in all my life,' said +Geraldine enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>'Do you think so?'</p> + +<p>'I do, honestly. What are you going to call it—if I may ask?'</p> + +<p>'Call it?' He hesitated a second. '<i>A Question of Cubits</i>,' he said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p><p>'You are simply wonderful at titles,' she observed. 'Thank you. Thank +you so much.'</p> + +<p>'No one else knows,' he finished.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>When he had seen her safely to Chenies Street, and was travelling to +Dawes Road in a cab, he felt perfectly happy. The story had come to him +almost by itself. It had been coming all the evening, even while he was +in the box, even while he was lost in admiration of Geraldine. It had +cost him nothing. He knew he could write it with perfect ease. And +Geraldine admired it! It was the most original story she had ever heard +in all her life! He himself thought it extremely original, too. He saw +now how foolish and premature had been his fears for the future. Of +course he had studied human nature. Of course he had been through the +mill, and practised style. Had he not won the prize for composition at +the age of twelve? And was there not the tangible evidence of his essays +for the Polytechnic, not to mention his continual work for Sir George?</p> + +<p>He crept upstairs to his bedroom joyous, jaunty, exultant.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p><p>'Is that you, Henry?' It was Aunt Annie's inquiry.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' he answered, safely within his room.</p> + +<p>'How late you are! It's half-past twelve and more.'</p> + +<p>'I got lost,' he explained to her.</p> + +<p>But he could not explain to himself what instinct had forced him to +conceal from his adoring relatives the fact that he had bought a suit of +dress-clothes, put them on, and sallied forth in them to spend an +evening with a young lady.</p> + +<p>Just as he was dropping off to sleep and beauteous visions, he sprang up +with a start, and, lighting a candle, descended to the dining-room. +There he stood on a chair, reached for the blue jar on the bookcase, +extracted the two eggs, and carried them upstairs. He opened his window +and threw the eggs into the middle of Dawes Road, but several houses +lower down; they fell with a soft <i>plup</i>, and scattered.</p> + +<p>Thus ended the miraculous evening.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The next day he was prostrate with one of his very worst dyspeptic +visitations. The Knight pew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> at Munster Park Chapel was empty at both +services, and Henry learnt from loving lips that he must expect to be +ill if he persisted in working so hard. He meekly acknowledged the +justice of the rebuke.</p> + +<p>On Monday morning at half-past eight, before he had appeared at +breakfast, there came a telegram, which Aunt Annie opened. It had been +despatched from Paris on the previous evening, and it ran: +'<i>Congratulations on the box trick. Worth half a dozen books with the +dear simple public A sincere admirer.</i>' This telegram puzzled everybody, +including Henry; though perhaps it puzzled Henry a little less than the +ladies. When Aunt Annie suggested that it had been wrongly addressed, he +agreed that no other explanation was possible, and Sarah took it back to +the post-office.</p> + +<p>He departed to business. At all the newspaper-shops, at all the +bookstalls, he saw the placards of morning newspapers with lines +conceived thus:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Amusing Incident at the Alhambra</span>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Novelist's Adventure</span>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Vanishing Author at a Music-Hall</span>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Novelist in a Box</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>HIS JACK-HORNERISM</h3> + +<p>That autumn the Chancelleries of Europe happened to be rather less +egotistic than usual, and the English and American publics, seeing no +war-cloud on the horizon, were enabled to give the whole of their +attention to the balloon sent up into the sky by Mr. Onions Winter. They +stared to some purpose. There are some books which succeed before they +are published, and the commercial travellers of Mr. Onions Winter +reported unhesitatingly that <i>A Question of Cubits</i> was such a book. The +libraries and the booksellers were alike graciously interested in the +rumour of its advent. It was universally considered a 'safe' novel; it +was the sort of novel that the honest provincial bookseller reads +himself for his own pleasure and recommends to his customers with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> a +peculiar and special smile of sincerity as being not only 'good,' but +'<i>really</i> good.' People mentioned it with casual anticipatory remarks +who had never previously been known to mention any novel later than +<i>John Halifax Gentleman</i>.</p> + +<p>This and other similar pleasing phenomena were, of course, due in part +to the mercantile sagacity of Mr. Onions Winter. For during a +considerable period the Anglo-Saxon race was not permitted to forget for +a single day that at a given moment the balloon would burst and rain +down copies of <i>A Question of Cubits</i> upon a thirsty earth. <i>A Question +of Cubits</i> became the universal question, the question of questions, +transcending in its insistence the liver question, the soap question, +the Encyclopædia question, the whisky question, the cigarette question, +the patent food question, the bicycle tyre question, and even the +formidable uric acid question. Another powerful factor in the case was +undoubtedly the lengthy paragraph concerning Henry's adventure at the +Alhambra. That paragraph, having crystallized itself into a fixed form +under the title 'A Novelist in a Box,' had started on a journey round +the press of the entire world, and was making a pace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> which would have +left Jules Verne's hero out of sight in twenty-four hours. No editor +could deny his hospitality to it. From the New York dailies it travelled +viâ the <i>Chicago Inter-Ocean</i> to the <i>Montreal Star</i>, and thence back +again with the rapidity of light by way of the <i>Boston Transcript</i>, the +<i>Philadelphia Ledger</i>, and the <i>Washington Post</i>, down to the <i>New +Orleans Picayune</i>. Another day, and it was in the <i>San Francisco Call</i>, +and soon afterwards it had reached <i>La Prensa</i> at Buenos Ayres. It then +disappeared for a period amid the Pacific Isles, and was next heard of +in the <i>Sydney Bulletin</i>, the <i>Brisbane Courier</i> and the <i>Melbourne +Argus</i>. A moment, and it blazed in the <i>North China Herald</i>, and was +shooting across India through the columns of the Calcutta <i>Englishman</i> +and the <i>Allahabad Pioneer</i>. It arrived in Paris as fresh as a new pin, +and gained acceptance by the Paris edition of the <i>New York Herald</i>, +which had printed it two months before and forgotten it, as a brand-new +item of the most luscious personal gossip. Thence, later, it had a +smooth passage to London, and was seen everywhere with a new +frontispiece consisting of the words: 'Our readers may remember.' Mr. +Onions Winter reckoned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> that it had been worth at least five hundred +pounds to him.</p> + +<p>But there was something that counted more than the paragraph, and more +than Mr. Onions Winter's mercantile sagacity, in the immense preliminary +noise and rattle of <i>A Question of Cubits</i>: to wit, the genuine and +ever-increasing vogue of <i>Love in Babylon</i>, and the beautiful hopes of +future joy which it aroused in the myriad breast of Henry's public. +<i>Love in Babylon</i> had falsified the expert prediction of Mark Snyder, +and had reached seventy-five thousand in Great Britain alone. What +figure it reached in America no man could tell. The average citizen and +his wife and daughter were truly enchanted by <i>Love in Babylon</i>, and +since the state of being enchanted is one of almost ecstatic felicity, +they were extremely anxious that Henry in a second work should repeat +the operation upon them at the earliest possible instant.</p> + +<p>The effect of the whole business upon Henry was what might have been +expected. He was a modest young man, but there are two kinds of modesty, +which may be called the internal and the external, and Henry excelled +more in the former than in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> latter. While never free from a secret +and profound amazement that people could really care for his stuff (an +infallible symptom of authentic modesty), Henry gradually lost the +pristine virginity of his early diffidence. His demeanour grew confident +and bold. His glance said: 'I know exactly who I am, and let no one +think otherwise.' His self-esteem as a celebrity, stimulated and +fattened by a tremendous daily diet of press-cuttings, and letters from +feminine admirers all over the vastest of empires, was certainly in no +immediate danger of inanition. Nor did the fact that he was still +outside the rings known as literary circles injure that self-esteem in +the slightest degree; by a curious trick of nature it performed the same +function as the press-cuttings and the correspondence. Mark Snyder said: +'Keep yourself to yourself. Don't be interviewed. Don't do anything +except write. If publishers or editors approach you, refer them to me.' +This suited Henry. He liked to think that he was in the hands of Mark +Snyder, as an athlete in the hands of his trainer. He liked to think +that he was alone with his leviathan public; and he could find a sort of +mild, proud pleasure in meeting every advance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> with a frigid, courteous +refusal. It tickled his fancy that he, who had shaken a couple of +continents or so with one little book; and had written another and a +better one with the ease and assurance of a novelist born, should be +willing to remain a shorthand clerk earning three guineas a week. (He +preferred now to regard himself as a common shorthand clerk, not as +private secretary to a knight: the piquancy of the situation was thereby +intensified.) And as the day of publication of <i>A Question of Cubits</i> +came nearer and nearer, he more and more resembled a little Jack Horner +sitting in his private corner, and pulling out the plums of fame, and +soliloquizing, 'What a curious, interesting, strange, uncanny, original boy am I!'</p> + +<p>Then one morning he received a telegram from Mark Snyder requesting his +immediate presence at Kenilworth Mansions.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>HE JUSTIFIES HIS FATHER</h3> + +<p>He went at once to Kenilworth Mansions, but he went against his will. +And the reason of his disinclination was that he scarcely desired to +encounter Geraldine. It was an ordeal for him to encounter Geraldine. +The events which had led to this surprising condition of affairs were as follows:</p> + +<p>Henry was one of those men—and there exist, perhaps, more of them than +may be imagined—who are capable of plunging off the roof of a house, +and then reconsidering the enterprise and turning back. With Henry it +was never too late for discretion. He would stop and think at the most +extraordinary moments. Thirty-six hours after the roseate evening at the +Louvre and the Alhambra, just when he ought to have been laying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> a +scheme for meeting Geraldine at once by sheer accident, Henry was coldly +remarking to himself: 'Let me see exactly where I am. Let me survey the +position.' He liked Geraldine, but now it was with a sober liking, a +liking which is not too excited to listen to Reason. And Reason said, +after the position had been duly surveyed: 'I have nothing against this +charming lady, and much in her favour. Nevertheless, there need be no +hurry.' Geraldine wrote to thank Henry for the most enjoyable evening +she had ever spent in her life, and Henry found the letter too effusive. +When they next saw each other, Henry meant to keep strictly private the +advice which he had accepted from Reason; but Geraldine knew all about +it within the first ten seconds, and Henry knew that she knew. +Politeness reigned, and the situation was felt to be difficult. +Geraldine intended to be sisterly, but succeeded only in being +resentful, and thus precipitated too soon the second stage of the +entanglement, the stage in which a man, after seeing everything in a +woman, sees nothing in her; this second stage is usually of the +briefest, but circumstances may render it permanent. Then Geraldine +wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> again, and asked Henry to tea at the flat in Chenies Street on a +Saturday afternoon. Henry went, and found the flat closed. He expected +to receive a note of bewitching, cajoling, feminine apology, but he did +not receive it. They met again, always at Kenilworth Mansions, and in an +interview full of pain at the start and full of insincerity at the +finish Henry learnt that Geraldine's invitation had been for Sunday, and +not Saturday, that various people of much importance in her eyes had +been asked to meet him, and that the company was deeply disappointed and +the hostess humiliated. Henry was certain that she had written Saturday. +Geraldine was certain that he had misread the day. He said nothing about +confronting her with the letter itself, but he determined, in his +masculine way, to do so. She gracefully pretended that the incident was +closed, and amicably closed, but the silly little thing had got into her +head the wild, inexcusable idea that Henry had stayed away from her 'at +home' on purpose, and Henry felt this.</p> + +<p>He rushed to Dawes Road to find the letter, but the letter was +undiscoverable; with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> spiteful waywardness which often characterizes +such letters, it had disappeared. So Henry thought it would be as well +to leave the incident alone. Their cheery politeness to each other when +they chanced to meet was affecting to witness. As for Henry, he had +always suspected in Geraldine the existence of some element, some +quality, some factor, which was beyond his comprehension, and now his +suspicions were confirmed.</p> + +<p>He fell into a habit of saying, in his inmost heart: 'Women!'</p> + +<p>This meant that he had learnt all that was knowable about them, and that +they were all alike, and that—the third division of the meaning was +somewhat vague.</p> + +<p>Just as he was ascending with the beautiful flunkey in the Kenilworth +lift, a middle-aged and magnificently-dressed woman hastened into the +marble hall from the street, and, seeing the lift in the act of +vanishing with its precious burden, gave a slight scream and then a +laugh. The beautiful flunkey permitted himself a derisive gesture, such +as one male may make to another, and sped the lift more quickly upwards.</p> + +<p>'Who's she?' Henry demanded.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p><p>'<i>I</i> don't know, sir,' said the flunkey. 'But you'll hear her +ting-tinging at the bell in half a second. There!' he added in +triumphant disgust, as the lift-bell rang impatiently. 'There's some +people,' he remarked, 'as thinks a lift can go up and down at once.'</p> + +<p>Geraldine with a few bright and pleasant remarks ushered Henry directly +into the presence of Mark Snyder. Her companion was not in the office.</p> + +<p>'Well,' Mr. Snyder expansively and gaily welcomed him, 'come and sit +down, my young friend.'</p> + +<p>'Anything wrong?' Henry asked.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Mark. 'But I've postponed publication of the <i>Q. C.</i> for a +month.'</p> + +<p>In his letters Mr. Snyder always referred to <i>A Question of Cubits</i> as +the <i>Q. C.</i></p> + +<p>'What on earth for?' exclaimed Henry.</p> + +<p>He was not pleased. In strict truth, no one of his innumerable admirers +was more keenly anxious for the appearance of that book than Henry +himself. His appetite for notoriety and boom grew by what it fed on. He +expected something colossal, and he expected it soon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p><p>'Both in England and America,' said Snyder.</p> + +<p>'But why?'</p> + +<p>'Serial rights,' said Snyder impressively. 'I told you some time since I +might have a surprise for you, and I've got one. I fancied I might sell +the serial rights in England to Macalistairs, at my own price, but they +thought the end was too sad. However, I've done business in New York +with <i>Gordon's Weekly</i>. They'll issue the <i>Q. C.</i> in four instalments. +It was really settled last week, but I had to arrange with Spring +Onions. They've paid cash. I made 'em. How much d'you think?'</p> + +<p>'I don't know,' Henry said expectantly.</p> + +<p>'Guess,' Mark Snyder commanded him.</p> + +<p>But Henry would not guess, and Snyder rang the bell for Geraldine.</p> + +<p>'Miss Foster,' he addressed the puzzling creature in a casual tone, 'did +you draw that cheque for Mr. Knight?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, Mr. Snyder.'</p> + +<p>'Bring it me, please.'</p> + +<p>And she respectfully brought in a cheque, which Mr. Snyder signed.</p> + +<p>'There!' said he, handing it to Henry. 'What do you think of that?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p><p>It was a cheque for one thousand and eighty pounds. Gordon and +Brothers, the greatest publishing firm of the United States, had paid +six thousand dollars for the right to publish serially <i>A Question of +Cubits</i>, and Mark Snyder's well-earned commission on the transaction +amounted to six hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>'Things are looking up,' Henry stammered, feebly facetious.</p> + +<p>'It's nearly a record price,' said Snyder complacently. 'But you're a +sort of a record man. And when they believe in a thing over there, they +aren't afraid of making money talk and say so.'</p> + +<p>'Nay, nay!' thought Henry. 'This is too much! This beats everything! +Either I shall wake up soon or I shall find myself in a lunatic asylum.' +He was curiously reminded of the conjuring performance at the Alhambra.</p> + +<p>He said:</p> + +<p>'Thanks awfully, I'm sure!'</p> + +<p>A large grandiose notion swept over him that he had a great mission in +the world.</p> + +<p>'That's all I have to say to you,' said Mark Snyder pawkily.</p> + +<p>Henry wanted to breathe instantly the ampler<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> ether of the street, but +on his way out he found Geraldine in rapid converse with the middle-aged +and magnificently-dressed woman who thought that a lift could go up and +down at once. They became silent.</p> + +<p>'<i>Good</i>-morning, Miss Foster,' said Henry hurriedly.</p> + +<p>Then a pause occurred, very brief but uncomfortable, and the stranger +glanced in the direction of the window.</p> + +<p>'Let me introduce you to Mrs. Ashton Portway,' said Geraldine. 'Mrs. +Portway, Mr. Knight.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Portway bent forward her head, showed her teeth, smiled, laughed, +and finally sniggered.</p> + +<p>'So glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Knight!' she burst out loudly +and uncontrollably, as though Geraldine's magic formula had loosened a +valve capable of withstanding enormous strains. Then she smiled, +laughed, and sniggered: not because she imagined that she had achieved +humour, but because that was her way of making herself agreeable. If +anybody had told her that she could not open her mouth without +sniggering, she would have indignantly disbelieved the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>statement. +Nevertheless it was true. When she said the weather was changeable, she +sniggered; when she hoped you were quite well, she sniggered; and if +circumstances had required her to say that she was sorry to hear of the +death of your mother, she would have sniggered.</p> + +<p>Henry, however, unaccustomed to the phenomena accompanying her speech, +mistook her at first for a woman determined to be witty at any cost.</p> + +<p>'I'm glad to meet you,' he said, and laughed as if to insinuate that +that speech also was funny.</p> + +<p>'I was desolated, simply desolated, not to see you at Miss Foster's "at +home,"' Mrs. Ashton Portway was presently sniggering. 'Now, will you +come to one of my Wednesdays? They begin in November. First and third. I +always try to get interesting people, people who have done something.'</p> + +<p>'Of course I shall be delighted,' Henry agreed. He was in a mood to +scatter largesse among the crowd.</p> + +<p>'That's so good of you,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, apparently overcome +by the merry jest. 'Now remember, I shall hold you to your promise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> I +shall write and remind you. I know you great men.'</p> + +<p>When Henry reached the staircase he discovered her card in his hand. He +could not have explained how it came there. Without the portals of +Kenilworth Mansions a pair of fine horses were protesting against the +bearing-rein, and throwing spume across the street.</p> + +<p>He walked straight up to the Louvre, and there lunched to the sound of +wild Hungarian music. It was nearly three o'clock when he returned to +his seat at Powells.</p> + +<p>'The governor's pretty nearly breaking up the happy home,' Foxall +alarmingly greeted him in the inquiry office.</p> + +<p>'Oh!' said Henry with a very passable imitation of guilelessness. +'What's amiss?'</p> + +<p>'He rang for you just after you went out at a quarter-past twelve.' Here +Foxall glanced mischievously at the clock. 'He had his lunch sent in, +and he's been raving ever since.'</p> + +<p>'What did you tell him?'</p> + +<p>'I told him you'd gone to lunch.'</p> + +<p>'Did he say anything?'</p> + +<p>'He asked whether you'd gone to Brighton for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> lunch. Krikey! He nearly +sacked <i>me</i>! You know it's his golfing afternoon.'</p> + +<p>'So it is. I'd forgotten,' Henry observed calmly.</p> + +<p>Then he removed his hat and gloves, found his note-book and pencil, and +strode forward to joust with the knight.</p> + +<p>'Did you want to dictate letters, Sir George?' he asked, opening Sir +George's door.</p> + +<p>The knight was taken aback.</p> + +<p>'Where have you been,' the famous solicitor demanded, 'since the middle +of the morning?'</p> + +<p>'I had some urgent private business to attend to,' said Henry. 'And I've +been to lunch. I went out at a quarter-past twelve.'</p> + +<p>'And it's now three o'clock. Why didn't you tell me you were going out?'</p> + +<p>'Because you were engaged, Sir George.'</p> + +<p>'Listen to me,' said Sir George. 'You've been getting above yourself +lately, my friend. And I won't have it. Understand, I will not have it. +The rules of this office apply just as much to you as to anyone.'</p> + +<p>'I'm sorry,' Henry put in coldly, 'if I've put you to any inconvenience.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p><p>'Sorry be d——d, sir!' exclaimed Sir George.</p> + +<p>'Where on earth do you go for your lunch?'</p> + +<p>'That concerns no one but me, Sir George,' was the reply.</p> + +<p>He would have given a five-pound note to know that Foxall and the entire +staff were listening behind the door.</p> + +<p>'You are an insolent puppy,' Sir George stated.</p> + +<p>'If you think so, Sir George,' said Henry, 'I resign my position here.'</p> + +<p>'And a fool!' the knight added.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'And did you say anything about the thousand pounds?' Aunt Annie asked, +when, in the evening domesticity of Dawes Road, Henry recounted the +doings of that day so full of emotions.</p> + +<p>'Not I!' Henry replied. 'Not a word!'</p> + +<p>'You did quite right, my dear!' said Aunt Annie. 'A pretty thing, that +you can't go out for a few minutes!'</p> + +<p>'Yes, isn't it?' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'Whatever will Sir George do without you, though?' his mother wondered.</p> + +<p>And later, after he had displayed for her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>inspection the cheque for a +thousand and eighty pounds, the old lady cried, with moist eyes:</p> + +<p>'My darling, your poor father might well insist on having you called +Shakspere! And to think that I didn't want it! To think that I didn't +want it!'</p> + +<p>'Mark my words!' said Aunt Annie. 'Sir George will ask you to stay on.'</p> + +<p>And Aunt Annie was not deceived.</p> + +<p>'I hope you've come to your senses,' the lawyer began early the next +morning, not unkindly, but rather with an intention obviously pacific. +'Literature, or whatever you call it, may be all very well, but you +won't get another place like this in a hurry. There's many an admitted +solicitor earns less than you, young man.'</p> + +<p>'Thanks very much, Sir George,' Henry answered. 'But I think, on the +whole, I had better leave.'</p> + +<p>'As you wish,' said Sir George, hurt.</p> + +<p>'Still,' Henry proceeded, 'I hope our relations will remain pleasant. I +hope I may continue to employ you.'</p> + +<p>'Continue to employ me?' Sir George gasped.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Henry. 'I got you to invest some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> moneys for me some time +ago. I have another thousand now that I want a sound security for.'</p> + +<p>It was one of those rare flashes of his—rare, but blindingly brilliant.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>PRESS AND PUBLIC</h3> + +<p>At length arrived the eve of the consummation of Mr. Onions Winter's +mercantile labours. Forty thousand copies of <i>A Question of Cubits</i> (No. +8 of the Satin Library) had been printed, and already, twenty-four hours +before they were to shine in booksellers' shops and on the counters of +libraries, every copy had been sold to the trade and a second edition +was in the press. Thus, it was certain that one immortal soul per +thousand of the entire British race would read Henry's story. In +literature, when nine hundred and ninety-nine souls ignore you, but the +thousandth buys your work, or at least borrows it—that is called +enormous popularity. Henry retired to bed in Dawes Road that night sure +of his enormous popularity. But he did not dream of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> devoted army of +forty thousand admirers. He dreamt of the reviews, some of which he knew +were to appear on the day of publication itself. A hundred copies of <i>A +Question of Cubits</i> had been sent out for review, and in his dreams he +saw a hundred highly-educated men, who had given their lives to the +study of fiction, bending anxiously over the tome and seeking with +conscientious care the precise phrases in which most accurately to +express their expert appreciation of it. He dreamt much of the reviewer +of the <i>Daily Tribune</i>, his favourite morning paper, whom he pictured as +a man of forty-five or so, with gold-rimmed spectacles and an air of +generous enthusiasm. He hoped great things from the article in the +<i>Daily Tribune</i> (which, by a strange accident, had completely ignored +<i>Love in Babylon</i>), and when he arose in the morning (he had been lying +awake a long time waiting to hear the scamper of the newsboy on the +steps) he discovered that his hopes were happily realized. The <i>Daily +Tribune</i> had given nearly a column of praise to <i>A Question of Cubits</i>, +had quoted some choice extracts, had drawn special attention to the +wonderful originality of the plot, and asserted that the story was an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +advance, 'if an advance were possible,' on the author's previous book. +His mother and Aunt Annie consumed the review at breakfast with an +excellent appetite, and lauded the insight of the critic.</p> + +<p>What had happened at the offices of the <i>Daily Tribune</i> was this. At the +very moment when Henry was dreaming of its reviewer—namely, half-past +eleven p.m.—its editor was gesticulating and shouting at the end of a +speaking-tube:</p> + +<p>'Haven't had proof of that review of a book called <i>A Question of +Cubits</i>, or some such idiotic title! Send it down at once, instantly. Do +you hear? What? Nonsense!'</p> + +<p>The editor sprang away from the tube, and dashed into the middle of a +vast mass of papers on his desk, turning them all over, first in heaps, +then singly. He then sprang in succession to various side-tables and +served their contents in the same manner.</p> + +<p>'I tell you I sent it up myself before dinner,' he roared into the tube. +'It's Mr. Clackmannan's "copy"—you know that peculiar paper he writes +on. Just look about. Oh, conf——!'</p> + +<p>Then the editor rang a bell.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p><p>'Send Mr. Heeky to me, quick!' he commanded the messenger-boy.</p> + +<p>'I'm just finishing that leaderette,' began Mr. Heeley, when he obeyed +the summons. Mr. Heeley was a young man who had published a book of +verse.</p> + +<p>'Never mind the leaderette,' said the editor. 'Run across to the other +shop yourself, and see if they've got a copy of <i>A Question of +Cubits</i>—yes, that's it, <i>A Question of Cubits</i>—and do me fifteen +inches on it at once. I've lost Clackmannan's "copy."' (The 'other shop' +was a wing occupied by a separate journal belonging to the proprietors +of the <i>Tribune</i>.)</p> + +<p>'What, that thing!' exclaimed Mr. Heeley. 'Won't it do to-morrow? You +know I hate messing my hands with that sort of piffle.'</p> + +<p>'No, it won't do to-morrow. I met Onions Winter at dinner on Saturday +night, and I told him I'd review it on the day of publication. And when +I promise a thing I promise it. Cut, my son! And I say'—the editor +recalled Mr. Heeley, who was gloomily departing—'We're under no +obligations to anyone. Write what you think, but, all the same, no +antics, no spleen. You've<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> got to learn yet that that isn't our +speciality. You're not on the <i>Whitehall</i> now.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, all right, chief—all right!' Mr. Heeley concurred.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later Mr. Heeley entered what he called his private +boudoir, bearing a satinesque volume.</p> + +<p>'Here, boys,' he cried to two other young men who were already there, +smoking clay pipes—'here's a lark! The chief wants fifteen inches on +this charming and pathetic art-work as quick as you can. And no antics, +he says. Here, Jack, here's fifty pages for you'—Mr. Heeley ripped the +beautiful inoffensive volume ruthlessly in pieces—and here's fifty for +you, Clementina. Tell me your parts of the plot I'll deal with the first +fifty my noble self.'</p> + +<p>Presently, after laughter, snipping out of pages with scissors, and some +unseemly language, Mr. Heeley began to write.</p> + +<p>'Oh, he's shot up to six foot eight!' exclaimed Jack, interrupting the scribe.</p> + +<p>'Snow!' observed the bearded man styled Clementina. 'He dies in the +snow. Listen.' He read a passage from Henry's final scene,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> ending with +'His spirit had passed.' 'Chuck me the scissors, Jack.'</p> + +<p>Mr. Heeley paused, looked up, and then drew his pen through what he had written.</p> + +<p>'I say, boys,'he almost whispered, 'I'll praise it, eh? I'll take it +seriously. It'll be simply delicious.'</p> + +<p>'What about the chief?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, the chief won't notice it! It'll be just for us three, and a few at the club.'</p> + +<p>Then there was hard scribbling, and pasting of extracts into blank +spaces, and more laughter.</p> + +<p>'"If an advance were possible,"' Clementina read, over Mr. Heeley's +shoulder. 'You'll give the show away, you fool!'</p> + +<p>'No, I shan't, Clemmy, my boy,' said Mr. Heeley judicially. 'They'll +stand simply anything. I bet you what you like Onions Winter quotes that +all over the place.'</p> + +<p>And he handed the last sheet of the review to a messenger, and ran off +to the editorial room to report that instructions had been executed. +Jack and Clementina relighted their pipes with select bits of <i>A +Question of Cubits</i>, and threw the remaining débris of the volume into +the waste-paper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> basket. The hour was twenty minutes past midnight....</p> + +<p>The great majority of the reviews were exceedingly favourable, and even +where praise was diluted with blame, the blame was administered with +respect, as a dentist might respectfully pain a prince in pulling his +tooth out. The public had voted for Henry, and the press, organ of +public opinion, displayed a wise discretion. The daring freshness of +Henry's plot, his inventive power, his skill in 'creating atmosphere,' +his gift for pathos, his unfailing wholesomeness, and his knack in the +management of narrative, were noted and eulogized in dozens of articles. +Nearly every reviewer prophesied brilliant success for him; several +admitted frankly that his equipment revealed genius of the first rank. A +mere handful of papers scorned him. Prominent among this handful was the +<i>Whitehall Gazette</i>. The distinguished mouthpiece of the superior +classes dealt with <i>A Question of Cubits</i> at the foot of a column, in a +brief paragraph headed 'Our Worst Fears realized.' The paragraph, which +was nothing but a summary of the plot, concluded in these terms: 'So he +expired, every inch of him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> in the snow, a victim to the British +Public's rapacious appetite for the sentimental.'</p> + +<p>The rudeness of the <i>Whitehall Gazette</i>, however, did nothing whatever +to impair the wondrous vogue which Henry now began to enjoy. His first +boom had been great, but it was a trifle compared to his second. The +title of the new book became a catchword. When a little man was seen +walking with a tall woman, people exclaimed: 'It's a question of +cubits.' When the recruiting regulations of the British army were +relaxed, people also exclaimed: 'It's a question of cubits.' During a +famous royal procession, sightseers trying to see the sight over the +heads of a crowd five deep shouted to each other all along the route: +'It's a question of cubits.' Exceptionally tall men were nicknamed +'Gerald' by their friends. Henry's Gerald, by the way, had died as +doorkeeper at a restaurant called the Trianon. The Trianon was at once +recognised as the Louvre, and the tall commissionaire at the Louvre +thereby trebled his former renown. 'Not dead in the snow yet?' the wits +of the West End would greet him on descending from their hansoms, and he +would reply, infinitely gratified: 'No, sir.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> No snow, sir.' A +music-hall star of no mean eminence sang a song with the refrain:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>'You may think what you like,</div> +<div>You may say what you like,</div> +<div class="i2">It was simply a question of cubits.'</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The lyric related the history of a new suit of clothes that was worn by +everyone except the person who had ordered it.</p> + +<p>Those benefactors of humanity, the leading advertisers, used 'A Question +of Cubits' for their own exalted ends. A firm of manufacturers of +high-heeled shoes played with it for a month in various forms. The +proprietors of an unrivalled cheap cigarette disbursed thousands of +pounds in order to familiarize the public with certain facts. As thus: +'A Question of Cubits. Every hour of every day we sell as many +cigarettes as, if placed on end one on the top of the other, would make +a column as lofty as the Eiffel Tower. Owing to the fact that cigarettes +are not once mentioned in <i>A Question of Cubits</i>, we regret to say that +the author has not authorized us to assert that he was thinking of our +cigarettes when he wrote Chapter VII. of that popular novel.'</p> + +<p>Editors and publishers cried in vain for Henry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> They could get from him +neither interviews, short stories, nor novels. They could only get +polite references to Mark Snyder. And Mark Snyder had made his +unalterable plans for the exploitation of this most wonderful racehorse +that he had ever trained for the Fame Stakes. The supply of chatty +paragraphs concerning the hero and the book of the day would have +utterly failed had not Mr. Onions Winter courageously come to the rescue +and allowed himself to be interviewed. And even then respectable +journals were reduced to this sort of paragraph: 'Apropos of Mr. +Knight's phenomenal book, it may not be generally known what the exact +measure of a cubit is. There have been three different cubits—the +Scriptural, the Roman, and the English. Of these, the first-named,' etc.</p> + +<p>So the thing ran on.</p> + +<p>And at the back of it all, supporting it all, was the steady and +prodigious sale of the book, the genuine enthusiasm for it of the +average sensible, healthy-minded woman and man.</p> + +<p>Finally, the information leaked out that Macalistairs had made august +and successful overtures for the reception of Henry into their fold. +Sir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> Hugh Macalistair, the head of the firm, was (at that time) the only +publisher who had ever been knighted. And the history of Macalistairs +was the history of all that was greatest and purest in English +literature during the nineteenth century. Without Macalistairs, English +literature since Scott would have been nowhere. Henry was to write a +long novel in due course, and Macalistairs were to have the world's +rights of the book, and were to use it as a serial in their venerable +and lusty <i>Magazine</i>, and to pay Henry, on delivery of the manuscript, +eight thousand pounds, of which six thousand was to count as in advance +of royalties on the book.</p> + +<p>Mr. Onions Winter was very angry at what he termed an ungrateful +desertion. The unfortunate man died a year or two later of appendicitis, +and his last words were that he, and he alone, had 'discovered' Henry.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>PLAYING THE NEW GAME</h3> + +<p>When Henry had seceded from Powells, and had begun to devote several +dignified hours a day to the excogitation of a theme for his new novel, +and the triumph of <i>A Question of Cubits</i> was at its height, he thought +that there ought to be some change in his secret self to correspond with +the change in his circumstances. But he could perceive none, except, +perhaps, that now and then he was visited by the feeling that he had a +great mission in the world. That feeling, however, came rarely, and, for +the most part, he existed in a state of not being quite able to +comprehend exactly how and why his stories roused the enthusiasm of an +immense public.</p> + +<p>In essentials he remained the same Henry, and the sameness of his simple +self was never more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> apparent to him than when he got out of a cab one +foggy Wednesday night in November, and rang at the Grecian portico of +Mrs. Ashton Portway's house in Lowndes Square. A crimson cloth covered +the footpath. This was his first entry into the truly great world, and +though he was perfectly aware that as a lion he could not easily be +surpassed in no matter what menagerie, his nervousness and timidity were +so acute as to be painful; they annoyed him, in fact. When, in the wide +hall, a servant respectfully but firmly closed the door after him, thus +cutting off a possible retreat to the homely society of the cabman, he +became resigned, careless, reckless, desperate, as who should say, 'Now +I <i>have</i> done it!' And as at the Louvre, so at Mrs. Ashton Portway's, +his outer garments were taken forcibly from him, and a ticket given to +him in exchange. The ticket startled him, especially as he saw no notice +on the walls that the management would not be responsible for articles +not deposited in the cloakroom. Nobody inquired about his identity, and +without further ritual he was asked to ascend towards regions whence +came the faint sound of music. At the top of the stairs a young and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +handsome man, faultless alike in costume and in manners, suavely accosted him.</p> + +<p>'What name, sir?'</p> + +<p>'Knight,' said Henry gruffly. The young man thought that Henry was on +the point of losing his temper from some cause or causes unknown, +whereas Henry was merely timid.</p> + +<p>Then the music ceased, and was succeeded by violent chatter; the young +man threw open a door, and announced in loud clear tones, which Henry +deemed ridiculously loud and ridiculously clear:</p> + +<p>'<span class="smcap">Mr. Knight!</span>'</p> + +<p>Henry saw a vast apartment full of women's shoulders and black patches +of masculinity; the violent chatter died into a profound silence; every +face was turned towards him. He nearly fell down dead on the doormat, +and then, remembering that life was after all sweet, he plunged into the +room as into the sea.</p> + +<p>When he came up breathless and spluttering, Mrs. Ashton Portway (in +black and silver) was introducing him to her husband, Mr. Ashton +Portway, known to a small circle of readers as Raymond Quick, the author +of several mild novels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> issued at his own expense. Mr. Portway was rich +in money and in his wife; he had inherited the money, and his literary +instincts had discovered the wife in a publisher's daughter. The union +had not been blessed with children, which was fortunate, since Mrs. +Portway was left free to devote the whole of her time to the +encouragement of literary talent in the most unliterary of cities.</p> + +<p>Henry rather liked Mr. Ashton Portway, whose small black eyes seemed to +say: 'That's all right, my friend. I share your ideas fully. When you +want a quiet whisky, come to me.'</p> + +<p>'And what have you been doing this dark day?' Mrs. Ashton Portway began, +with her snigger.</p> + +<p>'Well,' said Henry, 'I dropped into the National Gallery this afternoon, +but really it was so——'</p> + +<p>'The National Gallery?' exclaimed Mrs. Ashton Portway swiftly. 'I must +introduce you to Miss Marchrose, the author of that charming hand-book +to <i>Pictures in London</i>. Miss Marchrose,' she called out, urging Henry +towards a corner of the room, 'this is Mr. Knight.' She sniggered on the +name. 'He's just dropped into the National Gallery.'</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Ashton Portway sailed off to receive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> other guests, and Henry +was alone with Miss Marchrose in a nook between a cabinet and a +phonograph. Many eyes were upon them. Miss Marchrose, a woman of thirty, +with a thin face and an amorphous body draped in two shades of olive, +was obviously flattered.</p> + +<p>'Be frank, and admit you've never heard of me,' she said.</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, I have,' he lied.</p> + +<p>'Do you often go to the National Gallery, Mr. Knight?'</p> + +<p>'Not as often as I ought.'</p> + +<p>Pause.</p> + +<p>Several observant women began to think that Miss Marchrose was not +making the best of Henry—that, indeed, she had proved unworthy of an +unmerited honour.</p> + +<p>'I sometimes think——' Miss Marchrose essayed.</p> + +<p>But a young lady got up in the middle of the room, and with +extraordinary self-command and presence of mind began to recite +Wordsworth's 'The Brothers.' She continued to recite and recite until +she had finished it, and then sat down amid universal joy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p><p>'Matthew Arnold said that was the greatest poem of the century,' +remarked a man near the phonograph.</p> + +<p>'You'll pardon me,' said Miss Marchrose, turning to him. 'If you are +thinking of Matthew Arnold's introduction to the selected poems, you'll +and——'</p> + +<p>'My dear,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, suddenly looming up opposite the +reciter, 'what a memory you have!'</p> + +<p>'Was it so long, then?' murmured a tall man with spectacles and a light wavy beard.</p> + +<p>'I shall send you back to Paris, Mr. Dolbiac,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, +'if you are too witty.' The hostess smiled and sniggered, but it was +generally felt that Mr. Dolbiac's remark had not been in the best taste.</p> + +<p>For a few moments Henry was alone and uncared for, and he examined his +surroundings. His first conclusion was that there was not a pretty woman +in the room, and his second, that this fact had not escaped the notice +of several other men who were hanging about in corners. Then Mrs. Ashton +Portway, having accomplished the task of receiving, beckoned him, and +intimated to him that, being a lion and the king of beasts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> he must +roar. 'I think everyone here has done something,' she said as she took +him round and forced him to roar. His roaring was a miserable fiasco, +but most people mistook it for the latest fashion in roaring, and were impressed.</p> + +<p>'Now you must take someone down to get something to eat,' she apprised +him, when he had growled out soft nothings to poetesses, paragraphists, +publicists, positivists, penny-a-liners, and other pale persons. 'Whom +shall it be?—Ashton! What have you done?'</p> + +<p>The phonograph had been advertised to give a reproduction of Ternina in +the Liebestod from <i>Tristan und Isolde</i>, but instead it broke into the +'Washington Post,' and the room, braced to a great occasion, was +horrified. Mrs. Portway, abandoning Henry, ran to silence the disastrous +consequence of her husband's clumsiness. Henry, perhaps impelled by an +instinctive longing, gazed absently through the open door into the +passage, and there, with two other girls on a settee, he perceived +Geraldine! She smiled, rose, and came towards him. She looked +disconcertingly pretty; she was always at her best in the evening; and +she had such eyes to gaze on him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p><p>'You here!' she murmured.</p> + +<p>Ordinary words, but they were enveloped in layers of feeling, as a +child's simple gift may be wrapped in lovely tinted tissue-papers!</p> + +<p>'She's the finest woman in the place,' he thought decisively. And he +said to her: 'Will you come down and have something to eat?'</p> + +<p>'I can talk to <i>her</i>,' he reflected with satisfaction, as the faultless +young man handed them desired sandwiches in the supper-room. What he +meant was that she could talk to him; but men often make this mistake.</p> + +<p>Before he had eaten half a sandwich, the period of time between that +night and the night at the Louvre had been absolutely blotted out. He +did not know why. He could think of no explanation. It merely was so.</p> + +<p>She told him she had sold a sensational serial for a pound a thousand words.</p> + +<p>'Not a bad price—for me,' she added.</p> + +<p>'Not half enough!' he exclaimed ardently.</p> + +<p>Her eyes moistened. He thought what a shame it was that a creature like +her should be compelled to earn even a portion of her livelihood by +typewriting for Mark Snyder. The faultless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> young man unostentatiously +poured more wine into their glasses. No other guests happened to be in the room....</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'Ah, you're here!' It was the hostess, sniggering.</p> + +<p>'You told me to bring someone down,' said Henry, who had no intention of +being outfaced now.</p> + +<p>'We're just coming up,' Geraldine added.</p> + +<p>'That's right!' said Mrs. Ashton Portway. 'A lot of people have gone, +and now that we shall be a little bit more intimate, I want to try that +new game. I don't think it's ever been played in London anywhere yet. I +saw it in the <i>New York Herald</i>. Of course, nobody who isn't just a +little clever could play at it.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes!' Geraldine smiled. 'You mean "Characters." I remember you told +me about it.'</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Ashton Portway said that she did mean 'Characters.'</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room she explained that in playing the game of +'Characters' you chose a subject for discussion, and then each player +secretly thought of a character in fiction, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> spoke in the discussion +as he imagined that character would have spoken. At the end of the game +you tried to guess the characters chosen.</p> + +<p>'I think it ought to be classical fiction only,' she said.</p> + +<p>Sundry guests declined to play, on the ground that they lacked the +needful brilliance. Henry declined utterly, but he had the wit not to +give his reasons. It was he who suggested that the non-players should +form a jury. At last seven players were recruited, including Mr. Ashton +Portway, Miss Marchrose, Geraldine, Mr. Dolbiac, and three others. Mrs. +Ashton Portway sat down by Henry as a jurywoman.</p> + +<p>'And now what are you going to discuss?' said she.</p> + +<p>No one could find a topic.</p> + +<p>'Let us discuss love,' Miss Marchrose ventured.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Mr. Dolbiac, 'let's. There's nothing like leather.'</p> + +<p>So the seven in the centre of the room assumed attitudes suitable for +the discussion of love.</p> + +<p>'Have you all chosen your characters?' asked the hostess.</p> + +<p>'We have,' replied the seven.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>'Then begin.'</p> + +<p>'Don't all speak at once,' said Mr. Dolbiac, after a pause.</p> + +<p>'Who is that chap?' Henry whispered.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Dolbiac? He's a sculptor from Paris. Quite English, I believe, +except for his grandmother. Intensely clever.' Mrs. Ashton Portway +distilled these facts into Henry's ear, and then turned to the silent +seven. 'It <i>is</i> rather difficult, isn't it?' she breathed encouragingly.</p> + +<p>'Love is not for such as me,' said Mr. Dolbiac solemnly. Then he looked +at his hostess, and called out in an undertone: 'I've begun.'</p> + +<p>'The question,' said Miss Marchrose, clearing her throat, 'is, not what +love is not, but what it is.'</p> + +<p>'You must kindly stand up,' said Mr. Dolbiac. 'I can't hear.'</p> + +<p>Miss Marchrose glanced at Mrs. Ashton Portway, and Mrs. Ashton Portway +told Mr. Dolbiac that he was on no account to be silly.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Ashton Portway and Geraldine both began to speak at once, and +then insisted on being silent at once, and in the end Mr. Ashton Portway +was induced to say something about Dulcinea.</p> + +<p>'He's chosen Don Quixote,' his wife informed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> Henry behind her hand. +'It's his favourite novel.'</p> + +<p>The discussion proceeded under difficulties, for no one was loquacious +except Mr. Dolbiac, and all Mr. Dolbiac's utterances were staccato and +senseless. The game had had several narrow escapes of extinction, when +Miss Marchrose galvanized it by means of a long and serious monologue +treating of the sorts of man with whom a self-respecting woman will +never fall in love. There appeared to be about a hundred and +thirty-three sorts of that man.</p> + +<p>'There is one sort of man with whom no woman, self-respecting or +otherwise, will fall in love,' said Mr. Dolbiac, 'and that is the sort +of man she can't kiss without having to stand on the mantelpiece. +Alas!'—he hid his face in his handkerchief—'I am that sort.'</p> + +<p>'Without having to stand on the mantelpiece?' Mrs. Ashton Portway +repeated. 'What can he mean? Mr. Dolbiac, you aren't playing the game.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I am, gracious lady,' he contradicted her.</p> + +<p>'Well, what character are you, then?' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>demanded Miss Marchrose, +irritated by his grotesque pendant to her oration.</p> + +<p>'I'm Gerald in <i>A Question of Cubits</i>.'</p> + +<p>The company felt extremely awkward. Henry blushed.</p> + +<p>'I said classical fiction,' Mrs. Ashton Portway corrected Mr. Dolbiac +stiffly. 'Of course I don't mean to insinuate that it isn't——' She +turned to Henry.</p> + +<p>'Oh! did you?' observed Dolbiac calmly. 'So sorry. I knew it was a silly +and nincompoopish book, but I thought you wouldn't mind so long as——'</p> + +<p>'<i>Mr.</i> Dolbiac!'</p> + +<p>That particular Wednesday of Mrs. Ashton Portway's came to an end in +hurried confusion. Mr. Dolbiac professed to be entirely ignorant of +Henry's identity, and went out into the night. Henry assured his hostess +that really it was nothing, except a good joke. But everyone felt that +the less said, the better. Of such creases in the web of social life +Time is the best smoother.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>HE LEARNS MORE ABOUT WOMEN</h3> + +<p>When Henry had rendered up his ticket and recovered his garments, he +found Geraldine in the hall, and a servant asking her if she wanted a +four-wheeler or a hansom. He was not quite sure whether she had +descended before him or after him: things were rather misty.</p> + +<p>'I am going your way,' he said. 'Can't I see you home?'</p> + +<p>He was going her way: the idea of going her way had occurred to him +suddenly as a beautiful idea.</p> + +<p>Instead of replying, she looked at him. She looked at him sadly out of +the white shawl which enveloped her head and her golden hair, and +nodded.</p> + +<p>There was a four-wheeler at the kerb, and they entered it and sat down +side by side in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> restricted compartment, and the fat old driver, +with his red face popping up out of a barrel consisting of scores of +overcoats and aprons, drove off. It was very foggy, but one could see the lamp-posts.</p> + +<p>Geraldine coughed.</p> + +<p>'These fogs are simply awful, aren't they?' he remarked.</p> + +<p>She made no answer.</p> + +<p>'It isn't often they begin as early as this,' he proceeded; 'I suppose +it means a bad winter.'</p> + +<p>But she made no answer.</p> + +<p>And then a sort of throb communicated itself to him, and then another, +and then he heard a smothered sound. This magnificent creature, this +independent, experienced, strong-minded, superior, dazzling creature was +crying—was, indeed, sobbing. And cabs are so small, and she was so +close. Pleasure may be so keen as to be agonizing: Henry discovered this +profound truth in that moment. In that moment he learnt more about women +than he had learnt during the whole of his previous life. He knew that +her sobbing had some connection with <i>A Question of Cubits</i>, but he +could not exactly determine the connection.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p><p>'What's the matter?' the blundering fool inquired nervously. 'You +aren't well.'</p> + +<p>'I'm so—so ashamed,' she stammered out, when she had patted her eyes +with a fragment of lace.</p> + +<p>'Why? What of?'</p> + +<p>'I introduced her to you. It's my fault.'</p> + +<p>'But what's your fault?'</p> + +<p>'This horrible thing that happened.'</p> + +<p>She sobbed again frequently.</p> + +<p>'Oh, that was nothing!' said Henry kindly. 'You mustn't think about it.'</p> + +<p>'You don't know how I feel,' she managed to tell him.</p> + +<p>'I wish you'd forget it,' he urged her. 'He didn't mean to be rude.'</p> + +<p>'It isn't so much his rudeness,' she wept. 'It's—anyone saying a +thing—like that—about your book. You don't know how I feel.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, come!' Henry enjoined her. 'What's my book, anyhow?'</p> + +<p>'It's yours,' she said, and began to cry gently, resignedly, femininely.</p> + +<p>It had grown dark. The cab had plunged into an opaque sea of blackest +fog. No sound could be heard save the footfalls of the horse, which was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +now walking very slowly. They were cut off absolutely from the rest of +the universe. There was no such thing as society, the state, traditions, +etiquette; nothing existed, ever had existed, or ever would exist, +except themselves, twain, in that lost four-wheeler.</p> + +<p>Henry had a box of matches in his overcoat pocket. He struck one, +illuminating their tiny chamber, and he saw her face once more, as +though after long years. And there were little black marks round her +eyes, due to her tears and the fog and the fragment of lace. And those +little black marks appeared to him to be the most delicious, enchanting, +and wonderful little black marks that the mind of man could possibly +conceive. And there was an exquisite, timid, confiding, surrendering +look in her eyes, which said: 'I'm only a weak, foolish, fanciful woman, +and you are a big, strong, wise, great man; my one merit is that I know +<i>how</i> great, <i>how</i> chivalrous, you are!' And mixed up with the timidity +in that look there was something else—something that made him almost +shudder. All this by the light of one match....</p> + +<p>Good-bye world! Good-bye mother! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>Good-bye Aunt Annie! Good-bye the +natural course of events! Good-bye correctness, prudence, precedents! +Good-bye all! Good-bye everything! He dropped the match and kissed her.</p> + +<p>And his knowledge of women was still further increased.</p> + +<p>Oh, the unique ecstasy of such propinquity!</p> + +<p>Eternity set in. And in eternity one does not light matches....</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The next exterior phenomenon was a blinding flash through the window of +what, after all, was a cab. The door opened.</p> + +<p>'You'd better get out o' this,' said the cabman, surveying them by the +ray of one of his own lamps.</p> + +<p>'Why?' asked Henry.</p> + +<p>'Why?' replied the cabman sourly. 'Look here, governor, do you know +where we are?'</p> + +<p>'No,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'No. And I'm jiggered if I do, either. You'd better take the other +blessed lamp and ask. No, not me. I don't leave my horse. I ain't agoin' +to lose my horse.'</p> + +<p>So Henry got out of the cab, and took a lamp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> and moved forward into +nothingness, and found a railing and some steps, and after climbing the +steps saw a star, which proved ultimately to be a light over a +swing-door. He pushed open the swing-door, and was confronted by a footman.</p> + +<p>'Will you kindly tell me where I am? he asked the footman.</p> + +<p>'This is Marlborough House,' said the footman.</p> + +<p>'Oh, is it? Thanks,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'Well,' ejaculated the cabman when Henry had luckily regained the +vehicle. 'I suppose that ain't good enough for you! Buckingham Palace is +your doss, I suppose.'</p> + +<p>They could now hear distant sounds, which indicated other vessels in distress.</p> + +<p>The cabman said he would make an effort to reach Charing Cross, by +leading his horse and sticking to the kerb; but not an inch further than +Charing Cross would he undertake to go.</p> + +<p>The passage over Trafalgar Square was so exciting that, when at length +the aged cabman touched pavement—that is to say, when his horse had +planted two forefeet firmly on the steps of the Golden Cross Hotel—he +announced that that precise point would be the end of the voyage.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p><p>'You go in there and sleep it off,' he advised his passengers. 'Chenies +Street won't see much of you to-night. And make it five bob, governor. +I've done my best.'</p> + +<p>'You must stop the night here,' said Henry in a low voice to Geraldine, +before opening the doors of the hotel. 'And I,' he added quickly, 'will +go to Morley's. It's round the corner, and so I can't lose my way.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, dear,' she acquiesced. 'I dare say that will be best.'</p> + +<p>'Your eyes are a little black with the fog,' he told her.</p> + +<p>'Are they?' she said, wiping them. 'Thanks for telling me.'</p> + +<p>And they entered.</p> + +<p>'Nasty night, sir,' the hall-porter greeted them.</p> + +<p>'Very,' said Henry. 'This lady wants a room. Have you one?'</p> + +<p>'Certainly, sir.'</p> + +<p>At the foot of the staircase they shook hands, and kissed in imagination.</p> + +<p>'Good-night,' he said, and she said the same.</p> + +<p>But when she had climbed three or four stairs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> she gave a little start +and returned to him, smiling, appealing.</p> + +<p>'I've only got a shilling or two,' she whispered. 'Can you lend me some +money to pay the bill with?'</p> + +<p>He produced a sovereign. Since the last kiss in the cab, nothing had +afforded him one hundredth part of the joy which he experienced in +parting with that sovereign. The transfer of the coin, so natural, so +right, so proper, seemed to set a seal on what had occurred, to make it +real and effective. He wished to shower gold upon her.</p> + +<p>As, bathed in joy and bliss, he watched her up the stairs, a little, +obscure compartment of his brain was thinking: 'If anyone had told me +two hours ago that before midnight I should be engaged to be married to +the finest woman I ever saw, I should have said they were off their +chumps. Curious, I've never mentioned her at home since she called! Rather awkward!'</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>He turned sharply and resolutely to go to Morley's, and collided with +Mr. Dolbiac, who, strangely enough, was standing immediately behind him, +and gazing up the stairs, too.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p><p>'Ah, my bold buccaneer!' said Mr. Dolbiac familiarly. 'Digested those +<i>marrons glacés</i>? I've fairly caught you out this time, haven't I?'</p> + +<p>Henry stared at him, startled, and blushed a deep crimson.</p> + +<p>'You don't remember me. You've forgotten me,' said Mr. Dolbiac.</p> + +<p>'It isn't Cousin Tom?' Henry guessed.</p> + +<p>'Oh, isn't it?' said Mr. Dolbiac. 'That's just what it is.'</p> + +<p>Henry shook his hand generously. 'I'm awfully glad to see you,' he +began, and then, feeling that he must be a man of the world: 'Come and +have a drink. Are you stopping here?'</p> + +<p>The episode of Mrs. Ashton Portway's was, then, simply one of Cousin +Tom's jokes, and he accepted it as such without the least demur or ill-will.</p> + +<p>'It was you who sent that funny telegram, wasn't it?' he asked Cousin Tom.</p> + +<p>In the smoking-room Tom explained how he had grown a beard in obedience +to the dictates of nature, and changed his name in obedience to the +dictates of art. And Henry, for his part, explained sundry things about +himself, and about Geraldine.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>The next morning, when Henry arrived at Dawes Road, decidedly late, Tom +was already there. And more, he had already told the ladies, evidently +in a highly-decorated narrative, of Henry's engagement! The situation +for Henry was delicate in the extreme, but, anyhow, his mother and aunt +had received the first shock. They knew the naked fact, and that was +something. And of course Cousin Tom always made delicate situations: it +was his privilege to do so. Cousin Tom's two aunts were delighted to see +him again, and in a state so flourishing. He was asked no inconvenient +questions, and he furnished no information. Bygones were bygones. Henry +had never been told about the trifling incident of the ten pounds.</p> + +<p>'She's coming down to-night,' Henry said, addressing his mother, after +the mid-day meal.</p> + +<p>'I'm very glad,' replied his mother.</p> + +<p>'We shall be most pleased to welcome her,' Aunt Annie said. 'Well, +Tom——'</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>SEPARATION</h3> + +<p>Henry's astonishment at finding himself so suddenly betrothed to the +finest woman in the world began to fade and perish in three days or so. +As he looked into the past with that searching eye of his, he thought he +could see that his relations with Geraldine had never ceased to develop +since their commencement, even when they had not been precisely cordial +and sincere. He remembered strange things that he had read about love in +books, things which had previously struck him as being absurd, but which +now became explanatory commentaries on the puzzling text of the episode +in the cab. It was not long before he decided that the episode in the +cab was almost a normal episode.</p> + +<p>He was very proud and happy, and full of sad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> superior pity for all +young men who, through incorrect views concerning women, had neglected +to plight themselves.</p> + +<p>He imagined that he was going to settle down and live for ever in a +state of bliss with the finest woman in the world, rich, famous, +honoured; and that life held for him no other experience, and especially +no disconcerting, dismaying experience. But in this supposition he was mistaken.</p> + +<p>One afternoon he had escorted Tom to Chenies Street, in order that Tom +might formally meet Geraldine. It was rather nervous work, having regard +to Tom's share in the disaster at Lowndes Square; and the more so +because Geraldine's visit to Dawes Road had not been a dazzling success. +Geraldine in Dawes Road had somehow the air, the brazen air, of an +orchid in a clump of violets; the violets, by their mere quality of +being violets, rebuked the orchid, and the orchid could not have +flourished for any extended period in that temperature. Still, Mrs. +Knight and Aunt Annie said to Henry afterwards that Geraldine was very +clever and nice; and Geraldine said to Henry afterwards that his mother +and aunt were delightful old ladies. The ordeal for Geraldine was now +quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> a different one. Henry hoped for the best. It did not follow, +because Geraldine had not roused the enthusiasm of Dawes Road, that she +would leave Tom cold. In fact, Henry could not see how Tom could fail to be enchanted.</p> + +<p>A minor question which troubled Henry, as they ascended the stone stairs +at Chenies Street, was this: Should he kiss Geraldine in front of Tom? +He decided that it was not only his right, but his duty, to kiss her in +the privacy of her own flat, with none but a relative present. 'Kiss her +I will!' his thought ran. And kiss her he did. Nothing untoward +occurred. 'Why, of course!' he reflected. 'What on earth was I worrying +about?' He was conscious of glory. And he soon saw that Tom really was +impressed by Geraldine. Tom's eyes said to him: 'You're not such a fool +as you might have been.'</p> + +<p>Geraldine scolded Tom for his behaviour at Mrs. Ashton Portway's, and +Tom replied in Tom's manner; and then, when they were all at ease, she +turned to Henry.</p> + +<p>'My poor friend,' she said, 'I've got bad news.'</p> + +<p>She handed him a letter from her brother in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> Leicester, from which it +appeared that the brother's two elder children were down with +scarlatina, while the youngest, three days old, and the mother, were in +a condition to cause a certain anxiety ... and could Geraldine come to the rescue?</p> + +<p>'Shall you go?' Henry asked.</p> + +<p>'Oh yes,' she said. 'I've arranged with Mr. Snyder, and wired Teddy that +I'll arrive early to-morrow.'</p> + +<p>She spoke in an extremely matter-of-fact tone, as though there were no +such things as love and ecstasy in the world, as though to indicate that +in her opinion life was no joke, after all.</p> + +<p>'And what about me?' said Henry. He thought: 'My shrewd, capable girl +has to sacrifice herself—and me—in order to look after incompetent +persons who can't look after themselves!'</p> + +<p>'You'll be all right,' said she, still in the same tone.</p> + +<p>'Can't I run down and see you?' he suggested.</p> + +<p>She laughed briefly, as at a pleasantry, and so Henry laughed too.</p> + +<p>'With four sick people on my hands!' she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>'How long shall you be away?' he inquired.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p><p>'My dear—can I tell?'</p> + +<p>'You'd better come back to Paris with me for a week or so, my son,' said +Tom. 'I shall leave the day after to-morrow.'</p> + +<p>And now Henry laughed, as at a pleasantry. But, to his surprise, +Geraldine said:</p> + +<p>'Yes, do. What a good idea! I should like you to enjoy yourself, and +Paris is so jolly. You've been, haven't you, dearest?'</p> + +<p>'No,' Henry replied. 'I've never been abroad at all.'</p> + +<p>'<i>Never?</i> Oh, that settles it. You must go.'</p> + +<p>Henry had neither the slightest desire nor the slightest intention to go +to Paris. The idea of him being in Paris, of all places, while Geraldine +was nursing the sick night and day, was not a pleasant one.</p> + +<p>'You really ought to go, you know,' Tom resumed. 'You, a novelist ... +can't see too much! The monuments of Paris, the genius of the French +nation! And there's notepaper and envelopes and stamps, just the same as +in London. Letters posted in Paris before six o'clock will arrive in +Leicester on the following afternoon. Am I not right, Miss Foster?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p><p>Geraldine smiled.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Henry. 'I'm not going to Paris—not me!'</p> + +<p>'But I wish it,' Geraldine remarked calmly.</p> + +<p>And he saw, amazed, that she did wish it. Pursuing his researches into +the nature of women, he perceived vaguely that she would find pleasure +in martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris; +and pleasure also in the thought of his uncomfortable thought of her +martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris.</p> + +<p>But he said to himself that he did not mean to yield to womanish +whims—he, a man.</p> + +<p>'And my work?' he questioned lightly.</p> + +<p>'Your work will be all the better,' said Geraldine with a firm accent.</p> + +<p>And then it seemed to be borne in upon him that womanish whims needed +delicate handling. And why not yield this once? It would please her. And +he could have been firm had he chosen.</p> + +<p>Hence it was arranged.</p> + +<p>'I'm only going to please you,' he said to her when he was mournfully +seeing her off at St. Pancras the next morning.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p><p>'Yes, I know,' she answered, 'and it's sweet of you. But you want +someone to make you move, dearest.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, do I?' he thought; 'do I?'</p> + +<p>His mother and Aunt Annie were politely surprised at the excursion. But +they succeeded in conveying to him that they had decided to be prepared +for anything now.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>COSETTE</h3> + +<p>Tom and Henry put up at the Grand Hotel, Paris. The idea was Tom's. He +decried the hotel, its clients and its reputation, but he said that it +had one advantage: when you were at the Grand Hotel you knew where you +were. Tom, it appeared, had a studio and bedroom up in Montmartre. He +postponed visiting this abode, however, until the morrow, partly because +it would not be prepared for him, and partly in order to give Henry the +full advantage of his society. They sat on the terrace of the Café de la +Paix, after a very late dinner, and drank bock, and watched the +nocturnal life of the boulevard, and talked. Henry gathered—not from +any direct statement, but by inference—that Tom must have acquired a +position in the art world of Paris.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> Tom mentioned the Salon as if the +Salon were his pocket, and stated casually that there was work of his in +the Luxembourg. Strange that the cosmopolitan quality of Tom's +reputation—if, in comparison with Henry's, it might be called a +reputation at all—roused the author's envy! He, too, wished to be +famous in France, and to be at home in two capitals. Tom retired at what +he considered an early hour—namely, midnight—the oceanic part of the +journey having saddened him. Before they separated he borrowed a +sovereign from Henry, and this simple monetary transaction had the +singular effect of reducing Henry's envy.</p> + +<p>The next morning Henry wished to begin a systematic course of the +monuments of Paris and the artistic genius of the French nation. But Tom +would not get up. At eleven o'clock Henry, armed with a map and the +English talent for exploration, set forth alone to grasp the general +outlines of the city, and came back successful at half-past one. At +half-past two Tom was inclined to consider the question of getting up, +and Henry strolled out again and lost himself between the Moulin Rouge +and the Church of Sacré Cœur. It was turned four o'clock when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> he +sighted the façade of the hotel, and by that time Tom had not only +arisen, but departed, leaving a message that he should be back at six +o'clock. So Henry wandered up and down the boulevard, from the Madeleine +to Marguéry's Restaurant, had an automatic tea at the Express-Bar, and +continued to wander up and down the boulevard.</p> + +<p>He felt that he could have wandered up and down the boulevard for ever.</p> + +<p>And then night fell; and all along the boulevard, high on seventh +storeys and low as the street names, there flashed and flickered and +winked, in red and yellow and a most voluptuous purple, electric +invitations to drink inspiriting liqueurs and to go and amuse yourself +in places where the last word of amusement was spoken. There was one +name, a name almost revered by the average healthy Englishman, which +wrote itself magically on the dark blue sky in yellow, then extinguished +itself and wrote itself anew in red, and so on tirelessly: that name was +'Folies-Bergère.' It gave birth to the most extraordinary sensations in +Henry's breast. And other names, such as 'Casino de Paris,' 'Eldorado,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +'Scala,' glittered, with their guiding arrows of light, from bronze +columns full in the middle of the street. And what with these devices, +and the splendid glowing windows of the shops, and the enlarged +photographs of surpassingly beautiful women which hung in heavy frames +from almost every lamp-post, and the jollity of the slowly-moving +crowds, and the incredible illustrations displayed on the newspaper +kiosks, and the moon creeping up the velvet sky, and the thousands of +little tables at which the jolly crowds halted to drink liquids coloured +like the rainbow—what with all that, and what with the curious gay +feeling in the air, Henry felt that possibly Berlin, or Boston, or even +Timbuctoo, might be a suitable and proper place for an engaged young +man, but that decidedly Paris was not.</p> + +<p>At six o'clock there was no sign of Tom. He arrived at half-past seven, +admitted that he was a little late, and said that a friend had given him +tickets for the first performance of the new 'revue' at the +Folies-Bergère, that night.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'And now, since we are alone, we can talk,' said Cosette, adding, '<i>Mon petit.</i>'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p><p>'Yes,' Henry agreed.</p> + +<p>'Dolbiac has told me you are very rich—<i>une vogue épatante</i>.... One +would not say it.... But how your ears are pretty!' Cosette glanced +admiringly at the lobe of his left ear.</p> + +<p>('Anyhow,' Henry reflected, 'she would insist on me coming to Paris. I +didn't want to come.')</p> + +<p>They were alone, and yet not alone. They occupied a 'loge' in the +crammed, gorgeous, noisy Folies-Bergère. But it resembled a box in an +English theatre less than an old-fashioned family pew at the Great Queen +Street Wesleyan Chapel. It was divided from other boxes and from the +stalls and from the jostling promenade by white partitions scarcely as +high as a walking-stick. There were four enamelled chairs in it, and +Henry and Cosette were seated on two of them; the other two were empty. +Tom had led Henry like a sheep to the box, where they were evidently +expected by two excessively stylish young women, whom Tom had introduced +to the overcome Henry as Loulou and Cosette, two artistes of the Théâtre +des Capucines. Loulou was short and fair and of a full habit, and spoke +no English.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Cosette was tall and slim and dark, and talked slowly, and +with smiles, a language which was frequently a recognisable imitation of +English. She had learnt it, she said, in Ireland, where she had been +educated in a French convent. She had just finished a long engagement at +the Capucines, and in a fortnight she was to commence at the Scala: this +was an off-night for her. She protested a deep admiration for Tom.</p> + +<p>Cosette and Loulou and Tom had held several colloquies, in +incomprehensible French that raced like a mill-stream over a weir, with +acquaintances who accosted them on the promenade or in the stalls, and +at length Tom and Loulou had left the 'loge' for a few minutes in order +to accept the hospitality of friends in the great hall at the back of +the auditorium. The new 'revue' seemed to be the very last thing that +they were interested in.</p> + +<p>'Don't be afraid,' Tom, departing, had said to Henry. 'She won't eat you.'</p> + +<p>'You leave me to take care of myself,' Henry had replied, lifting his chin.</p> + +<p>Cosette transgressed the English code governing the externals of women +in various particulars. And the principal result was to make the +English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> code seem insular and antique. She had an extremely large white +hat, with a very feathery feather in it, and some large white roses +between the brim and her black hair. Her black hair was positively +sable, and one single immense lock of it was drawn level across her +forehead. With the large white hat she wore a low evening-dress, +lace-covered, with loose sleeves to the elbow, and white gloves running +up into the mystery of the sleeves. Round her neck was a tight string of +pearls. The combination of the hat and the evening-dress startled Henry, +but he saw in the theatre many other women similarly contemptuous of the +English code, and came to the conclusion that, though queer and +un-English, the French custom had its points. Cosette's complexion was +even more audacious in its contempt of Henry's deepest English +convictions. Her lips were most obviously painted, and her eyebrows had +received some assistance, and once, in a manner absolutely ingenuous, +she produced a little bag and gazed at herself in a little mirror, and +patted her chin with a little puff, and then smiled happily at Henry. +Yes, and Henry approved. He was forced to approve, forced to admit the +artificial and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> decadent but indubitable charm of paint and powder. The +contrast between Cosette's lips and her brilliant teeth was utterly bewitching.</p> + +<p>She was not beautiful. In facial looks, she was simply not in the same +class with Geraldine. And as to intellect, also, Geraldine was an easy first.</p> + +<p>But in all other things, in the things that really mattered (such was +the dim thought at the back of Henry's mind), she was to Geraldine what +Geraldine was to Aunt Annie. Her gown was a miracle, her hat was +another, and her coiffure a third. And when she removed a glove—her +rings, and her finger-nails! And the glimpses of her shoes! She was so +<i>finished</i>. And in the way of being frankly feminine, Geraldine might go +to school to her. Geraldine had brains and did not hide them; Geraldine +used the weapon of seriousness. But Cosette knew better than that. +Cosette could surround you with a something, an emanation of all the +woman in her, that was more efficient to enchant than the brains of a +Georges Sand could have been.</p> + +<p>And Paris, or that part of the city which constitutes Paris for the +average healthy Englishman, was an open book to this woman of +twenty-four.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> Nothing was hid from her. Nothing startled her, nothing +seemed unusual to her. Nothing shocked her except Henry's ignorance of +all the most interesting things in the world.</p> + +<p>'Well, what do you think of a French "revue," my son?' asked Tom when he +returned with Loulou.</p> + +<p>'Don't know,' said Henry, with his gibus tipped a little backward. +'Haven't seen it. We've been talking. The music's a fearful din.' He +felt nearly as Parisian as Tom looked.</p> + +<p>'<i>Tiens!</i>' Cosette twittered to Loulou, making a gesture towards Henry's +ears. '<i>Regarde-moi ces oreilles. Sont jolies. Pas?</i>'</p> + +<p>And she brought her teeth together with a click that seemed to render +somewhat doubtful Tom's assurance that she would not eat Henry.</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards Tom and Henry left the auditorium, and Henry parted from +Cosette with mingled sensations of regret and relief. He might never see +her again. Geraldine....</p> + +<p>But Tom did not emerge from the outer precincts of the vast music-hall +without several more conversations with fellows-well-met, and when he +and Henry reached the pavement, Cosette<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> and Loulou happened to be just +getting into a cab. Tom did not see them, but Henry and Cosette caught +sight of each other. She beckoned to him.</p> + +<p>'You come and take lunch with me to-morrow? <i>Hein?</i>' she almost +whispered in that ear of his.</p> + +<p>'<i>Avec plaisir</i>,' said Henry. He had studied French regularly for six +years at school.</p> + +<p>'Rue de Bruxelles, No. 3,' she instructed him. 'Noon.'</p> + +<p>'I know it!' he exclaimed delightedly. He had, in fact, passed through +the street during the day.</p> + +<p>No one had ever told him before that his ears were pretty.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>When, after parleying nervously with the concierge, he arrived at the +second-floor of No. 3, Rue de Bruxelles, he heard violent high sounds of +altercation through the door at which he was about to ring, and then the +door opened, and a young woman, flushed and weeping, was sped out on to +the landing, Cosette herself being the exterminator.</p> + +<p>'Ah, <i>mon ami</i>!' said Cosette, seeing him. 'Enter then.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p><p>She charmed him inwards and shut the door, breathing quickly.</p> + +<p>'It is my <i>domestique</i>, my servant, who steals me,' she explained. 'Come +and sit down in the salon. I will tell you.'</p> + +<p>The salon was a little room about eight feet by ten, silkily furnished. +Besides being the salon, it was clearly also the <i>salle à manger</i>, and +when one person had sat down therein it was full. Cosette took Henry's +hat and coat and umbrella and pressed him into a chair by the shoulders, +and then gave him the full history of her unparalleled difficulties with +the exterminated servant. She looked quite a different Cosette now from +the Cosette of the previous evening. Her black hair was loose; her face +pale, and her lips also a little pale; and she was draped from neck to +feet in a crimson peignoir, very fluffy.</p> + +<p>'And now I must buy the lunch,' she said. 'I must go myself. Excuse me.'</p> + +<p>She disappeared into the adjoining room, the bedroom, and Henry could +hear the <i>fracas</i> of silk and stuff. 'What do you eat for lunch?' she cried out.</p> + +<p>'Anything,' Henry called in reply.</p> + +<p>'Oh! <i>Que les hommes sont bêtes!</i>' she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>murmured, her voice seemingly +lost in the folds of a dress. 'One must choose. Say.'</p> + +<p>'Whatever you like,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'Rumsteak? Say.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>She reappeared in a plain black frock, with a reticule in her hand, and +at the same moment a fox-terrier wandered in from somewhere.</p> + +<p>'<i>Mimisse!</i>' she cried in ecstasy, snatching up the animal and kissing +it. 'You want to go with your mamma? Yess. What do you think of my +<i>fox</i>? She is real English. <i>Elle est si gentille avec sa mère! Ma +Mimisse! Ma petite fille!</i> My little girl! <i>Dites, mon ami</i>'—she +abandoned the dog—'have you some money for our lunch? Five francs?'</p> + +<p>'That enough?' Henry asked, handing her the piece.</p> + +<p>'Thank you,' she said. '<i>Viens, Mimisse.</i>'</p> + +<p>'You haven't put your hat on,' Henry informed her.</p> + +<p>'<i>Mais, mon pauvre ami</i>, is it that you take me for a duchess? I come +from the <i>ouvriers</i>, me, the working peoples. I avow it. Never can I do +my shops in a hat. I should blush.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p><p>And with a tremendous flutter, scamper, and chatter, Cosette and her +<i>fox</i> departed, leaving Henry solitary to guard the flat.</p> + +<p>He laughed to himself, at himself. 'Well,' he murmured, looking down +into the court, 'I suppose——'</p> + +<p>Cosette came back with a tin of sardines, a piece of steak, some French +beans, two cakes of the kind called 'nuns,' a bunch of grapes, and a +segment of Brie cheese. She put on an apron, and went into the +kitchenlet, and began to cook, giving Henry instructions the while how +to lay the table and where to find the things. Then she brought him the +coffee-mill full of coffee, and told him to grind it.</p> + +<p>The lunch seemed to be ready in about three minutes, and it was merely +perfection. Such steak, such masterly handling of green vegetables, and +such 'nuns!' And the wine!</p> + +<p>There were three at table, Mimisse being the third. Mimisse partook of +everything except wine.</p> + +<p>'You see I am a woman <i>pot-au-feu</i>,' said Cosette, not without +satisfaction, in response to his praises of the meal. He did not exactly +know what a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> woman <i>pot-au-feu</i> might be, but he agreed enthusiastically +that she was that sort of woman.</p> + +<p>At the stage of coffee—Mimisse had a piece of sugar steeped in +coffee—she produced cigarettes, and made him light his cigarette at +hers, and put her elbows on the table and looked at his ears. She was +still wearing the apron, which appeared to Henry to be an apron of +ineffable grace.</p> + +<p>'So you are <i>fiancé, mon petit</i>? Eh?' she said.</p> + +<p>'Who told you?' Henry asked quickly. 'Tom?'</p> + +<p>She nodded; then sighed. He was instructed to describe Geraldine in +detail. Cosette sighed once more.</p> + +<p>'Why do you sigh?' he demanded.</p> + +<p>'Who knows?' she answered. '<i>Dites!</i> English ladies are cold? Like +that?' She affected the supercilious gestures of Englishwomen whom she +had seen in the streets and elsewhere. 'No?'</p> + +<p>'Perhaps,' Henry said.</p> + +<p>'Frenchwomen are better? Yes? <i>Dites-moi franchement.</i> You think?'</p> + +<p>'In some ways,' Henry agreed.</p> + +<p>'You like Frenchwomen more than those cold Englishwomen who have no <i>chic</i>?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p><p>'When I'm in Paris I do,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'<i>Ah! Comme tous les Anglais!</i>'</p> + +<p>She rose, and just grazed his ear with her little finger. '<i>Va!</i>' she said.</p> + +<p>He felt that she was beyond anything in his previous experience.</p> + +<p>A little later she told him she had to go to the Scala to sign her +contract, and she issued an order that he was to take Mimisse out for a +little exercise, and return for her in half an hour, when she would be +dressed. So Henry went forth with Mimisse at the end of a strap.</p> + +<p>In the Boulevard de Clichy who should accost him but Tom, whom he had +left asleep as usual at the hotel!</p> + +<p>'What dog is that?' Tom asked.</p> + +<p>'Cosette's,' said Henry, unsuccessfully trying to assume a demeanour at +once natural and tranquil.</p> + +<p>'My young friend,' said Tom, 'I perceive that it will be necessary to +look after you. I was just going to my studio, but I will accompany you +in your divagations.'</p> + +<p>They returned to the Rue de Bruxelles together. Cosette was dressed in +all her afternoon splendour, for the undoing of theatrical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> managers. +The rôle of woman <i>pot-au-feu</i> was finished for that day.</p> + +<p>'I'm off to Monte Carlo to-morrow,' said Tom to her. 'I'm going to paint +a portrait there. And Henry will come with me.'</p> + +<p>'To Monte Carlo?' Henry gasped.</p> + +<p>'To Monte Carlo.'</p> + +<p>'But——'</p> + +<p>'Do you suppose I'm going to leave you here?' Tom inquired. 'And you +can't return to London yet.'</p> + +<p>'No,' said Cosette thoughtfully, 'not London.'</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>They left her in the Boulevard de Strasbourg, and then Tom suggested a +visit to the Luxembourg Gallery. It was true: a life-sized statue of +Sappho, signed 'Dolbiac,' did in feet occupy a prominent place in the +sculpture-room. Henry was impressed; so also was Tom, who explained to +his young cousin all the beauties of the work.</p> + +<p>'What else is there to see here?' Henry asked, when the stream of +explanations had slackened.</p> + +<p>'Oh, there's nothing much else,' said Tom dejectedly.</p> + +<p>They came away. This was the beginning and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> the end of Henry's studies +in the monuments of Paris.</p> + +<p>At the hotel he found opportunity to be alone.</p> + +<p>He wished to know exactly where he stood, and which way he was looking. +It was certain that the day had been unlike any other day in his career.</p> + +<p>'I suppose that's what they call Bohemia,' he exclaimed wistfully, +solitary in his bedroom.</p> + +<p>And then later:</p> + +<p>'Jove! I've never written to Geraldine to-day!'</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE RAKE'S PROGRESS</h3> + +<p>'<i>Faites vos jeux, messieurs</i>,' said the chief croupier of the table.</p> + +<p>Henry's fingers touched a solitary five-franc piece in his pocket, +large, massive, seductive.</p> + +<p>Yes, he was at Monte Carlo. He could scarcely believe it, but it was so. +Tom had brought him. The curious thing about Tom was that, though he +lied frequently and casually, just as some men hitch their collars, his +wildest statements had a way of being truthful. Thus, a work of his had +in fact been purchased by the French Government and placed on exhibition +in the Luxembourg. And thus he had in fact come to Monte Carlo to paint +a portrait—the portrait of a Sicilian Countess, he said, and Henry +believed, without actually having seen the alleged Countess—at a high +price. There were more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> complexities in Tom's character than Henry could +unravel. Henry had paid the entire bill at the Grand Hotel, had lent Tom +a sovereign, another sovereign, and a five-pound note, and would +certainly have been mulcted in Tom's fare on the expensive <i>train de +luxe</i> had he not sagaciously demanded money from Tom before entering the +ticket-office. Without being told, Henry knew that money lent to Tom was +money dropped down a grating in the street. During the long journey +southwards Tom had confessed, with a fine appreciation of the fun, that +he lived in Paris until his creditors made Paris disagreeable, and then +went elsewhere, Rome or London, until other creditors made Rome or +London disagreeable, and then he returned to Paris.</p> + +<p>Henry had received this remark in silence.</p> + +<p>As the train neared Monte Carlo—the hour was roseate and +matutinal—Henry had observed Tom staring at the scenery through the +window, his coffee untasted, and tears in his rapt eyes. 'What's up?' +Henry had innocently inquired. Tom turned on him fiercely. 'Silly ass!' +Tom growled with scathing contempt. 'Can't you feel how beautiful it all is?'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p><p>And this remark, too, Henry had received in silence.</p> + +<p>'Do you reckon yourself a great artist?' Tom had asked, and Henry had +laughed. 'No, I'm not joking,' Tom had insisted. 'Do you honestly reckon +yourself a great artist? I reckon myself one. There's candour for you. +Now tell me, frankly.' There was a wonderful and rare charm in Tom's +manner as he uttered these words. 'I don't know,' Henry had replied. +'Yes, you do,' Tom had insisted. 'Speak the truth. I won't let it go any +further. Do you think yourself as big as George Eliot, for example?' +Henry had hesitated, forced into sincerity by Tom's persuasive and +serious tone. 'It's not a fair question,' Henry had said at length. +Whereupon Tom, without the least warning, had burst into loud laughter: +'My bold buccaneer, you take the cake. You always did. You always will. +There is something about you that is colossal, immense, and magnificent.'</p> + +<p>And this third remark also Henry had received in silence.</p> + +<p>It was their second day at Monte Carlo, and Tom, after getting Henry's +card of admission for him, had left him in the gaming-rooms, and gone +off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> to the alleged Countess. The hour was only half-past eleven, and +none of the roulette tables was crowded; two of the trente-et-quarante +tables had not even begun to operate. For some minutes Henry watched a +roulette table, fascinated by the munificent style of the croupiers in +throwing five-franc pieces, louis, and bank-notes about the green cloth, +and the neat twist of the thumb and finger with which the chief croupier +spun the ball. There were thirty or forty persons round the table, all +solemn and intent, and most of them noting the sequence of winning +numbers on little cards. 'What fools!' thought Henry. 'They know the +Casino people make a profit of two thousand a day. They know the chances +are mathematically against them. And yet they expect to win!'</p> + +<p>It was just at this point in his meditations upon the spectacle of human +foolishness that he felt the five-franc piece in his pocket. An idea +crossed his mind that he would stake it, merely in order to be able to +say that he had gambled at Monte Carlo. Absurd! How much more effective +to assert that he had visited the tables and not gambled!... And then he +knew that something within him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> more powerful than his common-sense +would force him to stake that five-franc piece. He glanced furtively at +the crowd to see whether anyone was observing him. No. Well, it having +been decided to bet, the next question was, how to bet? Now, Henry had +read a magazine article concerning the tables at Monte Carlo, and, being +of a mathematical turn, had clearly grasped the principles of the game. +He said to himself, with his characteristic caution: 'I'll wait till red +wins four times running, and then I'll stake on the black.'</p> + +<p>('But surely,' remarked the logical superior person in him, 'you don't +mean to argue that a spin of the ball is affected by the spins that have +preceded it? You don't mean to argue that, because red wins four times, +or forty times, running, black is any the more likely to win at the next +spin?' 'You shut up!' retorted the human side of him crossly. 'I know +all about that.')</p> + +<p>At last, after a considerable period of waiting, red won four times in +succession. Henry felt hot and excited. He pulled the great coin out of +his pocket, and dropped it in again, and then the croupier spun the ball +and exhorted the company several times to make their games, and +precisely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> as the croupier was saying sternly, <i>'Rien ne va plus</i>,' +Henry took the coin again, and with a tremendous effort of will, leaning +over an old man seated in front of him, pitched it into the meadow +devoted to black stakes. He blushed; his hair tingled at the root; he +was convinced that everybody round the table was looking at him with +sardonic amusement.</p> + +<p>'<i>Quatre, noir, pair, et manque</i>,' cried the croupier.</p> + +<p>Black had won.</p> + +<p>Henry's heart was beating like a hammer. Even now he was afraid lest one +of the scoundrels who, according to the magazine article, infested the +rooms, might lean over his shoulder and snatch his lawful gains. He kept +an eye lifting. The croupier threw a five-franc piece to join his own, +and Henry, with elaborate calmness, picked both pieces up. His +temperature fell; he breathed more easily. 'It's nothing, after all,' he +thought. 'Of course, on that system I'm bound to win.'</p> + +<p>Soon afterwards the old man in front of him grunted and left, and Henry +slipped into the vacant chair. In half an hour he had made twenty +francs; his demeanour had hardened; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> felt as though he had frequented +Monte Carlo steadily for years; and what he did not know about the art +and craft of roulette was apocryphal.</p> + +<p>'Place this for me,' said a feminine voice.</p> + +<p>He turned swiftly. It was Cosette's voice! There she stood, exquisitely +and miraculously dressed, behind his chair, holding a note of the Bank +of France in her gloved hand!</p> + +<p>'When did you come?' he asked loudly, in his extreme astonishment.</p> + +<p>'<i>Pstt!</i>' she smilingly admonished him for breaking the rule of the +saloons. 'Place this for me.'</p> + +<p>It was a note for a thousand francs.</p> + +<p>'This?' he said.</p> + +<p>'Yes.'</p> + +<p>'But where?'</p> + +<p>'Choose,' she whispered. 'You are lucky. You will bring happiness.'</p> + +<p>He did not know what he was doing, so madly whirled his brain, and, as +the black enclosure happened to be nearest to him, he dropped the note +there. The croupier at the end of the table manœuvred it with his +rake, and called out to the centre: '<i>Billet de mille francs.</i>' Then, +when it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> was too late, Henry recollected that black had already turned +up three times together. But in a moment black had won.</p> + +<p>'I can quite understand the fascination this game has for people,' Henry thought.</p> + +<p>'Leave them there,' said Cosette, pointing to the two notes for a +thousand francs each. 'I like to follow the run.'</p> + +<p>Black won again.</p> + +<p>'Leave them there,' said Cosette, pointing to the four notes for a +thousand francs each. 'I did say you would bring happiness.' They smiled +at each other happily.</p> + +<p>Black won again.</p> + +<p>Cosette repeated her orders. Such a method of playing was entirely +contrary to Henry's expert opinion. Nevertheless, black, in defiance of +rules, continued to win. When sixteen thousand francs of paper lay +before Henry, the croupier addressed him sharply, and he gathered, with +Cosette's assistance, that the maximum stake was twelve thousand francs.</p> + +<p>'Put four thousand on the odd numbers,' said Cosette. 'Eh? You think?'</p> + +<p>'No,' said Henry. 'Evens.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p><p>And the number four turned up again.</p> + +<p>At a stroke he had won sixteen thousand francs, six hundred and forty +pounds, for Cosette, and the total gains were one thousand two hundred +and forty pounds.</p> + +<p>The spectators were at last interested in Henry's play. It was no longer +an illusion on his part that people stared at him.</p> + +<p>'Say a number,' whispered Cosette. 'Shut the eyes and say a number.'</p> + +<p>'Twenty-four,' said Henry. She had told him it was her age.</p> + +<p>'<i>Bien! Voilà huit louis!</i>' she exclaimed, opening her purse of netted +gold; and he took the eight coins and put them on number twenty-four. +Eight notes for a thousand francs each remained on the even numbers. The +other notes were in Henry's hip-pocket, a crushed mass.</p> + +<p>Twenty-four won. It was nothing but black that morning. '<i>Mais c'est +épatant!</i>' murmured several on lookers anxiously.</p> + +<p>A croupier counted out innumerable notes, and sundry noble and glorious +gold <i>plaques</i> of a hundred francs each. Henry could not check the +totals, but he knew vaguely that another three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> hundred pounds or so had +accrued to him, on behalf of Cosette.</p> + +<p>'I fancy red now,' he said, sighing.</p> + +<p>And feeling a terrible habitué, he said to the croupier in French: +'<i>Maximum. Rouge.</i>'</p> + +<p>'<i>Maximum. Rouge</i>,' repeated the croupier.</p> + +<p>Instantly the red enclosure was covered with the stakes of a quantity of +persons who had determined to partake of Henry's luck.</p> + +<p>And red won; it was the number fourteen.</p> + +<p>Henry was so absorbed that he did not observe a colloquy between two of +the croupiers at the middle of the table. The bank was broken, and every +soul in every room knew it in the fraction of a second.</p> + +<p>'Come,' said Cosette, as soon as Henry had received the winnings. +'Come,' she repeated, pulling his sleeve nervously.</p> + +<p>'I've broken the bank at Monte Carlo!' he thought as they hurried out of +the luxurious halls. 'I've broken the bank at Monte Carlo! I've broken +the bank at Monte Carlo!'</p> + +<p>If he had succeeded to the imperial throne of China, he would have felt +much the same as he felt then.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p><p>Quite by chance he remembered the magazine article, and a statement +therein that prudent people, when they had won a large sum, drove +straight to Smith's Bank and banked it <i>coram publico</i>, so that +scoundrels might be aware that assault with violence in the night hours +would be futile.</p> + +<p>'If we lunch?' Cosette suggested, while Henry was getting his hat.</p> + +<p>'No, not yet,' he said importantly.</p> + +<p>At Smith's Bank he found that he had sixty-three thousand francs of +hers.</p> + +<p>'You dear,' she murmured in ecstasy, and actually pressed a light kiss +on his ear in the presence of the bank clerk! 'You let me keep the three +thousand?' she pleaded, like a charming child.</p> + +<p>So he let her keep the three thousand. The sixty thousand was banked in her name.</p> + +<p>'You offer me a lunch?' she chirruped deliciously, in the street. 'I +gave you a lunch. You give me one. It is why I am come to Monte Carlo, +for that lunch.'</p> + +<p>They lunched at the Hôtel de Paris.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>He was intoxicated that afternoon, though not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> with the Heidsieck they +had consumed. They sat out on the terrace. It was December, but like an +English June. And the pride of life, and the beauty of the world and of +women and of the costumes of women, informed and uplifted his soul. He +thought neither of the past nor of the future, but simply and intensely +of the present. He would not even ask himself why, really, Cosette had +come to Monte Carlo. She said she had come with Loulou, because they +both wanted to come; and Loulou was in bed with <i>migraine</i>; but as for +Cosette, she never had the <i>migraine</i>, she was never ill. And then the +sun touched the Italian hills, and the sea slept, and ... and ... what a +planet, this earth! He could almost understand why Tom had wept between Cannes and Nice.</p> + +<p>It was arranged that the four should dine together that evening, if +Loulou had improved and Tom was discoverable. Henry promised to discover +him. Cosette announced that she must visit Loulou, and they parted for a +few brief hours.</p> + +<p>'<i>Mon petit!</i>' she threw after him.</p> + +<p>To see that girl tripping along the terrace in the sunset was a sight!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p><p>Henry went to the Hôtel des Anglais, but Tom had not been seen there. +He strolled back to the Casino gardens. The gardeners were drawing +suspended sheets over priceless blossoms. When that operation was +finished, he yawned, and decided that he might as well go into the +Casino for half an hour, just to watch the play.</p> + +<p>The atmosphere of the gay but unventilated rooms was heavy and noxious.</p> + +<p>He chose a different table to watch, a table far from the scene of his +early triumph. In a few minutes he said that he might as well play, to +pass the time. So he began to play, feeling like a giant among pigmies. +He lost two hundred francs in five spins.</p> + +<p>'Steady, my friend!' he enjoined himself.</p> + +<p>Now, two hundred francs should be the merest trifle to a man who has won +sixty-three thousand francs. Henry, however, had not won sixty-three +thousand francs. On the other hand, it was precisely Henry who had paid +sixty-five francs for lunch for two that day, and Henry who had lent Tom +a hundred and seventy-five francs, and Henry who had paid Tom's hotel +bill in Paris, and Henry who had left England with just fifty-five<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +pounds—a sum which he had imagined to be royally ample for his needs on the Continent.</p> + +<p>He considered the situation.</p> + +<p>He had his return-ticket from Monte Carlo to Paris, and his +return-ticket from Paris to London. He probably owed fifty francs at the +hotel, and he possessed a note for a hundred francs, two notes for fifty +francs, some French gold and silver, and some English silver.</p> + +<p>Continuing to play upon his faultless system, he lost another fifty francs.</p> + +<p>'I can ask her to lend me something. I won all that lot for her,' he said.</p> + +<p>'You know perfectly well you can't ask her to lend you something,' said +an abstract reasoning power within him. 'It's just because you won all +that lot for her that you can't. You'd be afraid lest she should think +you were sponging on her. Can you imagine yourself asking her?'</p> + +<p>'Well, I can ask Tom,' he said.</p> + +<p>'Tom!' exclaimed the abstract reasoning power.</p> + +<p>'I can wire to Snyder,' he said.</p> + +<p>'That would look a bit thick,' replied the abstract reasoning power, +'telegraphing for money—from Monte Carlo.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p><p>Henry took the note for a hundred francs, and put it on red, and went +icy cold in the feet and hands, and swore a horrid oath.</p> + +<p>Black won.</p> + +<p>He had sworn, and he was a man of his word. He walked straight out of +the Casino; but uncertainly, feebly, as a man who has received a +staggering blow between the eyes, as a man who has been pitched into a +mountain-pool in January, as a somnambulist who has wakened to find +himself on the edge of a precipice.</p> + +<p>He paid his bill at the hotel, and asked the time of the next train to +Paris. There was no next train to Paris that night, but there was a +train to Marseilles. He took it. Had it been a train only to Nice, or to +the Plutonian realms, he would have taken it. He said no good-byes. He +left no messages, no explanations. He went. On the next afternoon but +one he arrived at Victoria with fivepence in his pocket. Twopence he +paid to deposit his luggage in the cloakroom, and threepence for the +Underground fare to Charing Cross. From Charing Cross he walked up to +Kenilworth Mansions and got a sovereign from Mark Snyder. Coutts's, +where Mark financed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> himself, was closed, and a sovereign was all that +Mark had.</p> + +<p>Henry was thankful that the news had not yet reached London—at any +rate, it had not reached Mark Snyder. It was certain to do so, however. +Henry had read in that morning's Paris edition of the <i>New York Herald</i>: +'Mr. Henry S. Knight, the famous young English novelist, broke the bank +at Monte Carlo the other day. He was understood to be playing in +conjunction with Mademoiselle Cosette, the well-known Parisian +<i>divette</i>, who is also on a visit to Monte Carlo. I am told that the +pair have netted over a hundred and sixty thousand francs.'</p> + +<p>He reflected upon Cosette, and he reflected upon Geraldine. It was like +returning to two lumps of sugar in one's tea after having got accustomed to three.</p> + +<p>He was very proud of himself for having so ruthlessly abandoned Monte +Carlo, Cosette, Loulou, Tom, and the whole apparatus. And he had the right to be.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE NEW LIFE</h3> + +<p>They were nervous, both of them. Although they had been legally and +publicly married and their situation was in every way regular, although +the new flat in Ashley Gardens was spacious, spotless, and luxurious to +an extraordinary degree, although they had a sum of nearly seven +thousand pounds at the bank, although their consciences were clear and +their persons ornamental, Henry and Geraldine were decidedly nervous as +they sat in their drawing-room awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie, who had accepted an invitation to afternoon tea and dinner.</p> + +<p>It was the third day after the conclusion of their mysterious honeymoon.</p> + +<p>'Have one, dearest?' said Geraldine, determined to be gay, holding up a +morsel which she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> took from a coloured box by her side. And Henry took +it with his teeth from between her charming fingers. 'Lovely, aren't +they?' she mumbled, munching another morsel herself, and he mumbled that they were.</p> + +<p>She was certainly charming, if English. Thoughts of Cosette, which used +to flit through his brain with a surprising effect that can only be +likened to an effect of flamingoes sweeping across an English meadow, +had now almost entirely ceased to disturb him. He had but to imagine +what Geraldine's attitude towards Cosette would have been had the two +met, in order to perceive the overpowering balance of advantages in +Geraldine's favour.</p> + +<p>Much had happened since Cosette.</p> + +<p>As a consequence of natural reaction, he had at once settled down to be +extremely serious, and to take himself seriously. He had been assisted +in the endeavour by the publication of an article in a monthly review, +entitled 'The Art of Henry Shakspere Knight.' The article explained to +him how wonderful he was, and he was ingenuously and sincerely thankful +for the revelation. It also, incidentally, showed him that 'Henry +Shakspere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> Knight' was a better signature for his books than 'Henry S. +Knight,' and he decided to adopt it in his next work. Further, it had +enormously quickened in him the sense of his mission in the world, of +his duty to his colossal public, and his potentiality for good.</p> + +<p>He put aside a book which he had already haltingly commenced, and began +a new one, in which a victim to the passion for gambling was redeemed by +the love of a pure young girl. It contained dramatic scenes in Paris, in +the <i>train de luxe</i>, and in Monte Carlo. One of the most striking scenes +was a harmony of moonlight and love on board a yacht in the +Mediterranean, in which sea Veronica prevailed upon Hubert to submerge +an ill-gotten gain of six hundred and sixty-three thousand francs, +although the renunciation would leave Hubert penniless. Geraldine +watched the progress of this book with absolute satisfaction. She had no +fault to find with it. She gazed at Henry with large admiring eyes as he +read aloud to her chapter after chapter.</p> + +<p>'What do you think I'm going to call it?' he had demanded of her once, gleefully.</p> + +<p>'I don't know,' she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p><p>'<i>Red and Black</i>,' he told her. 'Isn't that a fine title?'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' she said. 'But it's been used before;' and she gave him +particulars of Stendhal's novel, of which he had never heard.</p> + +<p>'Oh, well!' he exclaimed, somewhat dashed. 'As Stendhal was a Frenchman, +and his book doesn't deal with gambling at all, I think I may stick to +my title. I thought of it myself, you know.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, dearest. I <i>know</i> you did,' Geraldine said eagerly.</p> + +<p>'You think I'd better alter it?'</p> + +<p>Geraldine glanced at the floor. 'You see,' she murmured, 'Stendhal was a +really great writer.'</p> + +<p>He started, shocked. She had spoken in such a way that he could not be +sure whether she meant, 'Stendhal was a really <i>great</i> writer,' or, +'<i>Stendhal</i> was a <i>really</i> great writer.' If the former, he did not +mind, much. But if the latter—well, he thought uncomfortably of what +Tom had said to him in the train. And he perceived again, and more +clearly than ever before, that there was something in Geraldine which +baffled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> him—something which he could not penetrate, and never would +penetrate.</p> + +<p>'Suppose I call it <i>Black and Red</i>? Will that do?' he asked forlornly.</p> + +<p>'It would do,' she answered; 'but it doesn't sound so well.'</p> + +<p>'I've got it!' he cried exultantly. 'I've got it! <i>The Plague-Spot.</i> +Monte Carlo the plague-spot of Europe, you know.'</p> + +<p>'Splendid!' she said with enthusiasm. 'You are always magnificent at titles.'</p> + +<p>And it was universally admitted that he was.</p> + +<p>The book had been triumphantly finished, and the manuscript delivered to +Macalistairs viâ Mark Snyder, and the huge cheque received under cover +of a letter full of compliments on Henry's achievement. Macalistairs +announced that their <i>Magazine</i> would shortly contain the opening +chapters of Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight's great romance, <i>The +Plague-Spot</i>, which would run for one year, and which combined a +tremendous indictment of certain phases of modern life with an original +love-story by turns idyllic and dramatic. <i>Gordon's Monthly</i> was +serializing the novel in America. About this time, an interview with +Henry, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>suggested by Sir Hugh Macalistair himself, appeared in an +important daily paper. 'It is quite true,' said Henry in the interview, +'that I went to Monte Carlo to obtain first-hand material for my book. +The stories of my breaking the bank there, however, are wildly +exaggerated. Of course, I played a little, in order to be able to put +myself in the place of my hero. I should explain that I was in Monte +Carlo with my cousin, Mr. Dolbiac, the well-known sculptor and painter, +who was painting portraits there. Mr. Dolbiac is very much at home in +Parisian artistic society, and he happened to introduce me to a famous +French lady singer who was in Monte Carlo at the time. This lady and I +found ourselves playing at the same table. From time to time I put down +her stakes for her; that was all. She certainly had an extraordinary run +of luck, but the bank was actually broken at last by the united bets of +a number of people. That is the whole story, and I'm afraid it is much +less exciting and picturesque than the rumours which have been flying +about. I have never seen the lady since that day.'</p> + +<p>Then his marriage had filled the air.</p> + +<p>At an early stage in the preparations for that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> event his mother and +Aunt Annie became passive—ceased all activity. Perfect peace was +maintained, but they withdrew. Fundamentally and absolutely, Geraldine's +ideas were not theirs, and Geraldine did as she liked with Henry. +Geraldine and Henry interrogated Mark Snyder as to the future. 'Shall we +be justified in living at the rate of two thousand a year?' they asked +him. 'Yes,' he said, 'and four times that!' He had just perused <i>The +Plague-Spot</i> in manuscript. 'Let's make it three thousand, then,' said +Geraldine to Henry. And she had planned the establishment of their home +on that scale. Henry did not tell the ladies at Dawes Road that the rent +of the flat was three hundred a year, and that the furniture had cost +over a thousand, and that he was going to give Geraldine two hundred a +year for dress. He feared apoplexy in his mother, and a nervous crisis +in Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>The marriage took place in a church. It was not this that secretly +pained Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie; all good Wesleyan Methodists marry +themselves in church. What secretly pained them was the fact that Henry +would not divulge, even to his own mother, the locality of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> the +honeymoon. He did say that Geraldine had been bent upon Paris, and that +he had completely barred Paris ('Quite right,' Aunt Annie remarked), but +he would say no more. And so after the ceremony the self-conscious pair +had disappeared for a fortnight into the unknown and the unknowable.</p> + +<p>And now they had reappeared out of the unknown and the unknowable, and, +with the help of four servants, meant to sustain life in Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie for a period of some five hours.</p> + +<p>They heard a ring in the distance of the flat.</p> + +<p>'Prepare to receive cavalry,' said Geraldine, sitting erect in her blue +dress on the green settee in the middle of the immense drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Then, seeing Henry's face, she jumped up, crossed over to her husband, +and gave him a smacking kiss between the eyes. 'Dearest, I didn't mean +it!' she whispered enchantingly. He smiled. She flew back to her seat +just as the door opened.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Doxey,' said a new parlourmaid, intensely white and black, and +intensely aware of the eminence of her young employers. And little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> +Doxey of the P.A. came in, rather shabby and insinuating as usual, and +obviously impressed by the magnificence of his surroundings.</p> + +<p>'My good Doxey,' exclaimed the chatelaine. 'How delicious of you to have +found us out so soon!'</p> + +<p>'How d'you do, Doxey?' said Henry, rising.</p> + +<p>'Awfully good of you to see me!' began Doxey, depositing his +well-preserved hat on a chair. 'Hope I don't interrupt.' He smiled. +'Can't stop a minute. Got a most infernal bazaar on at the Cecil. Look +here, old man,' he addressed Henry: 'I've been reading your <i>Love in +Babylon</i> again, and I fancied I could make a little curtain-raiser out +of it—out of the picture incident, you know. I mentioned the idea to +Pilgrim, of the Prince's Theatre, and he's fearfully stuck on it.'</p> + +<p>'You mean, you think he is,' Geraldine put in.</p> + +<p>'Well, he is,' Doxey pursued, after a brief pause. 'I'm sure he is. I've +sketched out a bit of a scenario. Now, if you'd give permission and go +shares, I'd do it, old chap.'</p> + +<p>'A play, eh?' was all that Henry said.</p> + +<p>Doxey nodded. 'There's nothing like the theatre, you know.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p><p>'What do you mean—there's nothing like the theatre?'</p> + +<p>'For money, old chap. Not short pieces, of course, but long ones; only, +short ones lead to long ones.'</p> + +<p>'I tell you what you'd better do,' said Henry, when they had discussed +the matter. 'You'd better write the thing, and I'll have a look at it, +and then decide.'</p> + +<p>'Very well, if you like,' said Doxey slowly. 'What about shares?'</p> + +<p>'If it comes to anything, I don't mind halving it,' Henry replied.</p> + +<p>'I see,' said Doxey. 'Of course, I've had some little experience of the +stage,' he added.</p> + +<p>His name was one of those names which appear from time to time in the +theatrical gossip of the newspapers as having adapted, or as being about +to adapt, something or other for the stage which was not meant for the +stage. It had never, however, appeared on the playbills of the theatres; +except once, when, at a benefit matinée, the great John Pilgrim, whom to +mention is to worship, had recited verses specially composed for the +occasion by Alfred Doxey.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p><p>'And the signature, dear?' Geraldine glanced up at her husband, +offering him a suggestion humbly, as a wife should in the presence of third parties.</p> + +<p>'Oh!' said Henry. 'Of course, Mr. Doxey's name must go with mine, as one +of the authors of the piece. Certainly.'</p> + +<p>'Dearest,' Geraldine murmured when Doxey had gone, 'you are perfect. You +don't really need an agent.'</p> + +<p>He laughed. 'There's rather too much "old chap" about Doxey,' he said. +'Who's Doxey?'</p> + +<p>'He's quite harmless, the little creature,' said Geraldine good-naturedly.</p> + +<p>They sat silent for a time.</p> + +<p>'Miles Robinson makes fifteen thousand a year out of plays,' Geraldine +murmured reflectively.</p> + +<p>'Does he?' Henry murmured reflectively.</p> + +<p>The cavalry arrived, in full panoply of war.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'I am thankful Sarah stays with us,' said Mrs. Knight. 'Servants are so +much more difficult to get now than they were in my time.'</p> + +<p>Tea was nearly over; the cake-stand in four storeys had been depleted +from attic to basement,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> and, after admiring the daintiness and taste +displayed throughout Mrs. Henry's drawing-room, the ladies from Dawes +Road had reached the most fascinating of all topics.</p> + +<p>'When you keep several,' said Geraldine, 'they are not so hard to get. +It's loneliness they object to.'</p> + +<p>'How many shall you have, dear?' Aunt Annie asked.</p> + +<p>'Forty,' said Henry, looking up from a paper.</p> + +<p>'Don't be silly, dearest!' Geraldine protested. (She seemed so young and +interesting and bright and precious, and so competent, as she sat there, +behind the teapot, between her mature visitors in their black and their +grey: this was what Henry thought.) 'No, Aunt Annie; I have four at +present.'</p> + +<p>'Four!' repeated Aunt Annie, aghast. 'But——'</p> + +<p>'But, my dear!' exclaimed Mrs. Knight. 'Surely——'</p> + +<p>Geraldine glanced with respectful interest at Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>'Surely you'll find it a great trial to manage them all?' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Geraldine. 'At least, I hope not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> I never allow myself to be +bothered by servants. I just tell them what they are to do. If they do +it, well and good. If they don't, they must leave. I give an hour a day +to domestic affairs. My time is too occupied to give more.'</p> + +<p>'She likes to spend her time going up and down in the lift,' Henry explained.</p> + +<p>Geraldine put her hand over her husband's mouth and silenced him. It was +a pretty spectacle, and reconciled the visitors to much.</p> + +<p>Aunt Annie examined Henry's face. 'Are you quite well, Henry?' she inquired.</p> + +<p>'I'm all right,' he said, yawning. 'But I want a little exercise. I +haven't been out much to-day. I think I'll go for a short walk.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, do, dearest.'</p> + +<p>'Do, my dear.'</p> + +<p>As he approached the door, having kissed his wife, his mother, without +looking at him, remarked in a peculiarly dry tone, which she employed +only at the rarest intervals: 'You haven't told me anything about your +honeymoon yet, Henry.'</p> + +<p>'You forget, sister,' said Aunt Annie stiffly, 'it's a secret.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p><p>'Not now—not now!' cried Geraldine brightly. 'Well, we'll tell you. +Where do you think we drove after leaving you? To the Savoy Hotel.'</p> + +<p>'But why?' asked Mrs. Knight ingenuously.</p> + +<p>'We spent our honeymoon there, right in the middle of London. We +pretended we were strangers to London, and we saw all the sights that +Londoners never do see. Wasn't it a good idea?'</p> + +<p>'I—I don't know,' said Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>'It seems rather queer—for a honeymoon,' Aunt Annie observed.</p> + +<p>'Oh, but it was splendid!' continued Geraldine. 'We went to the theatre +or the opera every night, and lived on the fat of the land in the best +hotel in Europe, and saw everything—even the Tower and the Mint and the +Thames Tunnel and the Tate Gallery. We enjoyed every moment.'</p> + +<p>'And think of the saving in fares!' Henry put in, swinging the door to and fro.</p> + +<p>'Yes, there was that, certainly,' Aunt Annie agreed.</p> + +<p>'And we went everywhere that omnibuses go,' Henry proceeded. 'Once even +we got as far as the Salisbury, Fulham.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p><p>'Well, dear,' Mrs. Knight said sharply, 'I do think you might have +popped in.'</p> + +<p>'But, mamma,' Geraldine tried to explain, 'that would have spoilt it.'</p> + +<p>'Spoilt what?' asked Mrs. Knight. 'The Salisbury isn't three minutes off +our house. I do think you might have popped in. There I was—and me +thinking you were gone abroad!'</p> + +<p>'See you later,' said Henry, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>'He doesn't look quite well, does he, Annie?' said Mrs. Knight.</p> + +<p>'I know how it used to be,' Aunt Annie said. 'Whenever he began to make +little jokes, we knew he was in for a bilious attack.'</p> + +<p>'My dear people,' Geraldine endeavoured to cheer them, 'I assure you +he's perfectly well—perfectly.'</p> + +<p>'I've decided not to go out, after all,' said Henry, returning +surprisingly to the room. 'I don't feel like it.' And he settled into an +ear-flap chair that had cost sixteen pounds ten.</p> + +<p>'Have one?' said Geraldine, offering him the coloured box from which she +had just helped herself.</p> + +<p>'No, thanks,' said he, shutting his eyes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p><p>'I beg your pardon, I'm sure;' Geraldine turned to her visitors and +extended the box. 'Won't you have a <i>marron glacé</i>?'</p> + +<p>And the visitors gazed at each other in startled, affrighted silence.</p> + +<p>'Has Henry eaten some?' Mrs. Knight asked, shaken.</p> + +<p>'He had one or two before tea,' Geraldine answered. 'Why?'</p> + +<p>'I <i>knew</i> he was going to be ill!' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'But he's been eating <i>marrons glacés</i> every day for a fortnight. +Haven't you, sweetest?' said Geraldine.</p> + +<p>'I can believe it,' Aunt Annie murmured, 'from his face.'</p> + +<p>'Oh dear! Women! Women!' Henry whispered facetiously.</p> + +<p>'He's only saving his appetite for dinner,' said Geraldine, with intrepid calm.</p> + +<p>'My dear girl,' Mrs. Knight observed, again in that peculiar dry tone, +'if I know anything about your husband, and I've had him under my care +for between twenty and thirty years, he will eat nothing more to-day.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p><p>'Now, mater,' said Henry, 'don't get excited. By the way, we haven't +told you that I'm going to write a play.'</p> + +<p>'A play, Henry?'</p> + +<p>'Yes. So you'll have to begin going to theatres in your old age, after all.'</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>'Shan't you?' Henry persisted.</p> + +<p>'I don't know, dear. What place of worship are you attending?'</p> + +<p>There was another pause.</p> + +<p>'St. Philip's, Regent Street, I think we shall choose,' said Geraldine.</p> + +<p>'But surely that's a <i>church</i>?'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Geraldine. 'It is a very good one. I have belonged to the +Church of England all my life.'</p> + +<p>'Not High, I hope,' said Aunt Annie.</p> + +<p>'Certainly, High.'</p> + +<p>The beneficent Providence which always watched over Henry, watched over +him then. A gong resounded through the flat, and stopped the +conversation. Geraldine put her lips together.</p> + +<p>'There's the dressing-bell, dearest,' said she, controlling herself.</p> + +<p>'I won't dress to-night,' Henry replied feebly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> 'I'm not equal to it. +You go. I'll stop with mother and auntie.'</p> + +<p>'Don't you fret yourself, mater,' he said as soon as the chatelaine had +left them. 'Sir George has gone to live at Redhill, and given up his pew +at Great Queen Street. I shall return to the old place and take it.'</p> + +<p>'I am very glad,' said Mrs. Knight. 'Very glad.'</p> + +<p>'And Geraldine?' Aunt Annie asked.</p> + +<p>'Leave me to look after the little girl,' said Henry. He then dozed for +a few moments.</p> + +<p>The dinner, with the Arctic lamps dotted about the table, and two +servants to wait, began in the most stately and effective fashion +imaginable. But it had got no further than the host's first spoonful of +<i>soupe aux moules</i>, when the host rose abruptly, and without a word +departed from the room.</p> + +<p>The sisters nodded to each other with the cheerful gloom of prophetesses +who find themselves in the midst of a disaster which they have predicted.</p> + +<p>'You poor, foolish boy!' exclaimed Geraldine, running after Henry. She +was adorably attired in white.</p> + +<p class="center">* * * * *</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p><p>The clash of creeds was stilled in the darkened and sumptuous chamber, +as the three women bent with murmurous affection over the bed on which +lay, swathed in a redolent apparatus of eau-de-Cologne and fine linen, +their hope and the hope of English literature. Towards midnight, when +the agony had somewhat abated, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie reluctantly +retired in a coupé which Geraldine had ordered for them by telephone.</p> + +<p>And in the early June dawn Henry awoke, refreshed and renewed, full of +that languid but genuine interest in mortal things which is at once the +compensation and the sole charm of a dyspepsy. By reaching out an arm he +could just touch the hand of his wife as she slept in her twin couch. He +touched it; she awoke, and they exchanged the morning smile.</p> + +<p>'I'm glad that's over,' he said.</p> + +<p>But whether he meant the <i>marrons glacés</i> or the first visit of his +beloved elders to the glorious flat cannot be decided.</p> + +<p>Certain it is, however, that deep in the minds of both the spouses was +the idea that the new life, the new heaven on the new earth, had now fairly begun.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>HE IS NOT NERVOUS</h3> + +<p>'Yes,' said Henry with judicial calm, after he had read Mr. Doxey's +stage version of <i>Love in Babylon</i>, 'it makes a nice little piece.'</p> + +<p>'I'm glad you like it, old chap,' said Doxey. 'I thought you would.'</p> + +<p>They were in Henry's study, seated almost side by side at Henry's great +American roll-top desk.</p> + +<p>'You've got it a bit hard in places,' Henry pursued. 'But I'll soon put +that right.'</p> + +<p>'Can you do it to-day?' asked the adapter.</p> + +<p>'Why?'</p> + +<p>'Because I know old Johnny Pilgrim wants to shove a new curtain-raiser +into the bill at once. If I could take him this to-morrow——'</p> + +<p>'I'll post it to you to-night,' said Henry. 'But I shall want to see Mr. +Pilgrim myself before anything is definitely arranged.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p><p>'Oh, of course,' Mr. Doxey agreed. 'Of course. I'll tell him.'</p> + +<p>Henry softened the rigour of his collaborator's pen in something like +half an hour. The perusal of this trifling essay in the dramatic form +(it certainly did not exceed four thousand words, and could be played in +twenty-five minutes) filled his mind with a fresh set of ideas. He +suspected that he could write for the stage rather better than Mr. +Doxey, and he saw, with the eye of faith, new plumes waving in his cap. +He was aware, because he had read it in the papers, that the English +drama needed immediate assistance, and he determined to render that +assistance. The first instalment of <i>The Plague-Spot</i> had just come out +in the July number of <i>Macalistair's Magazine</i>, and the extraordinary +warmth of its reception had done nothing to impair Henry's belief in his +gift for pleasing the public. Hence he stretched out a hand to the West +End stage with a magnanimous gesture of rescuing the fallen.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>And yet, curiously enough, when he entered the stage-door of Prince's +Theatre one afternoon, to see John Pilgrim, he was as meek as if the +world had never heard of him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p><p>He informed the doorkeeper that he had an appointment with Mr. Pilgrim, +whereupon the doorkeeper looked him over, took a pull at a glass of +rum-and-milk, and said he would presently inquire whether Mr. Pilgrim +could see anyone. The passage from the portals of the theatre to Mr. +Pilgrim's private room occupied exactly a quarter of an hour.</p> + +<p>Then, upon beholding the figure of John Pilgrim, he seemed suddenly to +perceive what fame and celebrity and renown really were. Here was the +man whose figure and voice were known to every theatre-goer in England +and America, and to every idler who had once glanced at a +photograph-window; the man who for five-and-twenty years had stilled +unruly crowds by a gesture, conquered the most beautiful women with a +single smile, died for the fatherland, and lived for love, before a +nightly audience of two thousand persons; who existed absolutely in the +eye of the public, and who long ago had formed a settled, honest, +serious conviction that he was the most interesting and remarkable +phenomenon in the world. In the ingenuous mind of Mr. Pilgrim the +universe was the frame, and John Pilgrim was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> the picture: his countless +admirers had forced him to think so.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pilgrim greeted Henry as though in a dream.</p> + +<p>'What name?' he whispered, glancing round, apparently not quite sure +whether they were alone and unobserved.</p> + +<p>He seemed to be trying to awake from his dream, to recall the mundane +and the actual, without success.</p> + +<p>He said, still whispering, that the little play pleased him.</p> + +<p>'Let me see,' he reflected. 'Didn't Doxey say that you had written other things?'</p> + +<p>'Several books,' Henry informed him.</p> + +<p>'Books? Ah!' Mr. Pilgrim had the air of trying to imagine what sort of +thing books were. 'That's very interesting. Novels?'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pilgrim, opening his magnificent chest and passing a hand through +his brown hair, grew impressively humble. 'You must excuse my +ignorance,' he explained. 'I am afraid I'm not quite abreast of modern +literature. I never read.' And he repeated firmly: 'I never read. Not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +even the newspapers. What time have I for reading?' he whispered sadly. +'In my brougham, I snatch a glance at the contents-bills of the evening +papers. No more.'</p> + +<p>Henry had the idea that even to be ignored by John Pilgrim was more +flattering than to be admired by the rest of mankind.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pilgrim rose and walked several times across the room; then +addressed Henry mysteriously and imposingly:</p> + +<p>'I've got the finest theatre in London.'</p> + +<p>'Yes?' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'In the world,' Mr. Pilgrim corrected himself.</p> + +<p>Then he walked again, and again stopped.</p> + +<p>'I'll produce your piece,' he whispered. 'Yes, I'll produce it.'</p> + +<p>He spoke as if saying also: 'You will have a difficulty in crediting +this extraordinary and generous decision: nevertheless you must +endeavour to do so.'</p> + +<p>Henry thanked him lamely.</p> + +<p>'Of course I shan't play in it myself,' added Mr. Pilgrim, laughing as +one laughs at a fantastic conceit.</p> + +<p>'No, naturally not,' said Henry.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p><p>'Nor will Jane,' said Mr. Pilgrim.</p> + +<p>Jane Map was Mr. Pilgrim's leading lady, for the time being.</p> + +<p>'And about terms, young man?' Mr. Pilgrim demanded, folding his arms. +'What is your notion of terms?'</p> + +<p>Now, Henry had taken the precaution of seeking advice concerning fair terms.</p> + +<p>'One pound a performance is my notion,' he answered.</p> + +<p>'I never give more than ten shillings a night for a curtain-raiser,' +said Mr. Pilgrim ultimatively, 'Never. I can't afford to.'</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid that settles it, then, Mr. Pilgrim,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'You'll take ten shillings?'</p> + +<p>'I'll take a pound. I can't take less. I'm like you, I can't afford to.'</p> + +<p>John Pilgrim showed a faint interest in Henry's singular—indeed, +incredible—attitude.</p> + +<p>'You don't mean to say,' he mournfully murmured, 'that you'll miss the +chance of having your play produced in my theatre for the sake of half a sovereign?'</p> + +<p>Before Henry could reply to this grieved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> question, Jane Map burst into +the room. She was twenty-five, tall, dark, and arresting. John Pilgrim +had found her somewhere.</p> + +<p>'Jane,' said Mr. Pilgrim sadly, 'this is Mr. Knight.'</p> + +<p>'Not the author of <i>The Plague-Spot</i>?' asked Jane Map, clasping her +jewelled fingers.</p> + +<p>'<i>Are</i> you the author of <i>The Plague-Spot</i>?' Mr. Pilgrim +whispered—'whatever <i>The Plague-Spot</i> is.'</p> + +<p>The next moment Jane Map was shaking hands effusively with Henry. 'I +just adore you!' she told him. 'And your <i>Love in Babylon</i>—oh, Mr. +Knight, how <i>do</i> you think of such beautiful stories?'</p> + +<p>John Pilgrim sank into a chair and closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>'Oh, you must take it! you must take it!' cried Jane to John, as soon as +she learnt that a piece based on <i>Love in Babylon</i> was under discussion. +'I shall play Enid Anstruther myself. Don't you see me in it, Mr. +Knight?'</p> + +<p>'Mr. Knight's terms are twice mine,' John Pilgrim intoned, without +opening his eyes. 'He wants a pound a night.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p><p>'He must have it,' said Jane Map. 'If I'm in the piece——'</p> + +<p>'But, Jane——'</p> + +<p>'I insist!' said Jane, with fire.</p> + +<p>'Very well, Mr. Knight,' John Pilgrim continued to intone, his eyes +still shut, his legs stretched out, his feet resting perpendicularly on +the heels. 'Jane insists. You understand—Jane insists. Take your pound, +I call the first rehearsal for Monday.'</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Thenceforward Henry lived largely in the world of the theatre, a +pariah's life, the life almost of a poor relation. Doxey appeared to +enjoy the existence; it was Doxey's brief hour of bliss. But Henry, +spoilt by editors, publishers, and the reading public, could not easily +reconcile himself to the classical position of an author in the world of +the theatre. It hurt him to encounter the prevalent opinion that, just +as you cannot have a dog without a tail or a stump, so you cannot have a +play without an author. The actors and actresses were the play, and when +they were pleased with themselves the author was expected to fulfil his +sole function of wagging.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p><p>Even Jane Map, Henry's confessed adorer, was the victim, Henry thought, +of a highly-distorted sense of perspective. The principal comfort which +he derived from Jane Map was that she ignored Doxey entirely.</p> + +<p>The preliminary rehearsals were desolating. Henry went away from the +first one convinced that the piece would have to be rewritten from end +to end. No performer could make anything of his own part, and yet each +was sure that all the other parts were effective in the highest degree.</p> + +<p>At the fourth rehearsal John Pilgrim came down to direct. He sat in the +dim stalls by Henry's side, and Henry could hear him murmuring softly +and endlessly:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>'Punch, brothers, punch with care—</div> +<div>Punch in the presence of the passenjare!'</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The scene was imagined to represent a studio, and Jane Map, as Enid +Anstruther, was posing on the model's throne.</p> + +<p>'Jane,' Mr. Pilgrim hissed out, 'you pose for all the world like an +artist's model!'</p> + +<p>'Well,' Jane retorted, 'I am an artist's model.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p><p>'No, you aren't,' said John. 'You're an actress on my stage, and you +must pose like one.'</p> + +<p>Whereupon Mr. Pilgrim ascended to the stage and began to arrange Jane's +limbs. By accident Jane's delightful elbow came into contact with John +Pilgrim's eye. The company was horror-struck as Mr. Pilgrim lowered his +head and pressed a handkerchief to that eye.</p> + +<p>'Jane, Jane!' he complained in his hoarse and conspiratorial whisper, +'I've been teaching you the elements of your art for two years, and all +you have achieved is to poke your elbow in my eye. The rehearsal is stopped.'</p> + +<p>And everybody went home.</p> + +<p>Such is a specimen of the incidents which were continually happening.</p> + +<p>However, as the first night approached, the condition of affairs +improved a little, and Henry saw with satisfaction that the resemblance +of Prince's Theatre to a lunatic asylum was more superficial than real. +Also, the tone of the newspapers in referring to the imminent production +convinced even John Pilgrim that Henry was perhaps not quite an ordinary +author. John Pilgrim cancelled a proof of a poster which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> had already +passed, and ordered a double-crown, thus:</p> + +<h3>LOVE IN BABYLON.</h3> + +<h5>A PLAY IN ONE ACT, FOUNDED ON</h5> + +<h3>HENRY SHAKSPERE KNIGHT'S</h3> + +<h3>FAMOUS NOVEL.</h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Henry Shakspere Knight and Alfred Doxey.</span></h3> + +<h4>ENID ANSTRUTHER—MISS JANE MAP.</h4> + +<p>Geraldine met Jane, and asked her to tea at the flat. And Geraldine +hired a brougham at thirty pounds a month. From that day Henry's +reception at the theatre was all that he could have desired, and more +than any mere author had the right to expect. At the final rehearsals, +in the absence of John Pilgrim, his word was law. It was whispered in +the green-room that he earned ten thousand a year by writing things +called novels. 'Well, dear old pal,' said one old actor to another old +actor, 'it takes all sorts to make a world. But ten thousand! Johnny +himself don't make more than that, though he spends more.'</p> + +<p>The mischief was that Henry's digestion, what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> with the irregular hours +and the irregular drinks, went all to pieces.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>'You don't <i>look</i> nervous, Harry,' said Geraldine when he came into the +drawing-room before dinner on the evening of the production.</p> + +<p>'Nervous?' said Henry. 'Of course I'm not.'</p> + +<p>'Then, why have you forgotten to brush your hair, dearest?' she asked.</p> + +<p>He glanced in a mirror. Yes, he had certainly forgotten to brush his hair.</p> + +<p>'Sheer coincidence,' he said, and ate a hearty meal.</p> + +<p>Geraldine drove to the theatre. She was to meet there Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie, in whose breasts pride and curiosity had won a tardy victory +over the habits of a lifetime; they had a stage-box. Henry remarked that +it was a warm night and that he preferred to walk; he would see them afterwards.</p> + +<p>No one could have been more surprised than Henry, when he arrived at +Prince's Theatre, to discover that he was incapable of entering that +edifice. He honestly and physically tried to go in by the stage-door, +but he could not, and, instead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> of turning within, he kept a straight +course along the footpath. It was as though an invisible barrier had +been raised to prevent his ingress.</p> + +<p>'Never mind!' he said. 'I'll walk to the Circus and back again, and then +I'll go in.'</p> + +<p>He walked to the Circus and back again, and once more failed to get +himself inside Prince's Theatre.</p> + +<p>'This is the most curious thing that ever happened to me,' he thought, +as he stood for the second time in Piccadilly Circus. 'Why the devil +can't I go into that theatre? I'm not nervous. I'm not a bit nervous.' +It was so curious that he felt an impulse to confide to someone how +curious it was.</p> + +<p>Then he went into the Criterion bar and sat down. The clock showed +seventeen minutes to nine. His piece was advertised to start at +eight-thirty precisely. The Criterion Bar is never empty, but it has its +moments of lassitude, and seventeen minutes to nine is one of them. +After an interval a waiter slackly approached him.</p> + +<p>'Brandy-and-soda!' Henry ordered, well knowing that brandy-and-soda +never suited him.</p> + +<p>He glanced away from the clock, repeated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> 'Punch, brothers, punch with +care,' twenty times, recited 'God save the Queen,' took six small sips +at the brandy-and-soda, and then looked at the clock again, and it was +only fourteen minutes to nine. He had guessed it might be fourteen +minutes to ten.</p> + +<p>He caught the eye of a barmaid, and she seemed to be saying to him +sternly: 'If you think you can occupy this place all night on a +ninepenny drink, you are mistaken. Either you ought to order another or +hook it.' He braved it for several more ages, then paid, and went; and +still it was only ten minutes to nine. All mundane phenomena were +inexplicably contorted that night. As he was passing the end of the +short street which contains the stage-door of Prince's Theatre, a man, +standing at the door on the lookout, hailed him loudly. He hesitated, +and the man—it was the doorkeeper—flew forward and seized him and +dragged him in.</p> + +<p>'Drink this, Mr. Knight,' commanded the doorkeeper.</p> + +<p>'I'm all right,' said Henry. 'What's up?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I know you're all right. Drink it.'</p> + +<p>And he drank a whisky-and-soda.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p><p>'Come upstairs,' said the doorkeeper. 'You'll be wanted, Mr. Knight.'</p> + +<p>As he approached the wings of the stage, under the traction of the +breathless doorkeeper, he was conscious of the falling of the curtain, +and of the noisiest noise beyond the curtain that he had ever heard.</p> + +<p>'Here, Mr. Knight, drink this,' said someone in his ear. 'Keep steady. +It's nothing.'</p> + +<p>And he drank a glass of port.</p> + +<p>His overcoat was jerked off by a mysterious agency.</p> + +<p>The noise continued to be terrible: it rose and fell like the sea.</p> + +<p>Then he was aware of Jane Map rushing towards him and of Jane Map +kissing him rapturously on the mouth. 'Come <i>on</i>,' cried Jane Map, and +pulled him by the hand, helter-skelter, until they came in front of a +blaze of light and the noise crashed at his ears.</p> + +<p>'I've been through this before somewhere,' he thought, while Jane Map +wrung his hand. 'Was it in a previous existence? No. The Alhambra!' What +made him remember the Alhambra was the figure of little Doxey sheepishly +joining <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>himself and Jane. Doxey, with a disastrous lack of foresight, +had been in the opposite wing, and had had to run round the stage in +order to come before the curtain. Doxey's share in the triumph was +decidedly less than half....</p> + +<p>'No,' Henry said later, with splendid calm, when Geraldine, Jane, Doxey, +and himself were drinking champagne in Jane's Empire dressing-room, 'it +wasn't nervousness. I don't quite know what it was.'</p> + +<p>He gathered that the success had been indescribable.</p> + +<p>Jane radiated bliss.</p> + +<p>'I tell you what, old man,' said Doxey: 'we must adapt <i>The +Plague-Spot</i>, eh?'</p> + +<p>'We'll see about that,' said Henry.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Two days afterwards Henry arose from a bed of pain, and was able to +consume a little tea and dry toast. Geraldine regaled his spiritual man +with the press notices, which were tremendous. But more tremendous than +the press notices was John Pilgrim's decision to put <i>Love in Babylon</i> +after the main piece in the bill of Prince's Theatre. <i>Love in Babylon</i> +was to begin at the honourable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> hour of ten-forty in future, for the +benefit of the stalls and the dress-circle.</p> + +<p>'Have you thought about Mr. Doxey's suggestion?' Geraldine asked him.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Henry; 'but I don't quite see the point of it.'</p> + +<p>'Don't see the point of it, sweetheart?' she protested, stroking his +dressing-gown. 'But it would be bound to be a frightful success, after +this.'</p> + +<p>'I know,' said Henry. 'But why drag in Doxey? I can write the next play myself.'</p> + +<p>She kissed him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>HE SHORTENS HIS NAME</h3> + +<p>One day Geraldine needed a doctor. Henry was startled, frightened, +almost shocked. But when the doctor, having seen Geraldine, came into +the study to chat with Geraldine's husband, Henry put on a calm +demeanour, said he had been expecting the doctor's news, said also that +he saw no cause for anxiety or excitement, and generally gave the doctor +to understand that he was in no way disturbed by the work of Nature to +secure a continuance of the British Empire. The conversation shifted to +Henry's self, and soon Henry was engaged in a detailed description of his symptoms.</p> + +<p>'Purely nervous,' remarked the doctor—'purely nervous.'</p> + +<p>'You think so?'</p> + +<p>'I am sure of it.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p><p>'Then, of course, there is no cure for it. I must put up with it.'</p> + +<p>'Pardon me,' said the doctor, 'there is an absolutely certain cure for +nervous dyspepsia—at any rate, in such a case as yours.'</p> + +<p>'What is it?'</p> + +<p>'Go without breakfast'</p> + +<p>'But I don't eat too much, doctor,' Henry said plaintively.</p> + +<p>'Yes, you do,' said the doctor. 'We all do.'</p> + +<p>'And I'm always hungry at meal-times. If a meal is late it makes me quite ill.'</p> + +<p>'You'll feel somewhat uncomfortable for a few days,' the doctor blandly +continued. 'But in a month you'll be cured.'</p> + +<p>'You say that professionally?'</p> + +<p>'I guarantee it.'</p> + +<p>The doctor shook hands, departed, and then returned. 'And eat rather +less lunch than usual,' said he. 'Mind that.'</p> + +<p>Within three days Henry was informing his friends: 'I never have any +breakfast. No, none. Two meals a day.' It was astonishing how frequently +the talk approached the great food topic. He never sought an opportunity +to discuss the various methods and processes of sustaining life,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> yet, +somehow, he seemed to be always discussing them. Some of his +acquaintances annoyed him excessively—for example, Doxey.</p> + +<p>'That won't last long, old chap,' said Doxey, who had called about +finance. 'I've known other men try that. Give me the good old English +breakfast. Nothing like making a good start.'</p> + +<p>'Ass!' thought Henry, and determined once again, and more decisively, +that Doxey should pass out of his life.</p> + +<p>His preoccupation with this matter had the happy effect of preventing +him from worrying too much about the perils which lay before Geraldine. +Discovering the existence of an Anti-Breakfast League, he joined it, and +in less than a week every newspaper in the land announced that the ranks +of the Anti-Breakfasters had secured a notable recruit in the person of +Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight. It was widely felt that the Anti-Breakfast +Movement had come to stay.</p> + +<p>Still, he was profoundly interested in Geraldine, too. And between his +solicitude for her and his scientific curiosity concerning the secret +recesses of himself the flat soon overflowed with medical literature.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p><p>The entire world of the theatre woke up suddenly and simultaneously to +the colossal fact of Henry's genius. One day they had never thought of +him; the next they could think of nothing else. Every West End manager, +except two, wrote to him to express pleasure at the prospect of +producing a play by him; the exceptional two telegraphed. Henry, +however, had decided upon his arrangements. He had grasped the important +truth that there was only one John Pilgrim in the world.</p> + +<p>He threw the twenty-five chapters of <i>The Plague-Spot</i> into a scheme of +four acts, and began to write a drama without the aid of Mr. Alfred +Doxey. It travelled fast, did the drama; and the author himself was +astonished at the ease with which he put it together out of little +pieces of the novel. The scene of the third act was laid in the +gaming-saloons of Monte Carlo; the scene of the fourth disclosed the +deck of a luxurious private yacht at sea under a full Mediterranean +moon. Such flights of imagination had hitherto been unknown in the +serious drama of London. When Henry, after three months' labour, showed +the play to John Pilgrim, John Pilgrim said:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p><p>'This is the play I have waited twenty years for!'</p> + +<p>'You think it will do, then?' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'It will enable me,' observed John Pilgrim, 'to show the British public +what acting is.'</p> + +<p>Henry insisted on an agreement which gave him ten per cent. of the gross +receipts. Soon after the news of the signed contract had reached the +press, Mr. Louis Lewis, the English agent of Lionel Belmont, of the +United States Theatrical Trust, came unostentatiously round to Ashley +Gardens, and obtained the American rights on the same terms.</p> + +<p>Then Pilgrim said that he must run through the manuscript with Henry, +and teach him those things about the theatre which he did not know. +Henry arrived at Prince's at eleven o'clock, by appointment; Mr. Pilgrim +came at a quarter to twelve.</p> + +<p>'You have the sense <i>du théâtre</i>, my friend,' said Pilgrim, turning over +the leaves of the manuscript. 'That precious and incommunicable +gift—you have it. But you are too fond of explanations. Now, the public +won't stand explanations. No long speeches. And so whenever I glance +through a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> play I can tell instantly whether it is an acting play. If I +see a lot of speeches over four lines long, I say, Dull! Useless! Won't +do! For instance, here. That speech of Veronica's while she's at the +piano. Dull! I see it. I feel it. It must go! The last two lines must go!'</p> + +<p>So saying, he obliterated the last two lines with a large and imperial blue pencil.</p> + +<p>'But it's impossible,' Henry protested. 'You've not read them.'</p> + +<p>'I don't need to read them,' said John Pilgrim. 'I know they won't do. I +know the public won't have them. It must be give and take—give and take +between the characters. The ball must be kept in the air. Ah! The +theatre!' He paused, and gave Henry a piercing glance. 'Do you know how +I came to be <i>du théâtre</i>—of the theatre, young man?' he demanded. 'No? +I will tell you. My father was an old fox-hunting squire in the Quorn +country. One of the best English families, the Pilgrims, related to the +Earls of Waverley. Poor, unfortunately. My eldest brother was brought up +to inherit the paternal mortgages. My second brother went into the army. +And they wanted me to go into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> Church. I refused. "Well," said my +old father, "damn it, Jack! if you won't go to heaven, you may as well +ride straight to hell. Go on the stage." And I did, sir. I did. Idea for +a book there, isn't there?'</p> + +<p>The blue-pencilling of the play proceeded. But whenever John Pilgrim +came to a long speech by Hubert, the part which he destined for himself, +he hesitated to shorten it. 'It's too long! It's too long!' he +whispered. 'I feel it's too long. But, somehow, that seems to me +essential to the action. I must try to carry it off as best I can.'</p> + +<p>At the end of the second act Henry suggested an interval for lunch, but +John Pilgrim, opening Act III. accidentally, and pouncing on a line with +his blue pencil, exclaimed with profound interest:</p> + +<p>'Ah! I remember noting this when I read it. You've got Hubert saying +here: "I know I'm a silly fool." Now, I don't think that's quite in the +part. You must understand that when I study a character I become that +character. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that I know more +about that character than the author does. I merge myself into the +character with an intense effort. Now, I can't see Hubert saying "I +know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> I'm a silly fool." Of course I've no objection whatever to the +words, but it seemed to me—you understand what I mean? Shall we strike that out?'</p> + +<p>A little farther on Henry had given Veronica a little epigram: 'When a +man has to stand on his dignity, you may be sure his moral stature is very small.'</p> + +<p>'That's more like the sort of thing that Hubert would say,' John Pilgrim +whispered. 'Women never say those things. It's not true to nature. But +it seems to fit in exactly with the character of Hubert. Shall +we—transfer——?' His pencil waved in the air....</p> + +<p>'Heavenly powers!' Mr. Pilgrim hoarsely murmured, as they attained the +curtain of Act III., 'it's four o'clock. And I had an appointment for +lunch at two. But I never think of food when I am working. Never!'</p> + +<p>Henry, however, had not broken his fast since the previous evening.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The third and the greatest crisis in the unparalleled popularity of +Henry Shakspere Knight began to prepare itself. The rumour of its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> +coming was heard afar off, and every literary genius in England and +America who was earning less than ten thousand pounds a year ground his +teeth and clenched his hands in impotent wrath. The boom and resounding +of <i>The Plague-Spot</i> would have been deafening and immense in any case; +but Henry had an idea, and executed it, which multiplied the +advertisement tenfold. It was one of those ideas, at once quite simple +and utterly original, which only occur to the favourites of the gods.</p> + +<p>The serial publication of <i>The Plague-Spot</i> finished in June, and it had +been settled that the book should be issued simultaneously in England +and America in August. Now, that summer John Pilgrim was illuminating +the provinces, and he had fixed a definite date, namely, the tenth of +October, for the reopening of Prince's Theatre with the dramatic version +of <i>The Plague-Spot</i>. Henry's idea was merely to postpone publication of +the book until the production of the play. Mark Snyder admitted himself +struck by the beauty of this scheme, and he made a special journey to +America in connection with it, a journey which cost over a hundred +pounds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> The result was an arrangement under which the book was to be +issued in London and New York, and the play to be produced by John +Pilgrim at Prince's Theatre, London, and by Lionel Belmont at the +Madison Square Theatre, New York, simultaneously on one golden date.</p> + +<p>The splendour of the conception appealed to all that was fundamental in +the Anglo-Saxon race.</p> + +<p>John Pilgrim was a finished master of advertisement, but if any man in +the wide world could give him lessons in the craft, that man was Lionel +Belmont. Macalistairs, too, in their stately, royal way, knew how to +impress facts upon, the public.</p> + +<p>Add to these things that Geraldine bore twins, boys.</p> + +<p>No earthly power could have kept those twins out of the papers, and +accordingly they had their share in the prodigious, unsurpassed and +unforgettable publicity which their father enjoyed without any apparent +direct effort of his own.</p> + +<p>He had declined to be interviewed; but one day, late in September, his +good-nature forced him to yield to the pressure of a journalist. That +journalist was Alfred Doxey, who had married on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> the success of <i>Love in +Babylon</i>, and was already in financial difficulties. He said he could +get twenty-five pounds for an interview with Henry, and Henry gave him +the interview. The interview accomplished, he asked Henry whether he +cared to acquire for cash his, Doxey's, share of the amateur rights of +<i>Love in Babylon</i>. Doxey demanded fifty pounds, and Henry amiably wrote +out the cheque on the spot and received Doxey's lavish gratitude. <i>Love +in Babylon</i> is played on the average a hundred and fifty times a year by +the amateur dramatic societies of Great Britain and Ireland, and for +each performance Henry touches a guinea. The piece had run for two +hundred nights at Prince's, so that the authors got a hundred pounds +each from John Pilgrim.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the tenth of October Henry strolled incognito round +London. Every bookseller's shop displayed piles upon piles of <i>The +Plague-Spot</i>. Every newspaper had a long review of it. The <i>Whitehall +Gazette</i> was satirical as usual, but most people felt that it was the +<i>Whitehall Gazette</i>, and not Henry, that thereby looked ridiculous. +Nearly every other omnibus carried the legend of <i>The Plague-Spot</i>; +every hoarding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> had it. At noon Henry passed by Prince's Theatre. Two +small crowds had already taken up positions in front of the entrances to +the pit and the gallery; and several women, seated on campstools, were +diligently reading the book in order the better to appreciate the play.</p> + +<p>Twelve hours later John Pilgrim was thanking his kind patrons for a +success unique even in his rich and gorgeous annals. He stated that he +should cable the verdict of London to the Madison Square Theatre, New +York, where the representation of the noble work of art which he had had +the honour of interpreting to them was about to begin.</p> + +<p>'It was a lucky day for you when you met me, young man,' he whispered +grandiosely and mysteriously, yet genially, to Henry.</p> + +<p>On the façade of Prince's there still blazed the fiery sign, which an +excited electrician had forgotten to extinguish:</p> + +<h3>THE PLAGUE-SPOT.</h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Shakspere Knight.</span></h4> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>THE PRESIDENT</h3> + +<p>Prince's Theatre, when it was full, held three hundred and forty pounds' +worth of solid interest in the British drama. Of <i>The Plague-Spot</i> six +evening and two morning performances were given every week for nearly a +year, and Henry's tenth averaged more than two hundred pounds a week. +His receipts from Lionel Belmont's various theatres averaged rather +more. The book had a circulation of a hundred and twenty thousand in +England, and two hundred thousand in America, and on every copy Henry +got one shilling and sixpence. The magnificent and disconcerting total +of his income from <i>The Plague-Spot</i> within the first year, excluding +the eight thousand pounds which he had received in advance from +Macalistairs, was thirty-eight thousand pounds. I say disconcerting +because it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> emphatically did disconcert Henry. He could not cope with +it. He was like a child who has turned on a tap and can't turn it off +again, and finds the water covering the floor and rising, rising, over +its little shoe-tops. Not even with the help of Sir George could he +quite successfully cope with this deluge of money which threatened to +drown him each week. Sir George, accustomed to keep his nerve in such +crises, bored one hole in the floor and called it India Three per +Cents., bored a second and called it Freehold Mortgages, bored a third +and called it Great Northern Preference, and so on; but, still, Henry +was never free from danger. And the worst of it was that, long before +<i>The Plague-Spot</i> had exhausted its geyser-like activity of throwing up +money, Henry had finished another book and another play. Fortunately, +Geraldine was ever by his side to play the wife's part.</p> + +<p>From this point his artistic history becomes monotonous. It is the +history of his investments alone which might perchance interest the public.</p> + +<p>Of course, it was absolutely necessary to abandon the flat in Ashley +Gardens. A man burdened with an income of forty thousand a year, and +never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> secure against a sudden rise of it to fifty, sixty, or even +seventy thousand, cannot possibly live in a flat in Ashley Gardens. +Henry exists in a superb mansion in Cumberland Place. He also possesses +a vast country-house at Hindhead, Surrey. He employs a secretary, though +he prefers to dictate his work into a phonograph. His wife employs a +secretary, whose chief duty is, apparently, to see to the flowers. The +twins have each a nurse, and each a perambulator; but when they are good +they are permitted to crowd themselves into one perambulator, as a +special treat. In the newspapers they are invariably referred to as Mr. +Shakspere Knight's 'pretty children' or Mrs. Shakspere Knight's +'charming twins.' Geraldine, who has abandoned the pen, is undisputed +ruler of the material side of Henry's life. The dinners and the +receptions at Cumberland Place are her dinners and receptions. Henry has +no trouble; he does what he is told, and does it neatly. Only once did +he indicate to her, in his mild, calm way, that he could draw a line +when he chose. He chose to draw the line when Geraldine spoke of +engaging a butler, and perhaps footmen.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p><p>'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'But, dearest, a great house like this——'</p> + +<p>'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry.</p> + +<p>'As you wish, dearest, of course.'</p> + +<p>He would not have minded the butler, perhaps, had not his mother and +Aunt Annie been in the habit of coming up to Cumberland Place for tea.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole the newspapers and periodicals were very kind to Henry, +and even the rudest organs were deeply interested in him. Each morning +his secretary opened an enormous packet of press-cuttings. In a good +average year he was referred to in print as a genius about a thousand +times, and as a charlatan about twenty times. He was not thin-skinned; +and he certainly was good-tempered and forgiving; and he could make +allowances for jealousy and envy. Nevertheless, now and then, some +casual mention of him, or some omission of his name from a list of +names, would sting him into momentary bitterness.</p> + +<p>He endeavoured to enforce his old rule against interviews. But he could +not. The power of public opinion was too strong, especially the power of +American public opinion. As for photographs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> they increased. He was +photographed alone, with Geraldine, with the twins, and with Geraldine +and the twins. It had to be. For permission to reproduce the most +pleasing groups, Messrs. Antonio, the eminent firm in Regent Street, +charged weekly papers a fee of two guineas.</p> + +<p>'And this is fame!' he sometimes said to himself. And he decided that, +though fame was pleasant in many ways, it did not exactly coincide with +his early vision of it. He felt himself to be so singularly +unchangeable! It was always the same he! And he could only wear one suit +of clothes at a time, after all; and in the matter of eating, he ate +less, much less, than in the era of Dawes Road. He persisted in his +scheme of two meals a day, for it had fulfilled the doctor's prediction. +He was no longer dyspeptic. That fact alone contributed much to his happiness.</p> + +<p>Yes, he was happy, because he had a good digestion and a kind heart. The +sole shadow on his career was a spasmodic tendency to be bored. 'I miss +the daily journey on the Underground,' he once said to his wife. 'I +always feel that I ought to be going to the office in the morning.' 'You +dear thing!' Geraldine caressed him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> her voice. 'Fancy anyone with +a gift like yours going to an office!'</p> + +<p>Ah, that gift! That gift utterly puzzled him. 'I just sit down and +write,' he thought. 'And there it is! They go mad over it!'</p> + +<p>At Dawes Road they worshipped him, but they worshipped the twins more. +Occasionally the twins, in state, visited Dawes Road, where Henry's +mother was a little stouter and Aunt Annie a little thinner and a little +primmer, but where nothing else was changed. Henry would have allowed +his mother fifty pounds a week or so without an instant's hesitation, +but she would not accept a penny over three pounds; she said she did not +want to be bothered.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>One day Henry read in the <i>Times</i> that the French Government had made +Tom a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and that Tom had been elected +President of the newly-formed Cosmopolitan Art Society, which was to +hold exhibitions both in London and Paris. And the <i>Times</i> seemed to +assume that in these transactions the honour was the French Government's +and the Cosmopolitan Art Society's.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p><p>Frankly, Henry could not understand it. Tom did not even pay his +creditors.</p> + +<p>'Well, of course,' said Geraldine, 'everybody knows that Tom <i>is</i> a genius.'</p> + +<p>This speech slightly disturbed Henry. And the thought floated again +vaguely through his mind that there was something about Geraldine which +baffled him. 'But, then,' he argued, 'I expect all women are like that.'</p> + +<p>A few days later his secretary brought him a letter.</p> + +<p>'I say, Geraldine,' he cried, genuinely moved, on reading it. 'What do +you think? The Anti-Breakfast League want me to be the President of the League.'</p> + +<p>'And shall you accept?' she asked.</p> + +<p>'Oh, certainly!' said Henry. 'And I shall suggest that it's called the +National Anti-Breakfast League in future.'</p> + +<p>'That will be much better, dearest,' Geraldine smiled.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h5>BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD</h5> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Great Man, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GREAT MAN *** + +***** This file should be named 29860-h.htm or 29860-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/6/29860/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/29860-h/images/i001.jpg b/29860-h/images/i001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2991cec --- /dev/null +++ b/29860-h/images/i001.jpg diff --git a/29860.txt b/29860.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd191c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/29860.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8179 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Great Man, by Arnold Bennett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: A Great Man + A Frolic + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: August 30, 2009 [EBook #29860] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GREAT MAN *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +A GREAT MAN + +A FROLIC + + +BY + +ARNOLD BENNETT + + +AUTHOR OF +'THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL,' 'ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS,' +'LEONORA,' ETC. + +[Illustration] + +LONDON +CHATTO & WINDUS + +1904 + + +TO + +MY DEAR FRIEND + +FREDERICK MARRIOTT + +AND TO + +THE IMPERISHABLE MEMORY + +OF + +OLD TIMES + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. HIS BIRTH 1 + + II. TOM 8 + + III. HIS CHRISTENING 17 + + IV. AGED TWELVE 26 + + V. MARRONS GLACES 36 + + VI. A CALAMITY FOR THE SCHOOL 49 + + VII. CONTAGIOUS 58 + + VIII. CREATIVE 72 + + IX. SPRING ONIONS 85 + + X. MARK SNYDER 95 + + XI. SATIN 105 + + XII. HIS FAME 117 + + XIII. A LION IN HIS LAIR 135 + + XIV. HER NAME WAS GERALDINE 148 + + XV. HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY 161 + + XVI. DURING THE TEA-MEETING 169 + + XVII. A NOVELIST IN A BOX 181 + + XVIII. HIS JACK-HORNERISM 195 + + XIX. HE JUSTIFIES HIS FATHER 201 + + XX. PRESS AND PUBLIC 215 + + XXI. PLAYING THE NEW GAME 226 + + XXII. HE LEARNS MORE ABOUT WOMEN 239 + + XXIII. SEPARATION 249 + + XXIV. COSETTE 256 + + XXV. THE RAKE'S PROGRESS 273 + + XXVI. THE NEW LIFE 289 + + XXVII. HE IS NOT NERVOUS 308 + +XXVIII. HE SHORTENS HIS NAME 325 + + XXIX. THE PRESIDENT 337 + + + + +A GREAT MAN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HIS BIRTH + + +On an evening in 1866 (exactly eight hundred years after the Battle of +Hastings) Mr. Henry Knight, a draper's manager, aged forty, dark, +clean-shaven, short, but not stout, sat in his sitting-room on the +second-floor over the shop which he managed in Oxford Street, London. He +was proud of that sitting-room, which represented the achievement of an +ideal, and he had a right to be proud of it. The rich green wall-paper +covered with peonies in full bloom (poisoning by arsenical wall-paper +had not yet been invented, or Mr. Knight's peonies would certainly have +had to flourish over a different hue) matched the magenta table-cloth of +the table at which Mr. Knight was writing, and the magenta table-cloth +matched the yellow roses which grew to more than exhibition size on the +Axminster carpet; and the fine elaborate effect thus produced was in no +way impaired, but rather enhanced and invigorated, by the mahogany +bookcase full of imperishable printed matter, the horsehair sofa netted +in a system of antimacassars, the waxen flowers in their glassy domes on +the marble mantelpiece, the Canterbury with its spiral columns, the +rosewood harmonium, and the posse of chintz-protected chairs. Mr. +Knight, who was a sincere and upright man, saw beauty in this apartment. +It uplifted his soul, like soft music in the gloaming, or a woman's +face. + +Mr. Knight was writing in a large book. He paused in the act of +composition, and, putting the pen between his teeth, glanced through the +pages of the volume. They were filled with the drafts of letters which +he had addressed during the previous seven years to the editors of +various newspapers, including the _Times_, and several other organs +great then but now extinct. In a space underneath each letter had been +neatly gummed the printed copy, but here and there a letter lacked this +certificate of success, for Mr. Knight did not always contrive to reach +his public. The letters were signed with pseudonyms, such as A British +Citizen, Fiat Justitia, Audi Alteram Partem, Indignant, Disgusted, One +Who Knows, One Who Would Like to Know, Ratepayer, Taxpayer, Puzzled, and +Pro Bono Publico--especially Pro Bono Publico. Two letters, to a trade +periodical, were signed A Draper's Manager of Ten Years' Standing, and +one, to the _Clerkenwell News_, bore his own real name. + +The letter upon which he was now engaged was numbered seventy-five in +the series, and made its appeal to the editor of the _Standard_. Having +found inspiration, Mr. Knight proceeded, in a hand distinguished by many +fine flourishes: + + + ' ... It is true that last year we only paid off some four + millions, but the year before we paid, I am thankful to say, more + than nine millions. Why, then, this outcry against the allocation + of somewhat less than nine millions out of our vast national + revenue towards the further extinction of the National Debt? _It is + not the duty of the State, as well as of the individual, to pay its + debts?_ In order to support the argument with which I began this + communication, perhaps you will permit me, sir, to briefly outline + the history of the National Debt, our national shame. In 1688 the + National Debt was little more than six hundred thousand pounds....' + + +After briefly outlining the history of the National Debt, Mr. Knight +began a new paragraph thus: + + + 'In the immortal words of Shakspere, wh----' + + +But at this point he was interrupted. A young and pleasant woman in a +white apron pushed open the door. + +'Henry,' she called from the doorway. + +'Well?' + +'You'd better go now.' + +'Very well, Annie; I'll go instantly.' + +He dropped the pen, reduced the gas to a speck of blue, and in half a +minute was hurrying along Oxford Street. The hour was ten o'clock, and +the month was July; the evening favoured romance. He turned into Bury +Street, and knocked like fate at a front-door with a brass tablet on it, +No. 8 of the street. + +'No, sir. He isn't in at the moment, sir,' said the maid who answered +Mr. Knight's imperious summons. + +'Not in!' exclaimed Mr. Knight. + +'No, sir. He was called away half an hour ago or hardly, and may be out +till very late.' + +'Called away!' exclaimed Mr. Knight. He was astounded, shocked, pained. +'But I warned him three months ago!' + +'Did you, sir? Is it anything very urgent, sir?' + +'It's----' Mr. Knight hesitated, blushing. The girl looked so young and +innocent. + +'Because if it is, master left word that anyone was to go to Dr. +Christopher's, 22, Argyll Street.' + +'You will be sure to tell your master that I came,' said Mr. Knight +frigidly, departing. + +At 22, Argyll Street he was informed that Dr. Christopher had likewise +been called away, and had left a recommendation that urgent cases, if +any, should apply to Dr. Quain Short, 15, Bury Street. His anger was +naturally increased by the absence of this second doctor, but it was far +more increased by the fact that Dr. Quain Short happened to live in Bury +Street. At that moment the enigma of the universe was wrapped up for him +in the question, Why should he have been compelled to walk all the way +from Bury Street to Argyll Street merely in order to walk all the way +back again? And he became a trinity consisting of Disgusted, Indignant, +and One Who Would Like to Know, the middle term predominating. When he +discovered that No. 15, Bury Street, was exactly opposite No. 8, Bury +Street, his feelings were such as break bell-wires. + +'Dr. Quain Short is at the Alhambra Theatre this evening with the +family,' a middle-aged and formidable housekeeper announced in reply to +Mr. Knight's query. 'In case of urgency he is to be fetched. His box is +No. 3.' + +'The Alhambra Theatre! Where is that?' gasped Mr. Knight. + +It should be explained that he held the stage in abhorrence, and, +further, that the Alhambra had then only been opened for a very brief +period. + +'Two out, and the third at the theatre!' Mr. Knight mused grimly, +hastening through Seven Dials. 'At the theatre, of all places!' + +A letter to the _Times_ about the medical profession was just shaping +itself in his mind as he arrived at the Alhambra and saw that a piece +entitled _King Carrot_ filled the bill. + +'_King Karrot!_' he muttered scornfully, emphasizing the dangerously +explosive consonants in a manner which expressed with complete adequacy, +not only his indignation against the entire medical profession, but his +utter and profound contempt for the fatuities of the modern stage. + +The politeness of the officials and the prompt appearance of Dr. Quain +Short did something to mollify the draper's manager of ten years' +standing, though he was not pleased when the doctor insisted on going +first to his surgery for certain requisites. It was half-past eleven +when he returned home; Dr. Quain Short was supposed to be hard behind. + +'How long you've been!' said a voice on the second flight of stairs, +'It's all over. A boy. And dear Susan is doing splendidly. Mrs. +Puddiphatt says she never saw such a----' + +From the attic floor came the sound of a child crying shrilly and +lustily: + +'Aunt Annie! Aunt Annie! Aunt _Annie_!' + +'Run up and quieten him!' Mr. Knight commanded. 'It's like him to begin +making a noise just now. I'll take a look at Susan--and my firstborn.' + + + + +CHAPTER II + +TOM + + +In the attic a child of seven years was sitting up in a cot placed by +the side of his dear Aunt Annie's bed. He had an extremely intelligent, +inquisitorial, and agnostical face, and a fair, curled head of hair, +which he scratched with one hand as Aunt Annie entered the room and held +the candle on high in order to survey him. + +'Well?' inquired Aunt Annie firmly. + +'Well?' said Tom Knight, determined not to commit himself, and waiting +wanly for a chance, like a duellist. + +'What's all this noise for? I told you I specially wanted you to go to +sleep at once to-night.' + +'Yes,' said Tom, staring at the counterpane and picking imaginary bits +off it. 'And you might have known I shouldn't go to sleep after _that_!' + +'And here it's nearly midnight!' Aunt Annie proceeded. 'What do you +want?' + +'You--you've left the comb in my hair,' said Tom. He nearly cried. + +Every night Aunt Annie curled Tom's hair. + +'Is it such a tiny boy that it couldn't take it out itself?' Aunt Annie +said kindly, going to the cot and extracting the comb. 'Now try to +sleep.' She kissed him. + +'And I've heard burglars,' Tom continued, without moving. + +'Oh no, you've not,' Aunt Annie pronounced sharply. 'You can't hear +burglars every night, you know.' + +'I heard running about, and doors shutting and things.' + +'That was Uncle Henry and me. Will you promise to be a good boy if I +tell you a secret?' + +'I shan't _promise_,' Tom replied. 'But if it's a good secret I'll +try--hard.' + +'Well, you've got a cousin, a little boy, ever so little! There! What do +you think of that?' + +'I knew someone had got into the house!' was Tom's dispassionate remark. +'What's his name?' + +'He hasn't any name yet, but he will have soon.' + +'Did he come up the stairs?' Tom asked. + +Aunt Annie laughed. 'No,' she said. + +'Then, he must have come through the window or down the chimney; and he +wouldn't come down the chimney 'cause of the soot. So he came through +the window. Whose little boy is he? Yours?' + +'No. Aunt Susan's.' + +'I suppose she knows he's come?' + +'Oh yes. She knows. And she's very glad. Now go to sleep. And I'll tell +Aunt Susan you'll be a good boy.' + +'You'd better not,' Tom warned her. 'I don't feel sure. And I say, +auntie, will there come any more little boys to-night?' + +'I don't think so, dear.' Aunt Annie smiled. She was half way through +the door, and spoke into the passage. + +'But are you sure?' Tom persisted. + +'Yes, I'm sure. Go to sleep.' + +'Doesn't Aunt Susan want another one?' + +'No, she doesn't. Go to sleep, I say.' + +''Cause, when I came, another little boy came just afterwards, and he +died, that little boy did. And mamma, too. Father told me.' + +'Yes, yes,' said Aunt Annie, closing the door. 'Bee-by.' + +'I didn't promise,' Tom murmured to his conscience. 'But it's a good +secret,' he added brazenly. He climbed over the edge of the cot, and let +himself down gently till his feet touched the floor. He found his +clothes, which Aunt Annie invariably placed on a chair in a certain +changeless order, and he put some of them on, somehow. Then he softly +opened the door and crept down the stairs to the second-floor. He was an +adventurous and incalculable child, and he desired to see the baby. + +Persons who called on Mr. Henry Knight in his private capacity rang at +the side-door to the right of the shop, and were instructed by the +shop-caretaker to mount two flights of stairs, having mounted which they +would perceive in front of them a door, where they were to ring again. +This door was usually closed, but to-night Tom found it ajar. He peeped +out and downwards, and thought of the vast showroom below and the +wonderful regions of the street. Then he drew in his head, and concealed +himself behind the plush portiere. From his hiding-place he could watch +the door of Uncle Henry's and Aunt Susan's bedroom, and he could also, +whenever he felt inclined, glance down the stairway. + +He waited, with the patience and the fatalism of infancy, for something +to happen. + +After an interval of time not mathematically to be computed, Tom heard a +step on the stairs, and looked forth. A tall gentleman wearing a high +hat and carrying a black bag was ascending. In a flash Tom recollected a +talk with his dead father, in which that glorious and gay parent had +explained to him that he, Tom, had been brought to his mother's room by +the doctor in a black bag. + +Tom pulled open the door at the head of the stairs, went outside, and +drew the door to behind him. + +'Are you the doctor?' he demanded, staring intently at the bag to see +whether anything wriggled within. + +'Yes, my man,' said the doctor. It was Quain Short, wrenched from the +Alhambra. + +'Well, they don't want another one. They've got one,' Tom asserted, +still observing the bag. + +'You're sure?' + +'Yes. Aunt Annie said particularly that they didn't want another one.' + +'Who is it that has come? Do you know his name? Christopher--is that +it?' + +'I don't know his name. But he's come, and he's in the bedroom now, with +Aunt Susan.' + +'How annoying!' said Dr. Quain Short under his breath, and he went. + +Tom re-entered, and took up his old position behind the portiere. + +Presently he heard another step on the stair, and issued out again to +reconnoitre. And, lo! another tall gentleman wearing another high hat +and carrying another black bag was ascending. + +'This makes three,' Tom said. + +'What's that, my little man?' asked the gentleman, smiling. It was Dr. +Christopher. + +'This makes three. And they only want one. The first one came ever such +a long time ago. And I can tell you Aunt Susan was very glad when he did +come.' + +'Dear, dear!' exclaimed Dr. Christopher. 'Then I'm too late, my little +man. I was afraid I might be. Everything all right, eh?' + +Tom nodded, and Dr. Christopher departed. + +And then, after a further pause, up came another tall gentleman, high +hat, and black bag. + +'This is four,' said Tom. + +'What's that, Tommy?' asked Mr. Henry Knight's regular physician and +surgeon. 'What are you doing there?' + +'One came hours since,' Tom said. 'And they don't want any more.' Then +he gazed at the bag, which was larger and glossier than its +predecessors. 'Have you brought a _very_ nice one?' he inquired. 'They +don't really want another, but perhaps if it's _very_----' + +It was this momentary uncertainty on Tom's part that possibly saved my +hero's life. For the parents were quite inexperienced, and Mrs. +Puddiphatt was an accoucheuse of the sixties, and the newborn child was +near to dying in the bedroom without anybody being aware of the fact. + +'A very nice what?' the doctor questioned gruffly. + +'Baby. In that bag,' Tom stammered. + +'Out of the way, my bold buccaneer,' said the doctor, striding across +the mat into the corridor. + +At two o'clock the next morning, Tom being asleep, and all going well +with wife and child, Mr. Henry Knight returned at length to his +sitting-room, and resumed the composition of the letter to the editor of +the _Standard_. The work existed as an artistic whole in his head, and +he could not persuade himself to seek rest until he had got it down in +black-and-white; for, though he wrote letters instead of sonnets, he was +nevertheless a sort of a poet by temperament. You behold him calm now, +master once more of his emotions, and not that agitated, pompous, and +slightly ridiculous person who lately stamped over Oxford Street and +stormed the Alhambra Theatre. And in order to help the excellent father +of my hero back into your esteem, let me point out that the imminence +and the actuality of fatherhood constitute a somewhat disturbing +experience, which does not occur to a man every day. + +Mr. Knight dipped pen in ink, and continued: + + + ' ... who I hold to be not only the greatest poet, but also the + greatest moral teacher that England has ever produced, + + + '"To thine own self be true, + And it must follow, as the night the day, + Thou canst not then be false to any man." + + + 'In conclusion, sir, I ask, without fear of contradiction, are we + or are we not, in this matter of the National Debt, to be true to + our national selves? + 'Yours obediently, + 'A CONSCIENTIOUS TAXPAYER.' + + +The signature troubled him. His pen hovered threateningly over it, and +finally he struck it out and wrote instead: 'Paterfamilias.' He felt +that this pseudonym was perhaps a little inapposite, but some impulse +stronger than himself forced him to employ it. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HIS CHRISTENING + + +'But haven't I told you that I was just writing the very name when Annie +came in to warn me?' + +Mr. Knight addressed the question, kindly and mildly, yet with a hint of +annoyance, to his young wife, who was nursing their son with all the +experience of three months' practice. It was Sunday morning, and they +had finished breakfast in the sitting-room. Within an hour or two the +heir was to be taken to the Great Queen Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel +for the solemn rite of baptism. + +'Yes, lovey,' said Mrs. Knight. 'You've told me, time and again. But, oh +Henry! Your name's just Henry Knight, and I want his to be just Henry +Knight, too! I want him to be called after you.' + +And the mother, buxom, simple, and adoring, glanced appealingly with +bright eyes at the man who for her epitomized the majesty and +perfections of his sex. + +'He will be Henry Knight,' the father persisted, rather coldly. + +But Mrs. Knight shook her head. + +Then Aunt Annie came into the room, pushing Tom before her. Tom was +magnificently uncomfortable in his best clothes. + +'What's the matter, Sue?' Aunt Annie demanded, as soon as she had +noticed her sister's face. + +And in a moment, in the fraction of a second, and solely by reason of +Aunt Annie's question, the situation became serious. It jumped up, as +domestic situations sometimes do, suddenly to the temperature at which +thunderstorms are probable. It grew close, heavy, and perilous. + +Mrs. Knight shook her head again. 'Nothing,' she managed to reply. + +'Susan wants----' Mr. Knight began suavely to explain. + +'He keeps on saying he would like him to be called----' Mrs. Knight +burst out. + +'No I don't--no I don't!' Mr. Knight interrupted. 'Not if you don't +wish it!' + +A silence followed. Mr. Knight drummed lightly and nervously on the +table-cloth. Mrs. Knight sniffed, threw back her head so that the tears +should not fall out of her eyes, and gently patted the baby's back with +her right hand. Aunt Annie hesitated whether to speak or not to speak. + +Tom remarked in a loud voice: + +'If I were you, I should call him Tom, like me. Then, as soon as he can +talk, I could say, "How do, Cousin Tom?" and he could say back, "How do, +Cousin Tom?"' + +'But we should always be getting mixed up between you, you silly boy!' +said Aunt Annie, smiling, and trying to be bright and sunny. + +'No, you wouldn't,' Tom replied. 'Because I should be Big Tom, and of +course he'd only be Little Tom. And I don't think I'm a silly boy, +either.' + +'Will you be silent, sir!' Mr. Knight ordered in a voice of wrath. And, +by way of indicating that the cord of tension had at last snapped, he +boxed Tom's left ear, which happened to be the nearest. + +Mrs. Knight lost control of her tears, and they escaped. She offered +the baby to Aunt Annie. + +'Take him. He's asleep. Put him in the cradle,' she sobbed. + +'Yes, dear,' said Aunt Annie intimately, in a tone to show how well she +knew that poor women must always cling together in seasons of stress and +times of oppression. + +Mrs. Knight hurried out of the room. Mr. Knight cherished an injury. He +felt aggrieved because Susan could not see that, though six months ago +she had been entitled to her whims and fancies, she was so no longer. He +felt, in fact, that Susan was taking an unfair advantage of him. The +logic of the thing was spread out plainly and irrefutably in his mind. +And then, quite swiftly, the logic of the thing vanished, and Mr. Knight +rose and hastened after his wife. + +'You deserved it, you know,' said Aunt Annie to Tom. + +'Did I?' The child seemed to speculate. + +They both stared at the baby, who lay peacefully in his cradle, for +several minutes. + +'Annie, come here a moment.' Mr. Knight was calling from another room. + +'Yes, Henry. Now, Tom, don't touch the cradle. And if baby begins to +cry, run and tell me.' + +'Yes, auntie.' + +And Aunt Annie went. She neglected to close the door behind her; Tom +closed it, noiselessly. + +Never before had he been left alone with the baby. He examined with +minute care such parts of the living organism as were visible, and then, +after courageously fighting temptation, and suffering defeat, he touched +the baby's broad, flat nose. He scarcely touched it, yet the baby +stirred and mewed faintly. Tom began to rock the cradle, at first +gently, then with nervous violence. The faint mew became a regular and +sustained cry. + +He glanced at the door, and decided that he would make a further effort +to lull the ridiculous agitation of this strange and mysterious being. +Bending down, he seized the baby in both hands, and tried to nurse it as +his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it +exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process +of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and +now lay on its beam-ends. + +'Hsh--hsh!' Tom entreated, shooing and balancing as best he could. + +Then, without warning, Tom's spirit leapt into anger. + +'Will you be silent, sir!' he demanded fiercely from the baby, imitating +Uncle Henry's tone. 'Will you be silent, sir!' He shook the infant, who +was astounded into a momentary silence. + +The next thing was the sound of footsteps approaching rapidly along the +passage. Tom had no leisure to right the cradle; he merely dropped the +baby on the floor by the side of it, and sprang to the window. + +'You naughty, naughty boy!' Aunt Annie shrieked. 'You've taken baby out +of his cradle! Oh, my pet! my poor darling! my mumsy! Did they, then?' + +'I didn't! I didn't!' Tom asserted passionately. 'I've never stirred +from here all the time you were out. It fell out itself!' + +'Oh!' screamed Aunt Annie. 'There's a black place on his poor little +forehead!' + +In an instant the baby's parents were to the rescue, and Tom was +declaring his innocence to the united family. + +'It fell out itself!' he repeated; and soon he began to think of +interesting details. 'I saw it. It put its hand on the edge of the +cradle and pulled up, and then it leaned to one side, and then the +cradle toppled over.' + +Of course the preposterous lie was credited by nobody. + +'There's one thing!' said Mrs. Knight, weeping for the second time that +morning. 'I won't have him christened with a black forehead, that I +won't!' + +At this point, Aunt Annie, who had scurried to the kitchen for some +butter, flew back and anointed the bruise. + +'It fell out itself!' Tom said again. + +'Whatever would the minister think?' Mrs. Knight wondered. + +'It fell out itself!' said Tom. + +Mr. Knight whipped Tom, and his Aunt Annie put him to bed for the rest +of the day. In the settled opinion of Mrs. Knight, Tom was punished for +attempting to murder her baby. But Mr. Knight insisted that the +punishment was for lying. As for the baptism, it had necessarily to be +postponed for four weeks, since the ceremony was performed at the Great +Queen Street Chapel only on the first Sunday in the month. + +'I never touched it!' Tom asseverated solemnly the next day. 'It fell +out itself!' + +And he clung to the statement, day after day, with such obstinacy that +at length the three adults, despite the protests of reason, began to +think that conceivably, just conceivably, the impossible was +possible--in regard to one particular baby. Mrs. Knight had often +commented on the perfectly marvellous muscular power of her baby's hand +when it clutched hers, and signs were not wanting to convince the +parents and the aunt that the infant was no ordinary infant, but indeed +extraordinary and wonderful to the last degree. + +On the fourth day, when Tom had asserted for about the hundredth time, +'It fell out itself,' his Aunt Susan kissed him and gave him a +sweetmeat. Tom threw it away, but in the end, after much coaxing, he +consented to enjoy it. Aunt Susan detected the finger of Providence in +recent events, and one night she whispered to her husband: 'Lovey, I +want you to call him what you said.' + +And so it occurred, at the christening, that when the minister leaned +over the Communion-rail to take the wonder-child from its mother's +arms, its father whispered into the minister's ear a double name. + +'Henry Shakspere----' began the minister with lifted hand. + +And the baby smiled confidently upwards. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AGED TWELVE + + +'Quick! He's coming!' + +It was Aunt Annie who uttered the dramatic whisper, and as she did so +she popped a penknife on to an empty plate in front of an empty chair at +the breakfast-table. Mr. Knight placed a silver watch and also, +separately, a silver chain by the side of the weapon; and, lastly, Mrs. +Knight had the happy inspiration of covering these articles with the +empty slop-basin. + +The plotters sat back in their chairs and tried to keep their guilty +eyes off the overturned basin. 'Two slices, Annie?' said Mr. Knight in a +loud tone, elaborately casual. 'Yes, please,' said Aunt Annie. Mrs. +Knight began to pour out coffee. They all three looked at each other, +joyous, naughty, strategic; and the thing of which they were least +conscious, in that moment of expectancy, was precisely the thing that +the lustrous trifles hidden beneath the basin were meant to signalize: +namely, the passage of years and the approach of age. Mr. Knight's hair +was grey; Mrs. Knight, once a slim bride of twenty-seven, was now a +stout matron of thirty-nine, with a tendency to pant after the most +modest feats of stair-climbing; and Aunt Annie, only the other day a +pretty girl with a head full of what is wrongly called nonsense, was a +spinster--a spinster. Fortunately, they were blind to these obvious +facts. Even Mr. Knight, accustomed as he was to survey fundamental +truths with the detachment of a philosopher, would have been shocked to +learn that his hair was grey. Before the glass, of a morning, he +sometimes remarked, in the tone of a man whose passion for candour +permits him to conceal nothing: 'It's _getting_ grey.' + +Then young Henry burst into the room. + +It was exactly twelve years since he had been born, a tiny, shapeless, +senseless, helpless, toothless, speechless, useless, feeble, deaf, +myopic creature; and now he was a school-boy, strong, healthy, big, and +clever, who could define a dodecahedron and rattle off the rivers of +Europe like a house on fire. The change amounted to a miracle, and it +was esteemed as such by those who had spent twelve years chiefly in +watching it. One evening, in the very earliest stages, while his mother +was nursing him, his father had come into the darkened chamber, and, +after bending over the infant, had struck a match to ignite a cigar; and +the eyes of the infant had blinked in the sudden light. '_See how he +takes notice!_ the mother had cried in ecstatic wonderment. And from +that moment she, and the other two, had never ceased to marvel, and to +fear. It seemed impossible that this extraordinary fragment of humanity, +which at first could not be safely ignored for a single instant night or +day, should survive the multitudinous perils that surrounded it. But it +did survive, and it became an intelligence. At eighteen months the +intelligence could walk, sit up, and say 'Mum.' These performances were +astounding. And the fact that fifty thousand other babies of eighteen +months in London were similarly walking, sitting up, and saying 'Mum,' +did not render these performances any the less astounding. And when, +half a year later, the child could point to a letter and identify it +plainly and unmistakably--'O'--the parents' cup was full. The mother +admitted frankly that she had not expected this final proof of +understanding. Aunt Annie and father pretended not to be surprised, but +it was a pretence merely. Why, it seemed scarcely a month since the +miraculous child had not even sense enough to take milk out of a spoon! +And here he was identifying 'O' every time he tried, with the absolute +assurance of a philologist! True, he had once or twice shrieked 'O' +while putting a finger on 'Q,' but that was the fault of the printers, +who had printed the tail too small. + +After that the miracles had followed one another so rapidly, each more +amazing than the last, that the watchers had unaffectedly abandoned +themselves to an attitude of permanent delighted astonishment. They +lived in a world of magic. And their entire existence was based on the +tacit assumption--tacit because the truth of it was so manifest--that +their boy was the most prodigious boy that ever was. He went into +knickerbockers. He learnt hymns. He went to school--and came back alive +at the end of the first day and said he had enjoyed it! Certainly, other +boys went to school. Yes, but there was something special, something +indefinable, something incredible, about Henry's going to school that +separated his case from all the other cases, and made it precious in its +wonder. And he began to study arithmetic, geometry, geography, history, +chemistry, drawing, Latin, French, mensuration, composition, physics, +Scripture, and fencing. His singular brain could grapple simultaneously +with these multifarious subjects. And all the time he was growing, +growing, growing. More than anything else it was his growth that +stupefied and confounded and enchanted his mother. His limbs were +enormous to her, and the breadth of his shoulders and the altitude of +his head. It puzzled her to imagine where the flesh came from. Already +he was as tail as she, and up to Aunt Annie's lips, and up to his +father's shoulder. She simply adored his colossal bigness. But somehow +the fact that a giant was attending the Bloomsbury Middle School never +leaked out. + +'What's this?' Henry demanded, mystified, as he sat down to breakfast. +There was a silence. + +'What's what?' said his father gruffly. 'Get your breakfast.' + +'Oh my!' Henry had lifted the basin. + +'Had you forgotten it was your birthday?' Mrs. Knight asked, beaming. + +'Well, I'm blest!' He had in truth forgotten that it was his birthday. + +'You've been so wrapped up in this Speech Day business, haven't you?' +said Aunt Annie, as if wishful to excuse him to himself for the +extraordinary lapse. + +They all luxuriated in his surprise, his exclamations, his blushes of +delight, as he fingered the presents. For several days, as Henry had +made no reference to his approaching anniversary, they had guessed that +he had overlooked it in the exciting preparations for Speech Day, and +they had been anticipating this moment with the dreadful joy of +conspirators. And now they were content. No hitch, no anticlimax had +occurred. + +'I know,' said Henry. 'The watch is from father, and you've given me the +chain, mother, and the knife is from Aunt Annie. Is there a thing in it +for pulling stones out of horses' hoofs, auntie?' (Happily, there was.) + +'You must make a good breakfast, dear; you've got a big day before you,' +enjoined his mother, when he had thanked them politely, and assumed the +watch and chain, and opened all the blades and other pleasant devices of +the penknife. + +'Yes, mother,' he answered obediently. + +He always obeyed injunctions to eat well. But it would be unfair to +Henry not to add that he was really a most obedient boy--in short, a +good boy, a nice boy. The strangest thing of all in Henry's case was +that, despite their united and unceasing efforts, his three relatives +had quite failed to spoil him. He was too self-possessed for his years, +too prone to add the fanciful charm of his ideas to no matter what +conversation might be proceeding in his presence; but spoiled he was +not. + +The Speech Day which had just dawned marked a memorable point in his +career. According to his mother's private notion, it would be a +demonstration, and a triumphant demonstration, that, though the mills of +God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small. For until that term, of +which the Speech Day was the glittering conclusion, the surpassing +merits and talents of her son had escaped recognition at the Bloomsbury +Middle School. He had never reached the top of a form; he had never +received a prize; he had never earned pedagogic praise more generous +than 'Conduct fair--progress fair.' But now, out of the whole school, he +had won the prize for Good Conduct. And, as if this was not sufficiently +dazzling, he had also taken to himself, for an essay on 'Streets,' the +prize for English Composition. And, thirdly, he had been chosen to +recite a Shaksperean piece at the ceremony of prize-giving. It was the +success in Composition which tickled his father's pride, for was not +this a proof of heredity? Aunt Annie flattered herself on the Good +Conduct prize. Mrs. Knight exulted in everything, but principally in the +prospective sight of her son at large on the platform delivering +Shakspere to a hushed, attentive audience of other boys' parents. It was +to be the apotheosis of Henry, was that night! + +'Will you hear me, father?' Henry requested meekly, when he had finished +the first preparations for his big day, and looked at the time, and cut +a piece of skin from the palm of his hand, to the horror of his mother +and aunt. 'Will you hear me, father?' + +(No! I assure you he was not a detestable little prig. He had been +brought up like that.) + +And Mr. Knight took Staunton's Shakspere from the bookcase and opened it +at _Othello_, Act I., scene iii., and Henry arose and began to explain +to the signiors of Venice in what manner Desdemona had fallen in love +with him and he with Desdemona; how he told Desdemona that even from his +boyish days he had experienced moving accidents by flood and field, and +had been sold into slavery, and all about the cannibals and the--but he +came to utter grief at the word Anthropophagi.' + +'An-thro-poph-a-gi,' said his father. + +'It's a very difficult word, I'm sure,' said his mother. + +Difficult or not, Henry mastered it, and went on to the distressful +strokes his youth had suffered, and then to Desdemona's coy hint: + + + 'Upon this hint I spoke--spake, I mean; + She loved me for the dangers I had passed, + And I loved her that she did pity them. + This only is the witchcraft I have used. + Here comes the lady; let her witness it.' + + +'Have a bit of toast, my pet,' Mrs. Knight suggested. + +The door opened at the same moment. + +'Enter Desdemona,' said a voice. 'Now do go light on the buttered toast, +Othello. You know you'll be ill.' + +It was Cousin Tom. He was always very late for breakfast. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MARRONS GLACES + + +And Tom was always being inconvenient, always producing intellectual +discomfort. On this occasion there can be no doubt that if Tom had not +come in just then Henry would have accepted and eaten the buttered +toast, and would have enjoyed it; and his father, mother, and aunt would +have enjoyed the spectacle of his bliss; and all four of them would have +successfully pretended to their gullible consciences that an +indiscretion had not been committed. Here it must be said that the +Achilles' heel of Henry Shakspere Knight lay in his stomach. Despite his +rosy cheeks and pervading robustness, despite the fact that his infancy +had been almost immune from the common ailments--even measles--he +certainly suffered from a form of chronic dyspepsia. Authorities +differed upon the cause of the ailment. Some, such as Tom, diagnosed +the case in a single word. Mr. Knight, less abrupt, ascribed the evil to +Mrs. Knight's natural but too solicitous endeavours towards keeping up +the strength of her crescent son. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie regarded it +as a misfortune simply, inexplicable, unjust, and cruel. But even Mrs. +Knight and Aunt Annie had perceived that there was at least an apparent +connection between hot buttered toast and the recurrence of the malady. +Hence, though the two women would not admit that this connection was +more than a series of unfortunate coincidences, Henry had been advised +to deprive himself of hot buttered toast. And here came Tom, with his +characteristic inconvenience, to catch them in the very midst of their +folly, and to make even Mr. Knight, that mask of stern rectitude, a +guilty accessory before the fact. + +'It's only this once!' Mrs. Knight protested. + +'You're quite right,'said Tom. 'It's only this once.' + +Henry took the piece of toast, and then, summoning for one supreme +effort all the spiritual courage which he had doubtless inherited from +a long line of Puritan ancestors, he nobly relinquished it. + +Mr. Knight's eyes indicated to Tom that a young man who was constantly +half an hour late for breakfast had no moral right to preach abstinence +to a growing boy, especially on his birthday. But the worst thing about +Tom was that he was never under any circumstances abashed. + +'As nothing is worse than hot toast cold,' Tom imperturbably remarked, +'I'll eat it at once.' And he ate the piece of toast. + +No one could possibly blame Tom. Nevertheless, every soul round the +table did the impossible and blamed him. The atmosphere lost some of its +festive quality. + +Tom Knight was nineteen, thin, pale, and decidedly tall; and his fair +hair still curled slightly on the top of his head. In twelve years his +development, too, had amounted to a miracle, or would have amounted to a +miracle had there been anyone present sufficiently interested to observe +and believe in it. Miracles, however, do not begin to exist until at +least one person believes, and the available credence in the household +had been monopolized by Tom's young cousin. The great difference +between Tom and Henry was that Tom had faults, whereas Henry had +none--yet Tom was the elder by seven years and ought to have known +better! Mr. Knight had always seen Tom's faults, but it was only since +the advent of Henry that Mrs. Knight, and particularly Aunt Annie, had +begun to see them. Before Henry arrived, Tom had been Aunt Annie's +darling. The excellent spinster took pains never to show that Henry had +supplanted him; nevertheless, she showed it all the time. Tom's faults +flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, +untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; +he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be +overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not +'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave +him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a +shocking liar, he was lavish of truth whenever truth happened to be +disconcerting and inopportune. He it was who told the forewoman of his +uncle's millinery department, in front of a customer, that she had a +moustache. His uncle threshed him. 'She _has_ a moustache, anyhow!' +said this Galileo when his uncle had finished. Mr. Knight wished Tom to +go into the drapery, but Tom would not. Tom wanted to be an artist; he +was always drawing. Mr. Knight had only heard of artists; he had never +seen one. He thought Tom's desire for art was mere wayward naughtiness. +However, after Tom had threatened to burn the house down if he was not +allowed to go to an art-school, and had carried out his threat so far as +to set fire to a bale of cotton-goods in the cellar, Mr. Knight yielded +to the whim for the sake of peace and a low temperature. He expansively +predicted ultimate disaster for Tom. But at the age of eighteen and a +half, Tom, with his habit of inconvenience, simply fell into a post as +designer to a firm of wholesale stationers. His task was to design +covers for coloured boxes of fancy notepaper, and his pay was two +guineas a week. The richness of the salary brought Mr. Knight to his +senses; it staggered, sobered, and silenced him. Two guineas a week at +eighteen and a half! It was beyond the verge of the horizons of the +drapery trade. Mr. Knight had a shop-walker, aged probably thirty-eight +and a half, who was receiving precisely two guineas a week, and working +thirty hours a week longer than Tom. + +On the strength of this amazing two guineas, Tom, had he chosen, might +easily have regained the long-lost esteem of his relatives. But he did +not choose. He became more than ever a mystery to them, and a troubling +mystery, not a mystery that one could look squarely in the face and then +pass by. His ideals, if they could be called ideals, were always in +collision with those of the rest of the house. Neither his aunts nor his +uncle could ever be quite sure that he was not enjoying some joke which +they were not enjoying. Once he had painted Aunt Annie's portrait. +'Never let me see that thing again!' she exclaimed when she beheld it +complete. She deemed it an insult, and she was not alone in her opinion. +'Do you call this art?' said Mr. Knight. 'If this is art, then all I can +say is I'm glad I wasn't brought up to understand art, as you call it.' +Nevertheless, somehow the painting was exhibited at South Kensington in +the national competition of students works, and won a medal. 'Portrait +of my Aunt,' Tom had described it in the catalogue, and Aunt Annie was +furious a second time. 'However,' she said, 'no one'll recognise me, +that's one comfort!' Still, the medal weighed heavily; it was a gold +medal. Difficult to ignore its presence in the house! + +Tom's crowning sin was that he was such a bad example to Henry. Henry +worshipped him, and the more Tom was contemned the more Henry +worshipped. + +'You'll surely be very late, Tom,' Mrs. Knight ventured to remark at +half-past nine. + +Mr. Knight had descended into the shop, and Aunt Annie also. + +'Oh no,' said Tom--'not more than is necessary.' And then he glanced at +Henry. 'Look here, my bold buccaneer, you've got nothing to do just now, +have you? You can stroll along with me a bit, and we'll see if we can +buy you a twopenny toy for a birthday present.' + +Tom always called Henry his 'bold buccaneer.' He had picked up the term +of endearment from the doctor with the black bag twelve years ago. Henry +had his cap on in two seconds, and Mrs. Knight beamed at this unusual +proof of kindly thought on Tom's part. + +In the street Tom turned westwards instead of to the City, where his +daily work lay. + +'Aren't you going to work to-day?' Henry asked in surprise. + +'No,' said Tom. 'I told my benevolent employers last night that it was +your birthday to-day, and I asked whether I could have a holiday. What +do you think they answered?' + +'You didn't ask them,' said Henry. + +'They answered that I could have forty holidays. And they requested me +to wish you, on behalf of the firm, many happy returns of the day.' + +'Don't rot,' said Henry. + +It was a beautiful morning, sunny, calm, inspiriting, and presently Tom +began to hum. After a time Henry perceived that Tom was humming the same +phrase again and again: 'Some streets are longer than others. Some +streets are longer than others.' + +'_Don't rot_, Tom,' Henry pleaded. + +The truth was that Tom was intoning a sentence from Henry's prize essay +on streets. Tom had read the essay and pronounced it excellent, and till +this very moment on the pavement of Oxford Street Henry had imagined +Tom's verdict to be serious. He now knew that it was not serious. + +Tom continued to chant, with pauses: 'Some streets are longer than +others.... Very few streets are straight.... But we read in the Bible of +the street which is called Straight.... Oxford Street is nearly +straight.... A street is what you go along.... It has a road and two +footpaths.' + +Henry would have given his penknife not to have written that essay. The +worst of Tom was that he could make anything look silly without saying +that it was silly--a trick that Henry envied. + +Tom sang further: 'In the times before the French Revolution the streets +of Paris had no pavements ... _e.g._, they were all road.... It was no +infrequent occurrence for people to be maimed for life, or even +seriously injured, against walls by passing carriages of haughty +nobles.' + +'I didn't put "haughty,"' Henry cried passionately. + +'Didn't you?' Tom said with innocence. 'But you put "or even seriously +injured."' + +'Well?' said Henry dubiously. + +'And you put "It was no infrequent occurrence." Where did you steal that +from, my bold buccaneer?' + +'I didn't steal it,' Henry asserted. 'I made it up.' + +'Then you will be a great writer,' Tom said. 'If I were you, I should +send a telegram to Tennyson, and tell him to look out for himself. +Here's a telegraph-office. Come on.' + +And Tom actually did enter a doorway. But it proved to be the entrance +to a large and magnificent confectioner's shop. Henry followed him +timidly. + +'A pound of marrons glaces,' Tom demanded. + +'What are they?' Henry whispered up at Tom's ear. + +'Taste,' said Tom, boldly taking a sample from the scales while the +pound was being weighed out. + +'It's like chestnuts,' Harry mumbled through the delicious brown frosted +morsel. 'But nicer.' + +'They are rather like chestnuts, aren't they?' said Tom. + +The marrons glaces were arranged neatly in a beautiful box; the box was +wrapped in paper of one colour, and then further wrapped in paper of +another colour, and finally bound in pink ribbon. + +'Golly!' murmured Henry in amaze, for Tom had put down a large silver +coin in payment, and received no change. + +They came out, Henry carrying the parcel. + +'But will they do me any harm?' the boy asked apprehensively. + +The two cousins had reached Hyde Park, and were lying on the grass, and +Tom had invited Henry to begin the enterprise of eating his birthday +present. + +'Harm! I should think not. They are the best things out for the +constitution. Not like sweets at all. Doctors often give them to +patients when they are getting better. And they're very good for +sea-sickness too.' + +So Henry opened the box and feasted. One half of the contents had +disappeared within twenty minutes, and Tom had certainly not eaten more +than two marrons. + +'They're none so dusty!' said Henry, perhaps enigmatically. 'I could go +on eating these all day.' + +A pretty girl of eighteen or so wandered past them. + +'Nice little bit of stuff, that!' Tom remarked reflectively. + +'What say?' + +'That little thing there!' Tom explained, pointing with his elbow to the +girl. + +'Oh!' Henry grunted. 'I thought you said a nice little bit of stuff.' + +And he bent to his chestnuts again. By slow and still slower degrees +they were reduced to one. + +'Have this,' he invited Tom. + +'No,' said Tom. 'Don't want it. You finish up.' + +'I think I can't eat any more,' Henry sighed. + +'Oh yes, you can,' Tom encouraged him. 'You've shifted about fifty. +Surely you can manage fifty-one.' + +Henry put the survivor to his lips, but withdrew it. + +'No,' he said. 'I tell you what I'll do: I'll put it in the box and save +it.' + +'But you can't cart that box about for the sake of one chestnut, my bold +buccaneer.' + +'Well, I'll put it in my pocket.' + +And he laid it gently by the side of the watch in his waistcoat pocket. + +'You can find your way home, can't you?' said Tom. 'It's just occurred +to me that I've got some business to attend to.' + +A hundred yards off the pretty girl was reading on a seat. His business +led him in that direction. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A CALAMITY FOR THE SCHOOL + + +It was a most fortunate thing that there was cold mutton for dinner. The +economic principle governing the arrangement of the menu was that the +simplicity of the mutton atoned for the extravagance of the birthday +pudding, while the extravagance of the birthday pudding excused the +simplicity of the mutton. Had the first course been anything richer than +cold mutton, Henry could not have pretended even to begin the repast. As +it was, he ate a little of the lean, leaving a wasteful margin of lean +round the fat, which he was not supposed to eat; he also nibbled at the +potatoes, and compressed the large remnant of them into the smallest +possible space on the plate; then he unobtrusively laid down his knife +and fork. + +'Come, Henry,' said Aunt Annie, 'don't leave a saucy plate.' + +Henry had already pondered upon a plausible explanation of his +condition. + +'I'm too excited to eat,' he promptly answered. + +'You aren't feeling ill, are you?' his mother asked sharply. + +'No,' he said. 'But can I have my birthday pudding for supper, after +it's all over, instead of now?' + +Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie looked at one another. 'That might be safer,' +said Aunt Annie, and she added: 'You can have some cold rice pudding +now, Henry.' + +'No, thank you, auntie; I don't want any.' + +'The boy's ill,' Mrs. Knight exclaimed. 'Annie, where's the Mother +Seigel?' + +'The boy's no such thing,' said Mr. Knight, pouring calmness and +presence of mind over the table like oil. 'Give him some Seigel by all +means, if you think fit; but don't go and alarm yourself about nothing. +The boy's as well as I am.' + +'I think I _should_ like some Seigel,' said the boy. + +Tom was never present at the mid-day meal; only Mrs. Knight knew that +Henry had been out with him; and Mrs. Knight was far too simple a soul +to suspect the horrid connection between the morning ramble and this +passing malaise of Henry's. As for Henry, he volunteered nothing. + +'It will pass off soon,' said Aunt Annie two hours later. The time was +then half-past three; the great annual ceremony of Speech Day began at +half-past seven. Henry reclined on the sofa, under an antimacassar, and +Mrs. Knight was bathing his excited temples with eau de Cologne. + +'Oh yes,' Mr. Knight agreed confidently; he had looked in from the shop +for a moment. 'Oh yes! It will pass off. Give him a cup of strong tea in +a quarter of an hour, and he'll be as right as a trivet.' + +'Of course you will, won't you, my dear?' Mrs. Knight demanded fondly of +her son. + +Henry nodded weakly. + +The interesting and singular fact about the situation is that these +three adults, upright, sincere, strictly moral, were all lying, and +consciously lying. They knew that Henry's symptoms differed in no +particular from those of his usual attacks, and that his usual attacks +had a minimum duration of twelve hours. They knew that he was decidedly +worse at half-past three than he had been at half-past two, and they +could have prophesied with assurance that he would be still worse at +half-past four than he was then. They knew that time would betray them. +Yet they persisted in falsehood, because they were incapable of +imagining the Speech Day ceremony without Henry in the midst. If any +impartial friend had approached at that moment and told them that Henry +would spend the evening in bed, and that they might just as well resign +themselves first as last, they would have cried him down, and called him +unfriendly and unfeeling, and, perhaps, in the secrecy of their hearts +thrown rotten eggs at him. + +It proved to be the worst dyspeptic visitation that Henry had ever had. +It was not a mere 'attack'--it was a revolution, beginning with slight +insurrections, but culminating in universal upheaval, the overthrowing +of dynasties, the establishment of committees of public safety, and a +reign of terror. As a series of phenomena it was immense, variegated, +and splendid, and was remembered for months afterwards. + +'Surely he'll be better _now_!' said Mrs. Knight, agonized. + +But no! And so they carried Henry to bed. + +At six the martyr uneasily dozed. + +'He may sleep a couple of hours,' Aunt Annie whispered. + +Not one of the three had honestly and openly withdrawn from the position +that Henry would be able to go to the prize-giving. They seemed to have +silently agreed to bury the futile mendacity of the earlier afternoon in +everlasting forgetfulness. + +'Poor little thing!' observed Mrs. Knight. + +His sufferings had reduced him, in her vision, to about half his +ordinary size. + +At seven Mr. Knight put on his hat. + +'Are you going out, father?' his wife asked, shocked. + +'It is only fair,' said Mr. Knight, 'to warn the school people that +Henry will not be able to be present to-night. They will have to alter +their programme. Of course I shan't stay.' + +In pitying the misfortune of the school, thus suddenly and at so +critical a moment deprived of Henry's presence and help, Mrs. Knight +felt less keenly the pang of her own misfortune and that of her son. +Nevertheless, it was a night sufficiently tragic in Oxford Street. + +Mr. Knight returned with Henry's two prizes--_Self-Help_ and _The +Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas_. + +The boy had wakened once, but dozed again. + +'Put them on the chair where he can see them in the morning,' Aunt Annie +suggested. + +'Yes,' said the father, brightening. 'And I'll wind up his watch for +him.... Bless us! what's he been doing to the watch? What _is_ it, +Annie? + + +'Why did you do it?' Mr. Knight asked Tom. 'That's what I can't +understand. Why did you do it?' + +They were alone together the next morning in the sitting-room. ('I will +speak to that young man privately,' Mr. Knight had said to the two women +in a formidable tone.) Henry was still in bed, but awake and reading +Smiles with precocious gusto. + +'Did the kid tell you all about it, then?' + +'The kid,' said Mr. Knight, marking by a peculiar emphasis his +dissatisfaction with Tom's choice of nouns, 'was very loyal. I had to +drag the story out of him bit by bit. I repeat: why did you do it? Was +this your idea of a joke? If so, I can only say----' + +'You should have seen how he enjoyed them! It was tremendous,' Tom broke +in. 'Tremendous! I've no doubt the afternoon was terrible, but the +morning was worth it. Ask Henry himself. I wanted to give him a treat, +and it seems I gave you all one.' + +'And then the headmaster!' Mr. Knight complained. 'He was very upset. He +told me he didn't know what they should do without Henry last night.' + +'Oh yes. I know old Pingles. Pingles is a great wit. But seriously, +uncle,' said Tom--he gazed at the carpet; 'seriously----' He paused. 'If +I had thought of the dreadful calamity to the school, I would only have +bought half a pound.' + +'Pah!' Mr. Knight whiffed out. + +'It's a mercy we're all still alive,' murmured Tom. + +'And may I ask, sir----' Mr. Knight began afresh, in a new vein, +sarcastic and bitter. 'Of course you're an independent member of +society, and your own master; but may I venture to ask what you were +doing in Hyde Park yesterday at eleven o'clock?' + +'You may,' Tom replied. 'The truth is, Bollingtons Limited and me, just +me, have had a row. I didn't like their style, nor their manners. So the +day before yesterday I told them to go to the devil----' + +'You told them to go to the----!' + +'And I haven't seen anything of Bollingtons since, and I don't want to.' + +'That is where you are going to yourself, sir,' thundered Mr. Knight. +'Mark my words. That is where you are going to yourself. Two guineas a +week, at your age, and you tell them----! I suppose you think you can +get a place like that any day.' + +'Look here, uncle. Listen. Mark my words. I have two to say to you, and +two only. Good-morning.' + +Tom hastened from the room, and went down into the shop by the +shop-stairs. The cashier of the establishment was opening the safe. + +'Mr. Perkins,' said Tom lightly, 'uncle wants change for a ten-pound +note, in gold.' + +'Certainly, Mr. Tom. With pleasure.' + +'Oh!' Tom explained, as though the notion had just struck him, taking +the sovereigns, 'the note! I'll bring it down in a jiffy.' + +'That's all right, Mr. Tom,' said the cashier, smiling with suave +confidence. + +Tom ran up to his room, passing his uncle on the way. He snatched his +hat and stick, and descended rapidly into the street by the +house-stairs. He chose this effective and picturesque method of +departing for ever from the hearth and home of Mr. Knight. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CONTAGIOUS + + +'There's only the one slipper here,' said Aunt Annie, feeling in the +embroidered slipper-bag which depended from a glittering brass nail in +the recess to the right of the fireplace. And this fireplace was on the +ground-floor, and not in Oxford Street. + +'I was mending the other this morning,' said Mrs. Knight, springing up +with all her excessive stoutness from the easy-chair. 'I left it in my +work-basket, I do believe.' + +'I'll get it,' said Aunt Annie. + +'No, I'll get it,' said Mrs. Knight. + +So it occurred that Aunt Annie laid the left slipper (sole upwards) in +front of the brisk red fire, while Mrs. Knight laid the right one. + +Then the servant entered the dining-room--a little simple fat thing of +sixteen or so, proud of her cap and apron and her black afternoon dress. +She was breathing quickly. + +'Please'm, Dr. Dancer says he'll come at nine o'clock, or as soon after +as makes no matter.' + +In delivering the message the servant gave a shrewd, comprehending, +sympathetic smile, as if to say: 'I am just as excited about your plot +as you are.' + +'Thank you, Sarah. That will do.' Aunt Annie dismissed her frigidly. + +'Yes'm.' + +Sarah's departing face fell to humility, and it said now: 'I'm sorry I +presumed to be as excited about your plot as you are.' + +The two sisters looked at each other interrogatively, disturbed, +alarmed, shocked. + +'Can she have been listening at doors?' Aunt Annie inquired in a +whisper. + +Wherever the sisters happened to be, they never discussed Sarah save in +a whisper. If they had been in Alaska and Sarah in Timbuctoo, they would +have mentioned her name in a whisper, lest she might overhear. And, by +the way, Sarah's name was not Sarah, but Susan. It had been altered in +deference to a general opinion that it was not nice for a servant to +bear the same name as her mistress, and, further, that such an anomaly +had a tendency to subvert the social order. + +'I don't know,' said Mrs. Knight 'I put her straight about those lumps +of sugar.' + +'Did you tell her to see to the hot-water bottle?' + +'Bless us, no!' + +Aunt Annie rang the bell. + +'Sarah, put a hot-water bottle in your master's bed. And be sure the +stopper is quite tight.' + +'Yes'm. Master's just coming down the street now, mum.' + +Sarah spoke true. The master was in fact coming down the wintry gaslit +street. And the street was Dawes Road, Fulham, in the day of its +newness. The master stopped at the gate of a house of two storeys with a +cellar-kitchen. He pushed open the creaking iron device and entered the +garden, sixteen foot by four, which was the symbol of the park in which +the house would have stood if it had been a mansion. In a stride he +walked from one end to the other of the path, which would have been a +tree-lined, winding carriage-drive had the garden been a park. As he +fumbled for his latchkey, he could see the beaming face of the +representative of the respectful lower classes in the cellar-kitchen. +The door yielded before him as before its rightful lord, and he passed +into his sacred domestic privacy with an air which plainly asserted: +'Here I am king, absolute, beneficent, worshipped.' + +'Come to the fire, quick, Henry,' said Aunt Annie, fussing round him +actively. + +It would be idle to attempt to conceal, even for a moment, that this was +not Henry the elder, but Henry Shakspere, aged twenty-three, with a face +made grave, perhaps prematurely, by the double responsibilities of a +householder and a man of affairs. Henry had lost some of his boyish +plumpness, and he had that night a short, dry cough. + +'I'm coming,' he replied curtly, taking off his blue Melton. 'Don't +worry.' + +And in a fraction of a second, not only Aunt Annie, but his mother in +the dining-room and his helot in the cellar-kitchen, knew that the +master was in a humour that needed humouring. + +Henry the younger had been the master for six years, since the death of +his father. The sudden decease of its head generally means financial +calamity for a family like the Knights. But somehow the Knights were +different from the average. In the first place Henry Knight was insured +for a couple of thousand pounds. In the second place Aunt Annie had a +little private income of thirty pounds a year. And in the third place +there was Henry Shakspere. The youth had just left school; he left it +without special distinction (the brilliant successes of the marred +Speech Day were never repeated), but the state of his education may be +inferred from the established fact that the headmaster had said that if +he had stayed three months longer he would have gone into logarithms. +Instead of going into logarithms, Henry went into shorthand. And +shorthand, at that date, was a key to open all doors, a cure for every +ill, and the finest thing in the world. Henry had a talent for +shorthand; he took to it; he revelled in it; he dreamt it; he lived for +it alone. He won a speed medal, the gold of which was as pure as the +gold of the medal won by his wicked cousin Tom for mere painting. +Henry's mother was at length justified before all men in her rosy +predictions. + +Among the most regular attendants at the Great Queen Street Wesleyan +Chapel was Mr. George Powell, who himself alone constituted and +comprised the eminent legal firm known throughout Lincoln's Inn Fields, +New Court, the Temple, Broad Street, and Great George Street, as +'Powells.' It is not easy, whatever may be said to the contrary, to +reconcile the exigencies of the modern solicitor's profession with the +exigencies of active Wesleyan Methodism; but Mr. George Powell succeeded +in the difficult attempt, and his fame was, perhaps, due mainly to this +success. All Wesleyan solicitors in large practice achieve renown, +whether they desire it or not; Wesleyans cannot help talking about them, +as one talks about an apparent defiance of natural laws. Most of them +are forced into Parliament, and compelled against their wills to accept +the honour of knighthood. Mr. George Powell, however, had so far escaped +both Parliament and the prefix--a fact which served only to increase his +fame. In fine, Mr. George Powell, within the frontiers of Wesleyan +Methodism, was a lion of immense magnitude, and even beyond the +frontiers, in the vast unregenerate earth, he was no mean figure. Now, +when Mr. Powell heard of the death of Henry Knight, whom he said he had +always respected as an upright tradesman and a sincere Christian, and of +the shorthand speed medal of Henry Shakspere Knight, he benevolently +offered the young Henry a situation in his office at twenty-five +shillings a week, rising to thirty. + +Young Henry's fortune was made. He was in Powells, and under the +protecting aegis of the principal. He shared in the lustre of Powells. +When people mentioned him, they also mentioned Powells, as if that +settled the matter--whatever the matter was. Mr. Powell invested Mrs. +Knight's two thousand pounds on mortgage or freehold security at five +per cent., and upon this interest, with Henry's salary and Aunt Annie's +income, the three lived in comfort at Dawes Road. Nay, they saved, and +Henry travelled second-class between Walham Green and the Temple. The +youth was serious, industrious, and trustworthy, and in shorthand +incomparable. No one acquainted with the facts was surprised when, after +three years, Mr. Powell raised him to the position of his confidential +clerk, and his salary to fifty-two shillings and sixpence. + +And then Mr. Powell, who had fought for so long against meaningless +honours, capitulated and accepted a knighthood. The effect upon Dawes +Road was curious and yet very natural. It was almost as though Henry +himself had accepted a knighthood. Both Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie +seemed to assume that Henry had at least contributed to the knighthood +and that the knighthood was in some subtle way the reward of Henry's +talent, rectitude, and strenuousness. 'Sir George'--those two syllables +which slipped smoothly off the tongue with no effort to the +speaker--entered largely into all conversations in the house at Dawes +Road; and the whole street, beginning with the milkman, knew that Henry +was Sir George's--no, not Sir George's confidential clerk, no such +thing!--private secretary. + +His salary was three guineas a week. He had a banking account at Smith, +Payne and Smiths, and a pew at the Munster Park Wesleyan Chapel. He was +a power at the Regent Street Polytechnic. He bought books, including +encyclopaedias and dictionaries. He wrote essays which were read and +debated upon at the sessions of the Debating Society. (One of the essays +was entitled: 'The Tendencies of Modern Fiction'; he was honestly irate +against the Stream of Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the +Press.) He took out a life insurance policy for two hundred and fifty +pounds, and an accident policy which provided enormous sums for all +sorts of queer emergencies. Indeed, Henry was armed at every point. He +could surely snap his fingers at Chance. + +If any young man in London had the right to be bumptious and didactic, +Henry had. And yet he remained simple, unaffected, and fundamentally +kind. But he was very serious. His mother and aunt strained every nerve, +in their idolatrous treatment of him, to turn him into a conceited and +unbearable jackanapes--and their failure to do so was complete. They +only made him more serious. His temper was, and always had been, what is +called even. + +And yet, on this particular evening when Sarah had been instructed to +put a hot-water bottle in his bed, Henry's tone, in greeting his aunt, +had been curt, fretful, peevish, nearly cantankerous. 'Don't worry me!' +he had irascibly protested, well knowing that his good aunt was +guiltless of the slightest intention to worry him. Here was a problem, +an apparent contradiction, in Henry's personality. + +His aunt, in the passage, and his mother, who had overheard in the +dining-room, instantly and correctly solved the problem by saying to +themselves that Henry's tone was a Symptom. They had both been +collecting symptoms for four days. His mother had first discovered that +he had a cold; Aunt Annie went further and found that it was a feverish +cold. Aunt Annie saw that his eyes were running; his mother wormed out +of him that his throat tickled and his mouth was sore. When Aunt Annie +asked him if his eyes ached as well as ran, he could not deny it. On the +third day, at breakfast, he shivered, and the two ladies perceived +simultaneously the existence of a peculiar rash behind Henry's ears. On +the morning of the fourth day Aunt Annie, up early, scored one over her +sister by noticing the same rash at the roots of his still curly hair. +It was the second rash, together with Henry's emphatic and positive +statement that he was perfectly well, which had finally urged his +relatives to a desperate step--a step involving intrigue and +prevarication. And to justify this step had come the crowning symptom +of peevishness--peevishness in Henry! It wanted only that! + +'I've asked Dr. Dancer to call in to-night,' said Aunt Annie casually, +while Henry was assuming his toasted crimson carpet slippers. Mrs. +Knight was brewing tea in the kitchen. + +'What for?' Henry demanded quickly, and as if defensively. Then he +added: 'Is mother wrong again?' + +Mrs. Knight had a recurrent 'complaint.' + +'Well,' said Aunt Annie darkly, 'I thought it would be as well to be on +the safe side....' + +'Certainly,' said Henry. + +This was Aunt Annie's neat contribution to the necessary prevarication. + +They had tea and ham-and-eggs, the latter specially chosen because it +was a dish that Henry doted upon. However, he ate but little. + +'You're overtired, dear,' his mother ventured. + +'Overtired or not, mater,' said Henry with a touch of irony, 'I must do +some work to-night. Sir George has asked me to----' + +'My dear love,' Mrs. Knight cried out, moved, 'you've no right----' + +But Aunt Annie quelled the impulsive creature with a glance full of +meaning. 'Sir George what?' she asked, politely interested. + +'The governor has asked me to look through his Christmas appeal for the +Clerks' Society, and to suggest any alterations that occur to me.' + +It became apparent to the ladies, for the thousand and first time, that +Sir George would be helpless without Henry, utterly helpless. + +After tea the table was cleared, and Henry opened his bag and rustled +papers, and the ladies knitted and sewed with extraordinary precautions +to maintain the silence which was the necessary environment of Henry's +labours. And in the calm and sane domestic interior, under the mild ray +of the evening lamp, the sole sounds were Henry's dry, hacking cough and +the cornet-like blasts of his nose into his cambric handkerchief. + +'I think I'll do no more to-night,' he said at length, yawning. + +'That's right, dear,' his mother ejaculated. + +Then the doctor entered, and, for all the world as if by preconcerted +action, the ladies disappeared. Dr. Dancer was on friendly terms with +the household, and, his age being thirty, he was neither too old nor too +young to address Henry as Old Man. + +'Hallo, old man,' he began, after staring hard at Henry. 'What's the +matter with your forehead?' + +'Forehead?' Henry repeated questioningly. + +'Yes. Let's have a look.' + +The examination was thorough, and it ended with the thrusting of a +thermometer into Henry's unwilling mouth. + +'One hundred and two,' said the doctor, and, smiling faintly, he +whispered something to Henry. + +'You're joking,' Henry replied, aghast. + +'No, I'm not. Of course it's not serious. But it means bed for a +fortnight or so, and you must go immediately.' + +The ladies, who had obviously and shamelessly been doing that which they +so strongly deprecated in Sarah, came back into the room. + +In half an hour Henry was in bed, and a kettle containing eucalyptus was +steaming over a bright fire in the bedroom; and his mother was bent upon +black-currant tea in the kitchen; and Aunt Annie was taking down from +dictation, in her angular Italian hand, a letter which began: 'Dear Sir +George,--I much regret to say'; and little Sarah was standing hooded and +girt up, ready to fly upon errands of the highest importance at a +second's notice. + +'Sarah,' said Mrs. Knight solemnly, when Sarah had returned from the +post and the doctor's, 'I am going to trust you. Your master has got the +measles, but, of course, we don't want anyone to know, so you mustn't +breathe a word.' + +'No'm,' said Sarah. + +'He never had them as a boy,' Mrs. Knight added proudly. + +'Didn't he, mum?' said Sarah. + +The doctor, whose gift for seriousness was not marked, showed a tendency +to see humour in the situation of Sir George's private secretary being +down with measles. But he was soon compelled to perceive his mistake. By +a united and tremendous effort Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie made measles +august. As for Sarah, she let slip the truth to the milkman. It came out +by itself, as the spout of a teapot had once come off by itself in her +hand. + +The accident policy appeared to provide for every emergency except +measles. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CREATIVE + + +The sick-room--all due solemnity and importance must be imported into +the significance of that word--the sick-room became a shrine, served by +two ageing priestesses and a naive acolyte. Everything was done to make +Henry an invalid in the grand manner. His bed of agony became the pivot +on which the household life flutteringly and soothingly revolved. No +detail of delicate attention which the most ingenious assiduity could +devise was omitted from the course of treatment. And if the chamber had +been at the front instead of at the back, the Fulham Vestry would +certainly have received an application for permission to lay down straw +in the street. + +The sole flaw in the melancholy beauty of the episode was that Henry was +never once within ten miles of being seriously ill. He was incapable of +being seriously ill. He happened to be one of those individuals who, +when they 'take' a disease, seem to touch it only with the tips of their +fingers: such was his constitution. He had the measles, admittedly. His +temperature rose one night to a hundred and three, and for a few brief +moments his mother and Aunt Annie enjoyed visions of fighting the grim +spectre of Death. The tiny round pink spots covered his face and then +ran together into a general vermilion. He coughed exquisitely. His beard +grew. He supported life on black-currant tea and an atmosphere +impregnated with eucalyptus. He underwent the examination of the doctor +every day at eleven. But he was not personally and genuinely ill. He did +not feel ill, and he said so. His most disquieting symptom was boredom. +This energetic organism chafed under the bed-clothes and the +black-currant tea and the hushed eucalyptic calm of the chamber. He +fervently desired to be up and active and stressful. His mother and aunt +cogitated in vain to hit on some method of allaying the itch for work. +And then one day--it was the day before Christmas--his mother chanced to +say: + +'You might try to write out that story you told us about--when you are +a little stronger. It would be something for you to do.' + +Henry shook his head sheepishly. + +'Oh no!' he said; 'I was only joking.' + +'I'm sure you could write it quite nicely,' his mother insisted. + +And Henry shook his head again, and coughed. 'No,' he said. 'I hope I +shall have something better to do than write stories.' + +'But just to pass the time!' pleaded Aunt Annie. + +The fact was that, several weeks before, while his thoughts had been +engaged in analyzing the detrimental qualities of the Stream of Trashy +Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press, Henry had himself been +visited by a notion for a story. He had scornfully ejected it as an +inopportune intruder; but it had returned, and at length, to get rid for +ever of this troublesome guest, he had instinctively related the outline +of the tale over the tea-table. And the outline had been pronounced +wonderful. 'It might be called _Love in Babylon_--Babylon being London, +you know,' he had said. And Aunt Annie had exclaimed: 'What a pretty +title!' Whereupon Henry had remarked contemptuously and dismissingly: +'Oh, it was just an idea I had, that's all!' And the secret thought of +both ladies had been, 'That busy brain is never still.' + +As the shades of Christmas Eve began to fall, Aunt Annie was seated by +the sick-bed, engaged in making entries in the household washing-book +with a lead pencil. Henry lay with his eyes closed. Mrs. Knight was out +shopping. Presently there was a gentle _ting_ of the front-door bell; +then a protracted silence; then another gentle _ting_. + +'Bless the girl! Why doesn't she answer the door?' Aunt Annie whispered +to herself, listening hard. + +A third time the bell rang, and Aunt Annie, anathematizing the whole +race of servants, got up, put the washing-book on the dressing-table, +lighted the gas and turned it low, and descended to answer the door in +person and to behead Sarah. + +More than an hour elapsed before either sister re-entered Henry's +room--events on the ground-floor had been rather exciting--and then they +appeared together, bearing a bird, and some mince-tarts on a plate, and +a card. Henry was wide awake. + +'This _is_ a surprise, dear,' began Mrs. Knight. 'Just listen: "With Sir +George Powell's hearty greetings and best wishes for a speedy recovery!" +A turkey and six mince-tarts. Isn't it thoughtful of him?' + +'It's just like the governor,' said Henry, smiling, and feeling the +tenderness of the turkey. + +'He is a true gentleman,' said Aunt Annie. + +'And we've sent round to the doctor to ask, and he says there's no harm +in your having half a mince-tart; so we've warmed it. And you are to +have a slice off the breast of the turkey to-morrow.' + +'Good!' was Henry's comment. He loved a savoury mouthful, and these +dainties were an unexpected bliss, for the ladies had not dreamt of +Christmas fare in the sad crisis, even for themselves. + +Aunt Annie, as if struck by a sudden blow, glanced aside at the gas. + +'I could have been certain I left the gas turned down,' she remarked. + +'I turned it up,' said Henry. + +'You got out of bed! Oh, Henry! And your temperature was a hundred and +two only the day before yesterday!' + +'I thought I'd begin that thing--just for a lark, you know,' he +explained. + +He drew from under the bed-clothes the household washing-book. And +there, nearly at the top of a page, were Aunt Annie's last interrupted +strokes: + + + '2 Ch----' + + +and underneath: + + + 'LOVE IN BABYLON' + + +and the commencement of the tale. The marvellous man had covered nine +pages of the washing-book. + + +Within twenty-four hours, not only Henry, but his mother and aunt, had +become entirely absorbed in Henry's tale. The ladies wondered how he +thought of it all, and Henry himself wondered a little, too. It seemed +to 'come,' without trouble and almost without invitation. It cost no +effort. The process was as though Henry acted merely as the amanuensis +of a great creative power concealed somewhere in the recesses of his +vital parts. Fortified by two halves of a mince-tart and several slices +of Sir George's turkey, he filled the washing-book full up before dusk +on Christmas Day; and on Boxing Day, despite the faint admiring protests +of his nurses, he made a considerable hole in a quire of the best ruled +essay-paper. Instead of showing signs of fatigue, Henry appeared to grow +stronger every hour, and to revel more and more in the sweet labour of +composition; while the curiosity of the nurses about the exact nature of +what Henry termed the denouement increased steadily and constantly. The +desires of those friends who had wished a Happy Christmas to the +household were generously gratified. + +It was a love tale, of course. And it began thus, the first line +consisting of a single word, and the second of three words: + +'_Babylon!_ + +'_And in winter!_ + +'_The ladies' waiting-room on the arrival platform of one of our vast +termini was unoccupied save for the solitary figure of a young and +beautiful girl, who, clad in a thin but still graceful costume, crouched +shivering over the morsel of fire which the greed of a great company +alone permitted to its passengers. Outside resounded the roar and shriek +of trains, the ceaseless ebb and flow of the human tide which beats for +ever on the shores of modern Babylon. Enid Anstruther gazed sadly into +the embers. She had come to the end of her resources. Suddenly the door +opened, and Enid looked up, naturally expecting to see one of her own +sex. But it was a man's voice, fresh and strong, which exclaimed: "Oh, I +beg pardon!" The two glanced at each other, and then Enid sank +backwards._' + +Such were the opening sentences of _Love in Babylon_. + +Enid was an orphan, and had come to London in order to obtain a +situation in a draper's shop. Unfortunately, she had lost her purse on +the way. Her reason for sinking back in the waiting-room was that she +had fainted from cold, hunger, and fatigue. Thus she and the man, Adrian +Tempest, became acquainted, and Adrian's first gift to her was seven +drops of brandy, which he forced between her teeth. His second was his +heart. Enid obtained a situation, and Adrian took her to the Crystal +Palace one Saturday afternoon. It was a pity that he had not already +proposed to her, for they got separated in the tremendous Babylonian +crowd, and Enid, unused to the intricacies of locomotion in Babylon, +arrived home at the emporium at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning. She +was dismissed by a proprietor with a face of brass. Adrian sought her in +vain. She sought Adrian in vain--she did not know his address. +Thenceforward the tale split itself into two parts: the one describing +the life of Adrian, a successful barrister, on the heights of Babylon, +and the other the life of Enid, reduced to desperate straits, in the +depths thereof. The contrasts were vivid and terrific. + +Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie could not imagine how Henry would bring the +two lovers, each burning secretly the light torch of love in Babylon, +together again. But Henry did not hesitate over the problem for more +than about fifty seconds. Royal Academy. Private View. Adrian present +thereat as a celebrity. Picture of the year, 'The Enchantress.' He +recognises her portrait. She had, then, been forced to sell her beauty +for eighteenpence an hour as an artist's model. To discover the artist +and Enid's address was for Adrian the work of a few minutes. + +This might have finished the tale, but Henry opined that the tale was a +trifle short. As a fact, it was. He accordingly invented a further and a +still more dramatic situation. When Adrian proposed to Enid, she +conscientiously told him, told him quietly but firmly, that she could +not marry him for the reason that her father, though innocent of a crime +imputed to him, had died in worldly disgrace. She could not consent to +sully Adrian's reputation. Now, Adrian happened to be the real criminal. +But he did not know that Enid's father had suffered for him, and he had +honestly lived down that distant past. 'If there is a man in this world +who has the right to marry you,' cried Adrian, 'I am that man. And if +there is a man in this world whom you have the right to spurn, I am that +man also.' The extreme subtlety of the thing must be obvious to every +reader. Enid forgave and accepted Adrian. They were married in a snowy +January at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and the story ended thus: + +'_Babylon in winter_. + +'_Babylon!_' + +Henry achieved the entire work in seven days, and, having achieved it, +he surveyed it with equal pride and astonishment. It was a matter of +surprise to him that the writing of interesting and wholesome fiction +was so easy. Some parts of the book he read over and over again, for the +sheer joy of reading. + +'Of course it isn't good enough to print,' he said one day, while +sitting up in the arm-chair. + +'I should think any publisher would be glad to print it,' said his +mother. 'I'm not a bit prejudiced, I'm sure, and I think it's one of the +best tales I ever read in all my life.' + +'Do you really?' Henry smiled, his natural modesty fighting against a +sure conviction that his mother was right. + +Aunt Annie said little, but she had copied out _Love in Babylon_ in her +fine, fair Italian hand, keeping pace day by day with Henry's +extraordinary speed, and now she accomplished the transcription of the +last pages. + + +The time arrived for Henry to be restored to a waiting world. He was +cured, well, hearty, vigorous, radiant. But he was still infected, +isolate, one might almost say _taboo_; and everything in his room, and +everything that everyone had worn while in the room, was in the same +condition. Therefore the solemn process, rite, and ceremony of +purification had to be performed. It began upon the last day of the old +year at dusk. + +Aunt Annie made a quantity of paste in a basin; Mrs. Knight bought a +penny brush; and Henry cut up a copy of the _Telegraph_ into long strips +about two inches wide. The sides and sash of the window were then +hermetically sealed; the register of the fireplace was closed, and +sealed also. Clothes were spread out in open order, the bed stripped, +rugs hung over chairs. + +'Henry's book?' Mrs. Knight demanded. + +'Of course it must be disinfected with the other things,' said Aunt +Annie. + +'Yes, of course,' Henry agreed. + +'And it will be safer to lay the sheets separately on the floor,' Aunt +Annie continued. + +There were fifty-nine sheets of Aunt Annie's fine, finicking caligraphy, +and the scribe and her nephew went down on their knees, and laid them in +numerical sequence on the floor. The initiatory '_Babylon_' found itself +in the corner between the window and the fireplace beneath the +dressing-table, and the final '_Babylon_' was hidden in gloomy retreats +under the bed. + +Then Sarah entered, bearing sulphur in a shallow pan, and a box of +matches. The paste and the paste-brush and the remnants of the +_Telegraph_ were carried out into the passage. Henry carefully ignited +the sulphur, and, captain of the ship, was the last to leave. As they +closed the door the odour of burning, microbe-destroying sulphur +impinged on their nostrils. Henry sealed the door on the outside with +'London Day by Day,' 'Sales by Auction,' and a leading article or so. + +'There!' said Henry. + +All was over. + +At intervals throughout the night he thought of the sanative and benign +sulphur smouldering, smouldering always with ghostly yellow flamelets in +the midst of his work of art, while the old year died and the new was +born. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SPRING ONIONS + + +The return to the world and to Powells, while partaking of the nature of +a triumph, was at the same time something of a cold, fume-dispersing, +commonsense-bestowing bath for Henry. He had meant to tell Sir George +casually that he had taken advantage of his enforced leisure to write a +book. 'Taken advantage of his enforced leisure' was the precise phrase +which Henry had in mind to use. But, when he found himself in the +strenuous, stern, staid, sapient and rational atmosphere of Powells, he +felt with a shock of perception that in rattling off _Love in Babylon_ +he had been guilty of one of those charming weaknesses to which great +and serious men are sometimes tempted, but of which great and serious +men never boast. And he therefore confined his personal gossip with Sir +George to the turkey, the mince-tarts, and the question of contagion. He +plunged into his work with a feeling akin to dignified remorse, and Sir +George was vehemently and openly delighted by the proofs which he gave +of undiminished loyalty and devotion. + +Nevertheless Henry continued to believe in the excellence of his book, +and he determined that, in duty to himself, his mother and aunt, and the +cause of wholesome fiction, he must try to get it published. From that +moment he began to be worried, for he had scarcely a notion how +sagaciously to set about the business. He felt like a bachelor of +pronounced views who has been given a baby to hold. He knew no one in +the realms of literature, and no one who knew anyone. Sir George, warily +sounded, appeared to be unaware that such a thing as fiction existed. +Not a soul at the Polytechnic enjoyed the acquaintance of either an +author or a publisher, though various souls had theories about these +classes of persons. Then one day a new edition of the works of Carlyle +burst on the world, and Henry bought the first volume, _Sartor +Resartus_, a book which he much admired, and which he had learnt from +his father to call simply and familiarly--_Sartor_. The edition, though +inexpensive, had a great air of dignity. It met, in short, with Henry's +approval, and he suddenly decided to give the publishers of it the +opportunity of publishing _Love in Babylon_. The deed was done in a +moment. He wrote a letter explaining the motives which had led him to +write _Love in Babylon_, and remarked that, if the publishers cared for +the story, mutually satisfactory terms might be arranged later; and Aunt +Annie did _Love in Babylon_ up in a neat parcel. Henry was in the very +act of taking the parcel to the post, on his way to town, when Aunt +Annie exclaimed: + +'Of course you'll register it?' + +He had not thought of doing so, but the advisability of such a step at +once appealed to him. + +'Perhaps I'd better,' he said. + +'But that only means two pounds if it's lost, doesn't it?' Mrs. Knight +inquired. + +Henry nodded and pondered. + +'Perhaps I'd better insure it,' he suggested. + +'If I were you, I should insure it for a hundred pounds,' said Aunt +Annie positively. + +'But that will cost one and a penny,' said Henry, who had all such +details by heart. 'I could insure it for twenty pounds for fivepence.' + +'Well, say twenty pounds then,' Aunt Annie agreed, relenting. + +So he insured _Love in Babylon_ for twenty pounds and despatched it. In +three weeks it returned like the dove to the ark (but soiled), with a +note to say that, though the publishers' reader regarded it as +promising, the publishers could not give themselves the pleasure of +making an offer for it. Thenceforward Henry and the manuscript suffered +all the usual experiences, and the post-office reaped all the usual +profits. One firm said the story was good, but too short. ('A pitiful +excuse,' thought Henry. 'As if length could affect merit.') Another said +nothing. Another offered to publish it if Henry would pay a hundred +pounds down. (At this point Henry ceased to insure the parcel.) Another +sent it back minus the last leaf, the matter of which Henry had to +reinvent and Aunt Annie to recopy. Another returned it insufficiently +stamped, and there was fourpence to pay. Another kept it four months, +and disgorged it only under threat of a writ; the threat was launched +forth on Powells' formidable notepaper. At length there arrived a day +when even Henry's pertinacity was fatigued, and he forgot, merely +forgot, to send out the parcel again. It was put in a drawer, after a +year of ceaseless adventures, and Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie discreetly +forbore to mention it. During that year Henry's opinion on his work had +fluctuated. There had been moments, days perhaps, of discouragement, +when he regarded it as drivel, and himself as a fool--in so far, that +is, as he had trafficked with literature. On the other hand, his +original view of it reasserted itself with frequency. And in the end he +gloomily and proudly decided, once and for all, that the Stream of +Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press had killed all demand +for wholesome fiction; he came reluctantly to the conclusion that modern +English literature was in a very poor way. He breathed a sigh, and +dismissed the episode utterly from his mind. + +And _Love in Babylon_ languished in the drawer for three months. + +Then, upon an April morning, the following telegram was received at +Dawes Road, Fulham: '_Please bring manuscript me immediately top left +take cab Henry_.' + +Mrs. Knight was alone in the house with Sarah when the imperious summons +of the telegraph-boy and the apparition of the orange envelope threw the +domestic atmosphere into a state of cyclonic confusion. Before tearing +the envelope she had guessed that Aunt Annie had met with an accident, +that Henry was dead, and that her own Aunt Eliza in Glossop had died +without making a will; and these imaginings had done nothing to increase +the efficiency of her intellectual powers. She could not read sense into +the message, not even with the aid of spectacles and Sarah. + +Happily Aunt Annie returned, with her masculine grasp of affairs. + +'He means _Love in Babylon_,' said Aunt Annie. 'It's in the top +left-hand drawer of his desk. That's what he means. Perhaps I'd better +take it. I'm ready dressed.' + +'Oh yes, sister,' Mrs. Knight replied hastily. 'You had better take it.' + +Aunt Annie rang the bell with quick decision. + +'Sarah,' she said, 'run out and get me a cab, a four-wheeler. You +understand, a four-wheeler.' + +'Yes'm. Shall I put my jacket on, mum?' Sarah asked, glancing through +the window. + +'No. Go instantly!' + +'Yes'm.' + +'I wonder what he wants it for,' Aunt Annie remarked, after she had +found the manuscript and put it under her arm. 'Perhaps he has mentioned +it to Sir George, and Sir George is going to do something.' + +'I thought he had forgotten all about it,' said Mrs. Knight. 'But he +never gives a thing up, Henry doesn't.' + +Sarah drove dashingly up to the door in a hansom. + +'Take that back again,' commanded Aunt Annie, cautiously putting her +nose outside the front-door. It was a snowy and sleety April morning, +and she had already had experience of its rigour. 'I said a +four-wheeler.' + +'Please'm, there wasn't one,' Sarah defended herself. + +'None on the stand, lady,' said the cabman brightly. 'You'll never get a +four-wheeler on a day like this.' + +Aunt Annie raised her veil and looked at her sister. Like many +strong-minded and vigorous women, she had a dislike of hansoms which +amounted to dread. She feared a hansom as though it had been a +revolver--something that might go off unexpectedly at any moment and +destroy her. + +'I daren't go in that,' she admitted frankly. She was torn between her +allegiance to the darling Henry and her fear of the terrible machine. + +'Suppose I go with you?' Mrs. Knight suggested. + +'Very well,' said Aunt Annie, clenching her teeth for the sacrifice. + +Sarah flew for Mrs. Knight's bonnet, fur mantle, gloves, and muff; and +with remarkably little delay the sisters and the manuscript started. +First they had the window down because of the snow and the sleet; then +they had it up because of the impure air; and lastly Aunt Annie wedged a +corner of the manuscript between the door and the window, leaving a slit +of an inch or so for ventilation. The main body of the manuscript she +supported by means of her muff. + +Alas! her morbid fear of hansoms was about to be justified--at any +rate, justified in her own eyes. As the machine was passing along Walham +Green, it began to overtake a huge market-cart laden, fraught, and piled +up with an immense cargo of spring onions from Isleworth; and just as +the head of the horse of the hansom drew level with the tail of the +market-cart, the off hind wheel of the cart succumbed, and a ton or more +of spring onions wavered and slanted in the snowy air. The driver of the +hansom did his best, but he could not prevent his horse from premature +burial amid spring onions. The animal nobly resisted several +hundredweight of them, and then tottered and fell and was lost to view +under spring onions. The ladies screamed in concert, and discovered +themselves miraculously in the roadway, unhurt, but white and +breathless. A constable and a knife-grinder picked them up. + +The accident was more amusing than tragic, though neither Mrs. Knight +nor Aunt Annie was capable of perceiving this fact. The horse emerged +gallantly, unharmed, and the window of the hansom was not even cracked. +The constable congratulated everyone and took down the names of the two +drivers, the two ladies, and the knife-grinder. The condition of the +weather fortunately, militated against the formation of a large crowd. + +Quite two minutes elapsed before Aunt Annie made the horrible discovery +that _Love in Babylon_ had disappeared. _Love in Babylon_ was smothered +up in spring onions. + +'Keep your nerve, madam,' said the constable, seeing signs of an +emotional crisis, 'and go and stand in that barber's doorway--both of +you.' + +The ladies obeyed. + +In due course _Love in Babylon_ was excavated, chapter by chapter, and +Aunt Annie held it safely once more, rumpled but complete. + +By the luckiest chance an empty four-wheeler approached. + +The sisters got into it, and Aunt Annie gave the address. + +'As quick as you can,' she said to the driver, 'but do drive slowly.' + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MARK SNYDER + + +Three-quarters of an hour later Henry might have been seen--in fact, was +seen by a number of disinterested wayfarers--to enter a magnificent new +block of offices and flats in Charing Cross Road. _Love in Babylon_ was +firmly gripped under his right arm. Partly this strange burden and +partly the brilliant aspect of the building made him feel self-conscious +and humble and rather unlike his usual calm self. For, although Henry +was accustomed to offices, he was not accustomed to magnificent offices. +There are offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, offices of extreme wealth, +which, were they common lodging-houses, would be instantly condemned by +the County Council. Powells was such a one--and Sir George had a reputed +income of twenty thousand a year. At Powells the old Dickensian +tradition was kept vigorously alive by every possible means. Dirt and +gloom were omnipresent. Cleanliness and ample daylight would have been +deemed unbusinesslike, as revolutionary and dangerous as a typewriter. +One day, in winter, Sir George had taken cold, and he had attributed his +misfortune, in language which he immediately regretted, to the fact that +'that d----d woman had cleaned the windows'--probably with a damp cloth. +'That d----d woman' was the caretaker, a grey-haired person usually +dressed in sackcloth, who washed herself, incidentally, while washing +the stairs. At Powells, nothing but the stairs was ever put to the +indignity of a bath. + +That Henry should be somewhat diffident about invading Kenilworth +Mansions was therefore not surprising. He climbed three granite steps, +passed through a pair of swinging doors, traversed eight feet of +tesselated pavement, climbed three more granite steps, passed through +another pair of swinging doors, and discovered himself in a spacious +marble hall, with a lift-cabinet resembling a confessional, and broad +stairs behind curving up to Paradise. On either side of him, in place +of priceless works by old masters, were great tablets inscribed with +many names in gold characters. He scanned these tablets timidly, and at +length found what he wanted, 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' under the +heading 'Third Floor.' At the same moment a flunkey in chocolate and +cream approached him. + +'Mr. Snyder?' asked Henry. + +'Third-floor, left,' pronounced the flunkey, thus giving the tablets the +force of his authority. + +As Henry was wafted aloft in the elevator, with the beautiful and +innocuous flunkey as travelling companion, he could not help contrasting +that official with the terrible Powellian caretaker who haunted the +Powellian stairs. + +On the third-floor, which seemed to be quite a world by itself, an arrow +with the legend 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' directed his mazed feet +along a corridor to a corner where another arrow with the legend 'Mark +Snyder, Literary Agent,' pointed along another corridor. And as he +progressed, the merry din of typewriters grew louder and louder. At +length he stood in front of a glassy door, and on the face of the door, +in a graceful curve, was painted the legend, 'Mark Snyder, Literary +Agent.' Shadows of vague moving forms could be discerned on the +opalescent glass, and the chatter of typewriters was almost +disconcerting. + +Henry paused. + +That morning Mr. Mark Snyder had been to Powells on the business of one +of his clients, a historian of the Middle Ages, and in the absence of +Sir George had had a little talk with Henry. And Henry had learnt for +the first time what a literary agent was, and, struck by the man's +astuteness and geniality, had mentioned the matter of _Love in Babylon_. +Mr. Snyder had kindly promised to look into the matter of _Love in +Babylon_ himself if Henry could call on him instantly with the +manuscript. The reason for haste was that on the morrow Mr. Snyder was +leaving England for New York on a professional tour of the leading +literary centres of the United States. Hence Henry's telegram to Dawes +Road. + +Standing there in front of Mr. Snyder's door, Henry wondered whether, +after all, he was not making a fool of himself. But he entered. + +Two smart women in tight and elegant bodices, with fluffy bows at the +backs of their necks, looked up from two typewriters, and the one with +golden hair rose smiling and suave. + +'Well, you seem a fairly nice sort of boy--I shall be kind to you,' her +eyes appeared to say. Her voice, however, said nothing except, 'Will you +take a seat a moment?' and not even that until Henry had asked if Mr. +Snyder was in. + +The prospective client examined the room. It had a carpet, and lovely +almanacs on the walls, and in one corner, on a Japanese table, was a +tea-service in blue and white. Tables more massive bore enormous piles +of all shapes and sizes of manuscripts, scores and hundreds or unprinted +literary works, and they all carried labels, 'Mark Snyder, Literary +Agent.' _Love in Babylon_ shrank so small that Henry could scarcely +detect its presence under his arm. + +Then Goldenhair, who had vanished, came back, and, with the most +enchanting smile that Henry had ever seen on the face of a pretty woman, +lured him by delicious gestures into Mr. Mark Snyder's private office. + +'Well,' exclaimed Mr. Snyder, full of good-humour, 'here we are again.' +He was a fair, handsome man of about forty, and he sat at a broad table +playing with a revolver. 'What do you think of that, Mr. Knight?' he +asked sharply, holding out the revolver for inspection. + +'It seems all right,' said Henry lamely. + +Mr. Snyder laughed heartily. 'I'm going to America to-morrow. I told +you, didn't I? Never been there before. So I thought I'd get a revolver. +Never know, you know. Eh?' He laughed again. + +Then he suddenly ceased laughing, and sniffed the air. + +'Is this a business office?' Henry asked himself. 'Or is it a club?' + +His feet were on a Turkey carpet. He was seated in a Chippendale chair. +A glorious fire blazed behind a brass fender, and the receptacle for +coal was of burnished copper. Photogravures in rich oaken frames adorned +the roseate walls. The ceiling was an expanse of ornament, with an +electric chandelier for centre. + +'Have a cigarette?' said Mr. Snyder, pushing across towards Henry a tin +of Egyptians. + +'Thanks,' said Henry, who did not usually smoke, and he put _Love in +Babylon_ on the table. + +Mr. Snyder sniffed the air again. + +'Now, what can I do for you?' said he abruptly. + +Henry explained the genesis, exodus, and vicissitudes of _Love in +Babylon_, and Mr. Snyder stretched out an arm and idly turned over a few +leaves of the manuscript as it lay before its author. + +'Who's your amanuensis?' he demanded, smiling. + +'My aunt,' said Henry. + +'Ah yes!' said Mr. Snyder, smiling still, 'It's too short, you know,' he +added, grave. 'Too short. What length is it?' + +'Nearly three hundred folios.' + +'None of your legal jargon here,' Mr. Snyder laughed again. 'What's a +folio?' + +'Seventy-two words.' + +'About twenty thousand words then, eh? Too short!' + +'Does that matter?' Henry demanded. 'I should have thought----' + +'Of course it matters,' Mr. Snyder snapped. 'If you went to a concert, +and it began at eight and finished at half-past, would you go out +satisfied with the performers' assurance that quality and not quantity +was the thing? Ha, ha!' + +Mr. Snyder sniffed the air yet again, and looked at the fire +inquisitively, still sniffing. + +'There's only one price for novels, six-shillings,' Mr. Snyder +proceeded. 'The public likes six shillings' worth of quality. But it +absolutely insists on six shillings' worth of quantity, and doesn't +object to more. What can I do with this?' he went on, picking up _Love +in Babylon_ and weighing it as in a balance. 'What _can_ I do with a +thing like this?' + +'If Carlyle came to Kenilworth Mansions!' Henry speculated. At the same +time Mr. Snyder's epigrammatic remarks impressed him. He saw the art of +Richardson and Balzac in an entirely new aspect. It was as though he had +walked round the house of literature, and peeped in at the backdoor. + +Mr. Snyder suddenly put _Love in Babylon_ to his nose. + +'Oh, it's _that_!' he murmured, enlightened. + +Henry had to narrate the disaster of the onion-cart, at which Mr. Snyder +was immensely amused. + +'Good!' he ejaculated. 'Good! By the way, might send it to Onions +Winter. Know Onions Winter? No? He's always called Spring Onions in the +trade. Pushing man. What a joke it would be!' Mr. Snyder roared with +laughter. 'But seriously, Winter might----' + +Just then Goldenhair entered the room with a slip of paper, and Mr. +Snyder begged to be excused a moment. During his absence Henry reflected +upon the singularly unbusinesslike nature of the conversation, and +decided that it would be well to import a little business into it. + +'I'm called away,' said Mr. Snyder, re-entering. + +'I must go, too,' said Henry. 'May I ask, Mr. Snyder, what are your +terms for arranging publication?' + +'Ten per cent.,' said Mr. Snyder succinctly. 'On gross receipts. +Generally, to unknown men, I charge a preliminary fee, but, of course, +with you----' + +'Ten per cent.?' Henry inquired. + +'Ten per cent.,' repeated Mr. Snyder. + +'Does that mean--ten per cent.?' Henry demanded, dazed. + +Mr. Snyder nodded. + +'But do you mean to say,' said the author of _Love in Babylon_ +impressively, 'that if a book of mine makes a profit of ten thousand +pounds, you'll take a thousand pounds just for getting it published?' + +'It comes to that,' Mr. Snyder admitted. + +'Oh!' cried Henry, aghast, astounded. 'A thousand pounds!' + +And he kept saying: 'A thousand pounds! A thousand pounds!' + +He saw now where the Turkey carpets and the photogravures and the +Teofani cigarettes came from. + +'A thousand pounds!' + +Mr. Snyder stuck the revolver into a drawer. + +'I'll think it over,' said Henry discreetly. 'How long shall you be in +America?' + +'Oh, about a couple of months!' And Mr. Snyder smiled brightly. Henry +could not find a satisfactory explanation of the man's eternal jollity. + +'Well, I'll think it over,' he said once more, very courteously. 'And +I'm much obliged to you for giving me an interview.' And he took up +_Love in Babylon_ and departed. + +It appeared to have been a futile and ludicrous encounter. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SATIN + + +Yes, there had been something wrong with the interview. It had entirely +failed to tally with his expectations of it. The fact was that he, +Henry, had counted for very little in it. He had sat still and listened, +and, after answering Mr. Mark Snyder's questions, he had made no +original remark except 'A thousand pounds!' And if he was disappointed +with Mr. Snyder, and puzzled by him, too, he was also disappointed with +himself. He felt that he had displayed none of those business qualities +which he knew he possessed. He was a man of affairs, with a sure belief +in his own capacity to handle any matter requiring tact and discretion; +and yet he had lolled like a simpleton in the Chippendale chair of Mr. +Snyder, and contributed naught to the interview save 'A thousand +pounds!' + +Nevertheless, he sincerely thought Mr. Snyder's terms exorbitant. He +was not of the race of literary aspirants who are eager to be published +at any price. Literature had no fatal fascination for him. His wholly +sensible idea now was that, having written a book, he might as well get +it printed and make an honest penny out of it, if possible. However, the +effect of the visit to Kenilworth Mansions was to persuade him to +resolve to abandon the enterprise; Mr. Mark Snyder had indeed +discouraged him. And in the evening, when he reached Dawes Road, he gave +his mother and aunt a truthful account of the episode, and stated, +pleasantly but plainly, that he should burn _Love in Babylon_. And his +mother and aunt, perceiving that he was in earnest, refrained from +comment. + +And after they had gone to bed he took _Love in Babylon_ out of the +brown paper in which he had wrapped it, and folded the brown paper and +tied up the string; and he was in the very act of putting _Love in +Babylon_ bodily on the fire, when he paused. + +'Suppose I give it one more chance?' he reflected. + +He had suddenly thought of the name of Mr. Onions Winter, and of Mr. +Snyder's interrupted observations upon that publisher. He decided to +send _Love in Babylon_ to Mr. Winter. He untied the string, unfolded the +brown paper, indited a brief letter, and made the parcel anew. + +A week later, only a week, Mr. Onions Winter wrote asking Henry to call +upon him without delay, and Henry called. The establishment of Mr. +Onions Winter was in Leicester Square, between the Ottoman Music Hall +and a milliner's shop. Architecturally it presented rather a peculiar +appearance. The leading feature of the ground-floor was a vast arch, +extending across the entire frontage in something more than a +semicircle. Projecting from the keystone of the arch was a wrought-iron +sign bearing a portrait in copper, and under the portrait the words 'Ye +Shakspere Head.' Away beneath the arch was concealed the shop-window, an +affair of small square panes, and in the middle of every small pane was +stuck a small card, 'The Satin Library--Onions Winter.' This mystic +phrase was repeated a hundred and sixty-five times. To the right of the +window was a low green door with a copper handle in the shape of a +sow's tail, and the legend 'Ye Office of Onions Winter.' + +'Is Mr. Winter in?' Henry demanded of a young man in a very high collar, +after he had mastered the mechanism of the sow's tail. + +'Yes, he's _in_,' said the young man rudely, as Henry thought. (How +different from Goldenhair was this high collar!) + +'Do you want to see him?' asked the young man, when he had hummed an air +and stared out of the window. + +'No,' said Henry placidly. 'But he wants to see me. My name is Knight.' + +Henry had these flashes of brilliance from time to time. They came of +themselves, as _Love in Babylon_ came. He felt that he was beginning +better with Mr. Onions Winter than he had begun with Mr. Mark Snyder. + +In another moment he was seated opposite Mr. Winter in a charming but +littered apartment on the first-floor. He came to the conclusion that +all literary offices must be drawing-rooms. + +'And so you are the author of _Love in Babylon_?' began Mr. Winter. He +was a tall man, with burning eyes, grey hair, a grey beard which stuck +out like the sun's rays, but no moustache. The naked grey upper lip was +very deep, and somehow gave him a formidable appearance. He wore a silk +hat at the back of his head, and a Melton overcoat rather like Henry's +own, but much longer. + +'You like it?' said Henry boldly. + +'I think---- The fact is, I will be frank with you, Mr. Knight.' Here +Mr. Onions Winter picked up _Love in Babylon_, which lay before him, and +sniffed at it exactly as Mr. Snyder had done. 'The fact is, I shouldn't +have thought twice about it if it hadn't been for this peculiar +odour----' + +Here Henry explained the odour. + +'Ah yes. Very interesting!' observed Mr. Winter without a smile. 'Very +curious! We might make a par out of that. Onions--onions. The public +likes these coincidences. Well, as I tell you, I shouldn't have thought +twice about it if it hadn't been for this----' (Sniff, sniff.) 'Then I +happened to glance at the title, and the title attracted me. I must +admit that the title attracted me. You have hit on a very pretty title, +Mr. Knight, a very pretty title indeed. I took your book home and read +it myself, Mr. Knight. I didn't send it to any of my readers. Not a soul +in this office has read it except me. I'm a bit superstitious, you know. +We all are--everyone is, when it comes to the point. And that +Onions--onions! And then the pretty title! I like your book, Mr. Knight. +I tell you candidly, I like it. It's graceful and touching, and +original. It's got atmosphere. It's got that indefinable something--_je +ne sais quoi_--that we publishers are always searching for. Of course +it's crude--very crude in places. It might be improved. What do you want +for it, Mr. Knight? What are you asking?' + +Mr. Onions Winter rose and walked to the window in order, apparently, to +drink his fill of the statue of Shakspere in the middle of the square. + +'I don't know,' said Henry, overjoyed but none the less perplexed. 'I +have not considered the question of price.' + +'Will you take twenty-five pounds cash down for it--lock, stock, and +barrel? You know it's very short. In fact, I'm just about the only +publisher in London who would be likely to deal with it.' + +Henry kept silence. + +'Eh?' demanded Mr. Onions Winter, still perusing the Shaksperean +forehead. 'Cash down. Will you take it?' + +'No, I won't, thank you,' said Henry. + +'Then what will you take?' + +'I'll take a hundred.' + +'My dear young man!' Mr. Onions Winter turned suddenly to reason blandly +with Henry. 'Are you aware that that means five pounds a thousand words? +Many authors of established reputation would be glad to receive as much. +No, I should like to publish your book, but I am neither a +philanthropist nor a millionaire.' + +'What I should really prefer,' said Henry, 'would be so much on every +copy sold.' + +'Ah! A royalty?' + +'Yes. A royalty. I think that is fairer to both parties,' said Henry +judicially. + +'So you'd prefer a royalty,' Mr. Onions Winter addressed Shakspere +again. 'Well. Let me begin by telling you that first books by new +authors never pay expenses. Never! Never! I always lose money on them. +But you believe in your book? You believe in it, don't you?' He faced +Henry once more. + +'Yes,' said Henry. + +'Then, you must have the courage of your convictions. I will give you a +royalty of three halfpence in the shilling on every copy after the first +five thousand. Thus, if it succeeds, you will share in the profit. If it +fails, my loss will be the less. That's fair, isn't it?' + +It seemed fair to Henry. But he was not Sir George's private secretary +for nothing. + +'You must make it twopence in the shilling,' he said in an urbane but +ultimatory tone. + +'Very well,' Mr. Onions Winter surrendered at once. 'We'll say twopence, +and end it.' + +'And what will the price of the book be?' Henry inquired. + +'Two shillings, naturally. I intend it for the Satin Library. You know +about the Satin Library? You don't know about the Satin Library? My dear +sir, I hope it's going to be _the_ hit of the day. Here's a dummy copy.' +Mr. Winter picked up an orange-tinted object from a side-table. 'Feel +that cover! Look at it! Doesn't it feel like satin? Doesn't it look like +satin? But it isn't satin. It's paper--a new invention, the latest +thing. You notice the book-marker _is_ of satin--real satin. Now +observe the shape--isn't that original? And yet quite simple--it's +exactly square! And that faint design of sunflowers! These books will be +perfect bibelots; that's what they'll be--bibelots. Of course, between +you and me, there isn't going to be very much for the money--a hundred +and fifty quite small pages. But that's between you and me. And the +satin will carry it off. You'll see these charming bijou volumes in +every West End drawing-room, Mr. Knight, in a few weeks. Take my word +for it. By the way, will you sign our form of agreement now?' + +So Henry perpended legally on the form of agreement, and, finding +nothing in it seriously to offend the legal sense, signed it with due +ceremony. + +'Can you correct the proofs instantly, if I send them?' Mr. Winter asked +at parting. + +'Yes,' said Henry, who had never corrected a proof in his life. 'Are you +in a hurry?' + +'Well,' Mr. Winter replied, 'I had meant to inaugurate the Satin Library +with another book. In fact, I have already bought five books for it. But +I have a fancy to begin it with yours. I have a fancy, and when I have +a fancy, I--I generally act on it. I like the title. It's a very pretty +title. I'm taking the book on the title. And, really, in these days a +pretty, attractive title is half the battle.' + + +Within two months, _Love in Babylon_, by Henry S. Knight, was published +as the first volume of Mr. Onions Winter's Satin Library, and Henry saw +his name in the papers under the heading 'Books Received.' The sight +gave him a passing thrill, but it was impossible for him not to observe +that in all essential respects he remained the same person as before. +The presence of six author's copies of _Love in Babylon_ at Dawes Road +alone indicated the great step in his development. One of these copies +he inscribed to his mother, another to his aunt, and another to Sir +George. Sir George accepted the book with a preoccupied air, and made no +remark on it for a week or more. Then one morning he said: 'By the way, +Knight, I ran through that little thing of yours last night. Capital! +Capital! I congratulate you. Take down this letter.' + +Henry deemed that Sir George's perspective was somewhat awry, but he +said nothing. Worse was in store for him. On the evening of that same +day he bought the _Whitehall Gazette_ as usual to read in the train, and +he encountered the following sentences: + + + 'TWADDLE IN SATIN. + + 'Mr. Onions Winter's new venture, the Satin Library, is a pretty + enough thing in its satinesque way. The _format_ is pleasant, the + book-marker voluptuous, the binding Arty-and-Crafty. We cannot, + however, congratulate Mr. Winter on the literary quality of the + first volume. Mr. Henry S. Knight, the author of _Love in Babylon_ + (2s.), is evidently a beginner, but he is a beginner from whom + nothing is to be expected. That he has a certain gross facility in + the management of sentimental narrative we will not deny. It is + possible that he is destined to be the delight of "the great + public." It is possible--but improbable. He has no knowledge of + life, no feeling for style, no real sense of the dramatic. + Throughout, from the first line to the last, his story moves on the + plane of tawdriness, theatricality, and ballad pathos. There are + some authors of whom it may be said that they will never better + themselves. They are born with a certain rhapsodic gift of + commonness, a gift which neither improves nor deteriorates. Richly + dowered with crass mediocrity, they proceed from the cradle to the + grave at one low dead level. We suspect that Mr. Knight is of + these. In saying that it is a pity that he ever took up a pen, we + have no desire to seem severe. He is doubtless a quite excellent + and harmless person. But he has mistaken his vocation, and that is + always a pity. We do not care so see the admirable grocery trade + robbed by the literary trade of a talent which was clearly intended + by Providence to adorn it. As for the Satin Library, we hope + superior things from the second volume.' + + +Henry had the fortitude to read this pronouncement aloud to his mother +and Aunt Annie at the tea-table. + +'The cowards!' exclaimed Mrs. Knight. + +Aunt Annie flushed. 'Let me look,' she whispered; she could scarcely +control her voice. Having looked, she cast the paper with a magnificent +gesture to the ground. It lay on the hearth-rug, open at a page to which +Henry had not previously turned. From his arm-chair he could read in the +large displayed type of one of Mr. Onions Winter's advertisements: +'Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year. _Love in +Babylon._ By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth +thousand.--Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year. +_Love in Babylon._ By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth +thousand.' + +And so it went on, repeated and repeated, down the whole length of the +twenty inches which constitute a column of the _Whitehall Gazette_. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HIS FAME + + +Henry's sleep was feverish, and shot with the iridescence of strange +dreams. And during the whole of the next day one thought burned in his +brain, the thought of the immense success of _Love in Babylon_. It +burned so fiercely and so brightly, it so completely preoccupied Henry, +that he would not have been surprised to overhear men whisper to each +other in the street as he passed: 'See that extraordinary thought +blazing away there in that fellow's brain?' It was, in fact, curious to +him that people did not stop and gaze at his cranium, so much the thing +felt like a hollowed turnip illuminated by this candle of an idea. But +nobody with whom he came into contact appeared to be aware of the +immense success of _Love in Babylon_. In the office of Powells were +seven full-fledged solicitors and seventeen other clerks, without +counting Henry, and not a man or youth of the educated lot of them made +the slightest reference to _Love in Babylon_ during all that day. (It +was an ordinary, plain, common, unromantic, dismal Tuesday in Lincoln's +Inn Fields.) Eighteen thousand persons had already bought _Love in +Babylon_; possibly several hundreds of copies had been sold since nine +o'clock that morning; doubtless someone was every minute inquiring for +it and demanding it in bookshop or library, just as someone is born +every minute. And yet here was the author, the author himself, the +veritable and only genuine author, going about his daily business +unhonoured, unsung, uncongratulated, even unnoticed! It was incredible, +and, besides being incredible, it was exasperating. Henry was modest, +but there are limits to modesty, and more than once in the course of +that amazing and endless Tuesday Henry had a narrow escape of dragging +_Love in Babylon_ bodily into the miscellaneous conversation of the +office. However, with the aid of his natural diffidence he refrained +from doing so. + +At five-fifty Sir George departed, as usual, to catch the six-five for +Wimbledon, where he had a large residence, which outwardly resembled at +once a Bloomsbury boarding-house, a golf-club, and a Riviera hotel. +Henry, after Sir George's exit, lapsed into his principal's chair and +into meditation. The busy life of the establishment died down until only +the office-boys and Henry were left. And still Henry sat, in the +leathern chair at the big table in Sir George's big room, thinking, +thinking, thinking, in a vague but golden and roseate manner, about the +future. + +Then the door opened, and Foxall, the emperor of the Powellian +office-boys, entered. + +'Here's someone to see you,' Foxall whispered archly; he economized time +by licking envelopes the while. Every night Foxall had to superintend +and participate in the licking of about two hundred envelopes and as +many stamps. + +'Who is it?' Henry asked, instantly perturbed and made self-conscious by +the doggishness, the waggishness, the rakishness, of Foxall's tone. It +must be explained that, since Henry did not happen to be an 'admitted' +clerk, Foxall and himself, despite the difference in their ages and +salaries, were theoretically equals in the social scale of the office. +Foxall would say 'sir' to the meanest articled clerk that ever failed +five times in his intermediate, but he would have expired on the rack +before saying 'sir' to Henry. The favour accorded to Henry in high +quarters, the speciality of his position, gave rise to a certain +jealousy of him--a jealousy, however, which his natural simplicity and +good-temper prevented from ever becoming formidable. Foxall, indeed, +rather liked Henry, and would do favours for him in matters connected +with press-copying, letter-indexing, despatching, and other mysteries of +the office-boy's peculiar craft. + +'It's a girl,' said Foxall, smiling with the omniscience of a man of the +world. + +'A girl!' Somehow Henry had guessed it was a girl. 'What's she like?' + +'She's a bit of all right,' Foxall explained. 'Miss Foster she says her +name is. Better show her in here, hadn't I? The old woman's in your room +now. It's nearly half-past six.' + +'Yes,' said Henry; 'show her in here. Foster? Foster? I don't know----' + +His heart began to beat like an engine under his waistcoat. + +And then Miss Foster tripped in. And she was Goldenhair! + +'Good-afternoon, Mr. Knight,' she said, with a charming affectation of a +little lisp. 'I'm so glad I've caught you. I thought I should. What a +lovely room you've got!' + +He wanted to explain that this was Sir George's room, not his own, and +that any way he did not consider it lovely; but she gave him no chance. + +'I'm awfully nervous, you know, and I always talk fast and loud when I'm +nervous,' she continued rapidly. 'I shall get over it in a few minutes. +Meanwhile you must bear with me. Do you think you can? I want you to do +me a favour, Mr. Knight. Only you can do it. May I sit down? Oh, thanks! +What a huge chair! If I get lost in it, please advertise. Is this where +your clients sit? Yes, I want you to do me a favour. It's quite easy for +you to do. You won't say No, will you? You won't think I'm presuming on +our slight acquaintanceship?' + +The words babbled and purled out of Miss Foster's mouth like a bright +spring out of moss. It was simply wonderful. Henry did not understand +quite precisely how the phenomenon affected him, but he was left in no +doubt that his feelings were pleasurable. She had a manner of +looking--of looking up at him and to him, of relying on him as a great +big wise man who could get poor little silly her out of a difficulty. +And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her +teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden +fluffy hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her +dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice--not a wrinkle in all those curves! + +It is singular how a man may go through life absolutely blind to a +patent, obvious, glaring fact, and then suddenly perceive it. Henry +perceived that his mother and his aunt were badly dressed--in truth, +dowdy. It struck him as a discovery. + +'Anything I can do, I'm sure----' he began. + +'Oh, thank you, Mr. Knight I felt I could count on your good-nature. You +know----' + +She cleared her throat, and then smiled intimately, dazzlingly, and +pushed a thin gold bangle over the wrist of her glove. And as she did so +Henry thought what bliss it would be to slip a priceless diamond +bracelet on to that arm. It was just an arm, the usual feminine arm; +every normal woman in this world has two of them; and yet----! But at +the same time, such is the contradictoriness of human nature, Henry +would have given a considerable sum to have had Miss Foster magically +removed from the room, and to be alone. The whole of his being was +deeply disturbed, as if by an earthquake. And, moreover, he could scarce +speak coherently. + +'You know,' said Miss Foster, 'I want to interview you.' + +He did not take the full meaning of the phrase at first. + +'What about?' he innocently asked. + +'Oh, about yourself, and your work, and your plans, and all that sort of +thing. The usual sort of thing, you know.' + +'For a newspaper?' + +She nodded. + +He took the meaning. He was famous, then! People--that vague, vast +entity known as 'people'--wished to know about him. He had done +something. He had arrested attention--he, Henry, son of the draper's +manager; aged twenty-three; eater of bacon for breakfast every morning +like ordinary men; to be observed daily in the Underground, and daily +in the A.B.C. shop in Chancery Lane. + +'You are thinking of _Love in Babylon_?' he inquired. + +She nodded again. (The nod itself was an enchantment. 'She's just about +my age,' said Henry to himself. And he thought, without realizing that +he thought: 'She's lots older than me _practically_. She could twist me +round her little finger.') + +'Oh, Mr. Knight, she recommenced at a tremendous rate, sitting up in the +great client's chair, 'you must let me tell you what I thought of _Love +in Babylon_! It's the sweetest thing! I read it right off, at one go, +without looking up! And the title! How _did_ you think of it? Oh! if I +could write, I would write a book like that. Old Spring Onions has +produced it awfully well, too, hasn't he? It's a boom, a positive, +unmistakable boom! Everyone's talking about you, Mr. Knight. Personally, +I tell everyone I meet to read your book.' + +Henry mildly protested against this excess of enthusiasm. + +'I must,' Miss Foster explained. 'I can't help it.' + +Her admiration was the most precious thing on earth to him at that +moment. He had not imagined that he could enjoy anything so much as he +enjoyed her admiration. + +'I'm going now, Mr. Knight,' Foxall sang out from the passage. + +'Very well, Foxall,' Henry replied, as who should say: 'Foxall, I +benevolently permit you to go.' + +They were alone together in the great suite of rooms. + +'You know _Home and Beauty_, don't you?' Miss Foster demanded. + +'_Home and Beauty?_' + +'Oh, you don't! I thought perhaps you did. But then, of course, you're a +man. It's one of the new ladies' penny papers. I believe it's doing +rather well now. I write interviews for it. You see, Mr. Knight, I have +a great ambition to be a regular journalist, and in my spare time at Mr. +Snyder's, and in the evenings, I write--things. I'm getting quite a +little connection. What I want to obtain is a regular column in some +really good paper. It's rather awkward, me being engaged all day, +especially for interviews. However, I just thought if I ran away at six +I might catch you before you left. And so here I am. I don't know what +you think of me, Mr. Knight, worrying you and boring you like this with +my foolish chatter.... Ah! I see you don't want to be interviewed.' + +'Yes, I do,' said Henry. 'That is, I shall be most happy to oblige you +in any way, I assure you. If you really think I'm sufficiently----' + +'Why, of course you are, Mr. Knight,' she urged forcefully. 'But, like +most clever men, you're modest; you've no idea of it--of your success, I +mean. By the way, you'll excuse me, but I do trust you made a proper +bargain with Mr. Onions Winter.' + +'I think so,' said Henry. 'You see, I'm in the law, and we understand +these things.' + +'Exactly,' she agreed, but without conviction. 'Then you'll make a lot +of money. You must be very careful about your next contracts. I hope you +didn't agree to let Mr. Winter have a second book on the same terms as +this one.' + +Henry recalled a certain clause of the contract which he had signed. + +'I am afraid I did,' he admitted sheepishly. 'But the terms are quite +fair. I saw to that.' + +'Mr. Knight! Mr. Knight!' she burst out. 'Why are all you young and +clever men the same? Why do you perspire in order that publishers may +grow fat? _I_ know what Spring Onions' terms would be. Seriously, you +ought to employ an agent. He'd double your income. I don't say Mr. +Snyder particularly----' + +'But Mr. Snyder is a very good agent, isn't he?' + +'Yes,' affirmed Miss Foster gravely. 'He acts for all the best men.' + +'Then I shall come to him,' said Henry. 'I had thought of doing so. You +remember when I called that day--it was mentioned then.' + +He made this momentous decision in an instant, and even as he announced +it he wondered why. However, Mr. Snyder's ten per cent no longer +appeared to him outrageous. + +'And now can you give me some paper and a pencil, Mr. Knight? I forgot +mine in my hurry not to miss you. And I'll sit at the table. May I? +Thanks awfully.' + +She sat near to him, while he hastily and fumblingly searched for +paper. The idea of being alone with her in the offices seemed delightful +to him. And just then he heard a step in the passage, and a well-known +dry cough, and the trailing of a long brush on the linoleum. Of course, +the caretaker, the inevitable and omnipresent Mrs. Mawner, had invested +the place, according to her nightly custom. + +Mrs. Mawner opened the door of Sir George's room, and stood on the mat, +calmly gazing within, the brush in one hand and a duster in the other. + +'I beg pardon, sir,' said she inimically. 'I thought Sir George was +gone.' + +'Sir George has gone,' Henry replied. + +Mrs. Mawner enveloped the pair in her sinister glance. + +'Shall you be long, sir?' + +'I can't say.' Henry was firm. + +Giving a hitch to her sackcloth, she departed and banged the door. + +Henry and Miss Foster were solitary again. And as he glanced at her, he +thought deliciously: 'I am a gay spark.' Never before had such a notion +visited him. + +'What first gave you the idea of writing _Love in Babylon_, Mr. +Knight?' began Miss Foster, smiling upon him with a marvellous +allurement. + + +Henry was nearly an hour later than usual in arriving home, but he +offered no explanation to his mother and aunt beyond saying that he had +been detained by a caller, after Sir George's departure. He read in the +faces of his mother and aunt their natural pride that he should be +capable of conducting Sir George's business for him after Sir George's +departure of a night. Yet he found himself incapable of correcting the +false impression which he had wittingly given. In plain terms, he could +not tell the ladies, he could not bring himself to tell them, that a +well-dressed young woman had called upon him at a peculiar hour and +interviewed him in the strict privacy of Sir George's own room on behalf +of a lady's paper called _Home and Beauty_. He wanted very much to +impart to them these quite harmless and, indeed, rather agreeable and +honourable facts, but his lips would not frame the communicating words. +Not even when the talk turned, as of course it did, to _Love in +Babylon_, did he contrive to mention the interview. It was ridiculous; +but so it was. + +'By the way----' he began once, but his mother happened to speak at the +same instant. + +'What were you going to say, Henry?' Aunt Annie asked when Mrs. Knight +had finished. + +'Oh, nothing. I forget,' said the miserable poltroon. + +'The next advertisement will say twentieth thousand, that's what it will +say--you'll see!' remarked Mrs. Knight. + +'What an ass you are!' murmured Henry to Henry. 'You'll have to tell +them some time, so why not now? Besides, what in thunder's the matter?' + +Vaguely, dimly, he saw that Miss Foster's tight-fitting bodice was the +matter. Yes, there was something about that bodice, those teeth, that +tongue, that hair, something about _her_, which seemed to challenge the +whole system of his ideas, all his philosophy, self-satisfaction, +seriousness, smugness, and general invincibility. And he thought of her +continually--no particular thought, but a comprehensive, enveloping, +brooding, static thought. And he was strangely jolly and uplifted, full +of affectionate, absent-minded good humour towards his mother and Aunt +Annie. + +There was a _ting-ting_ of the front-door bell. + +'Perhaps Dr. Dancer has called for a chat,' said Aunt Annie with +pleasant anticipation. + +Sarah was heard to ascend and to run along the hall. Then Sarah entered +the dining-room. + +'Please, sir, there's a young lady to see you.' + +Henry flushed. + +The sisters looked at one another. + +'What name, Sarah?' Aunt Annie whispered. + +'I didn't ask, mum.' + +'How often have I told you always to ask strangers' names when they come +to the door!' Aunt Annie's whisper became angry. 'Go and see.' + +Henry hoped and feared, feared and hoped. But he knew not where to look. + +Sarah returned and said: 'The young lady's name is Foster, sir.' + +'Oh!' said Henry, bursting into speech as some plants burst suddenly and +brilliantly into blossom. 'Miss Foster, eh? It's the lady who called at +the office to-night. Show her into the front-room, Sarah, and light the +gas. I'll come in a minute I wonder what she wants.' + +'You didn't say it was a lady,' said his mother. + +'No,' he admitted; his tongue was unloosed now on the subject. 'And I +didn't say it was a lady-journalist, either. The truth is,' this liar +proceeded with an effrontery which might have been born of incessant +practice, but was not, 'I meant it as a surprise for you. I've been +interviewed this afternoon, for a lady's paper. And I wouldn't mind +betting--I wouldn't mind betting,' he repeated, 'that she's come for my +photograph.' + +All this was whispered. + +Henry had guessed correctly. It was the question of a portrait which +Miss Foster plunged into immediately he entered the drawing-room. She +had forgotten it utterly--she had been so nervous. 'So I ran down here +to-night,' she said, 'because if I send in my stuff and the portrait +to-morrow morning, it may be in time for next week's issue. Now, don't +say you haven't got a photograph of yourself, Mr. Knight. Don't say +that! What a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room! Oh, there's the very +thing!' + +She pointed to a framed photograph on the plush-covered mantelpiece. + +'The very thing, is it?' said Henry. He was feeling his feet now, the +dog. 'Well, you shall have it, then.' And he took the photograph out of +the frame and gave it to her. + +No! she wouldn't stay, not a minute, not a second. One moment her +delicious presence filled the drawing-room (he was relieved to hear her +call it a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room, because, as the +drawing-room of a person important enough to be interviewed, it had +seemed to him somewhat less than mediocre), and the next moment she had +gone. By a singular coincidence, Aunt Annie was descending the stairs +just as Henry showed Miss Foster out of the house; the stairs commanded +the lobby and the front-door. + +On his return to the dining-room and the companionship of his relatives, +Henry was conscious of a self-preserving instinct which drove him to +make conversation as rapidly and in as large quantities as possible. In +a brief space of time he got round to _Home and Beauty_. + +'Do you know it?' he demanded. + +'No,' said Aunt Annie. 'I never heard of it. But I dare say it's a very +good paper.' + +Mrs. Knight rang the bell. + +'What do you want, sister?' Aunt Annie inquired. + +'I'm going to send Sarah out for a copy of _Home and Beauty_,' said Mrs. +Knight, with the air of one who has determined to indulge a wild whim +for once in a way. 'Let's see what it's like.' + +'Don't forget the name, Sarah--_Home and Beauty_!' Aunt Annie enjoined +the girl when Mrs. Knight had given the order. + +'Not me, mum,' said Sarah. 'I know it. It's a beautiful paper. I often +buys it myself. But it's like as if what must be--I lighted the kitchen +fire with this week's this very morning, paper pattern and all.' + +'That will do, thank you, Sarah,' said Aunt Annie crushingly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A LION IN HIS LAIR + + +The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into +two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in +water. One class, the more clashing, dashes into a cold tub every +morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm bath every +Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former class lends tone +and distinction to the country, but the latter is the nation's backbone. +Henry belonged to the Saturday-nighters, to the section which calls a +bath a bath, not a tub, and which contrives to approach godliness +without having to boast of it on frosty mornings. + +Henry performed the weekly rite in a zinc receptacle exactly circular, +in his bedroom, because the house in Dawes Road had been built just +before the craze for dashing had spread to such an extent among the +lower middle-classes that no builder dared build a tenement without +providing for it specially; in brutal terms, the house in Dawes Road had +no bathroom. The preparations for Henry's immersion were always complex +and thorough. Early in the evening Sarah began by putting two kettles +and the largest saucepan to boil on the range. Then she took an old +blanket and spread it out upon the master's bedroom floor, and drew the +bathing-machine from beneath the bed and coaxed it, with considerable +clangour, to the mathematical centre of the blanket. Then she filled +ewers with cold water and arranged them round the machine. Then Aunt +Annie went upstairs to see that the old blanket was well and truly laid, +not too near the bed and not too near the mirror of the wardrobe, and +that the machine did indeed rest in the mathematical centre of the +blanket. (As a fact, Aunt Annie's mathematics never agreed with +Sarah's.) Then Mrs. Knight went upstairs to bear witness that the window +was shut, and to decide the question of towels. Then Sarah went +upstairs, panting, with the kettles and the large saucepan, two journeys +being necessary; and Aunt Annie followed her in order to indicate to +Sarah every step upon which Sarah had spilled boiling-water. Then Mrs. +Knight moved the key of Henry's door from the inside to the outside; she +was always afraid lest he might lock himself in and be seized with a +sudden and fatal illness. Then the women dispersed, and Aunt Annie came +down to the dining-room, and in accents studiously calm (as though the +preparation of Henry's bath was the merest nothing) announced: + +'Henry dear, your bath is waiting.' + +And Henry would disappear at once and begin by mixing his bath, out of +the ewers, the kettles, and the saucepan, according to a recipe of which +he alone had the secret. The hour would be about nine o'clock, or a +little after. It was not his custom to appear again. He would put one +kettle out on an old newspaper, specially placed to that end on the +doormat in the passage, for the purposes of Sunday's breakfast; the rest +of the various paraphernalia remained in his room till the following +morning. He then slept the sleep of one who is aware of being the +nation's backbone. + +Now, he was just putting a toe or so into the zinc receptacle, in order +to test the accuracy of his dispensing of the recipe, when he heard a +sharp tap at the bedroom door. + +'What is it?' he cried, withdrawing the toe. + +'Henry!' + +'Well?' + +'Can I open the door an inch?' It was Aunt Annie's voice. + +'Yes. What's the matter?' + +'There's come a copy of _Home and Beauty_ by the last post, and on the +wrapper it says, "See page 16."' + +'I suppose it contains that--thing?' + +'That interview, you mean?' + +'Yes, I suppose so.' + +'Shall I open it?' + +'If you like,' said Henry. 'Certainly, with pleasure.' + +He stepped quietly and unconcernedly into the bath. He could hear the +sharp ripping of paper. + +'Oh yes!' came Aunt Annie's voice through the chink. 'And there's the +portrait! Oh! and what a smudge across the nose! Henry, it doesn't make +you look at all nice. You're too black. Oh, Henry! what _do_ you think +it's called? "Lions in their Lairs. No. 19. Interview with the +brilliant author of _Love in Babylon_." And you told us her name was +Foster.' + +'Whose name?' Henry demanded, reddening in the hot water. + +'You know--that lady's name, the one that called.' + +'So it is.' + +'No, it isn't, dear. It's Flossie Brighteye. Oh, I beg pardon, Henry! +I'm sure I beg pardon!' + +Aunt Annie, in the excitement of discovering Miss Foster's real name, +and ground withal for her original suspicion that the self-styled Miss +Foster was no better than she ought to be, had leaned too heavily +against the door, and thrust it wide open. She averted her eyes and drew +it to in silence. + +'Shall I show the paper to your mother at once?' she asked, after a fit +pause. + +'Yes, do,' said Henry. + +'And then bring it up to you again for you to read in bed?' + +'Oh,' replied Henry in the grand manner, 'I can read it to-morrow +morning. + +He said to himself that he was not going to get excited about a mere +interview, though it was his first interview. During the past few days +the world had apparently wakened up to his existence. Even the men at +the office had got wind of his achievement, and Sir George had been +obliged to notice it. At Powells everyone pretended that this was the +same old Henry Knight who arrived so punctually each day, and yet +everyone knew secretly that it was not the same old Henry Knight. +Everyone, including Henry, felt--and could not dismiss the feeling--that +Henry was conferring a favour on the office by working as usual. There +seemed to be something provisional, something unreal, something uncanny, +in the continuance of his position there. And Sir George, when he +demanded his services to take down letters in shorthand, had the air of +saying apologetically: 'Of course, I know you're only here for fun; but, +since you are here, we may as well carry out the joke in a practical +manner.' Similar phenomena occurred at Dawes Road. Sarah's awe of Henry, +always great, was enormously increased. His mother went about in a state +of not being quite sure whether she had the right to be his mother, +whether she was not taking a mean advantage of him in remaining his +mother. Aunt Annie did not give herself away, but on her face might be +read a continuous, proud, gentle surprise that Henry should eat as +usual, drink as usual, talk simply as usual, and generally behave as +though he was not one of the finest geniuses in England. + +Further, Mr. Onions Winter had written to ask whether Henry was +proceeding with a new book, and how pleased he was at the prospective +privilege of publishing it. Nine other publishers had written to inform +him that they would esteem it a favour if he would give them the refusal +of his next work. Messrs. Antonio, the eminent photographers of Regent +Street, had written offering to take his portrait gratis, and asking him +to deign to fix an appointment for a seance. The editor of _Which is +Which_, a biographical annual of inconceivable utility, had written for +intimate details of his age, weight, pastimes, works, ideals, and diet. +The proprietary committee of the Park Club in St. James's Square had +written to suggest that he might join the club without the formality of +paying an entrance fee. The editor of a popular magazine had asked him +to contribute his views to a 'symposium' about the proper method of +spending quarter-day. Twenty-five charitable institutions had invited +subscriptions from him. Three press-cutting agencies had sent him +cuttings of reviews of _Love in Babylon_, and the reviews grew kinder +and more laudatory every day. Lastly, Mr. Onions Winter was advertising +the thirty-first thousand of that work. + +It was not to be expected that the recipient of all these overtures, the +courted and sought-for author of _Love in Babylon_, should disarrange +the tenor of his existence in order to read an interview with himself in +a ladies' penny paper. And Henry repeated, as he sat in the midst of the +zinc circle, that he would peruse Flossie Brighteye's article on Sunday +morning at breakfast. Then he began thinking about Flossie's +tight-fitting bodice, and wondered what she had written. Then he +murmured: 'Oh, nonsense! I'll read it to-morrow. Plenty soon enough.' +Then he stopped suddenly and causelessly while applying the towel to the +small of his back, and stood for several moments in a state of fixity, +staring at a particular spot on the wall-paper. And soon he dearly +perceived that he had been too hasty in refusing Aunt Annie's +suggestion. However, he had made his bed, and so he must lie on it, +both figuratively and factually.... + +The next thing was that he found himself, instead of putting on his +pyjamas, putting on his day-clothes. He seemed to be doing this while +wishing not to do it. He did not possess a +dressing-gown--Saturday-nighters and backbones seldom do. Hence he was +compelled to dress himself completely, save that he assumed a silk +muffler instead of a collar and necktie, and omitted the usual stockings +between his slippers and his feet. In another minute he unostentatiously +entered the dining-room. + +'Nay,' his mother was saying, 'I can't read it.' Tears of joyous pride +had rendered her spectacles worse than useless. 'Here, Annie, read it +aloud.' + +Henry smiled, and he tried to make his smile carry so much meaning, of +pleasant indifference, careless amusement, and benevolent joy in the joy +of others, that it ended by being merely foolish. + +And Aunt Annie began: + +'"It is not too much to say that Mr. Henry Knight, the author of _Love +in Babylon_, the initial volume of the already world-famous Satin +Library, is the most-talked-of writer in London at the present moment. +I shall therefore make no apology for offering to my readers an account +of an interview which the young and gifted novelist was kind enough to +give to me the other evening. Mr. Knight is a legal luminary well known +in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the right-hand man of Sir George Powell, the +celebrated lawyer. I found him in his formidable room seated at a----"' + +'What does she mean by "formidable," Henry? 'I don't think that's quite +nice,' said Mrs. Knight. + +'No, it isn't,' said Aunt Annie. 'But perhaps she means it frightened +her.' + +'That's it,' said Henry. 'It was Sir George's room, you know.' + +'She doesn't _look_ as if she would be easily frightened,' said Aunt +Annie. 'However--"seated at a large table littered with legal documents. +He was evidently immersed in business, but he was so good as to place +himself at my disposal for a few minutes. Mr. Knight is twenty-three +years of age. His father was a silk-mercer in Oxford Street, and laid +the foundation of the fortunes of the house now known as Duck and +Peabody Limited."' + +'That's very well put,' said Mrs. Knight. + +'Yes, isn't it?' said Aunt Annie, and continued in her precise, even +tones: + +'"'What first gave you the idea of writing, Mr. Knight?' I inquired, +plunging at once _in medias res_. Mr. Knight hesitated a few seconds, +and then answered: 'I scarcely know. I owe a great deal to my late +father. My father, although first and foremost a business man, was +devoted to literature. He held that Shakspere, besides being our +greatest poet, was the greatest moral teacher that England has ever +produced. I was brought up on Shakspere,' said Mr. Knight, smiling. 'My +father often sent communications to the leading London papers on +subjects of topical interest, and one of my most precious possessions is +a collection of these which he himself put into an album.'"' + +Mrs. Knight removed her spectacles and wiped her eyes. + +'"'With regard to _Love in Babylon_, the idea came to me--I cannot +explain how. And I wrote it while I was recovering from a severe +illness----'"' + +'I didn't say "severe,"' Henry interjected. 'She's got that wrong.' + +'But it _was_ severe, dear,' said Aunt Annie, and once more continued: +'"'I should never have written it had it not been for the sympathy and +encouragement of my dear mother----'"' + +At this point Mrs. Knight sobbed aloud, and waved her hand +deprecatingly. + +'Nay, nay!' she managed to stammer at length. 'Read no more. I can't +stand it. I'll try to read it myself to-morrow morning while you're at +chapel and all's quiet.' + +And she cried freely into her handkerchief. + +Henry and Aunt Annie exchanged glances, and Henry retired to bed with +_Home and Beauty_ under his arm. And he read through the entire +interview twice, and knew by heart what he had said about his plans for +the future, and the state of modern fiction, and the tendency of authors +towards dyspepsia, and the question of realism in literature, and the +Stream of Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press. The whole +thing seemed to him at first rather dignified and effective. He +understood that Miss Foster was no common Fleet Street hack. + +But what most impressed him, and coloured his dreams, was the final +sentence: 'As I left Mr. Knight, I could not dismiss the sensation that +I had been in the presence of a man who is morally certain, at no +distant date, to loom large in the history of English fiction.--FLOSSIE +BRIGHTEYE.' + +A passing remark about his 'pretty suburban home' was the sauce to this +dish. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HER NAME WAS GERALDINE + + +A few mornings later, in his post, whose proportions grew daily nobler +and more imposing, Henry found a letter from Mark Snyder. 'I have been +detained in America by illness,' wrote Mark in his rapid, sprawling, +inexcusable hand, 'and am only just back. I wonder whether you have come +to any decision about the matter which we discussed when you called +here. I see you took my advice and went to Onions Winter. If you could +drop in to-morrow at noon or a little after, I have something to show +you which ought to interest you.' And then there was a postscript: 'My +congratulations on your extraordinary success go without saying.' + +After Henry had deciphered this invitation, he gave a glance at the page +as a whole, which had the air of having been penned by Planchette in a +state of violent hysteria, and he said to himself: 'It's exactly like +Snyder, that is. He's a clever chap. He knows what he's up to. As to my +choosing Onions Winter, yes, of course it was due to him.' + +Henry was simple, but he was not a fool. He was modest and diffident, +but, as is generally the case with modest and diffident persons, there +existed, somewhere within the recesses of his consciousness, a very good +conceit of himself. He had already learnt, the trout, to look up through +the water from his hole and compare the skill of the various anglers on +the bank who were fishing for the rise. And he decided that morning, +finally: 'Snyder shall catch me.' His previous decision to the same +effect, made under the influence of the personal magnetism of Miss +Foster, had been annulled only the day before. And the strange thing was +that it had been annulled because of Miss Foster's share in it, and in +consequence of the interview in _Home and Beauty_. For the more Henry +meditated upon that interview the less he liked it. He could not have +defined its offence in his eyes, but the offence was nevertheless +there. And, further, the interview seemed now scarcely a real +interview. Had it dealt with any other celebrity, it would have been +real enough, but in Henry's view Henry was different. He was only an +imitation celebrity, and Miss Foster's production was an imitation +interview. The entire enterprise, from the moment when he gave her Sir +George's lead pencil to write with, to the moment when he gave her his +own photograph out of the frame on the drawing-room mantelpiece, had +been a pretence, and an imposition on the public. Surely if the public +knew...! And then, 'pretty suburban home'! It wasn't ugly, the house in +Dawes Road; indeed, he esteemed it rather a nice sort of a place, but +'pretty suburban home' meant--well, it meant the exact opposite of Dawes +Road: he was sure of that. As for Miss Foster, he suspected, he allowed +himself to suspect, he audaciously whispered when he was alone in a +compartment on the Underground, that Miss Foster was a pushing little +thing. A reaction had set in against Flossie Brighteye. + +And yet, when he called upon Mark Snyder for the purpose of being +caught, he was decidedly piqued, he was even annoyed, not to find her +in her chair in the outer room. 'She must have known I was coming,' he +reflected swiftly. 'No, perhaps she didn't. The letter was not +dictated.... But then it was press-copied; I am sure of that by the +smudges on it. She must certainly have known I was coming.' And, despite +the verdict that she was a pushing young thing, Henry felt it to be in +the nature of a personal grievance that she was not always waiting for +him there, in that chair, with her golden locks and her smile and her +tight bodice, whenever he cared to look in. His right to expect her +presence seemed part of his heritage as a man, and it could not be +challenged without disturbing the very foundations of human society. He +did not think these thoughts clearly as he crossed the outer room into +the inner under the direction of Miss Foster's unexciting colleague, but +they existed vaguely and furtively in his mind. Had anyone suggested +that he cared twopence whether Miss Foster was there or not, he would +have replied with warm sincerity that he did not care three halfpence, +nor two straws, nor a bilberry, nor even a jot. + +'Well,' cried Mark Snyder, with his bluff and jolly habit of beginning +interviews in the middle, and before the caller had found opportunity +to sit down. 'All you want now is a little bit of judicious +engineering!' And Mark's rosy face said: 'I'll engineer you.' + +Upon demand Henry produced the agreement with Onions Winter, and he +produced it with a shamed countenance. He knew that Mark Snyder would +criticise it. + +'Worse than I expected,' Mr. Snyder observed. 'Worse than I expected. A +royalty of twopence in the shilling is all right. But why did you let +him off the royalty on the first five thousand copies? You call yourself +a lawyer! Listen, young man. I have seen the world, but I have never +seen a lawyer who didn't make a d----d fool of himself when it came to +his own affairs. Supposing _Love in Babylon_ sells fifty thousand--which +it won't; it won't go past forty--you would have saved my ten per cent. +commission by coming to me in the first place, because I should have got +you a royalty on the first five thousand. See?' + +'But you weren't here,' Henry put in. + +'I wasn't here! God bless my soul! Little Geraldine Foster would have +had the sense to get that!' + +(So her name was Geraldine.) + +'It isn't the money,' Mark Snyder proceeded. 'It's the idea of Onions +Winter playing his old game with new men. And then I see you've let +yourself in for a second book on the same terms, if he chooses to take +it. That's another trick of his. Look here,' Mr. Snyder smiled +persuasively, 'I'll thank you to go right home and get that second book +done. Make it as short as you can. When that's out of the way---- Ah!' +He clasped his hands in a sort of ecstasy. + +'I will,' said Henry obediently. But a dreadful apprehension which had +menaced him for several weeks past now definitely seized him. + +'And I perceive further,' said Mr. Snyder, growing sarcastic, 'that in +case Mr. Onions Winter chooses to copyright the book in America, you are +to have half-royalties on all copies sold over there. Now about +America,' Mark continued after an impressive pause, at the same time +opening a drawer and dramatically producing several paper-covered +volumes therefrom. 'See this--and this--and this--and this! What are +they? They're pirated editions of _Love in Babylon_, that's what they +are. You didn't know? No, of course not. I'm told that something like a +couple of hundred thousand copies have been sold in America up to date. +I brought these over with me as specimens.' + +'Then Onions Winter didn't copyright----' + +'No, sir, he didn't. That incredible ass did not. He's just issued what +he calls an authorized edition there at half a dollar, but what will +that do in the face of this at twenty cents, and this wretched pamphlet +at ten cents?' Snyder fingered the piracies. 'Twopence in the shilling +on two hundred thousand copies at half a dollar means over three +thousand pounds. That's what you might well have made if Providence, +doubtless in a moment of abstraction, had not created Onions Winter an +incredible ass, and if you had not vainly imagined that because you were +a lawyer you had nothing to learn about contracts.' + +'Still,' faltered Henry, after he had somewhat recovered from these +shrewd blows, 'I shall do pretty well out of the English edition.' + +'Three thousand pounds is three thousand pounds,' said Mark Snyder with +terrible emphasis. And suddenly he laughed. 'You really wish me to act +for you?' + +'I do,' said Henry. + +'Very well. Go home and finish book number two. And don't let it be a +page longer than the first one. I'll see Onions Winter. With care we may +clear a couple of thousand out of book number two, even on that precious +screed you call an agreement. Perhaps more. Perhaps I may have a +pleasant little surprise for you. Then you shall do a long book, and +we'll begin to make money, real money. Oh, you can do it! I've no fear +at all of you fizzling out. You simply go home and sit down and _write_. +I'll attend to the rest. And if you think Powells can struggle along +without you, I should be inclined to leave.' + +'Surely not yet?' Henry protested. + +'Well,' said Snyder in a different tone, looking up quickly from his +desk, 'perhaps you're right. Perhaps it will be as well to wait a bit, +and just make quite sure about the quality of the next book. Want any +money?' + +'No,' said Henry. + +'Because if you do, I can let you have whatever you need. And you can +carry off these piracies if you like.' + +As he thoughtfully descended the stairways of Kenilworth Mansions, +Henry's mind was an arena of emotions. Undoubtedly, then, a +considerable number of hundreds of pounds were to come from _Love in +Babylon_, to say nothing of three thousand lost! Two thousand from the +next book! And after that, 'money, real money'! Mark Snyder had awakened +the young man's imagination. He had entered the parlour of Mark Snyder +with no knowledge of the Transatlantic glory of _Love in Babylon_ beyond +the fact, gathered from a newspaper cutting, that the book had attracted +attention in America; and in five minutes Mark had opened wide to him +the doors of Paradise. Or, rather, Mark had pointed out to him that the +doors of Paradise were open wide. Mr. Snyder, as Henry perceived, was +apt unwittingly to give the impression that he, and not his clients, +earned the wealth upon which he received ten per cent. commission. But +Henry was not for a single instant blind to the certitude that, if his +next book realized two thousand pounds, the credit would be due to +himself, and to no other person whatever. Henry might be tongue-tied in +front of Mark Snyder, but he was capable of estimating with some +precision their relative fundamental importance in the scheme of things. + +In the clerks' office Henry had observed numerous tin boxes inscribed +in white paint with the names of numerous eminent living authors. He +wondered if Mr. Snyder played to all these great men the same role--half +the frank and bluff uncle, half the fairy-godmother. He was surprised +that he could remember no word said about literature, ideas, genius, or +even talent. No doubt Mr. Snyder took such trifles for granted. No doubt +he began where they left off. + +He sighed. He was dazzled by golden visions, but beneath the dizzy and +delicious fabric of the dream, eating away at the foundations, lurked +always that dreadful apprehension. + +As he reached the marble hall on the ground-floor a lady was getting +into the lift. She turned sharply, gave a joyous and yet timid +commencement of a scream, and left the lift to the liftman. + +'I'm so glad I've not missed you,' she said, holding out her small +gloved hand, and putting her golden head on one side, and smiling. 'I +was afraid I should. I had to go out. Don't tell me that interview was +too awful. Don't crush me. I know it was pretty bad.' + +So her name was Geraldine. + +'I thought it was much too good for its subject,' said Henry. He saw in +the tenth of a second that he had been wholly wrong, very unjust, and +somewhat cruel, to set her down as a pushing little thing. She was +nothing of the kind. She was a charming and extremely stylish woman, +exquisitely feminine; and she admired him with a genuine admiration. 'I +was just going to write and thank you,' he added. And he really believed +that he was. + +What followed was due to the liftman. The impatient liftman, noticing +that the pair were enjoying each other's company, made a disgraceful +gesture behind their backs, slammed the gate, and ascended majestically +alone in the lift towards some high altitude whence emanated an odour of +boiled Spanish onions. Geraldine Foster glanced round carelessly at the +rising and beautiful flunkey, and it was the sudden curve of her neck +that did it. It was the sudden curve of her neck, possibly assisted by +Henry's appreciation of the fact that they were now unobserved and +solitary in the hall. + +Henry was made aware that women are the only really interesting +phenomena in the world. And just as he stumbled on this profound truth, +Geraldine, for her part, caught sight of the pirated editions in his +hand, and murmured: 'So Mr. Snyder has told you! _What a shame_, isn't +it?' + +The sympathy in her voice, the gaze of her eyes under the lashes, +finished him. + +'Do you live far from here?' he stammered, he knew not why. + +'In Chenies Street,' she replied. 'I share a little flat with my friend +upstairs. You must come and have tea with me some afternoon--some +Saturday or Sunday. Will you? Dare I ask?' + +He said he should like to, awfully. + +'I was dining out last night, and we were talking about you,' she began +a few seconds later. + +Women! Wine! Wealth! Joy! Life itself! He was swept off his feet by a +sudden and tremendous impulse. + +'I wish,' he blurted out, interrupting her--'I wish you'd come and dine +with _me_ some night, at a restaurant.' + +'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'I should love it.' + +'And we might go somewhere afterwards.' He was certainly capable of +sublime conceptions. + +And she exclaimed again: 'I should love it!' The naive and innocent +candour of her bliss appealed to him with extraordinary force. + +In a moment or so he had regained his self-control, and he managed to +tell her in a fairly usual tone that he would write and suggest an +evening. + +He parted from her in a whirl of variegated ecstasies. 'Let us eat and +drink, for to-morrow we die,' he remarked to the street. What he meant +was that, after more than a month's excogitation, he had absolutely +failed to get any single shred of a theme for the successor to _Love in +Babylon_--that successor out of which a mere couple of thousand pounds +was to be made; and that he didn't care. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HIS TERRIBLE QUANDARY + + +There was to be an important tea-meeting at the Munster Park Chapel on +the next Saturday afternoon but one, and tea was to be on the tables at +six o'clock. The gathering had some connection with an attempt on the +part of the Wesleyan Connexion to destroy the vogue of Confucius in +China. Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie had charge of the department of +sandwiches, and they asked Henry whether he should be present at the +entertainment. They were not surprised, however, when he answered that +the exigencies of literary composition would make his attendance +impossible. They lauded his self-denial, for Henry's literary work was +quite naturally now the most important and the most exacting work in the +world, the crusade against Confucius not excepted. Henry wrote to +Geraldine and invited her to dine with him at the Louvre Restaurant on +that Saturday night, and Geraldine replied that she should be charmed. +Then Henry changed his tailor, and could not help blushing when he gave +his order to the new man, who had a place in Conduit Street and a way of +looking at the clothes Henry wore that reduced those neat garments to +shapeless and shameful rags. + +The first fatal steps in a double life having been irrevocably taken, +Henry drew a long breath, and once more seriously addressed himself to +book number two. But ideas obstinately refused to show themselves above +the horizon. And yet nothing had been left undone which ought to have +been done in order to persuade ideas to arrive. The whole domestic +existence of the house in Dawes Road revolved on Henry's precious brain +as on a pivot. The drawing-room had not only been transformed into a +study; it had been rechristened 'the study.' And in speaking of the +apartment to each other or to Sarah, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie employed +a vocal inflection of peculiar impressiveness. Sarah entered the study +with awe, the ladies with pride. Henry sat in it nearly every night and +laboured hard, with no result whatever. If the ladies ventured to +question him about his progress, he replied with false gaiety that they +must ask him again in a month or so; and they smiled in sure +anticipation of the beautiful thing that was in store for them and the +public. + +He had no one to consult in his dilemma. Every morning he received +several cuttings, chiefly of an amiable character, about himself from +the daily and weekly press; he was a figure in literary circles; he had +actually declined two invitations to be interviewed; and yet he knew no +more of literary circles than Sarah did. His position struck him as +curious, bizarre, and cruel. He sometimes felt that the history of the +last few months was a dream from which he would probably wake up by +falling heavily out of bed, so unreal did the events seem. One day, when +he was at his wits' end, he saw in a newspaper an advertisement of a +book entitled _How to become a Successful Novelist_, price half-a-crown. +Just above it was an advertisement of the thirty-eighth thousand of +_Love in Babylon_. He went into a large bookseller's shop in the Strand +and demanded _How to become a Successful Novelist_. The volume had to +be searched for, and while he was waiting Henry's eyes dwelt on a high +pile of _Love in Babylon_, conspicuously placed near the door. Two +further instalments of the Satin Library had been given to the world +since _Love in Babylon_, but Henry noted with satisfaction that no +excessive prominence was accorded to them in that emporium of +literature. He paid the half-crown and pocketed _How to become a +Successful Novelist_ with a blush, just as if the bookseller had been +his new tailor. He had determined, should the bookseller recognise +him--a not remote contingency--to explain that he was buying _How to +become a Successful Novelist_ on behalf of a young friend. However, the +suspicions of the bookseller happened not to be aroused, and hence there +was no occasion to lull them. + +That same evening, in the privacy of his study, he eagerly read _How to +become a Successful Novelist_. It disappointed him; nay, it desolated +him. He was shocked to discover that he had done nothing that a man must +do who wishes to be a successful novelist. He had not practised style; +he had not paraphrased choice pages from the classics; he had not kept +note-books; he had not begun with short stories; he had not even +performed the elementary, obvious task of studying human nature. He had +never thought of 'atmosphere' as 'atmosphere'; nor had he considered the +important question of the 'functions of dialogue.' As for the +'significance of scenery,' it had never occurred to him. In brief, he +was a lost man. And he could detect in the book no practical hint +towards salvation. 'Having decided upon your theme----' said the writer +in a chapter entitled 'The Composition of a Novel.' But what Henry +desired was a chapter entitled 'The Finding of a Theme.' He suffered the +aggravated distress of a starving man who has picked up a cookery-book. + +There was a knock at the study door, and Henry hastily pushed _How to +become a Successful Novelist_ under the blotting-paper, and assumed a +meditative air. Not for worlds would he have been caught reading it. + +'A letter, dear, by the last post,' said Aunt Annie, entering; and then +discreetly departed. + +The letter was from Mark Snyder, and it enclosed a cheque for a hundred +pounds, saying that Mr. Onions Winter, though under no obligation to +furnish a statement until the end of the year, had sent this cheque on +account out of courtesy to Mr. Knight, and in the hope that Mr. Knight +would find it agreeable; also in the hope that Mr. Knight was proceeding +satisfactorily with book number two. The letter was typewritten, and +signed 'Mark Snyder, per G. F.,' and the 'G. F.' was very large and +distinct. + +Henry instantly settled in his own mind that he would attempt no more +with book number two until the famous dinner with 'G. F.' had come to +pass. He cherished a sort of hopeful feeling that after he had seen her, +and spent that about-to-be-wonderful evening with her, he might be able +to invent a theme. The next day he cashed the cheque. The day after that +was Saturday, and he came home at two o'clock with a large flat box, +which he surreptitiously conveyed to his bedroom. Small parcels had been +arriving for him during the week. At half-past four Mrs. Knight and Aunt +Annie, invading the study, found him reading _Chambers' Encyclopaedia_. + +'We're going now, dear,' said Aunt Annie. + +'Sarah will have your tea ready at half-past five,' said his mother. +'And I've told her to be sure and boil the eggs three and three-quarter +minutes.' + +'And we shall be back about half-past nine,' said Aunt Annie. + +'Don't stick at it too closely,' said his mother. 'You ought to take a +little exercise. It's a beautiful afternoon.' + +'I shall see,' Henry answered gravely. 'I shall be all right.' + +He watched the ladies down the road in the direction of the tea-meeting, +and no sooner were they out of sight than he nipped upstairs and locked +himself in his bedroom. At half-past five Sarah tapped at his door and +announced that tea was ready. He descended to tea in his overcoat, and +the collar of his overcoat was turned up and buttoned across his neck. +He poured out some tea, and drank it, and poured some more into the +slop-basin. He crumpled a piece or two of bread-and-butter and spread +crumbs on the cloth. He shelled the eggs very carefully, and, climbing +on to a chair, dropped the eggs themselves into a large blue jar which +stood on the top of the bookcase. After these singular feats he rang the +bell for Sarah. + +'Sarah,' he said in a firm voice, 'I've had my tea, and I'm going out +for a long walk. Tell my mother and aunt that they are on no account to +wait up for me, if I am not back.' + +'Yes, sir,' said Sarah timidly. 'Was the eggs hard enough, sir?' + +'Yes, thank you.' His generous, kindly approval of the eggs cheered this +devotee. + +Henry brushed his silk hat, put it on, and stole out of the house +feeling, as all livers of double lives must feel, a guilty thing. It was +six o'clock. The last domestic sound he heard was Sarah singing in the +kitchen. 'Innocent, simple creature!' he thought, and pitied her, and +turned down the collar of his overcoat. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DURING THE TEA-MEETING + + +In spite of the sincerest intention not to arrive too soon, Henry +reached the Louvre Restaurant a quarter of an hour before the appointed +time. He had meant to come in an omnibus, and descend from it at +Piccadilly Circus, but his attire made him feel self-conscious, and he +had walked on, allowing omnibus after omnibus to pass him, in the hope +of being able to get into an empty one; until at last, afraid that he +was risking his fine reputation for exact promptitude, he had suddenly +yielded to the alluring gesture of a cabman. + +The commissionaire of the Louvre, who stood six feet six and a half +inches high, who wore a coat like the side of a blue house divided by +means of pairs of buttons into eighty-five storeys, who had the face of +a poet addicted to blank verse, and who was one of the glories of the +Louvre, stepped across the pavement in one stride and assisted Henry to +alight. Henry had meant to give the cabman eighteenpence, but the occult +influence of the glorious commissionaire mysteriously compelled him, +much against his will, to make it half a crown. He hesitated whether to +await Geraldine within the Louvre or without; he was rather bashful +about entering (hitherto he had never flown higher than Sweeting's). The +commissionaire, however, attributing this indecision to Henry's +unwillingness to open doors for himself, stepped back across the +pavement in another stride, and held the portal ajar. Henry had no +alternative but to pass beneath the commissionaire's bended and +respectful head. Once within the gorgeous twilit hall of the Louvre, +Henry was set upon by two very diminutive and infantile replicas of the +commissionaire, one of whom staggered away with his overcoat, while the +other secured the remainder of the booty in the shape of his hat, +muffler, and stick, and left Henry naked. I say 'naked' purposely. +Anyone who has dreamed the familiar dream of being discovered in a state +of nudity amid a roomful of clothed and haughty strangers may, by +recalling his sensations, realize Henry's feelings as he stood alone and +unfriended there, exposed for the first time in his life in evening +dress to the vulgar gaze. Several minutes passed before Henry could +conquer the delusion that everybody was staring at him in amused +curiosity. Having conquered it, he sank sternly into a chair, and +surreptitiously felt the sovereigns in his pocket. + +Soon an official bore down on him, wearing a massive silver necklet +which fell gracefully over his chest. Henry saw and trembled. + +'Are you expecting someone, sir?' the man whispered in a velvety and +confidential voice, as who should say: 'Have no secrets from me. I am +discretion itself.' + +'Yes,' answered Henry boldly, and he was inclined to add: 'But it's all +right, you know. I've nothing to be ashamed of.' + +'Have you booked a table, sir?' the official proceeded with relentless +suavity. As he stooped towards Henry's ear his chain swung in the air +and gently clanked. + +'No,' said Henry, and then hastened to assure the official: 'But I want +one.' The idea of booking tables at a restaurant struck him as a +surprising novelty. + +'Upstairs or down, sir? Perhaps you'd prefer the balcony? For two, sir? +I'll _see_, sir. We're always rather full. What name, sir?' + +'Knight,' said Henry majestically. + +He was a bad starter, but once started he could travel fast. Already he +was beginning to feel at home in the princely foyer of the Louvre, and +to stare at new arrivals with a cold and supercilious stare. His +complacency, however, was roughly disturbed by a sudden alarm lest +Geraldine might not come in evening-dress, might not have quite +appreciated what the Louvre was. + +'Table No. 16, sir,' said the chain-wearer in his ear, as if depositing +with him a state-secret. + +'Right,' said Henry, and at the same instant she irradiated the hall +like a vision. + +'Am I not prompt?' she demanded sweetly, as she took a light wrap from +her shoulders. + +Henry began to talk very rapidly and rather loudly. 'I thought you'd +prefer the balcony,' he said with a tremendous air of the man about +town; 'so I got a table upstairs. No. 16, I fancy it is.' + +She was in evening-dress. There could be no doubt about that; it was a +point upon which opinions could not possibly conflict. She was in +evening-dress. + + +'Now tell me all about _your_self,' Henry suggested. They were in the +middle of the dinner. + +'Oh, you can't be interested in the affairs of poor little me!' + +'Can't I!' + +He had never been so ecstatically happy in his life before. In fact, he +had not hitherto suspected even the possibility of that rapture. In the +first place, he perceived that in choosing the Louvre he had builded +better than he knew. He saw that the Louvre was perfect. Such napery, +such argent, such crystal, such porcelain, such flowers, such electric +and glowing splendour, such food and so many kinds of it, such men, such +women, such chattering gaiety, such a conspiracy on the part of menials +to persuade him that he was the Shah of Persia, and Geraldine the +peerless Circassian odalisque! The reality left his fancy far behind. In +the second place, owing to his prudence in looking up the subject in +_Chambers' Encyclopaedia_ earlier in the day, he, who was almost a +teetotaler, had cut a more than tolerable figure in handling the +wine-list. He had gathered that champagne was in truth scarcely worthy +of its reputation among the uninitiated, that the greatest of all wines +was burgundy, and that the greatest of all burgundies was Romanee-Conti. +'Got a good Romanee-Conti?' he said casually to the waiter. It was +immense, the look of genuine respect that came into the face of the +waiter. The Louvre had a good Romanee-Conti. Its price, two pounds five +a bottle, staggered Henry, and he thought of his poor mother and aunt at +the tea-meeting, but his impassive features showed no sign of the +internal agitation. And when he had drunk half a glass of the +incomparable fluid, he felt that a hundred and two pounds five a bottle +would not have been too much to pay for it. The physical, moral, and +spiritual effects upon him of that wine were remarkable in the highest +degree. That wine banished instantly all awkwardness, diffidence, +timidity, taciturnity, and meanness. It filled him with generous +emotions and the pride of life. It ennobled him. + +And, in the third place, Geraldine at once furnished him with a new +ideal of the feminine and satisfied it. He saw that the women of Munster +Park were not real women; they were afraid to be real women, afraid to +be joyous, afraid to be pretty, afraid to attract; they held themselves +in instead of letting themselves go; they assumed that every pleasure +was guilty until it was proved innocent, thus transgressing the +fundamental principle of English justice; their watchful eyes seemed to +be continually saying: 'Touch me--and I shall scream for help!' In +costume, any elegance, any elaboration, any coquetry, was eschewed by +them as akin to wantonness. Now Geraldine reversed all that. Her frock +was candidly ornate. She told him she had made it herself, but it +appeared to him that there were more stitches in it than ten women could +have accomplished in ten years. She openly revelled in her charms; she +openly made the most of them. She did not attempt to disguise her wish +to please, to flatter, to intoxicate. Her eyes said nothing about +screaming for help. Her eyes said: 'I'm a woman; you're a man. How +jolly!' Her eyes said: 'I was born to do what I'm doing now.' Her eyes +said: 'Touch me--and we shall see'. But what chiefly enchanted Henry +was her intellectual courage and her freedom from cant. In conversing +with her you hadn't got to tread lightly and warily, lest at any moment +you might put your foot through the thin crust of a false modesty, and +tumble into eternal disgrace. You could talk to her about anything; and +she did not pretend to be blind to the obvious facts of existence, to +the obvious facts of the Louvre Restaurant, for example. Moreover, she +had a way of being suddenly and deliciously serious, and of indicating +by an earnest glance that of course she was very ignorant really, and +only too glad to learn from a man like him. + +'Can't I!' he replied, after she had gazed at him in silence over the +yellow roses and the fowl. + +So she told him that she was an orphan, and had a brother who was a +solicitor in Leicester. Why Henry should have immediately thought that +her brother was a somewhat dull and tedious person cannot easily be +explained; but he did think so. + +She went on to tell him that she had been in London five years, and had +begun in a milliner's shop, had then learnt typewriting and shorthand, +advertised for a post, and obtained her present situation with Mark +Snyder. + +'I was determined to earn my own living,' she said, with a charming +smile. 'My brother would have looked after me, but I preferred to look +after myself.' A bangle slipped down her arm. + +'She's perfectly wonderful!' Henry thought. + +And then she informed him that she was doing fairly well in journalism, +and had attempted sensational fiction, but that none saw more clearly +than she how worthless and contemptible her sort of work was, and none +longed more sincerely than she to produce good work, serious work.... +However, she knew she couldn't. + +'Will you do me a favour?' she coaxed. + +'What is it?' he said. + +'Oh! No! You must promise.' + +'Of course, if I can.' + +'Well, you can. I want to know what your next book's about. I won't +breathe a word to a soul. But I would like you to tell me. I would like +to feel that it was you that had told me. You can't imagine how keen I +am.' + +'Ask me a little later,' he said. 'Will you?' + +'To-night?' + +She put her head on one side. + +And he replied audaciously: 'Yes.' + +'Very well,' she agreed. 'And I shan't forget. I shall hold you to your +promise.' + +Just then two men passed the table, and one of them caught Geraldine's +eye, and Geraldine bowed. + +'Well, Mr. Doxey,' she exclaimed. 'What ages since I saw you!' + +'Yes, isn't it?' said Mr. Doxey. + +They shook hands and talked a moment. + +'Let me introduce you to Mr. Henry Knight,' said Geraldine. 'Mr. +Knight--Mr. Doxey, of the P.A.' + +'_Love in Babylon?_' murmured Mr. Doxey inquiringly. 'Very pleased to +meet you, sir.' + +Henry was not favourably impressed by Mr. Doxey's personal appearance, +which was attenuated and riggish. He wondered what 'P.A.' meant. Not +till later in the evening did he learn that it stood for Press +Association, and had no connection with Pleasant Sunday Afternoons. Mr. +Doxey stated that he was going on to the Alhambra to 'do' the celebrated +Toscato, the inventor of the new vanishing trick, who made his first +public appearance in England at nine forty-five that night. + +'You didn't mind my introducing him to you? He's a decent little man in +some ways,' said Geraldine humbly, when they were alone again. + +'Oh, of course not!' Henry assured her. 'By the way, what would you like +to do to-night?' + +'I don't know,' she said. 'It's awfully late, isn't it? Time flies so +when you're interested.' + +'It's a quarter to nine. What about the Alhambra?' he suggested. + +(He who had never been inside a theatre, not to mention a music-hall!) + +'Oh!' she burst out. 'I adore the Alhambra. What an instinct you have! I +was just hoping you'd say the Alhambra!' + +They had Turkish coffee. He succeeded very well in pretending that he +had been thoroughly accustomed all his life to the spectacle of women +smoking--that, indeed, he was rather discomposed than otherwise when +they did not smoke. He paid the bill, and the waiter brought him half a +crown concealed on a plate in the folds of the receipt; it was the +change out of a five-pound note. + +Being in a hansom with her, though only for two minutes, surpassed even +the rapture of the restaurant. It was the quintessence of Life. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A NOVELIST IN A BOX + + +Perhaps it was just as well that the curtain was falling on the ballet +when Henry and Geraldine took possession of their stalls in the superb +Iberian auditorium of the Alhambra Theatre. The glimpse which Henry had +of the _prima ballerina assoluta_ in her final pose and her costume, and +of the hundred minor choregraphic artists, caused him to turn +involuntarily to Geraldine to see whether she was not shocked. She, +however, seemed to be keeping her nerve fairly well; so he smothered up +his consternation in a series of short, dry coughs, and bought a +programme. He said to himself bravely: 'I'm in for it, and I may as well +go through with it.' The next item, while it puzzled, reassured him. The +stage showed a restaurant, with a large screen on one side. A lady +entered, chattered at an incredible rate in Italian, and disappeared +behind the screen, where she knocked a chair over and rang for the +waiter. Then the waiter entered and disappeared behind the screen, +chattering at an incredible rate in Italian. The waiter reappeared and +made his exit, and then a gentleman appeared, and disappeared behind the +screen, chattering at an incredible rate in Italian. Kissing was heard +behind the screen. Instantly the waiter served a dinner, chattering +always behind the screen with his customers at an incredible rate in +Italian. Then another gentleman appeared, and no sooner had he +disappeared behind the screen, chattering at an incredible rate in +Italian, than a policeman appeared, and he too, chattering at an +incredible rate in Italian, disappeared behind the screen. A fearsome +altercation was now developing behind the screen in the tongue of Dante, +and from time to time one or other of the characters--the lady, the +policeman, the first or second gentleman, the waiter--came from cover +into view of the audience, and harangued the rest at an incredible rate +in Italian. Then a disaster happened behind the screen: a table was +upset, to an accompaniment of yells; and the curtain fell rapidly, amid +loud applause, to rise again with equal rapidity on the spectacle of a +bowing and smiling little man in ordinary evening dress. + +This singular and enigmatic drama disconcerted Henry. + +'What is it?' he whispered. + +'Pauletti,' said Geraldine, rather surprised at the question. + +He gathered from her tone that Pauletti was a personage of some +importance, and, consulting the programme, read: 'Pauletti, the +world-renowned quick-change artiste.' Then he figuratively kicked +himself, like a man kicks himself figuratively in bed when he wakes up +in the middle of the night and sees the point of what has hitherto +appeared to be rather less than a joke. + +'He's very good,' said Henry, as the excellence of Pauletti became more +and more clear to him. + +'He gets a hundred a week,' said Geraldine. + +When Pauletti had performed two other violent dramas, and dressed and +undressed himself thirty-nine times in twenty minutes, he gave way to +his fellow-countryman Toscato. Toscato began gently with a little +prestidigitation, picking five-pound notes out of the air, and +simplicities of that kind. He then borrowed a handkerchief, produced an +orange out of the handkerchief, a vegetable-marrow out of the orange, a +gibus hat out of the vegetable-marrow, a live sucking-pig out of the +gibus hat, five hundred yards of coloured paper out of the sucking-pig, +a Union-jack twelve feet by ten out of the bunch of paper, and a +wardrobe with real doors and full of ladies' dresses out of the +Union-jack. Lastly, a beautiful young girl stepped forth from the +wardrobe. + +'_I never saw anything like it!_' Henry gasped, very truthfully. He had +a momentary fancy that the devil was in this extraordinary defiance of +natural laws. + +'Yes,' Geraldine admitted. 'It's not bad, is it?' + +As Toscato could speak no English, an Englishman now joined him and +announced that Toscato would proceed to perform his latest and greatest +illusion--namely, the unique vanishing trick--for the first time in +England; also that Toscato extended a cordial invitation to members of +the audience to come up on to the stage and do their acutest to pierce +the mystery. + +'Come along,' said a voice in Henry's ear, 'I'm going.' It was Mr. +Doxey's. + +'Oh, no, thanks!' Henry replied hastily. + +'Nothing to be afraid of,' said Mr. Doxey, shrugging his shoulders with +an air which Henry judged slightly patronizing. + +'Oh yes, do go,' Geraldine urged. 'It will be such fun.' + +He hated to go, but there was no alternative, and so he went, stumbling +after Mr. Doxey up the step-ladder which had been placed against the +footlights for the ascending of people who prided themselves on being +acute. There were seven such persons on the stage, not counting himself, +but Henry honestly thought that the eyes of the entire audience were +directed upon him alone. The stage seemed very large, and he was cut off +from the audience by a wall of blinding rays, and at first he could only +distinguish vast vague semicircles and a floor of pale, featureless +faces. However, he depended upon Mr. Doxey. + +But when the trick-box had been brought on to the stage--it was a sort +of a sentry-box raised on four legs--Henry soon began to recover his +self-possession. He examined that box inside and out until he became +thoroughly convinced that it was without guile. The jury of seven stood +round the erection, and the English assistant stated that a sheet +(produced) would be thrown over Toscato, who would then step into the +box and shut the door. The door would then be closed for ten seconds, +whereupon it would be opened and the beautiful young girl would step out +of the box, while Toscato would magically appear in another part of the +house. + +At this point Henry stooped to give a last glance under the box. +Immediately Toscato held him with a fiery eye, as though enraged, and, +going up to him, took eight court cards from Henry's sleeve, a lady's +garter from his waistcoat pocket, and a Bath-bun out of his mouth. The +audience received this professional joke in excellent part, and, indeed, +roared its amusement. Henry blushed, would have given all the money he +had on him--some ninety pounds--to be back in the stalls, and felt a hot +desire to explain to everyone that the cards, the Bath-bun, and +especially the garter, had not really been in his possession at all. +That part of the episode over, the trick ought to have gone forward, but +Toscato's Italian temper was effervescing, and he insisted by signs +that one of the jury should actually get into the box bodily, and so +satisfy the community that the box was a box _et praeterea nilil_. The +English assistant pointed to Henry, and Henry, to save argument, +reluctantly entered the box. Toscato shut the door. Henry was in the +dark, and quite mechanically he extended his hands and felt the sides of +the box. His fingers touched a projection in a corner, and he heard a +clicking sound. Then he was aware of Toscato shaking the door of the +box, frantically and more frantically, and of the noise of distant +multitudinous laughter. + +'Don't hold the door,' whispered a voice. + +'I'm not doing so,' Henry whispered in reply. + +The box trembled. + +'I say, old chap, don't hold the door. They want to get on with the +trick.' This time it was Mr. Doxey who addressed him in persuasive +tones. + +'Don't I tell you I'm not holding the door, you silly fool!' retorted +Henry, nettled. + +The box trembled anew and more dangerously. The distant laughter grew +immense and formidable. + +'Carry it off,' said a third voice, 'and get him out in the wings.' + +The box underwent an earthquake; it rocked; Henry was thrown with +excessive violence from side to side; the sound of the laughter receded. + +Happily, the box had no roof; it was laid with all tenderness on its +flank, and the tenant crawled out of it into the midst of an interested +crowd consisting of Toscato, some stage-managers, several +scene-shifters, and many ballerinas. His natural good-temper reasserted +itself at once, and he received apologies in the spirit in which they +were offered, while Toscato set the box to rights. Henry was returning +to the stage in order to escape from the ballerinas, whose proximity +disturbed and frightened him, but he had scarcely shown his face to the +house before he was, as it were, beaten back by a terrific wave of +jubilant cheers. The great vanishing trick was brilliantly accomplished +without his presence on the boards, and an official guided him through +various passages back to the floor of the house. Nobody seemed to +observe him as he sat down beside Geraldine. + +'Of course it was all part of the show, that business,' he heard a man +remark loudly some distance behind him. + +He much enjoyed explaining the whole thing to Geraldine. Now that it was +over, he felt rather proud, rather triumphant. He did not know that he +was very excited, but he observed that Geraldine was excited. + + +'You needn't think you are going to escape from telling me all about +your new book, because you aren't,' said Geraldine prettily. + +They were supping at a restaurant of the discreet sort, divided into +many compartments, and situated, with a charming symbolism, at the back +of St. George's, Hanover Square. Geraldine had chosen it. They did not +need food, but they needed their own unadulterated society. + +'I'm only too pleased to tell you,' Henry replied. 'You're about the +only person that I would tell. It's like this. You must imagine a youth +growing up to manhood, and wanting to be a great artist. I don't mean a +painter. I mean a--an actor. Yes, a very great actor. Shakspere's +tragedies, you know, and all that.' + +She nodded earnestly. + +'What's his name?' she inquired. + +Henry gazed at her. 'His name's Gerald,' he said, and she flushed. +'Well, at sixteen this youth is considerably over six feet in height, +and still growing. At eighteen his figure has begun to excite remark in +the streets. At nineteen he has a severe attack of scarlet fever, and +while ill he grows still more, in bed, like people do, you know. And at +twenty he is six feet eight inches high.' + +'A giant, in fact.' + +'Just so. But he doesn't want to be a giant He wants to be an actor, a +great actor. Nobody will look at him, except to stare. The idea of his +going on the stage is laughed at. He scarcely dare walk out in the +streets because children follow him. But he _is_ a great actor, all the +same, in spirit. He's got the artistic temperament, and he can't be a +clerk. He can only be one thing, and that one thing is made impossible +by his height. He falls in love with a girl. She rather likes him, but +naturally the idea of marrying a giant doesn't appeal to her. So that's +off, too. And he's got no resources, and he's gradually starving in a +garret. See the tragedy?' + +She nodded, reflective, sympathetically silent. + +Henry continued: 'Well, he's starving. He doesn't know what to do. He +isn't quite tall enough to be a show-giant--they have to be over seven +feet--otherwise he might at any rate try the music-hall stage. Then the +manager of a West End restaurant catches sight of him one day, and +offers him a place as doorkeeper at a pound a week and tips. He refuses +it indignantly. But after a week or two more of hunger he changes his +mind and accepts. And this man who has the soul and the brains of a +great artist is reduced to taking sixpences for opening cab-doors.' + +'Does it end there?' + +'No. It's a sad story, I'm afraid. He dies one night in the snow outside +the restaurant, while the rich noodles are gorging themselves inside to +the music of a band. Consumption.' + +'It's the most original story I ever heard in all my life,' said +Geraldine enthusiastically. + +'Do you think so?' + +'I do, honestly. What are you going to call it--if I may ask?' + +'Call it?' He hesitated a second. '_A Question of Cubits_,' he said. + +'You are simply wonderful at titles,' she observed. 'Thank you. Thank +you so much.' + +'No one else knows,' he finished. + + +When he had seen her safely to Chenies Street, and was travelling to +Dawes Road in a cab, he felt perfectly happy. The story had come to him +almost by itself. It had been coming all the evening, even while he was +in the box, even while he was lost in admiration of Geraldine. It had +cost him nothing. He knew he could write it with perfect ease. And +Geraldine admired it! It was the most original story she had ever heard +in all her life! He himself thought it extremely original, too. He saw +now how foolish and premature had been his fears for the future. Of +course he had studied human nature. Of course he had been through the +mill, and practised style. Had he not won the prize for composition at +the age of twelve? And was there not the tangible evidence of his essays +for the Polytechnic, not to mention his continual work for Sir George? + +He crept upstairs to his bedroom joyous, jaunty, exultant. + +'Is that you, Henry?' It was Aunt Annie's inquiry. + +'Yes,' he answered, safely within his room. + +'How late you are! It's half-past twelve and more.' + +'I got lost,' he explained to her. + +But he could not explain to himself what instinct had forced him to +conceal from his adoring relatives the fact that he had bought a suit of +dress-clothes, put them on, and sallied forth in them to spend an +evening with a young lady. + +Just as he was dropping off to sleep and beauteous visions, he sprang up +with a start, and, lighting a candle, descended to the dining-room. +There he stood on a chair, reached for the blue jar on the bookcase, +extracted the two eggs, and carried them upstairs. He opened his window +and threw the eggs into the middle of Dawes Road, but several houses +lower down; they fell with a soft _plup_, and scattered. + +Thus ended the miraculous evening. + + +The next day he was prostrate with one of his very worst dyspeptic +visitations. The Knight pew at Munster Park Chapel was empty at both +services, and Henry learnt from loving lips that he must expect to be +ill if he persisted in working so hard. He meekly acknowledged the +justice of the rebuke. + +On Monday morning at half-past eight, before he had appeared at +breakfast, there came a telegram, which Aunt Annie opened. It had been +despatched from Paris on the previous evening, and it ran: +'_Congratulations on the box trick. Worth half a dozen books with the +dear simple public A sincere admirer._' This telegram puzzled everybody, +including Henry; though perhaps it puzzled Henry a little less than the +ladies. When Aunt Annie suggested that it had been wrongly addressed, he +agreed that no other explanation was possible, and Sarah took it back to +the post-office. + +He departed to business. At all the newspaper-shops, at all the +bookstalls, he saw the placards of morning newspapers with lines +conceived thus: + + + AMUSING INCIDENT AT THE ALHAMBRA. + A NOVELIST'S ADVENTURE. + VANISHING AUTHOR AT A MUSIC-HALL. + A NOVELIST IN A BOX. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +HIS JACK-HORNERISM + + +That autumn the Chancelleries of Europe happened to be rather less +egotistic than usual, and the English and American publics, seeing no +war-cloud on the horizon, were enabled to give the whole of their +attention to the balloon sent up into the sky by Mr. Onions Winter. They +stared to some purpose. There are some books which succeed before they +are published, and the commercial travellers of Mr. Onions Winter +reported unhesitatingly that _A Question of Cubits_ was such a book. The +libraries and the booksellers were alike graciously interested in the +rumour of its advent. It was universally considered a 'safe' novel; it +was the sort of novel that the honest provincial bookseller reads +himself for his own pleasure and recommends to his customers with a +peculiar and special smile of sincerity as being not only 'good,' but +'_really_ good.' People mentioned it with casual anticipatory remarks +who had never previously been known to mention any novel later than +_John Halifax Gentleman_. + +This and other similar pleasing phenomena were, of course, due in part +to the mercantile sagacity of Mr. Onions Winter. For during a +considerable period the Anglo-Saxon race was not permitted to forget for +a single day that at a given moment the balloon would burst and rain +down copies of _A Question of Cubits_ upon a thirsty earth. _A Question +of Cubits_ became the universal question, the question of questions, +transcending in its insistence the liver question, the soap question, +the Encyclopaedia question, the whisky question, the cigarette question, +the patent food question, the bicycle tyre question, and even the +formidable uric acid question. Another powerful factor in the case was +undoubtedly the lengthy paragraph concerning Henry's adventure at the +Alhambra. That paragraph, having crystallized itself into a fixed form +under the title 'A Novelist in a Box,' had started on a journey round +the press of the entire world, and was making a pace which would have +left Jules Verne's hero out of sight in twenty-four hours. No editor +could deny his hospitality to it. From the New York dailies it travelled +via the _Chicago Inter-Ocean_ to the _Montreal Star_, and thence back +again with the rapidity of light by way of the _Boston Transcript_, the +_Philadelphia Ledger_, and the _Washington Post_, down to the _New +Orleans Picayune_. Another day, and it was in the _San Francisco Call_, +and soon afterwards it had reached _La Prensa_ at Buenos Ayres. It then +disappeared for a period amid the Pacific Isles, and was next heard of +in the _Sydney Bulletin_, the _Brisbane Courier_ and the _Melbourne +Argus_. A moment, and it blazed in the _North China Herald_, and was +shooting across India through the columns of the Calcutta _Englishman_ +and the _Allahabad Pioneer_. It arrived in Paris as fresh as a new pin, +and gained acceptance by the Paris edition of the _New York Herald_, +which had printed it two months before and forgotten it, as a brand-new +item of the most luscious personal gossip. Thence, later, it had a +smooth passage to London, and was seen everywhere with a new +frontispiece consisting of the words: 'Our readers may remember.' Mr. +Onions Winter reckoned that it had been worth at least five hundred +pounds to him. + +But there was something that counted more than the paragraph, and more +than Mr. Onions Winter's mercantile sagacity, in the immense preliminary +noise and rattle of _A Question of Cubits_: to wit, the genuine and +ever-increasing vogue of _Love in Babylon_, and the beautiful hopes of +future joy which it aroused in the myriad breast of Henry's public. +_Love in Babylon_ had falsified the expert prediction of Mark Snyder, +and had reached seventy-five thousand in Great Britain alone. What +figure it reached in America no man could tell. The average citizen and +his wife and daughter were truly enchanted by _Love in Babylon_, and +since the state of being enchanted is one of almost ecstatic felicity, +they were extremely anxious that Henry in a second work should repeat +the operation upon them at the earliest possible instant. + +The effect of the whole business upon Henry was what might have been +expected. He was a modest young man, but there are two kinds of modesty, +which may be called the internal and the external, and Henry excelled +more in the former than in the latter. While never free from a secret +and profound amazement that people could really care for his stuff (an +infallible symptom of authentic modesty), Henry gradually lost the +pristine virginity of his early diffidence. His demeanour grew confident +and bold. His glance said: 'I know exactly who I am, and let no one +think otherwise.' His self-esteem as a celebrity, stimulated and +fattened by a tremendous daily diet of press-cuttings, and letters from +feminine admirers all over the vastest of empires, was certainly in no +immediate danger of inanition. Nor did the fact that he was still +outside the rings known as literary circles injure that self-esteem in +the slightest degree; by a curious trick of nature it performed the same +function as the press-cuttings and the correspondence. Mark Snyder said: +'Keep yourself to yourself. Don't be interviewed. Don't do anything +except write. If publishers or editors approach you, refer them to me.' +This suited Henry. He liked to think that he was in the hands of Mark +Snyder, as an athlete in the hands of his trainer. He liked to think +that he was alone with his leviathan public; and he could find a sort of +mild, proud pleasure in meeting every advance with a frigid, courteous +refusal. It tickled his fancy that he, who had shaken a couple of +continents or so with one little book; and had written another and a +better one with the ease and assurance of a novelist born, should be +willing to remain a shorthand clerk earning three guineas a week. (He +preferred now to regard himself as a common shorthand clerk, not as +private secretary to a knight: the piquancy of the situation was thereby +intensified.) And as the day of publication of _A Question of Cubits_ +came nearer and nearer, he more and more resembled a little Jack Horner +sitting in his private corner, and pulling out the plums of fame, and +soliloquizing, 'What a curious, interesting, strange, uncanny, original +boy am I!' + +Then one morning he received a telegram from Mark Snyder requesting his +immediate presence at Kenilworth Mansions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +HE JUSTIFIES HIS FATHER + + +He went at once to Kenilworth Mansions, but he went against his will. +And the reason of his disinclination was that he scarcely desired to +encounter Geraldine. It was an ordeal for him to encounter Geraldine. +The events which had led to this surprising condition of affairs were as +follows: + +Henry was one of those men--and there exist, perhaps, more of them than +may be imagined--who are capable of plunging off the roof of a house, +and then reconsidering the enterprise and turning back. With Henry it +was never too late for discretion. He would stop and think at the most +extraordinary moments. Thirty-six hours after the roseate evening at the +Louvre and the Alhambra, just when he ought to have been laying a +scheme for meeting Geraldine at once by sheer accident, Henry was coldly +remarking to himself: 'Let me see exactly where I am. Let me survey the +position.' He liked Geraldine, but now it was with a sober liking, a +liking which is not too excited to listen to Reason. And Reason said, +after the position had been duly surveyed: 'I have nothing against this +charming lady, and much in her favour. Nevertheless, there need be no +hurry.' Geraldine wrote to thank Henry for the most enjoyable evening +she had ever spent in her life, and Henry found the letter too effusive. +When they next saw each other, Henry meant to keep strictly private the +advice which he had accepted from Reason; but Geraldine knew all about +it within the first ten seconds, and Henry knew that she knew. +Politeness reigned, and the situation was felt to be difficult. +Geraldine intended to be sisterly, but succeeded only in being +resentful, and thus precipitated too soon the second stage of the +entanglement, the stage in which a man, after seeing everything in a +woman, sees nothing in her; this second stage is usually of the +briefest, but circumstances may render it permanent. Then Geraldine +wrote again, and asked Henry to tea at the flat in Chenies Street on a +Saturday afternoon. Henry went, and found the flat closed. He expected +to receive a note of bewitching, cajoling, feminine apology, but he did +not receive it. They met again, always at Kenilworth Mansions, and in an +interview full of pain at the start and full of insincerity at the +finish Henry learnt that Geraldine's invitation had been for Sunday, and +not Saturday, that various people of much importance in her eyes had +been asked to meet him, and that the company was deeply disappointed and +the hostess humiliated. Henry was certain that she had written Saturday. +Geraldine was certain that he had misread the day. He said nothing about +confronting her with the letter itself, but he determined, in his +masculine way, to do so. She gracefully pretended that the incident was +closed, and amicably closed, but the silly little thing had got into her +head the wild, inexcusable idea that Henry had stayed away from her 'at +home' on purpose, and Henry felt this. + +He rushed to Dawes Road to find the letter, but the letter was +undiscoverable; with the spiteful waywardness which often characterizes +such letters, it had disappeared. So Henry thought it would be as well +to leave the incident alone. Their cheery politeness to each other when +they chanced to meet was affecting to witness. As for Henry, he had +always suspected in Geraldine the existence of some element, some +quality, some factor, which was beyond his comprehension, and now his +suspicions were confirmed. + +He fell into a habit of saying, in his inmost heart: 'Women!' + +This meant that he had learnt all that was knowable about them, and that +they were all alike, and that--the third division of the meaning was +somewhat vague. + +Just as he was ascending with the beautiful flunkey in the Kenilworth +lift, a middle-aged and magnificently-dressed woman hastened into the +marble hall from the street, and, seeing the lift in the act of +vanishing with its precious burden, gave a slight scream and then a +laugh. The beautiful flunkey permitted himself a derisive gesture, such +as one male may make to another, and sped the lift more quickly upwards. + +'Who's she?' Henry demanded. + +'_I_ don't know, sir,' said the flunkey. 'But you'll hear her +ting-tinging at the bell in half a second. There!' he added in +triumphant disgust, as the lift-bell rang impatiently. 'There's some +people,' he remarked, 'as thinks a lift can go up and down at once.' + +Geraldine with a few bright and pleasant remarks ushered Henry directly +into the presence of Mark Snyder. Her companion was not in the office. + +'Well,' Mr. Snyder expansively and gaily welcomed him, 'come and sit +down, my young friend.' + +'Anything wrong?' Henry asked. + +'No,' said Mark. 'But I've postponed publication of the _Q. C._ for a +month.' + +In his letters Mr. Snyder always referred to _A Question of Cubits_ as +the _Q. C._ + +'What on earth for?' exclaimed Henry. + +He was not pleased. In strict truth, no one of his innumerable admirers +was more keenly anxious for the appearance of that book than Henry +himself. His appetite for notoriety and boom grew by what it fed on. He +expected something colossal, and he expected it soon. + +'Both in England and America,' said Snyder. + +'But why?' + +'Serial rights,' said Snyder impressively. 'I told you some time since I +might have a surprise for you, and I've got one. I fancied I might sell +the serial rights in England to Macalistairs, at my own price, but they +thought the end was too sad. However, I've done business in New York +with _Gordon's Weekly_. They'll issue the _Q. C._ in four instalments. +It was really settled last week, but I had to arrange with Spring +Onions. They've paid cash. I made 'em. How much d'you think?' + +'I don't know,' Henry said expectantly. + +'Guess,' Mark Snyder commanded him. + +But Henry would not guess, and Snyder rang the bell for Geraldine. + +'Miss Foster,' he addressed the puzzling creature in a casual tone, 'did +you draw that cheque for Mr. Knight?' + +'Yes, Mr. Snyder.' + +'Bring it me, please.' + +And she respectfully brought in a cheque, which Mr. Snyder signed. + +'There!' said he, handing it to Henry. 'What do you think of that?' + +It was a cheque for one thousand and eighty pounds. Gordon and +Brothers, the greatest publishing firm of the United States, had paid +six thousand dollars for the right to publish serially _A Question of +Cubits_, and Mark Snyder's well-earned commission on the transaction +amounted to six hundred dollars. + +'Things are looking up,' Henry stammered, feebly facetious. + +'It's nearly a record price,' said Snyder complacently. 'But you're a +sort of a record man. And when they believe in a thing over there, they +aren't afraid of making money talk and say so.' + +'Nay, nay!' thought Henry. 'This is too much! This beats everything! +Either I shall wake up soon or I shall find myself in a lunatic asylum.' +He was curiously reminded of the conjuring performance at the Alhambra. + +He said: + +'Thanks awfully, I'm sure!' + +A large grandiose notion swept over him that he had a great mission in +the world. + +'That's all I have to say to you,' said Mark Snyder pawkily. + +Henry wanted to breathe instantly the ampler ether of the street, but +on his way out he found Geraldine in rapid converse with the middle-aged +and magnificently-dressed woman who thought that a lift could go up and +down at once. They became silent. + +'_Good_-morning, Miss Foster,' said Henry hurriedly. + +Then a pause occurred, very brief but uncomfortable, and the stranger +glanced in the direction of the window. + +'Let me introduce you to Mrs. Ashton Portway,' said Geraldine. 'Mrs. +Portway, Mr. Knight.' + +Mrs. Portway bent forward her head, showed her teeth, smiled, laughed, +and finally sniggered. + +'So glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Knight!' she burst out loudly +and uncontrollably, as though Geraldine's magic formula had loosened a +valve capable of withstanding enormous strains. Then she smiled, +laughed, and sniggered: not because she imagined that she had achieved +humour, but because that was her way of making herself agreeable. If +anybody had told her that she could not open her mouth without +sniggering, she would have indignantly disbelieved the statement. +Nevertheless it was true. When she said the weather was changeable, she +sniggered; when she hoped you were quite well, she sniggered; and if +circumstances had required her to say that she was sorry to hear of the +death of your mother, she would have sniggered. + +Henry, however, unaccustomed to the phenomena accompanying her speech, +mistook her at first for a woman determined to be witty at any cost. + +'I'm glad to meet you,' he said, and laughed as if to insinuate that +that speech also was funny. + +'I was desolated, simply desolated, not to see you at Miss Foster's "at +home,"' Mrs. Ashton Portway was presently sniggering. 'Now, will you +come to one of my Wednesdays? They begin in November. First and third. I +always try to get interesting people, people who have done something.' + +'Of course I shall be delighted,' Henry agreed. He was in a mood to +scatter largesse among the crowd. + +'That's so good of you,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, apparently overcome +by the merry jest. 'Now remember, I shall hold you to your promise. I +shall write and remind you. I know you great men.' + +When Henry reached the staircase he discovered her card in his hand. He +could not have explained how it came there. Without the portals of +Kenilworth Mansions a pair of fine horses were protesting against the +bearing-rein, and throwing spume across the street. + +He walked straight up to the Louvre, and there lunched to the sound of +wild Hungarian music. It was nearly three o'clock when he returned to +his seat at Powells. + +'The governor's pretty nearly breaking up the happy home,' Foxall +alarmingly greeted him in the inquiry office. + +'Oh!' said Henry with a very passable imitation of guilelessness. +'What's amiss?' + +'He rang for you just after you went out at a quarter-past twelve.' Here +Foxall glanced mischievously at the clock. 'He had his lunch sent in, +and he's been raving ever since.' + +'What did you tell him?' + +'I told him you'd gone to lunch.' + +'Did he say anything?' + +'He asked whether you'd gone to Brighton for lunch. Krikey! He nearly +sacked _me_! You know it's his golfing afternoon.' + +'So it is. I'd forgotten,' Henry observed calmly. + +Then he removed his hat and gloves, found his note-book and pencil, and +strode forward to joust with the knight. + +'Did you want to dictate letters, Sir George?' he asked, opening Sir +George's door. + +The knight was taken aback. + +'Where have you been,' the famous solicitor demanded, 'since the middle +of the morning?' + +'I had some urgent private business to attend to,' said Henry. 'And I've +been to lunch. I went out at a quarter-past twelve.' + +'And it's now three o'clock. Why didn't you tell me you were going out?' + +'Because you were engaged, Sir George.' + +'Listen to me,' said Sir George. 'You've been getting above yourself +lately, my friend. And I won't have it. Understand, I will not have it. +The rules of this office apply just as much to you as to anyone.' + +'I'm sorry,' Henry put in coldly, 'if I've put you to any +inconvenience.' + +'Sorry be d----d, sir!' exclaimed Sir George. + +'Where on earth do you go for your lunch?' + +'That concerns no one but me, Sir George,' was the reply. + +He would have given a five-pound note to know that Foxall and the entire +staff were listening behind the door. + +'You are an insolent puppy,' Sir George stated. + +'If you think so, Sir George,' said Henry, 'I resign my position here.' + +'And a fool!' the knight added. + + +'And did you say anything about the thousand pounds?' Aunt Annie asked, +when, in the evening domesticity of Dawes Road, Henry recounted the +doings of that day so full of emotions. + +'Not I!' Henry replied. 'Not a word!' + +'You did quite right, my dear!' said Aunt Annie. 'A pretty thing, that +you can't go out for a few minutes!' + +'Yes, isn't it?' said Henry. + +'Whatever will Sir George do without you, though?' his mother wondered. + +And later, after he had displayed for her inspection the cheque for a +thousand and eighty pounds, the old lady cried, with moist eyes: + +'My darling, your poor father might well insist on having you called +Shakspere! And to think that I didn't want it! To think that I didn't +want it!' + +'Mark my words!' said Aunt Annie. 'Sir George will ask you to stay on.' + +And Aunt Annie was not deceived. + +'I hope you've come to your senses,' the lawyer began early the next +morning, not unkindly, but rather with an intention obviously pacific. +'Literature, or whatever you call it, may be all very well, but you +won't get another place like this in a hurry. There's many an admitted +solicitor earns less than you, young man.' + +'Thanks very much, Sir George,' Henry answered. 'But I think, on the +whole, I had better leave.' + +'As you wish,' said Sir George, hurt. + +'Still,' Henry proceeded, 'I hope our relations will remain pleasant. I +hope I may continue to employ you.' + +'Continue to employ me?' Sir George gasped. + +'Yes,' said Henry. 'I got you to invest some moneys for me some time +ago. I have another thousand now that I want a sound security for.' + +It was one of those rare flashes of his--rare, but blindingly brilliant. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +PRESS AND PUBLIC + + +At length arrived the eve of the consummation of Mr. Onions Winter's +mercantile labours. Forty thousand copies of _A Question of Cubits_ (No. +8 of the Satin Library) had been printed, and already, twenty-four hours +before they were to shine in booksellers' shops and on the counters of +libraries, every copy had been sold to the trade and a second edition +was in the press. Thus, it was certain that one immortal soul per +thousand of the entire British race would read Henry's story. In +literature, when nine hundred and ninety-nine souls ignore you, but the +thousandth buys your work, or at least borrows it--that is called +enormous popularity. Henry retired to bed in Dawes Road that night sure +of his enormous popularity. But he did not dream of the devoted army of +forty thousand admirers. He dreamt of the reviews, some of which he knew +were to appear on the day of publication itself. A hundred copies of _A +Question of Cubits_ had been sent out for review, and in his dreams he +saw a hundred highly-educated men, who had given their lives to the +study of fiction, bending anxiously over the tome and seeking with +conscientious care the precise phrases in which most accurately to +express their expert appreciation of it. He dreamt much of the reviewer +of the _Daily Tribune_, his favourite morning paper, whom he pictured as +a man of forty-five or so, with gold-rimmed spectacles and an air of +generous enthusiasm. He hoped great things from the article in the +_Daily Tribune_ (which, by a strange accident, had completely ignored +_Love in Babylon_), and when he arose in the morning (he had been lying +awake a long time waiting to hear the scamper of the newsboy on the +steps) he discovered that his hopes were happily realized. The _Daily +Tribune_ had given nearly a column of praise to _A Question of Cubits_, +had quoted some choice extracts, had drawn special attention to the +wonderful originality of the plot, and asserted that the story was an +advance, 'if an advance were possible,' on the author's previous book. +His mother and Aunt Annie consumed the review at breakfast with an +excellent appetite, and lauded the insight of the critic. + +What had happened at the offices of the _Daily Tribune_ was this. At the +very moment when Henry was dreaming of its reviewer--namely, half-past +eleven p.m.--its editor was gesticulating and shouting at the end of a +speaking-tube: + +'Haven't had proof of that review of a book called _A Question of +Cubits_, or some such idiotic title! Send it down at once, instantly. Do +you hear? What? Nonsense!' + +The editor sprang away from the tube, and dashed into the middle of a +vast mass of papers on his desk, turning them all over, first in heaps, +then singly. He then sprang in succession to various side-tables and +served their contents in the same manner. + +'I tell you I sent it up myself before dinner,' he roared into the tube. +'It's Mr. Clackmannan's "copy"--you know that peculiar paper he writes +on. Just look about. Oh, conf----!' + +Then the editor rang a bell. + +'Send Mr. Heeky to me, quick!' he commanded the messenger-boy. + +'I'm just finishing that leaderette,' began Mr. Heeley, when he obeyed +the summons. Mr. Heeley was a young man who had published a book of +verse. + +'Never mind the leaderette,' said the editor. 'Run across to the other +shop yourself, and see if they've got a copy of _A Question of +Cubits_--yes, that's it, _A Question of Cubits_--and do me fifteen +inches on it at once. I've lost Clackmannan's "copy."' (The 'other shop' +was a wing occupied by a separate journal belonging to the proprietors +of the _Tribune_.) + +'What, that thing!' exclaimed Mr. Heeley. 'Won't it do to-morrow? You +know I hate messing my hands with that sort of piffle.' + +'No, it won't do to-morrow. I met Onions Winter at dinner on Saturday +night, and I told him I'd review it on the day of publication. And when +I promise a thing I promise it. Cut, my son! And I say'--the editor +recalled Mr. Heeley, who was gloomily departing--'We're under no +obligations to anyone. Write what you think, but, all the same, no +antics, no spleen. You've got to learn yet that that isn't our +speciality. You're not on the _Whitehall_ now.' + +'Oh, all right, chief--all right!' Mr. Heeley concurred. + +Five minutes later Mr. Heeley entered what he called his private +boudoir, bearing a satinesque volume. + +'Here, boys,' he cried to two other young men who were already there, +smoking clay pipes--'here's a lark! The chief wants fifteen inches on +this charming and pathetic art-work as quick as you can. And no antics, +he says. Here, Jack, here's fifty pages for you'--Mr. Heeley ripped the +beautiful inoffensive volume ruthlessly in pieces--and here's fifty for +you, Clementina. Tell me your parts of the plot I'll deal with the first +fifty my noble self.' + +Presently, after laughter, snipping out of pages with scissors, and some +unseemly language, Mr. Heeley began to write. + +'Oh, he's shot up to six foot eight!' exclaimed Jack, interrupting the +scribe. + +'Snow!' observed the bearded man styled Clementina. 'He dies in the +snow. Listen.' He read a passage from Henry's final scene, ending with +'His spirit had passed.' 'Chuck me the scissors, Jack.' + +Mr. Heeley paused, looked up, and then drew his pen through what he had +written. + +'I say, boys,'he almost whispered, 'I'll praise it, eh? I'll take it +seriously. It'll be simply delicious.' + +'What about the chief?' + +'Oh, the chief won't notice it! It'll be just for us three, and a few at +the club.' + +Then there was hard scribbling, and pasting of extracts into blank +spaces, and more laughter. + +'"If an advance were possible,"' Clementina read, over Mr. Heeley's +shoulder. 'You'll give the show away, you fool!' + +'No, I shan't, Clemmy, my boy,' said Mr. Heeley judicially. 'They'll +stand simply anything. I bet you what you like Onions Winter quotes that +all over the place.' + +And he handed the last sheet of the review to a messenger, and ran off +to the editorial room to report that instructions had been executed. +Jack and Clementina relighted their pipes with select bits of _A +Question of Cubits_, and threw the remaining debris of the volume into +the waste-paper basket. The hour was twenty minutes past midnight.... + +The great majority of the reviews were exceedingly favourable, and even +where praise was diluted with blame, the blame was administered with +respect, as a dentist might respectfully pain a prince in pulling his +tooth out. The public had voted for Henry, and the press, organ of +public opinion, displayed a wise discretion. The daring freshness of +Henry's plot, his inventive power, his skill in 'creating atmosphere,' +his gift for pathos, his unfailing wholesomeness, and his knack in the +management of narrative, were noted and eulogized in dozens of articles. +Nearly every reviewer prophesied brilliant success for him; several +admitted frankly that his equipment revealed genius of the first rank. A +mere handful of papers scorned him. Prominent among this handful was the +_Whitehall Gazette_. The distinguished mouthpiece of the superior +classes dealt with _A Question of Cubits_ at the foot of a column, in a +brief paragraph headed 'Our Worst Fears realized.' The paragraph, which +was nothing but a summary of the plot, concluded in these terms: 'So he +expired, every inch of him, in the snow, a victim to the British +Public's rapacious appetite for the sentimental.' + +The rudeness of the _Whitehall Gazette_, however, did nothing whatever +to impair the wondrous vogue which Henry now began to enjoy. His first +boom had been great, but it was a trifle compared to his second. The +title of the new book became a catchword. When a little man was seen +walking with a tall woman, people exclaimed: 'It's a question of +cubits.' When the recruiting regulations of the British army were +relaxed, people also exclaimed: 'It's a question of cubits.' During a +famous royal procession, sightseers trying to see the sight over the +heads of a crowd five deep shouted to each other all along the route: +'It's a question of cubits.' Exceptionally tall men were nicknamed +'Gerald' by their friends. Henry's Gerald, by the way, had died as +doorkeeper at a restaurant called the Trianon. The Trianon was at once +recognised as the Louvre, and the tall commissionaire at the Louvre +thereby trebled his former renown. 'Not dead in the snow yet?' the wits +of the West End would greet him on descending from their hansoms, and he +would reply, infinitely gratified: 'No, sir. No snow, sir.' A +music-hall star of no mean eminence sang a song with the refrain: + + + 'You may think what you like, + You may say what you like, + It was simply a question of cubits.' + + +The lyric related the history of a new suit of clothes that was worn by +everyone except the person who had ordered it. + +Those benefactors of humanity, the leading advertisers, used 'A Question +of Cubits' for their own exalted ends. A firm of manufacturers of +high-heeled shoes played with it for a month in various forms. The +proprietors of an unrivalled cheap cigarette disbursed thousands of +pounds in order to familiarize the public with certain facts. As thus: +'A Question of Cubits. Every hour of every day we sell as many +cigarettes as, if placed on end one on the top of the other, would make +a column as lofty as the Eiffel Tower. Owing to the fact that cigarettes +are not once mentioned in _A Question of Cubits_, we regret to say that +the author has not authorized us to assert that he was thinking of our +cigarettes when he wrote Chapter VII. of that popular novel.' + +Editors and publishers cried in vain for Henry. They could get from him +neither interviews, short stories, nor novels. They could only get +polite references to Mark Snyder. And Mark Snyder had made his +unalterable plans for the exploitation of this most wonderful racehorse +that he had ever trained for the Fame Stakes. The supply of chatty +paragraphs concerning the hero and the book of the day would have +utterly failed had not Mr. Onions Winter courageously come to the rescue +and allowed himself to be interviewed. And even then respectable +journals were reduced to this sort of paragraph: 'Apropos of Mr. +Knight's phenomenal book, it may not be generally known what the exact +measure of a cubit is. There have been three different cubits--the +Scriptural, the Roman, and the English. Of these, the first-named,' etc. + +So the thing ran on. + +And at the back of it all, supporting it all, was the steady and +prodigious sale of the book, the genuine enthusiasm for it of the +average sensible, healthy-minded woman and man. + +Finally, the information leaked out that Macalistairs had made august +and successful overtures for the reception of Henry into their fold. +Sir Hugh Macalistair, the head of the firm, was (at that time) the only +publisher who had ever been knighted. And the history of Macalistairs +was the history of all that was greatest and purest in English +literature during the nineteenth century. Without Macalistairs, English +literature since Scott would have been nowhere. Henry was to write a +long novel in due course, and Macalistairs were to have the world's +rights of the book, and were to use it as a serial in their venerable +and lusty _Magazine_, and to pay Henry, on delivery of the manuscript, +eight thousand pounds, of which six thousand was to count as in advance +of royalties on the book. + +Mr. Onions Winter was very angry at what he termed an ungrateful +desertion. The unfortunate man died a year or two later of appendicitis, +and his last words were that he, and he alone, had 'discovered' Henry. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +PLAYING THE NEW GAME + + +When Henry had seceded from Powells, and had begun to devote several +dignified hours a day to the excogitation of a theme for his new novel, +and the triumph of _A Question of Cubits_ was at its height, he thought +that there ought to be some change in his secret self to correspond with +the change in his circumstances. But he could perceive none, except, +perhaps, that now and then he was visited by the feeling that he had a +great mission in the world. That feeling, however, came rarely, and, for +the most part, he existed in a state of not being quite able to +comprehend exactly how and why his stories roused the enthusiasm of an +immense public. + +In essentials he remained the same Henry, and the sameness of his simple +self was never more apparent to him than when he got out of a cab one +foggy Wednesday night in November, and rang at the Grecian portico of +Mrs. Ashton Portway's house in Lowndes Square. A crimson cloth covered +the footpath. This was his first entry into the truly great world, and +though he was perfectly aware that as a lion he could not easily be +surpassed in no matter what menagerie, his nervousness and timidity were +so acute as to be painful; they annoyed him, in fact. When, in the wide +hall, a servant respectfully but firmly closed the door after him, thus +cutting off a possible retreat to the homely society of the cabman, he +became resigned, careless, reckless, desperate, as who should say, 'Now +I _have_ done it!' And as at the Louvre, so at Mrs. Ashton Portway's, +his outer garments were taken forcibly from him, and a ticket given to +him in exchange. The ticket startled him, especially as he saw no notice +on the walls that the management would not be responsible for articles +not deposited in the cloakroom. Nobody inquired about his identity, and +without further ritual he was asked to ascend towards regions whence +came the faint sound of music. At the top of the stairs a young and +handsome man, faultless alike in costume and in manners, suavely +accosted him. + +'What name, sir?' + +'Knight,' said Henry gruffly. The young man thought that Henry was on +the point of losing his temper from some cause or causes unknown, +whereas Henry was merely timid. + +Then the music ceased, and was succeeded by violent chatter; the young +man threw open a door, and announced in loud clear tones, which Henry +deemed ridiculously loud and ridiculously clear: + +'MR. KNIGHT!' + +Henry saw a vast apartment full of women's shoulders and black patches +of masculinity; the violent chatter died into a profound silence; every +face was turned towards him. He nearly fell down dead on the doormat, +and then, remembering that life was after all sweet, he plunged into the +room as into the sea. + +When he came up breathless and spluttering, Mrs. Ashton Portway (in +black and silver) was introducing him to her husband, Mr. Ashton +Portway, known to a small circle of readers as Raymond Quick, the author +of several mild novels issued at his own expense. Mr. Portway was rich +in money and in his wife; he had inherited the money, and his literary +instincts had discovered the wife in a publisher's daughter. The union +had not been blessed with children, which was fortunate, since Mrs. +Portway was left free to devote the whole of her time to the +encouragement of literary talent in the most unliterary of cities. + +Henry rather liked Mr. Ashton Portway, whose small black eyes seemed to +say: 'That's all right, my friend. I share your ideas fully. When you +want a quiet whisky, come to me.' + +'And what have you been doing this dark day?' Mrs. Ashton Portway began, +with her snigger. + +'Well,' said Henry, 'I dropped into the National Gallery this afternoon, +but really it was so----' + +'The National Gallery?' exclaimed Mrs. Ashton Portway swiftly. 'I must +introduce you to Miss Marchrose, the author of that charming hand-book +to _Pictures in London_. Miss Marchrose,' she called out, urging Henry +towards a corner of the room, 'this is Mr. Knight.' She sniggered on the +name. 'He's just dropped into the National Gallery.' + +Then Mrs. Ashton Portway sailed off to receive other guests, and Henry +was alone with Miss Marchrose in a nook between a cabinet and a +phonograph. Many eyes were upon them. Miss Marchrose, a woman of thirty, +with a thin face and an amorphous body draped in two shades of olive, +was obviously flattered. + +'Be frank, and admit you've never heard of me,' she said. + +'Oh yes, I have,' he lied. + +'Do you often go to the National Gallery, Mr. Knight?' + +'Not as often as I ought.' + +Pause. + +Several observant women began to think that Miss Marchrose was not +making the best of Henry--that, indeed, she had proved unworthy of an +unmerited honour. + +'I sometimes think----' Miss Marchrose essayed. + +But a young lady got up in the middle of the room, and with +extraordinary self-command and presence of mind began to recite +Wordsworth's 'The Brothers.' She continued to recite and recite until +she had finished it, and then sat down amid universal joy. + +'Matthew Arnold said that was the greatest poem of the century,' +remarked a man near the phonograph. + +'You'll pardon me,' said Miss Marchrose, turning to him. 'If you are +thinking of Matthew Arnold's introduction to the selected poems, you'll +and----' + +'My dear,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, suddenly looming up opposite the +reciter, 'what a memory you have!' + +'Was it so long, then?' murmured a tall man with spectacles and a light +wavy beard. + +'I shall send you back to Paris, Mr. Dolbiac,' said Mrs. Ashton Portway, +'if you are too witty.' The hostess smiled and sniggered, but it was +generally felt that Mr. Dolbiac's remark had not been in the best taste. + +For a few moments Henry was alone and uncared for, and he examined his +surroundings. His first conclusion was that there was not a pretty woman +in the room, and his second, that this fact had not escaped the notice +of several other men who were hanging about in corners. Then Mrs. Ashton +Portway, having accomplished the task of receiving, beckoned him, and +intimated to him that, being a lion and the king of beasts, he must +roar. 'I think everyone here has done something,' she said as she took +him round and forced him to roar. His roaring was a miserable fiasco, +but most people mistook it for the latest fashion in roaring, and were +impressed. + +'Now you must take someone down to get something to eat,' she apprised +him, when he had growled out soft nothings to poetesses, paragraphists, +publicists, positivists, penny-a-liners, and other pale persons. 'Whom +shall it be?--Ashton! What have you done?' + +The phonograph had been advertised to give a reproduction of Ternina in +the Liebestod from _Tristan und Isolde_, but instead it broke into the +'Washington Post,' and the room, braced to a great occasion, was +horrified. Mrs. Portway, abandoning Henry, ran to silence the disastrous +consequence of her husband's clumsiness. Henry, perhaps impelled by an +instinctive longing, gazed absently through the open door into the +passage, and there, with two other girls on a settee, he perceived +Geraldine! She smiled, rose, and came towards him. She looked +disconcertingly pretty; she was always at her best in the evening; and +she had such eyes to gaze on him. + +'You here!' she murmured. + +Ordinary words, but they were enveloped in layers of feeling, as a +child's simple gift may be wrapped in lovely tinted tissue-papers! + +'She's the finest woman in the place,' he thought decisively. And he +said to her: 'Will you come down and have something to eat?' + +'I can talk to _her_,' he reflected with satisfaction, as the faultless +young man handed them desired sandwiches in the supper-room. What he +meant was that she could talk to him; but men often make this mistake. + +Before he had eaten half a sandwich, the period of time between that +night and the night at the Louvre had been absolutely blotted out. He +did not know why. He could think of no explanation. It merely was so. + +She told him she had sold a sensational serial for a pound a thousand +words. + +'Not a bad price--for me,' she added. + +'Not half enough!' he exclaimed ardently. + +Her eyes moistened. He thought what a shame it was that a creature like +her should be compelled to earn even a portion of her livelihood by +typewriting for Mark Snyder. The faultless young man unostentatiously +poured more wine into their glasses. No other guests happened to be in +the room.... + + +'Ah, you're here!' It was the hostess, sniggering. + +'You told me to bring someone down,' said Henry, who had no intention of +being outfaced now. + +'We're just coming up,' Geraldine added. + +'That's right!' said Mrs. Ashton Portway. 'A lot of people have gone, +and now that we shall be a little bit more intimate, I want to try that +new game. I don't think it's ever been played in London anywhere yet. I +saw it in the _New York Herald_. Of course, nobody who isn't just a +little clever could play at it.' + +'Oh yes!' Geraldine smiled. 'You mean "Characters." I remember you told +me about it.' + +And Mrs. Ashton Portway said that she did mean 'Characters.' + +In the drawing-room she explained that in playing the game of +'Characters' you chose a subject for discussion, and then each player +secretly thought of a character in fiction, and spoke in the discussion +as he imagined that character would have spoken. At the end of the game +you tried to guess the characters chosen. + +'I think it ought to be classical fiction only,' she said. + +Sundry guests declined to play, on the ground that they lacked the +needful brilliance. Henry declined utterly, but he had the wit not to +give his reasons. It was he who suggested that the non-players should +form a jury. At last seven players were recruited, including Mr. Ashton +Portway, Miss Marchrose, Geraldine, Mr. Dolbiac, and three others. Mrs. +Ashton Portway sat down by Henry as a jurywoman. + +'And now what are you going to discuss?' said she. + +No one could find a topic. + +'Let us discuss love,' Miss Marchrose ventured. + +'Yes,' said Mr. Dolbiac, 'let's. There's nothing like leather.' + +So the seven in the centre of the room assumed attitudes suitable for +the discussion of love. + +'Have you all chosen your characters?' asked the hostess. + +'We have,' replied the seven. + +'Then begin.' + +'Don't all speak at once,' said Mr. Dolbiac, after a pause. + +'Who is that chap?' Henry whispered. + +'Mr. Dolbiac? He's a sculptor from Paris. Quite English, I believe, +except for his grandmother. Intensely clever.' Mrs. Ashton Portway +distilled these facts into Henry's ear, and then turned to the silent +seven. 'It _is_ rather difficult, isn't it?' she breathed encouragingly. + +'Love is not for such as me,' said Mr. Dolbiac solemnly. Then he looked +at his hostess, and called out in an undertone: 'I've begun.' + +'The question,' said Miss Marchrose, clearing her throat, 'is, not what +love is not, but what it is.' + +'You must kindly stand up,' said Mr. Dolbiac. 'I can't hear.' + +Miss Marchrose glanced at Mrs. Ashton Portway, and Mrs. Ashton Portway +told Mr. Dolbiac that he was on no account to be silly. + +Then Mr. Ashton Portway and Geraldine both began to speak at once, and +then insisted on being silent at once, and in the end Mr. Ashton Portway +was induced to say something about Dulcinea. + +'He's chosen Don Quixote,' his wife informed Henry behind her hand. +'It's his favourite novel.' + +The discussion proceeded under difficulties, for no one was loquacious +except Mr. Dolbiac, and all Mr. Dolbiac's utterances were staccato and +senseless. The game had had several narrow escapes of extinction, when +Miss Marchrose galvanized it by means of a long and serious monologue +treating of the sorts of man with whom a self-respecting woman will +never fall in love. There appeared to be about a hundred and +thirty-three sorts of that man. + +'There is one sort of man with whom no woman, self-respecting or +otherwise, will fall in love,' said Mr. Dolbiac, 'and that is the sort +of man she can't kiss without having to stand on the mantelpiece. +Alas!'--he hid his face in his handkerchief--'I am that sort.' + +'Without having to stand on the mantelpiece?' Mrs. Ashton Portway +repeated. 'What can he mean? Mr. Dolbiac, you aren't playing the game.' + +'Yes, I am, gracious lady,' he contradicted her. + +'Well, what character are you, then?' demanded Miss Marchrose, +irritated by his grotesque pendant to her oration. + +'I'm Gerald in _A Question of Cubits_.' + +The company felt extremely awkward. Henry blushed. + +'I said classical fiction,' Mrs. Ashton Portway corrected Mr. Dolbiac +stiffly. 'Of course I don't mean to insinuate that it isn't----' She +turned to Henry. + +'Oh! did you?' observed Dolbiac calmly. 'So sorry. I knew it was a silly +and nincompoopish book, but I thought you wouldn't mind so long as----' + +'_Mr._ Dolbiac!' + +That particular Wednesday of Mrs. Ashton Portway's came to an end in +hurried confusion. Mr. Dolbiac professed to be entirely ignorant of +Henry's identity, and went out into the night. Henry assured his hostess +that really it was nothing, except a good joke. But everyone felt that +the less said, the better. Of such creases in the web of social life +Time is the best smoother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HE LEARNS MORE ABOUT WOMEN + + +When Henry had rendered up his ticket and recovered his garments, he +found Geraldine in the hall, and a servant asking her if she wanted a +four-wheeler or a hansom. He was not quite sure whether she had +descended before him or after him: things were rather misty. + +'I am going your way,' he said. 'Can't I see you home?' + +He was going her way: the idea of going her way had occurred to him +suddenly as a beautiful idea. + +Instead of replying, she looked at him. She looked at him sadly out of +the white shawl which enveloped her head and her golden hair, and +nodded. + +There was a four-wheeler at the kerb, and they entered it and sat down +side by side in that restricted compartment, and the fat old driver, +with his red face popping up out of a barrel consisting of scores of +overcoats and aprons, drove off. It was very foggy, but one could see +the lamp-posts. + +Geraldine coughed. + +'These fogs are simply awful, aren't they?' he remarked. + +She made no answer. + +'It isn't often they begin as early as this,' he proceeded; 'I suppose +it means a bad winter.' + +But she made no answer. + +And then a sort of throb communicated itself to him, and then another, +and then he heard a smothered sound. This magnificent creature, this +independent, experienced, strong-minded, superior, dazzling creature was +crying--was, indeed, sobbing. And cabs are so small, and she was so +close. Pleasure may be so keen as to be agonizing: Henry discovered this +profound truth in that moment. In that moment he learnt more about women +than he had learnt during the whole of his previous life. He knew that +her sobbing had some connection with _A Question of Cubits_, but he +could not exactly determine the connection. + +'What's the matter?' the blundering fool inquired nervously. 'You +aren't well.' + +'I'm so--so ashamed,' she stammered out, when she had patted her eyes +with a fragment of lace. + +'Why? What of?' + +'I introduced her to you. It's my fault.' + +'But what's your fault?' + +'This horrible thing that happened.' + +She sobbed again frequently. + +'Oh, that was nothing!' said Henry kindly. 'You mustn't think about it.' + +'You don't know how I feel,' she managed to tell him. + +'I wish you'd forget it,' he urged her. 'He didn't mean to be rude.' + +'It isn't so much his rudeness,' she wept. 'It's--anyone saying a +thing--like that--about your book. You don't know how I feel.' + +'Oh, come!' Henry enjoined her. 'What's my book, anyhow?' + +'It's yours,' she said, and began to cry gently, resignedly, femininely. + +It had grown dark. The cab had plunged into an opaque sea of blackest +fog. No sound could be heard save the footfalls of the horse, which was +now walking very slowly. They were cut off absolutely from the rest of +the universe. There was no such thing as society, the state, traditions, +etiquette; nothing existed, ever had existed, or ever would exist, +except themselves, twain, in that lost four-wheeler. + +Henry had a box of matches in his overcoat pocket. He struck one, +illuminating their tiny chamber, and he saw her face once more, as +though after long years. And there were little black marks round her +eyes, due to her tears and the fog and the fragment of lace. And those +little black marks appeared to him to be the most delicious, enchanting, +and wonderful little black marks that the mind of man could possibly +conceive. And there was an exquisite, timid, confiding, surrendering +look in her eyes, which said: 'I'm only a weak, foolish, fanciful woman, +and you are a big, strong, wise, great man; my one merit is that I know +_how_ great, _how_ chivalrous, you are!' And mixed up with the timidity +in that look there was something else--something that made him almost +shudder. All this by the light of one match.... + +Good-bye world! Good-bye mother! Good-bye Aunt Annie! Good-bye the +natural course of events! Good-bye correctness, prudence, precedents! +Good-bye all! Good-bye everything! He dropped the match and kissed her. + +And his knowledge of women was still further increased. + +Oh, the unique ecstasy of such propinquity! + +Eternity set in. And in eternity one does not light matches.... + + +The next exterior phenomenon was a blinding flash through the window of +what, after all, was a cab. The door opened. + +'You'd better get out o' this,' said the cabman, surveying them by the +ray of one of his own lamps. + +'Why?' asked Henry. + +'Why?' replied the cabman sourly. 'Look here, governor, do you know +where we are?' + +'No,' said Henry. + +'No. And I'm jiggered if I do, either. You'd better take the other +blessed lamp and ask. No, not me. I don't leave my horse. I ain't agoin' +to lose my horse.' + +So Henry got out of the cab, and took a lamp and moved forward into +nothingness, and found a railing and some steps, and after climbing the +steps saw a star, which proved ultimately to be a light over a +swing-door. He pushed open the swing-door, and was confronted by a +footman. + +'Will you kindly tell me where I am? he asked the footman. + +'This is Marlborough House,' said the footman. + +'Oh, is it? Thanks,' said Henry. + +'Well,' ejaculated the cabman when Henry had luckily regained the +vehicle. 'I suppose that ain't good enough for you! Buckingham Palace is +your doss, I suppose.' + +They could now hear distant sounds, which indicated other vessels in +distress. + +The cabman said he would make an effort to reach Charing Cross, by +leading his horse and sticking to the kerb; but not an inch further than +Charing Cross would he undertake to go. + +The passage over Trafalgar Square was so exciting that, when at length +the aged cabman touched pavement--that is to say, when his horse had +planted two forefeet firmly on the steps of the Golden Cross Hotel--he +announced that that precise point would be the end of the voyage. + +'You go in there and sleep it off,' he advised his passengers. 'Chenies +Street won't see much of you to-night. And make it five bob, governor. +I've done my best.' + +'You must stop the night here,' said Henry in a low voice to Geraldine, +before opening the doors of the hotel. 'And I,' he added quickly, 'will +go to Morley's. It's round the corner, and so I can't lose my way.' + +'Yes, dear,' she acquiesced. 'I dare say that will be best.' + +'Your eyes are a little black with the fog,' he told her. + +'Are they?' she said, wiping them. 'Thanks for telling me.' + +And they entered. + +'Nasty night, sir,' the hall-porter greeted them. + +'Very,' said Henry. 'This lady wants a room. Have you one?' + +'Certainly, sir.' + +At the foot of the staircase they shook hands, and kissed in +imagination. + +'Good-night,' he said, and she said the same. + +But when she had climbed three or four stairs, she gave a little start +and returned to him, smiling, appealing. + +'I've only got a shilling or two,' she whispered. 'Can you lend me some +money to pay the bill with?' + +He produced a sovereign. Since the last kiss in the cab, nothing had +afforded him one hundredth part of the joy which he experienced in +parting with that sovereign. The transfer of the coin, so natural, so +right, so proper, seemed to set a seal on what had occurred, to make it +real and effective. He wished to shower gold upon her. + +As, bathed in joy and bliss, he watched her up the stairs, a little, +obscure compartment of his brain was thinking: 'If anyone had told me +two hours ago that before midnight I should be engaged to be married to +the finest woman I ever saw, I should have said they were off their +chumps. Curious, I've never mentioned her at home since she called! +Rather awkward!' + + +He turned sharply and resolutely to go to Morley's, and collided with +Mr. Dolbiac, who, strangely enough, was standing immediately behind him, +and gazing up the stairs, too. + +'Ah, my bold buccaneer!' said Mr. Dolbiac familiarly. 'Digested those +_marrons glaces_? I've fairly caught you out this time, haven't I?' + +Henry stared at him, startled, and blushed a deep crimson. + +'You don't remember me. You've forgotten me,' said Mr. Dolbiac. + +'It isn't Cousin Tom?' Henry guessed. + +'Oh, isn't it?' said Mr. Dolbiac. 'That's just what it is.' + +Henry shook his hand generously. 'I'm awfully glad to see you,' he +began, and then, feeling that he must be a man of the world: 'Come and +have a drink. Are you stopping here?' + +The episode of Mrs. Ashton Portway's was, then, simply one of Cousin +Tom's jokes, and he accepted it as such without the least demur or +ill-will. + +'It was you who sent that funny telegram, wasn't it?' he asked Cousin +Tom. + +In the smoking-room Tom explained how he had grown a beard in obedience +to the dictates of nature, and changed his name in obedience to the +dictates of art. And Henry, for his part, explained sundry things about +himself, and about Geraldine. + +The next morning, when Henry arrived at Dawes Road, decidedly late, Tom +was already there. And more, he had already told the ladies, evidently +in a highly-decorated narrative, of Henry's engagement! The situation +for Henry was delicate in the extreme, but, anyhow, his mother and aunt +had received the first shock. They knew the naked fact, and that was +something. And of course Cousin Tom always made delicate situations: it +was his privilege to do so. Cousin Tom's two aunts were delighted to see +him again, and in a state so flourishing. He was asked no inconvenient +questions, and he furnished no information. Bygones were bygones. Henry +had never been told about the trifling incident of the ten pounds. + +'She's coming down to-night,' Henry said, addressing his mother, after +the mid-day meal. + +'I'm very glad,' replied his mother. + +'We shall be most pleased to welcome her,' Aunt Annie said. 'Well, +Tom----' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SEPARATION + + +Henry's astonishment at finding himself so suddenly betrothed to the +finest woman in the world began to fade and perish in three days or so. +As he looked into the past with that searching eye of his, he thought he +could see that his relations with Geraldine had never ceased to develop +since their commencement, even when they had not been precisely cordial +and sincere. He remembered strange things that he had read about love in +books, things which had previously struck him as being absurd, but which +now became explanatory commentaries on the puzzling text of the episode +in the cab. It was not long before he decided that the episode in the +cab was almost a normal episode. + +He was very proud and happy, and full of sad superior pity for all +young men who, through incorrect views concerning women, had neglected +to plight themselves. + +He imagined that he was going to settle down and live for ever in a +state of bliss with the finest woman in the world, rich, famous, +honoured; and that life held for him no other experience, and especially +no disconcerting, dismaying experience. But in this supposition he was +mistaken. + +One afternoon he had escorted Tom to Chenies Street, in order that Tom +might formally meet Geraldine. It was rather nervous work, having regard +to Tom's share in the disaster at Lowndes Square; and the more so +because Geraldine's visit to Dawes Road had not been a dazzling success. +Geraldine in Dawes Road had somehow the air, the brazen air, of an +orchid in a clump of violets; the violets, by their mere quality of +being violets, rebuked the orchid, and the orchid could not have +flourished for any extended period in that temperature. Still, Mrs. +Knight and Aunt Annie said to Henry afterwards that Geraldine was very +clever and nice; and Geraldine said to Henry afterwards that his mother +and aunt were delightful old ladies. The ordeal for Geraldine was now +quite a different one. Henry hoped for the best. It did not follow, +because Geraldine had not roused the enthusiasm of Dawes Road, that she +would leave Tom cold. In fact, Henry could not see how Tom could fail to +be enchanted. + +A minor question which troubled Henry, as they ascended the stone stairs +at Chenies Street, was this: Should he kiss Geraldine in front of Tom? +He decided that it was not only his right, but his duty, to kiss her in +the privacy of her own flat, with none but a relative present. 'Kiss her +I will!' his thought ran. And kiss her he did. Nothing untoward +occurred. 'Why, of course!' he reflected. 'What on earth was I worrying +about?' He was conscious of glory. And he soon saw that Tom really was +impressed by Geraldine. Tom's eyes said to him: 'You're not such a fool +as you might have been.' + +Geraldine scolded Tom for his behaviour at Mrs. Ashton Portway's, and +Tom replied in Tom's manner; and then, when they were all at ease, she +turned to Henry. + +'My poor friend,' she said, 'I've got bad news.' + +She handed him a letter from her brother in Leicester, from which it +appeared that the brother's two elder children were down with +scarlatina, while the youngest, three days old, and the mother, were in +a condition to cause a certain anxiety ... and could Geraldine come to +the rescue? + +'Shall you go?' Henry asked. + +'Oh yes,' she said. 'I've arranged with Mr. Snyder, and wired Teddy that +I'll arrive early to-morrow.' + +She spoke in an extremely matter-of-fact tone, as though there were no +such things as love and ecstasy in the world, as though to indicate that +in her opinion life was no joke, after all. + +'And what about me?' said Henry. He thought: 'My shrewd, capable girl +has to sacrifice herself--and me--in order to look after incompetent +persons who can't look after themselves!' + +'You'll be all right,' said she, still in the same tone. + +'Can't I run down and see you?' he suggested. + +She laughed briefly, as at a pleasantry, and so Henry laughed too. + +'With four sick people on my hands!' she exclaimed. + +'How long shall you be away?' he inquired. + +'My dear--can I tell?' + +'You'd better come back to Paris with me for a week or so, my son,' said +Tom. 'I shall leave the day after to-morrow.' + +And now Henry laughed, as at a pleasantry. But, to his surprise, +Geraldine said: + +'Yes, do. What a good idea! I should like you to enjoy yourself, and +Paris is so jolly. You've been, haven't you, dearest?' + +'No,' Henry replied. 'I've never been abroad at all.' + +'_Never?_ Oh, that settles it. You must go.' + +Henry had neither the slightest desire nor the slightest intention to go +to Paris. The idea of him being in Paris, of all places, while Geraldine +was nursing the sick night and day, was not a pleasant one. + +'You really ought to go, you know,' Tom resumed. 'You, a novelist ... +can't see too much! The monuments of Paris, the genius of the French +nation! And there's notepaper and envelopes and stamps, just the same as +in London. Letters posted in Paris before six o'clock will arrive in +Leicester on the following afternoon. Am I not right, Miss Foster?' + +Geraldine smiled. + +'No,' said Henry. 'I'm not going to Paris--not me!' + +'But I wish it,' Geraldine remarked calmly. + +And he saw, amazed, that she did wish it. Pursuing his researches into +the nature of women, he perceived vaguely that she would find pleasure +in martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris; +and pleasure also in the thought of his uncomfortable thought of her +martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris. + +But he said to himself that he did not mean to yield to womanish +whims--he, a man. + +'And my work?' he questioned lightly. + +'Your work will be all the better,' said Geraldine with a firm accent. + +And then it seemed to be borne in upon him that womanish whims needed +delicate handling. And why not yield this once? It would please her. And +he could have been firm had he chosen. + +Hence it was arranged. + +'I'm only going to please you,' he said to her when he was mournfully +seeing her off at St. Pancras the next morning. + +'Yes, I know,' she answered, 'and it's sweet of you. But you want +someone to make you move, dearest.' + +'Oh, do I?' he thought; 'do I?' + +His mother and Aunt Annie were politely surprised at the excursion. But +they succeeded in conveying to him that they had decided to be prepared +for anything now. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +COSETTE + + +Tom and Henry put up at the Grand Hotel, Paris. The idea was Tom's. He +decried the hotel, its clients and its reputation, but he said that it +had one advantage: when you were at the Grand Hotel you knew where you +were. Tom, it appeared, had a studio and bedroom up in Montmartre. He +postponed visiting this abode, however, until the morrow, partly because +it would not be prepared for him, and partly in order to give Henry the +full advantage of his society. They sat on the terrace of the Cafe de la +Paix, after a very late dinner, and drank bock, and watched the +nocturnal life of the boulevard, and talked. Henry gathered--not from +any direct statement, but by inference--that Tom must have acquired a +position in the art world of Paris. Tom mentioned the Salon as if the +Salon were his pocket, and stated casually that there was work of his in +the Luxembourg. Strange that the cosmopolitan quality of Tom's +reputation--if, in comparison with Henry's, it might be called a +reputation at all--roused the author's envy! He, too, wished to be +famous in France, and to be at home in two capitals. Tom retired at what +he considered an early hour--namely, midnight--the oceanic part of the +journey having saddened him. Before they separated he borrowed a +sovereign from Henry, and this simple monetary transaction had the +singular effect of reducing Henry's envy. + +The next morning Henry wished to begin a systematic course of the +monuments of Paris and the artistic genius of the French nation. But Tom +would not get up. At eleven o'clock Henry, armed with a map and the +English talent for exploration, set forth alone to grasp the general +outlines of the city, and came back successful at half-past one. At +half-past two Tom was inclined to consider the question of getting up, +and Henry strolled out again and lost himself between the Moulin Rouge +and the Church of Sacre Coeur. It was turned four o'clock when he +sighted the facade of the hotel, and by that time Tom had not only +arisen, but departed, leaving a message that he should be back at six +o'clock. So Henry wandered up and down the boulevard, from the Madeleine +to Marguery's Restaurant, had an automatic tea at the Express-Bar, and +continued to wander up and down the boulevard. + +He felt that he could have wandered up and down the boulevard for ever. + +And then night fell; and all along the boulevard, high on seventh +storeys and low as the street names, there flashed and flickered and +winked, in red and yellow and a most voluptuous purple, electric +invitations to drink inspiriting liqueurs and to go and amuse yourself +in places where the last word of amusement was spoken. There was one +name, a name almost revered by the average healthy Englishman, which +wrote itself magically on the dark blue sky in yellow, then extinguished +itself and wrote itself anew in red, and so on tirelessly: that name was +'Folies-Bergere.' It gave birth to the most extraordinary sensations in +Henry's breast. And other names, such as 'Casino de Paris,' 'Eldorado,' +'Scala,' glittered, with their guiding arrows of light, from bronze +columns full in the middle of the street. And what with these devices, +and the splendid glowing windows of the shops, and the enlarged +photographs of surpassingly beautiful women which hung in heavy frames +from almost every lamp-post, and the jollity of the slowly-moving +crowds, and the incredible illustrations displayed on the newspaper +kiosks, and the moon creeping up the velvet sky, and the thousands of +little tables at which the jolly crowds halted to drink liquids coloured +like the rainbow--what with all that, and what with the curious gay +feeling in the air, Henry felt that possibly Berlin, or Boston, or even +Timbuctoo, might be a suitable and proper place for an engaged young +man, but that decidedly Paris was not. + +At six o'clock there was no sign of Tom. He arrived at half-past seven, +admitted that he was a little late, and said that a friend had given him +tickets for the first performance of the new 'revue' at the +Folies-Bergere, that night. + + +'And now, since we are alone, we can talk,' said Cosette, adding, '_Mon +petit._' + +'Yes,' Henry agreed. + +'Dolbiac has told me you are very rich--_une vogue epatante_.... One +would not say it.... But how your ears are pretty!' Cosette glanced +admiringly at the lobe of his left ear. + +('Anyhow,' Henry reflected, 'she would insist on me coming to Paris. I +didn't want to come.') + +They were alone, and yet not alone. They occupied a 'loge' in the +crammed, gorgeous, noisy Folies-Bergere. But it resembled a box in an +English theatre less than an old-fashioned family pew at the Great Queen +Street Wesleyan Chapel. It was divided from other boxes and from the +stalls and from the jostling promenade by white partitions scarcely as +high as a walking-stick. There were four enamelled chairs in it, and +Henry and Cosette were seated on two of them; the other two were empty. +Tom had led Henry like a sheep to the box, where they were evidently +expected by two excessively stylish young women, whom Tom had introduced +to the overcome Henry as Loulou and Cosette, two artistes of the Theatre +des Capucines. Loulou was short and fair and of a full habit, and spoke +no English. Cosette was tall and slim and dark, and talked slowly, and +with smiles, a language which was frequently a recognisable imitation of +English. She had learnt it, she said, in Ireland, where she had been +educated in a French convent. She had just finished a long engagement at +the Capucines, and in a fortnight she was to commence at the Scala: this +was an off-night for her. She protested a deep admiration for Tom. + +Cosette and Loulou and Tom had held several colloquies, in +incomprehensible French that raced like a mill-stream over a weir, with +acquaintances who accosted them on the promenade or in the stalls, and +at length Tom and Loulou had left the 'loge' for a few minutes in order +to accept the hospitality of friends in the great hall at the back of +the auditorium. The new 'revue' seemed to be the very last thing that +they were interested in. + +'Don't be afraid,' Tom, departing, had said to Henry. 'She won't eat +you.' + +'You leave me to take care of myself,' Henry had replied, lifting his +chin. + +Cosette transgressed the English code governing the externals of women +in various particulars. And the principal result was to make the +English code seem insular and antique. She had an extremely large white +hat, with a very feathery feather in it, and some large white roses +between the brim and her black hair. Her black hair was positively +sable, and one single immense lock of it was drawn level across her +forehead. With the large white hat she wore a low evening-dress, +lace-covered, with loose sleeves to the elbow, and white gloves running +up into the mystery of the sleeves. Round her neck was a tight string of +pearls. The combination of the hat and the evening-dress startled Henry, +but he saw in the theatre many other women similarly contemptuous of the +English code, and came to the conclusion that, though queer and +un-English, the French custom had its points. Cosette's complexion was +even more audacious in its contempt of Henry's deepest English +convictions. Her lips were most obviously painted, and her eyebrows had +received some assistance, and once, in a manner absolutely ingenuous, +she produced a little bag and gazed at herself in a little mirror, and +patted her chin with a little puff, and then smiled happily at Henry. +Yes, and Henry approved. He was forced to approve, forced to admit the +artificial and decadent but indubitable charm of paint and powder. The +contrast between Cosette's lips and her brilliant teeth was utterly +bewitching. + +She was not beautiful. In facial looks, she was simply not in the same +class with Geraldine. And as to intellect, also, Geraldine was an easy +first. + +But in all other things, in the things that really mattered (such was +the dim thought at the back of Henry's mind), she was to Geraldine what +Geraldine was to Aunt Annie. Her gown was a miracle, her hat was +another, and her coiffure a third. And when she removed a glove--her +rings, and her finger-nails! And the glimpses of her shoes! She was so +_finished_. And in the way of being frankly feminine, Geraldine might go +to school to her. Geraldine had brains and did not hide them; Geraldine +used the weapon of seriousness. But Cosette knew better than that. +Cosette could surround you with a something, an emanation of all the +woman in her, that was more efficient to enchant than the brains of a +Georges Sand could have been. + +And Paris, or that part of the city which constitutes Paris for the +average healthy Englishman, was an open book to this woman of +twenty-four. Nothing was hid from her. Nothing startled her, nothing +seemed unusual to her. Nothing shocked her except Henry's ignorance of +all the most interesting things in the world. + +'Well, what do you think of a French "revue," my son?' asked Tom when he +returned with Loulou. + +'Don't know,' said Henry, with his gibus tipped a little backward. +'Haven't seen it. We've been talking. The music's a fearful din.' He +felt nearly as Parisian as Tom looked. + +'_Tiens!_' Cosette twittered to Loulou, making a gesture towards Henry's +ears. '_Regarde-moi ces oreilles. Sont jolies. Pas?_' + +And she brought her teeth together with a click that seemed to render +somewhat doubtful Tom's assurance that she would not eat Henry. + +Soon afterwards Tom and Henry left the auditorium, and Henry parted from +Cosette with mingled sensations of regret and relief. He might never see +her again. Geraldine.... + +But Tom did not emerge from the outer precincts of the vast music-hall +without several more conversations with fellows-well-met, and when he +and Henry reached the pavement, Cosette and Loulou happened to be just +getting into a cab. Tom did not see them, but Henry and Cosette caught +sight of each other. She beckoned to him. + +'You come and take lunch with me to-morrow? _Hein?_' she almost +whispered in that ear of his. + +'_Avec plaisir_,' said Henry. He had studied French regularly for six +years at school. + +'Rue de Bruxelles, No. 3,' she instructed him. 'Noon.' + +'I know it!' he exclaimed delightedly. He had, in fact, passed through +the street during the day. + +No one had ever told him before that his ears were pretty. + + +When, after parleying nervously with the concierge, he arrived at the +second-floor of No. 3, Rue de Bruxelles, he heard violent high sounds of +altercation through the door at which he was about to ring, and then the +door opened, and a young woman, flushed and weeping, was sped out on to +the landing, Cosette herself being the exterminator. + +'Ah, _mon ami_!' said Cosette, seeing him. 'Enter then.' + +She charmed him inwards and shut the door, breathing quickly. + +'It is my _domestique_, my servant, who steals me,' she explained. 'Come +and sit down in the salon. I will tell you.' + +The salon was a little room about eight feet by ten, silkily furnished. +Besides being the salon, it was clearly also the _salle a manger_, and +when one person had sat down therein it was full. Cosette took Henry's +hat and coat and umbrella and pressed him into a chair by the shoulders, +and then gave him the full history of her unparalleled difficulties with +the exterminated servant. She looked quite a different Cosette now from +the Cosette of the previous evening. Her black hair was loose; her face +pale, and her lips also a little pale; and she was draped from neck to +feet in a crimson peignoir, very fluffy. + +'And now I must buy the lunch,' she said. 'I must go myself. Excuse me.' + +She disappeared into the adjoining room, the bedroom, and Henry could +hear the _fracas_ of silk and stuff. 'What do you eat for lunch?' she +cried out. + +'Anything,' Henry called in reply. + +'Oh! _Que les hommes sont betes!_' she murmured, her voice seemingly +lost in the folds of a dress. 'One must choose. Say.' + +'Whatever you like,' said Henry. + +'Rumsteak? Say.' + +'Oh yes,' said Henry. + +She reappeared in a plain black frock, with a reticule in her hand, and +at the same moment a fox-terrier wandered in from somewhere. + +'_Mimisse!_' she cried in ecstasy, snatching up the animal and kissing +it. 'You want to go with your mamma? Yess. What do you think of my +_fox_? She is real English. _Elle est si gentille avec sa mere! Ma +Mimisse! Ma petite fille!_ My little girl! _Dites, mon ami_'--she +abandoned the dog--'have you some money for our lunch? Five francs?' + +'That enough?' Henry asked, handing her the piece. + +'Thank you,' she said. '_Viens, Mimisse._' + +'You haven't put your hat on,' Henry informed her. + +'_Mais, mon pauvre ami_, is it that you take me for a duchess? I come +from the _ouvriers_, me, the working peoples. I avow it. Never can I do +my shops in a hat. I should blush.' + +And with a tremendous flutter, scamper, and chatter, Cosette and her +_fox_ departed, leaving Henry solitary to guard the flat. + +He laughed to himself, at himself. 'Well,' he murmured, looking down +into the court, 'I suppose----' + +Cosette came back with a tin of sardines, a piece of steak, some French +beans, two cakes of the kind called 'nuns,' a bunch of grapes, and a +segment of Brie cheese. She put on an apron, and went into the +kitchenlet, and began to cook, giving Henry instructions the while how +to lay the table and where to find the things. Then she brought him the +coffee-mill full of coffee, and told him to grind it. + +The lunch seemed to be ready in about three minutes, and it was merely +perfection. Such steak, such masterly handling of green vegetables, and +such 'nuns!' And the wine! + +There were three at table, Mimisse being the third. Mimisse partook of +everything except wine. + +'You see I am a woman _pot-au-feu_,' said Cosette, not without +satisfaction, in response to his praises of the meal. He did not exactly +know what a woman _pot-au-feu_ might be, but he agreed enthusiastically +that she was that sort of woman. + +At the stage of coffee--Mimisse had a piece of sugar steeped in +coffee--she produced cigarettes, and made him light his cigarette at +hers, and put her elbows on the table and looked at his ears. She was +still wearing the apron, which appeared to Henry to be an apron of +ineffable grace. + +'So you are _fiance, mon petit_? Eh?' she said. + +'Who told you?' Henry asked quickly. 'Tom?' + +She nodded; then sighed. He was instructed to describe Geraldine in +detail. Cosette sighed once more. + +'Why do you sigh?' he demanded. + +'Who knows?' she answered. '_Dites!_ English ladies are cold? Like +that?' She affected the supercilious gestures of Englishwomen whom she +had seen in the streets and elsewhere. 'No?' + +'Perhaps,' Henry said. + +'Frenchwomen are better? Yes? _Dites-moi franchement._ You think?' + +'In some ways,' Henry agreed. + +'You like Frenchwomen more than those cold Englishwomen who have no +_chic_?' + +'When I'm in Paris I do,' said Henry. + +'_Ah! Comme tous les Anglais!_' + +She rose, and just grazed his ear with her little finger. '_Va!_' she +said. + +He felt that she was beyond anything in his previous experience. + +A little later she told him she had to go to the Scala to sign her +contract, and she issued an order that he was to take Mimisse out for a +little exercise, and return for her in half an hour, when she would be +dressed. So Henry went forth with Mimisse at the end of a strap. + +In the Boulevard de Clichy who should accost him but Tom, whom he had +left asleep as usual at the hotel! + +'What dog is that?' Tom asked. + +'Cosette's,' said Henry, unsuccessfully trying to assume a demeanour at +once natural and tranquil. + +'My young friend,' said Tom, 'I perceive that it will be necessary to +look after you. I was just going to my studio, but I will accompany you +in your divagations.' + +They returned to the Rue de Bruxelles together. Cosette was dressed in +all her afternoon splendour, for the undoing of theatrical managers. +The role of woman _pot-au-feu_ was finished for that day. + +'I'm off to Monte Carlo to-morrow,' said Tom to her. 'I'm going to paint +a portrait there. And Henry will come with me.' + +'To Monte Carlo?' Henry gasped. + +'To Monte Carlo.' + +'But----' + +'Do you suppose I'm going to leave you here?' Tom inquired. 'And you +can't return to London yet.' + +'No,' said Cosette thoughtfully, 'not London.' + + +They left her in the Boulevard de Strasbourg, and then Tom suggested a +visit to the Luxembourg Gallery. It was true: a life-sized statue of +Sappho, signed 'Dolbiac,' did in feet occupy a prominent place in the +sculpture-room. Henry was impressed; so also was Tom, who explained to +his young cousin all the beauties of the work. + +'What else is there to see here?' Henry asked, when the stream of +explanations had slackened. + +'Oh, there's nothing much else,' said Tom dejectedly. + +They came away. This was the beginning and the end of Henry's studies +in the monuments of Paris. + +At the hotel he found opportunity to be alone. + +He wished to know exactly where he stood, and which way he was looking. +It was certain that the day had been unlike any other day in his career. + +'I suppose that's what they call Bohemia,' he exclaimed wistfully, +solitary in his bedroom. + +And then later: + +'Jove! I've never written to Geraldine to-day!' + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE RAKE'S PROGRESS + + +'_Faites vos jeux, messieurs_,' said the chief croupier of the table. + +Henry's fingers touched a solitary five-franc piece in his pocket, +large, massive, seductive. + +Yes, he was at Monte Carlo. He could scarcely believe it, but it was so. +Tom had brought him. The curious thing about Tom was that, though he +lied frequently and casually, just as some men hitch their collars, his +wildest statements had a way of being truthful. Thus, a work of his had +in fact been purchased by the French Government and placed on exhibition +in the Luxembourg. And thus he had in fact come to Monte Carlo to paint +a portrait--the portrait of a Sicilian Countess, he said, and Henry +believed, without actually having seen the alleged Countess--at a high +price. There were more complexities in Tom's character than Henry could +unravel. Henry had paid the entire bill at the Grand Hotel, had lent Tom +a sovereign, another sovereign, and a five-pound note, and would +certainly have been mulcted in Tom's fare on the expensive _train de +luxe_ had he not sagaciously demanded money from Tom before entering the +ticket-office. Without being told, Henry knew that money lent to Tom was +money dropped down a grating in the street. During the long journey +southwards Tom had confessed, with a fine appreciation of the fun, that +he lived in Paris until his creditors made Paris disagreeable, and then +went elsewhere, Rome or London, until other creditors made Rome or +London disagreeable, and then he returned to Paris. + +Henry had received this remark in silence. + +As the train neared Monte Carlo--the hour was roseate and +matutinal--Henry had observed Tom staring at the scenery through the +window, his coffee untasted, and tears in his rapt eyes. 'What's up?' +Henry had innocently inquired. Tom turned on him fiercely. 'Silly ass!' +Tom growled with scathing contempt. 'Can't you feel how beautiful it all +is?' + +And this remark, too, Henry had received in silence. + +'Do you reckon yourself a great artist?' Tom had asked, and Henry had +laughed. 'No, I'm not joking,' Tom had insisted. 'Do you honestly reckon +yourself a great artist? I reckon myself one. There's candour for you. +Now tell me, frankly.' There was a wonderful and rare charm in Tom's +manner as he uttered these words. 'I don't know,' Henry had replied. +'Yes, you do,' Tom had insisted. 'Speak the truth. I won't let it go any +further. Do you think yourself as big as George Eliot, for example?' +Henry had hesitated, forced into sincerity by Tom's persuasive and +serious tone. 'It's not a fair question,' Henry had said at length. +Whereupon Tom, without the least warning, had burst into loud laughter: +'My bold buccaneer, you take the cake. You always did. You always will. +There is something about you that is colossal, immense, and +magnificent.' + +And this third remark also Henry had received in silence. + +It was their second day at Monte Carlo, and Tom, after getting Henry's +card of admission for him, had left him in the gaming-rooms, and gone +off to the alleged Countess. The hour was only half-past eleven, and +none of the roulette tables was crowded; two of the trente-et-quarante +tables had not even begun to operate. For some minutes Henry watched a +roulette table, fascinated by the munificent style of the croupiers in +throwing five-franc pieces, louis, and bank-notes about the green cloth, +and the neat twist of the thumb and finger with which the chief croupier +spun the ball. There were thirty or forty persons round the table, all +solemn and intent, and most of them noting the sequence of winning +numbers on little cards. 'What fools!' thought Henry. 'They know the +Casino people make a profit of two thousand a day. They know the chances +are mathematically against them. And yet they expect to win!' + +It was just at this point in his meditations upon the spectacle of human +foolishness that he felt the five-franc piece in his pocket. An idea +crossed his mind that he would stake it, merely in order to be able to +say that he had gambled at Monte Carlo. Absurd! How much more effective +to assert that he had visited the tables and not gambled!... And then he +knew that something within him more powerful than his common-sense +would force him to stake that five-franc piece. He glanced furtively at +the crowd to see whether anyone was observing him. No. Well, it having +been decided to bet, the next question was, how to bet? Now, Henry had +read a magazine article concerning the tables at Monte Carlo, and, being +of a mathematical turn, had clearly grasped the principles of the game. +He said to himself, with his characteristic caution: 'I'll wait till red +wins four times running, and then I'll stake on the black.' + +('But surely,' remarked the logical superior person in him, 'you don't +mean to argue that a spin of the ball is affected by the spins that have +preceded it? You don't mean to argue that, because red wins four times, +or forty times, running, black is any the more likely to win at the next +spin?' 'You shut up!' retorted the human side of him crossly. 'I know +all about that.') + +At last, after a considerable period of waiting, red won four times in +succession. Henry felt hot and excited. He pulled the great coin out of +his pocket, and dropped it in again, and then the croupier spun the ball +and exhorted the company several times to make their games, and +precisely as the croupier was saying sternly, _'Rien ne va plus_,' +Henry took the coin again, and with a tremendous effort of will, leaning +over an old man seated in front of him, pitched it into the meadow +devoted to black stakes. He blushed; his hair tingled at the root; he +was convinced that everybody round the table was looking at him with +sardonic amusement. + +'_Quatre, noir, pair, et manque_,' cried the croupier. + +Black had won. + +Henry's heart was beating like a hammer. Even now he was afraid lest one +of the scoundrels who, according to the magazine article, infested the +rooms, might lean over his shoulder and snatch his lawful gains. He kept +an eye lifting. The croupier threw a five-franc piece to join his own, +and Henry, with elaborate calmness, picked both pieces up. His +temperature fell; he breathed more easily. 'It's nothing, after all,' he +thought. 'Of course, on that system I'm bound to win.' + +Soon afterwards the old man in front of him grunted and left, and Henry +slipped into the vacant chair. In half an hour he had made twenty +francs; his demeanour had hardened; he felt as though he had frequented +Monte Carlo steadily for years; and what he did not know about the art +and craft of roulette was apocryphal. + +'Place this for me,' said a feminine voice. + +He turned swiftly. It was Cosette's voice! There she stood, exquisitely +and miraculously dressed, behind his chair, holding a note of the Bank +of France in her gloved hand! + +'When did you come?' he asked loudly, in his extreme astonishment. + +'_Pstt!_' she smilingly admonished him for breaking the rule of the +saloons. 'Place this for me.' + +It was a note for a thousand francs. + +'This?' he said. + +'Yes.' + +'But where?' + +'Choose,' she whispered. 'You are lucky. You will bring happiness.' + +He did not know what he was doing, so madly whirled his brain, and, as +the black enclosure happened to be nearest to him, he dropped the note +there. The croupier at the end of the table manoeuvred it with his +rake, and called out to the centre: '_Billet de mille francs._' Then, +when it was too late, Henry recollected that black had already turned +up three times together. But in a moment black had won. + +'I can quite understand the fascination this game has for people,' Henry +thought. + +'Leave them there,' said Cosette, pointing to the two notes for a +thousand francs each. 'I like to follow the run.' + +Black won again. + +'Leave them there,' said Cosette, pointing to the four notes for a +thousand francs each. 'I did say you would bring happiness.' They smiled +at each other happily. + +Black won again. + +Cosette repeated her orders. Such a method of playing was entirely +contrary to Henry's expert opinion. Nevertheless, black, in defiance of +rules, continued to win. When sixteen thousand francs of paper lay +before Henry, the croupier addressed him sharply, and he gathered, with +Cosette's assistance, that the maximum stake was twelve thousand francs. + +'Put four thousand on the odd numbers,' said Cosette. 'Eh? You think?' + +'No,' said Henry. 'Evens.' + +And the number four turned up again. + +At a stroke he had won sixteen thousand francs, six hundred and forty +pounds, for Cosette, and the total gains were one thousand two hundred +and forty pounds. + +The spectators were at last interested in Henry's play. It was no longer +an illusion on his part that people stared at him. + +'Say a number,' whispered Cosette. 'Shut the eyes and say a number.' + +'Twenty-four,' said Henry. She had told him it was her age. + +'_Bien! Voila huit louis!_' she exclaimed, opening her purse of netted +gold; and he took the eight coins and put them on number twenty-four. +Eight notes for a thousand francs each remained on the even numbers. The +other notes were in Henry's hip-pocket, a crushed mass. + +Twenty-four won. It was nothing but black that morning. '_Mais c'est +epatant!_' murmured several on lookers anxiously. + +A croupier counted out innumerable notes, and sundry noble and glorious +gold _plaques_ of a hundred francs each. Henry could not check the +totals, but he knew vaguely that another three hundred pounds or so had +accrued to him, on behalf of Cosette. + +'I fancy red now,' he said, sighing. + +And feeling a terrible habitue, he said to the croupier in French: +'_Maximum. Rouge._' + +'_Maximum. Rouge_,' repeated the croupier. + +Instantly the red enclosure was covered with the stakes of a quantity of +persons who had determined to partake of Henry's luck. + +And red won; it was the number fourteen. + +Henry was so absorbed that he did not observe a colloquy between two of +the croupiers at the middle of the table. The bank was broken, and every +soul in every room knew it in the fraction of a second. + +'Come,' said Cosette, as soon as Henry had received the winnings. +'Come,' she repeated, pulling his sleeve nervously. + +'I've broken the bank at Monte Carlo!' he thought as they hurried out of +the luxurious halls. 'I've broken the bank at Monte Carlo! I've broken +the bank at Monte Carlo!' + +If he had succeeded to the imperial throne of China, he would have felt +much the same as he felt then. + +Quite by chance he remembered the magazine article, and a statement +therein that prudent people, when they had won a large sum, drove +straight to Smith's Bank and banked it _coram publico_, so that +scoundrels might be aware that assault with violence in the night hours +would be futile. + +'If we lunch?' Cosette suggested, while Henry was getting his hat. + +'No, not yet,' he said importantly. + +At Smith's Bank he found that he had sixty-three thousand francs of +hers. + +'You dear,' she murmured in ecstasy, and actually pressed a light kiss +on his ear in the presence of the bank clerk! 'You let me keep the three +thousand?' she pleaded, like a charming child. + +So he let her keep the three thousand. The sixty thousand was banked in +her name. + +'You offer me a lunch?' she chirruped deliciously, in the street. 'I +gave you a lunch. You give me one. It is why I am come to Monte Carlo, +for that lunch.' + +They lunched at the Hotel de Paris. + + +He was intoxicated that afternoon, though not with the Heidsieck they +had consumed. They sat out on the terrace. It was December, but like an +English June. And the pride of life, and the beauty of the world and of +women and of the costumes of women, informed and uplifted his soul. He +thought neither of the past nor of the future, but simply and intensely +of the present. He would not even ask himself why, really, Cosette had +come to Monte Carlo. She said she had come with Loulou, because they +both wanted to come; and Loulou was in bed with _migraine_; but as for +Cosette, she never had the _migraine_, she was never ill. And then the +sun touched the Italian hills, and the sea slept, and ... and ... what a +planet, this earth! He could almost understand why Tom had wept between +Cannes and Nice. + +It was arranged that the four should dine together that evening, if +Loulou had improved and Tom was discoverable. Henry promised to discover +him. Cosette announced that she must visit Loulou, and they parted for a +few brief hours. + +'_Mon petit!_' she threw after him. + +To see that girl tripping along the terrace in the sunset was a sight! + +Henry went to the Hotel des Anglais, but Tom had not been seen there. +He strolled back to the Casino gardens. The gardeners were drawing +suspended sheets over priceless blossoms. When that operation was +finished, he yawned, and decided that he might as well go into the +Casino for half an hour, just to watch the play. + +The atmosphere of the gay but unventilated rooms was heavy and noxious. + +He chose a different table to watch, a table far from the scene of his +early triumph. In a few minutes he said that he might as well play, to +pass the time. So he began to play, feeling like a giant among pigmies. +He lost two hundred francs in five spins. + +'Steady, my friend!' he enjoined himself. + +Now, two hundred francs should be the merest trifle to a man who has won +sixty-three thousand francs. Henry, however, had not won sixty-three +thousand francs. On the other hand, it was precisely Henry who had paid +sixty-five francs for lunch for two that day, and Henry who had lent Tom +a hundred and seventy-five francs, and Henry who had paid Tom's hotel +bill in Paris, and Henry who had left England with just fifty-five +pounds--a sum which he had imagined to be royally ample for his needs on +the Continent. + +He considered the situation. + +He had his return-ticket from Monte Carlo to Paris, and his +return-ticket from Paris to London. He probably owed fifty francs at the +hotel, and he possessed a note for a hundred francs, two notes for fifty +francs, some French gold and silver, and some English silver. + +Continuing to play upon his faultless system, he lost another fifty +francs. + +'I can ask her to lend me something. I won all that lot for her,' he +said. + +'You know perfectly well you can't ask her to lend you something,' said +an abstract reasoning power within him. 'It's just because you won all +that lot for her that you can't. You'd be afraid lest she should think +you were sponging on her. Can you imagine yourself asking her?' + +'Well, I can ask Tom,' he said. + +'Tom!' exclaimed the abstract reasoning power. + +'I can wire to Snyder,' he said. + +'That would look a bit thick,' replied the abstract reasoning power, +'telegraphing for money--from Monte Carlo.' + +Henry took the note for a hundred francs, and put it on red, and went +icy cold in the feet and hands, and swore a horrid oath. + +Black won. + +He had sworn, and he was a man of his word. He walked straight out of +the Casino; but uncertainly, feebly, as a man who has received a +staggering blow between the eyes, as a man who has been pitched into a +mountain-pool in January, as a somnambulist who has wakened to find +himself on the edge of a precipice. + +He paid his bill at the hotel, and asked the time of the next train to +Paris. There was no next train to Paris that night, but there was a +train to Marseilles. He took it. Had it been a train only to Nice, or to +the Plutonian realms, he would have taken it. He said no good-byes. He +left no messages, no explanations. He went. On the next afternoon but +one he arrived at Victoria with fivepence in his pocket. Twopence he +paid to deposit his luggage in the cloakroom, and threepence for the +Underground fare to Charing Cross. From Charing Cross he walked up to +Kenilworth Mansions and got a sovereign from Mark Snyder. Coutts's, +where Mark financed himself, was closed, and a sovereign was all that +Mark had. + +Henry was thankful that the news had not yet reached London--at any +rate, it had not reached Mark Snyder. It was certain to do so, however. +Henry had read in that morning's Paris edition of the _New York Herald_: +'Mr. Henry S. Knight, the famous young English novelist, broke the bank +at Monte Carlo the other day. He was understood to be playing in +conjunction with Mademoiselle Cosette, the well-known Parisian +_divette_, who is also on a visit to Monte Carlo. I am told that the +pair have netted over a hundred and sixty thousand francs.' + +He reflected upon Cosette, and he reflected upon Geraldine. It was like +returning to two lumps of sugar in one's tea after having got accustomed +to three. + +He was very proud of himself for having so ruthlessly abandoned Monte +Carlo, Cosette, Loulou, Tom, and the whole apparatus. And he had the +right to be. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE NEW LIFE + + +They were nervous, both of them. Although they had been legally and +publicly married and their situation was in every way regular, although +the new flat in Ashley Gardens was spacious, spotless, and luxurious to +an extraordinary degree, although they had a sum of nearly seven +thousand pounds at the bank, although their consciences were clear and +their persons ornamental, Henry and Geraldine were decidedly nervous as +they sat in their drawing-room awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie, who had accepted an invitation to afternoon tea and dinner. + +It was the third day after the conclusion of their mysterious honeymoon. + +'Have one, dearest?' said Geraldine, determined to be gay, holding up a +morsel which she took from a coloured box by her side. And Henry took +it with his teeth from between her charming fingers. 'Lovely, aren't +they?' she mumbled, munching another morsel herself, and he mumbled that +they were. + +She was certainly charming, if English. Thoughts of Cosette, which used +to flit through his brain with a surprising effect that can only be +likened to an effect of flamingoes sweeping across an English meadow, +had now almost entirely ceased to disturb him. He had but to imagine +what Geraldine's attitude towards Cosette would have been had the two +met, in order to perceive the overpowering balance of advantages in +Geraldine's favour. + +Much had happened since Cosette. + +As a consequence of natural reaction, he had at once settled down to be +extremely serious, and to take himself seriously. He had been assisted +in the endeavour by the publication of an article in a monthly review, +entitled 'The Art of Henry Shakspere Knight.' The article explained to +him how wonderful he was, and he was ingenuously and sincerely thankful +for the revelation. It also, incidentally, showed him that 'Henry +Shakspere Knight' was a better signature for his books than 'Henry S. +Knight,' and he decided to adopt it in his next work. Further, it had +enormously quickened in him the sense of his mission in the world, of +his duty to his colossal public, and his potentiality for good. + +He put aside a book which he had already haltingly commenced, and began +a new one, in which a victim to the passion for gambling was redeemed by +the love of a pure young girl. It contained dramatic scenes in Paris, in +the _train de luxe_, and in Monte Carlo. One of the most striking scenes +was a harmony of moonlight and love on board a yacht in the +Mediterranean, in which sea Veronica prevailed upon Hubert to submerge +an ill-gotten gain of six hundred and sixty-three thousand francs, +although the renunciation would leave Hubert penniless. Geraldine +watched the progress of this book with absolute satisfaction. She had no +fault to find with it. She gazed at Henry with large admiring eyes as he +read aloud to her chapter after chapter. + +'What do you think I'm going to call it?' he had demanded of her once, +gleefully. + +'I don't know,' she said. + +'_Red and Black_,' he told her. 'Isn't that a fine title?' + +'Yes,' she said. 'But it's been used before;' and she gave him +particulars of Stendhal's novel, of which he had never heard. + +'Oh, well!' he exclaimed, somewhat dashed. 'As Stendhal was a Frenchman, +and his book doesn't deal with gambling at all, I think I may stick to +my title. I thought of it myself, you know.' + +'Oh yes, dearest. I _know_ you did,' Geraldine said eagerly. + +'You think I'd better alter it?' + +Geraldine glanced at the floor. 'You see,' she murmured, 'Stendhal was a +really great writer.' + +He started, shocked. She had spoken in such a way that he could not be +sure whether she meant, 'Stendhal was a really _great_ writer,' or, +'_Stendhal_ was a _really_ great writer.' If the former, he did not +mind, much. But if the latter--well, he thought uncomfortably of what +Tom had said to him in the train. And he perceived again, and more +clearly than ever before, that there was something in Geraldine which +baffled him--something which he could not penetrate, and never would +penetrate. + +'Suppose I call it _Black and Red_? Will that do?' he asked forlornly. + +'It would do,' she answered; 'but it doesn't sound so well.' + +'I've got it!' he cried exultantly. 'I've got it! _The Plague-Spot._ +Monte Carlo the plague-spot of Europe, you know.' + +'Splendid!' she said with enthusiasm. 'You are always magnificent at +titles.' + +And it was universally admitted that he was. + +The book had been triumphantly finished, and the manuscript delivered to +Macalistairs via Mark Snyder, and the huge cheque received under cover +of a letter full of compliments on Henry's achievement. Macalistairs +announced that their _Magazine_ would shortly contain the opening +chapters of Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight's great romance, _The +Plague-Spot_, which would run for one year, and which combined a +tremendous indictment of certain phases of modern life with an original +love-story by turns idyllic and dramatic. _Gordon's Monthly_ was +serializing the novel in America. About this time, an interview with +Henry, suggested by Sir Hugh Macalistair himself, appeared in an +important daily paper. 'It is quite true,' said Henry in the interview, +'that I went to Monte Carlo to obtain first-hand material for my book. +The stories of my breaking the bank there, however, are wildly +exaggerated. Of course, I played a little, in order to be able to put +myself in the place of my hero. I should explain that I was in Monte +Carlo with my cousin, Mr. Dolbiac, the well-known sculptor and painter, +who was painting portraits there. Mr. Dolbiac is very much at home in +Parisian artistic society, and he happened to introduce me to a famous +French lady singer who was in Monte Carlo at the time. This lady and I +found ourselves playing at the same table. From time to time I put down +her stakes for her; that was all. She certainly had an extraordinary run +of luck, but the bank was actually broken at last by the united bets of +a number of people. That is the whole story, and I'm afraid it is much +less exciting and picturesque than the rumours which have been flying +about. I have never seen the lady since that day.' + +Then his marriage had filled the air. + +At an early stage in the preparations for that event his mother and +Aunt Annie became passive--ceased all activity. Perfect peace was +maintained, but they withdrew. Fundamentally and absolutely, Geraldine's +ideas were not theirs, and Geraldine did as she liked with Henry. +Geraldine and Henry interrogated Mark Snyder as to the future. 'Shall we +be justified in living at the rate of two thousand a year?' they asked +him. 'Yes,' he said, 'and four times that!' He had just perused _The +Plague-Spot_ in manuscript. 'Let's make it three thousand, then,' said +Geraldine to Henry. And she had planned the establishment of their home +on that scale. Henry did not tell the ladies at Dawes Road that the rent +of the flat was three hundred a year, and that the furniture had cost +over a thousand, and that he was going to give Geraldine two hundred a +year for dress. He feared apoplexy in his mother, and a nervous crisis +in Aunt Annie. + +The marriage took place in a church. It was not this that secretly +pained Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie; all good Wesleyan Methodists marry +themselves in church. What secretly pained them was the fact that Henry +would not divulge, even to his own mother, the locality of the +honeymoon. He did say that Geraldine had been bent upon Paris, and that +he had completely barred Paris ('Quite right,' Aunt Annie remarked), but +he would say no more. And so after the ceremony the self-conscious pair +had disappeared for a fortnight into the unknown and the unknowable. + +And now they had reappeared out of the unknown and the unknowable, and, +with the help of four servants, meant to sustain life in Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie for a period of some five hours. + +They heard a ring in the distance of the flat. + +'Prepare to receive cavalry,' said Geraldine, sitting erect in her blue +dress on the green settee in the middle of the immense drawing-room. + +Then, seeing Henry's face, she jumped up, crossed over to her husband, +and gave him a smacking kiss between the eyes. 'Dearest, I didn't mean +it!' she whispered enchantingly. He smiled. She flew back to her seat +just as the door opened. + +'Mr. Doxey,' said a new parlourmaid, intensely white and black, and +intensely aware of the eminence of her young employers. And little +Doxey of the P.A. came in, rather shabby and insinuating as usual, and +obviously impressed by the magnificence of his surroundings. + +'My good Doxey,' exclaimed the chatelaine. 'How delicious of you to have +found us out so soon!' + +'How d'you do, Doxey?' said Henry, rising. + +'Awfully good of you to see me!' began Doxey, depositing his +well-preserved hat on a chair. 'Hope I don't interrupt.' He smiled. +'Can't stop a minute. Got a most infernal bazaar on at the Cecil. Look +here, old man,' he addressed Henry: 'I've been reading your _Love in +Babylon_ again, and I fancied I could make a little curtain-raiser out +of it--out of the picture incident, you know. I mentioned the idea to +Pilgrim, of the Prince's Theatre, and he's fearfully stuck on it.' + +'You mean, you think he is,' Geraldine put in. + +'Well, he is,' Doxey pursued, after a brief pause. 'I'm sure he is. I've +sketched out a bit of a scenario. Now, if you'd give permission and go +shares, I'd do it, old chap.' + +'A play, eh?' was all that Henry said. + +Doxey nodded. 'There's nothing like the theatre, you know.' + +'What do you mean--there's nothing like the theatre?' + +'For money, old chap. Not short pieces, of course, but long ones; only, +short ones lead to long ones.' + +'I tell you what you'd better do,' said Henry, when they had discussed +the matter. 'You'd better write the thing, and I'll have a look at it, +and then decide.' + +'Very well, if you like,' said Doxey slowly. 'What about shares?' + +'If it comes to anything, I don't mind halving it,' Henry replied. + +'I see,' said Doxey. 'Of course, I've had some little experience of the +stage,' he added. + +His name was one of those names which appear from time to time in the +theatrical gossip of the newspapers as having adapted, or as being about +to adapt, something or other for the stage which was not meant for the +stage. It had never, however, appeared on the playbills of the theatres; +except once, when, at a benefit matinee, the great John Pilgrim, whom to +mention is to worship, had recited verses specially composed for the +occasion by Alfred Doxey. + +'And the signature, dear?' Geraldine glanced up at her husband, +offering him a suggestion humbly, as a wife should in the presence of +third parties. + +'Oh!' said Henry. 'Of course, Mr. Doxey's name must go with mine, as one +of the authors of the piece. Certainly.' + +'Dearest,' Geraldine murmured when Doxey had gone, 'you are perfect. You +don't really need an agent.' + +He laughed. 'There's rather too much "old chap" about Doxey,' he said. +'Who's Doxey?' + +'He's quite harmless, the little creature,' said Geraldine +good-naturedly. + +They sat silent for a time. + +'Miles Robinson makes fifteen thousand a year out of plays,' Geraldine +murmured reflectively. + +'Does he?' Henry murmured reflectively. + +The cavalry arrived, in full panoply of war. + + +'I am thankful Sarah stays with us,' said Mrs. Knight. 'Servants are so +much more difficult to get now than they were in my time.' + +Tea was nearly over; the cake-stand in four storeys had been depleted +from attic to basement, and, after admiring the daintiness and taste +displayed throughout Mrs. Henry's drawing-room, the ladies from Dawes +Road had reached the most fascinating of all topics. + +'When you keep several,' said Geraldine, 'they are not so hard to get. +It's loneliness they object to.' + +'How many shall you have, dear?' Aunt Annie asked. + +'Forty,' said Henry, looking up from a paper. + +'Don't be silly, dearest!' Geraldine protested. (She seemed so young and +interesting and bright and precious, and so competent, as she sat there, +behind the teapot, between her mature visitors in their black and their +grey: this was what Henry thought.) 'No, Aunt Annie; I have four at +present.' + +'Four!' repeated Aunt Annie, aghast. 'But----' + +'But, my dear!' exclaimed Mrs. Knight. 'Surely----' + +Geraldine glanced with respectful interest at Mrs. Knight. + +'Surely you'll find it a great trial to manage them all?' said Aunt +Annie. + +'No,' said Geraldine. 'At least, I hope not. I never allow myself to be +bothered by servants. I just tell them what they are to do. If they do +it, well and good. If they don't, they must leave. I give an hour a day +to domestic affairs. My time is too occupied to give more.' + +'She likes to spend her time going up and down in the lift,' Henry +explained. + +Geraldine put her hand over her husband's mouth and silenced him. It was +a pretty spectacle, and reconciled the visitors to much. + +Aunt Annie examined Henry's face. 'Are you quite well, Henry?' she +inquired. + +'I'm all right,' he said, yawning. 'But I want a little exercise. I +haven't been out much to-day. I think I'll go for a short walk.' + +'Yes, do, dearest.' + +'Do, my dear.' + +As he approached the door, having kissed his wife, his mother, without +looking at him, remarked in a peculiarly dry tone, which she employed +only at the rarest intervals: 'You haven't told me anything about your +honeymoon yet, Henry.' + +'You forget, sister,' said Aunt Annie stiffly, 'it's a secret.' + +'Not now--not now!' cried Geraldine brightly. 'Well, we'll tell you. +Where do you think we drove after leaving you? To the Savoy Hotel.' + +'But why?' asked Mrs. Knight ingenuously. + +'We spent our honeymoon there, right in the middle of London. We +pretended we were strangers to London, and we saw all the sights that +Londoners never do see. Wasn't it a good idea?' + +'I--I don't know,' said Mrs. Knight. + +'It seems rather queer--for a honeymoon,' Aunt Annie observed. + +'Oh, but it was splendid!' continued Geraldine. 'We went to the theatre +or the opera every night, and lived on the fat of the land in the best +hotel in Europe, and saw everything--even the Tower and the Mint and the +Thames Tunnel and the Tate Gallery. We enjoyed every moment.' + +'And think of the saving in fares!' Henry put in, swinging the door to +and fro. + +'Yes, there was that, certainly,' Aunt Annie agreed. + +'And we went everywhere that omnibuses go,' Henry proceeded. 'Once even +we got as far as the Salisbury, Fulham.' + +'Well, dear,' Mrs. Knight said sharply, 'I do think you might have +popped in.' + +'But, mamma,' Geraldine tried to explain, 'that would have spoilt it.' + +'Spoilt what?' asked Mrs. Knight. 'The Salisbury isn't three minutes off +our house. I do think you might have popped in. There I was--and me +thinking you were gone abroad!' + +'See you later,' said Henry, and disappeared. + +'He doesn't look quite well, does he, Annie?' said Mrs. Knight. + +'I know how it used to be,' Aunt Annie said. 'Whenever he began to make +little jokes, we knew he was in for a bilious attack.' + +'My dear people,' Geraldine endeavoured to cheer them, 'I assure you +he's perfectly well--perfectly.' + +'I've decided not to go out, after all,' said Henry, returning +surprisingly to the room. 'I don't feel like it.' And he settled into an +ear-flap chair that had cost sixteen pounds ten. + +'Have one?' said Geraldine, offering him the coloured box from which she +had just helped herself. + +'No, thanks,' said he, shutting his eyes. + +'I beg your pardon, I'm sure;' Geraldine turned to her visitors and +extended the box. 'Won't you have a _marron glace_?' + +And the visitors gazed at each other in startled, affrighted silence. + +'Has Henry eaten some?' Mrs. Knight asked, shaken. + +'He had one or two before tea,' Geraldine answered. 'Why?' + +'I _knew_ he was going to be ill!' said Aunt Annie. + +'But he's been eating _marrons glaces_ every day for a fortnight. +Haven't you, sweetest?' said Geraldine. + +'I can believe it,' Aunt Annie murmured, 'from his face.' + +'Oh dear! Women! Women!' Henry whispered facetiously. + +'He's only saving his appetite for dinner,' said Geraldine, with +intrepid calm. + +'My dear girl,' Mrs. Knight observed, again in that peculiar dry tone, +'if I know anything about your husband, and I've had him under my care +for between twenty and thirty years, he will eat nothing more to-day.' + +'Now, mater,' said Henry, 'don't get excited. By the way, we haven't +told you that I'm going to write a play.' + +'A play, Henry?' + +'Yes. So you'll have to begin going to theatres in your old age, after +all.' + +There was a pause. + +'Shan't you?' Henry persisted. + +'I don't know, dear. What place of worship are you attending?' + +There was another pause. + +'St. Philip's, Regent Street, I think we shall choose,' said Geraldine. + +'But surely that's a _church_?' + +'Yes,' said Geraldine. 'It is a very good one. I have belonged to the +Church of England all my life.' + +'Not High, I hope,' said Aunt Annie. + +'Certainly, High.' + +The beneficent Providence which always watched over Henry, watched over +him then. A gong resounded through the flat, and stopped the +conversation. Geraldine put her lips together. + +'There's the dressing-bell, dearest,' said she, controlling herself. + +'I won't dress to-night,' Henry replied feebly. 'I'm not equal to it. +You go. I'll stop with mother and auntie.' + +'Don't you fret yourself, mater,' he said as soon as the chatelaine had +left them. 'Sir George has gone to live at Redhill, and given up his pew +at Great Queen Street. I shall return to the old place and take it.' + +'I am very glad,' said Mrs. Knight. 'Very glad.' + +'And Geraldine?' Aunt Annie asked. + +'Leave me to look after the little girl,' said Henry. He then dozed for +a few moments. + +The dinner, with the Arctic lamps dotted about the table, and two +servants to wait, began in the most stately and effective fashion +imaginable. But it had got no further than the host's first spoonful of +_soupe aux moules_, when the host rose abruptly, and without a word +departed from the room. + +The sisters nodded to each other with the cheerful gloom of prophetesses +who find themselves in the midst of a disaster which they have +predicted. + +'You poor, foolish boy!' exclaimed Geraldine, running after Henry. She +was adorably attired in white. + + * * * * * + +The clash of creeds was stilled in the darkened and sumptuous chamber, +as the three women bent with murmurous affection over the bed on which +lay, swathed in a redolent apparatus of eau-de-Cologne and fine linen, +their hope and the hope of English literature. Towards midnight, when +the agony had somewhat abated, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie reluctantly +retired in a coupe which Geraldine had ordered for them by telephone. + +And in the early June dawn Henry awoke, refreshed and renewed, full of +that languid but genuine interest in mortal things which is at once the +compensation and the sole charm of a dyspepsy. By reaching out an arm he +could just touch the hand of his wife as she slept in her twin couch. He +touched it; she awoke, and they exchanged the morning smile. + +'I'm glad that's over,' he said. + +But whether he meant the _marrons glaces_ or the first visit of his +beloved elders to the glorious flat cannot be decided. + +Certain it is, however, that deep in the minds of both the spouses was +the idea that the new life, the new heaven on the new earth, had now +fairly begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +HE IS NOT NERVOUS + + +'Yes,' said Henry with judicial calm, after he had read Mr. Doxey's +stage version of _Love in Babylon_, 'it makes a nice little piece.' + +'I'm glad you like it, old chap,' said Doxey. 'I thought you would.' + +They were in Henry's study, seated almost side by side at Henry's great +American roll-top desk. + +'You've got it a bit hard in places,' Henry pursued. 'But I'll soon put +that right.' + +'Can you do it to-day?' asked the adapter. + +'Why?' + +'Because I know old Johnny Pilgrim wants to shove a new curtain-raiser +into the bill at once. If I could take him this to-morrow----' + +'I'll post it to you to-night,' said Henry. 'But I shall want to see Mr. +Pilgrim myself before anything is definitely arranged.' + +'Oh, of course,' Mr. Doxey agreed. 'Of course. I'll tell him.' + +Henry softened the rigour of his collaborator's pen in something like +half an hour. The perusal of this trifling essay in the dramatic form +(it certainly did not exceed four thousand words, and could be played in +twenty-five minutes) filled his mind with a fresh set of ideas. He +suspected that he could write for the stage rather better than Mr. +Doxey, and he saw, with the eye of faith, new plumes waving in his cap. +He was aware, because he had read it in the papers, that the English +drama needed immediate assistance, and he determined to render that +assistance. The first instalment of _The Plague-Spot_ had just come out +in the July number of _Macalistair's Magazine_, and the extraordinary +warmth of its reception had done nothing to impair Henry's belief in his +gift for pleasing the public. Hence he stretched out a hand to the West +End stage with a magnanimous gesture of rescuing the fallen. + + +And yet, curiously enough, when he entered the stage-door of Prince's +Theatre one afternoon, to see John Pilgrim, he was as meek as if the +world had never heard of him. + +He informed the doorkeeper that he had an appointment with Mr. Pilgrim, +whereupon the doorkeeper looked him over, took a pull at a glass of +rum-and-milk, and said he would presently inquire whether Mr. Pilgrim +could see anyone. The passage from the portals of the theatre to Mr. +Pilgrim's private room occupied exactly a quarter of an hour. + +Then, upon beholding the figure of John Pilgrim, he seemed suddenly to +perceive what fame and celebrity and renown really were. Here was the +man whose figure and voice were known to every theatre-goer in England +and America, and to every idler who had once glanced at a +photograph-window; the man who for five-and-twenty years had stilled +unruly crowds by a gesture, conquered the most beautiful women with a +single smile, died for the fatherland, and lived for love, before a +nightly audience of two thousand persons; who existed absolutely in the +eye of the public, and who long ago had formed a settled, honest, +serious conviction that he was the most interesting and remarkable +phenomenon in the world. In the ingenuous mind of Mr. Pilgrim the +universe was the frame, and John Pilgrim was the picture: his countless +admirers had forced him to think so. + +Mr. Pilgrim greeted Henry as though in a dream. + +'What name?' he whispered, glancing round, apparently not quite sure +whether they were alone and unobserved. + +He seemed to be trying to awake from his dream, to recall the mundane +and the actual, without success. + +He said, still whispering, that the little play pleased him. + +'Let me see,' he reflected. 'Didn't Doxey say that you had written other +things?' + +'Several books,' Henry informed him. + +'Books? Ah!' Mr. Pilgrim had the air of trying to imagine what sort of +thing books were. 'That's very interesting. Novels?' + +'Yes,' said Henry. + +Mr. Pilgrim, opening his magnificent chest and passing a hand through +his brown hair, grew impressively humble. 'You must excuse my +ignorance,' he explained. 'I am afraid I'm not quite abreast of modern +literature. I never read.' And he repeated firmly: 'I never read. Not +even the newspapers. What time have I for reading?' he whispered sadly. +'In my brougham, I snatch a glance at the contents-bills of the evening +papers. No more.' + +Henry had the idea that even to be ignored by John Pilgrim was more +flattering than to be admired by the rest of mankind. + +Mr. Pilgrim rose and walked several times across the room; then +addressed Henry mysteriously and imposingly: + +'I've got the finest theatre in London.' + +'Yes?' said Henry. + +'In the world,' Mr. Pilgrim corrected himself. + +Then he walked again, and again stopped. + +'I'll produce your piece,' he whispered. 'Yes, I'll produce it.' + +He spoke as if saying also: 'You will have a difficulty in crediting +this extraordinary and generous decision: nevertheless you must +endeavour to do so.' + +Henry thanked him lamely. + +'Of course I shan't play in it myself,' added Mr. Pilgrim, laughing as +one laughs at a fantastic conceit. + +'No, naturally not,' said Henry. + +'Nor will Jane,' said Mr. Pilgrim. + +Jane Map was Mr. Pilgrim's leading lady, for the time being. + +'And about terms, young man?' Mr. Pilgrim demanded, folding his arms. +'What is your notion of terms?' + +Now, Henry had taken the precaution of seeking advice concerning fair +terms. + +'One pound a performance is my notion,' he answered. + +'I never give more than ten shillings a night for a curtain-raiser,' +said Mr. Pilgrim ultimatively, 'Never. I can't afford to.' + +'I'm afraid that settles it, then, Mr. Pilgrim,' said Henry. + +'You'll take ten shillings?' + +'I'll take a pound. I can't take less. I'm like you, I can't afford to.' + +John Pilgrim showed a faint interest in Henry's singular--indeed, +incredible--attitude. + +'You don't mean to say,' he mournfully murmured, 'that you'll miss the +chance of having your play produced in my theatre for the sake of half a +sovereign?' + +Before Henry could reply to this grieved question, Jane Map burst into +the room. She was twenty-five, tall, dark, and arresting. John Pilgrim +had found her somewhere. + +'Jane,' said Mr. Pilgrim sadly, 'this is Mr. Knight.' + +'Not the author of _The Plague-Spot_?' asked Jane Map, clasping her +jewelled fingers. + +'_Are_ you the author of _The Plague-Spot_?' Mr. Pilgrim +whispered--'whatever _The Plague-Spot_ is.' + +The next moment Jane Map was shaking hands effusively with Henry. 'I +just adore you!' she told him. 'And your _Love in Babylon_--oh, Mr. +Knight, how _do_ you think of such beautiful stories?' + +John Pilgrim sank into a chair and closed his eyes. + +'Oh, you must take it! you must take it!' cried Jane to John, as soon as +she learnt that a piece based on _Love in Babylon_ was under discussion. +'I shall play Enid Anstruther myself. Don't you see me in it, Mr. +Knight?' + +'Mr. Knight's terms are twice mine,' John Pilgrim intoned, without +opening his eyes. 'He wants a pound a night.' + +'He must have it,' said Jane Map. 'If I'm in the piece----' + +'But, Jane----' + +'I insist!' said Jane, with fire. + +'Very well, Mr. Knight,' John Pilgrim continued to intone, his eyes +still shut, his legs stretched out, his feet resting perpendicularly on +the heels. 'Jane insists. You understand--Jane insists. Take your pound, +I call the first rehearsal for Monday.' + + +Thenceforward Henry lived largely in the world of the theatre, a +pariah's life, the life almost of a poor relation. Doxey appeared to +enjoy the existence; it was Doxey's brief hour of bliss. But Henry, +spoilt by editors, publishers, and the reading public, could not easily +reconcile himself to the classical position of an author in the world of +the theatre. It hurt him to encounter the prevalent opinion that, just +as you cannot have a dog without a tail or a stump, so you cannot have a +play without an author. The actors and actresses were the play, and when +they were pleased with themselves the author was expected to fulfil his +sole function of wagging. + +Even Jane Map, Henry's confessed adorer, was the victim, Henry thought, +of a highly-distorted sense of perspective. The principal comfort which +he derived from Jane Map was that she ignored Doxey entirely. + +The preliminary rehearsals were desolating. Henry went away from the +first one convinced that the piece would have to be rewritten from end +to end. No performer could make anything of his own part, and yet each +was sure that all the other parts were effective in the highest degree. + +At the fourth rehearsal John Pilgrim came down to direct. He sat in the +dim stalls by Henry's side, and Henry could hear him murmuring softly +and endlessly: + + + 'Punch, brothers, punch with care-- + Punch in the presence of the passenjare!' + + +The scene was imagined to represent a studio, and Jane Map, as Enid +Anstruther, was posing on the model's throne. + +'Jane,' Mr. Pilgrim hissed out, 'you pose for all the world like an +artist's model!' + +'Well,' Jane retorted, 'I am an artist's model.' + +'No, you aren't,' said John. 'You're an actress on my stage, and you +must pose like one.' + +Whereupon Mr. Pilgrim ascended to the stage and began to arrange Jane's +limbs. By accident Jane's delightful elbow came into contact with John +Pilgrim's eye. The company was horror-struck as Mr. Pilgrim lowered his +head and pressed a handkerchief to that eye. + +'Jane, Jane!' he complained in his hoarse and conspiratorial whisper, +'I've been teaching you the elements of your art for two years, and all +you have achieved is to poke your elbow in my eye. The rehearsal is +stopped.' + +And everybody went home. + +Such is a specimen of the incidents which were continually happening. + +However, as the first night approached, the condition of affairs +improved a little, and Henry saw with satisfaction that the resemblance +of Prince's Theatre to a lunatic asylum was more superficial than real. +Also, the tone of the newspapers in referring to the imminent production +convinced even John Pilgrim that Henry was perhaps not quite an ordinary +author. John Pilgrim cancelled a proof of a poster which he had already +passed, and ordered a double-crown, thus: + + + LOVE IN BABYLON. + + A PLAY IN ONE ACT, FOUNDED ON + + HENRY SHAKSPERE KNIGHT'S + + FAMOUS NOVEL. + + BY + + HENRY SHAKSPERE KNIGHT AND ALFRED DOXEY. + + ENID ANSTRUTHER--MISS JANE MAP. + + +Geraldine met Jane, and asked her to tea at the flat. And Geraldine +hired a brougham at thirty pounds a month. From that day Henry's +reception at the theatre was all that he could have desired, and more +than any mere author had the right to expect. At the final rehearsals, +in the absence of John Pilgrim, his word was law. It was whispered in +the green-room that he earned ten thousand a year by writing things +called novels. 'Well, dear old pal,' said one old actor to another old +actor, 'it takes all sorts to make a world. But ten thousand! Johnny +himself don't make more than that, though he spends more.' + +The mischief was that Henry's digestion, what with the irregular hours +and the irregular drinks, went all to pieces. + + +'You don't _look_ nervous, Harry,' said Geraldine when he came into the +drawing-room before dinner on the evening of the production. + +'Nervous?' said Henry. 'Of course I'm not.' + +'Then, why have you forgotten to brush your hair, dearest?' she asked. + +He glanced in a mirror. Yes, he had certainly forgotten to brush his +hair. + +'Sheer coincidence,' he said, and ate a hearty meal. + +Geraldine drove to the theatre. She was to meet there Mrs. Knight and +Aunt Annie, in whose breasts pride and curiosity had won a tardy victory +over the habits of a lifetime; they had a stage-box. Henry remarked that +it was a warm night and that he preferred to walk; he would see them +afterwards. + +No one could have been more surprised than Henry, when he arrived at +Prince's Theatre, to discover that he was incapable of entering that +edifice. He honestly and physically tried to go in by the stage-door, +but he could not, and, instead of turning within, he kept a straight +course along the footpath. It was as though an invisible barrier had +been raised to prevent his ingress. + +'Never mind!' he said. 'I'll walk to the Circus and back again, and then +I'll go in.' + +He walked to the Circus and back again, and once more failed to get +himself inside Prince's Theatre. + +'This is the most curious thing that ever happened to me,' he thought, +as he stood for the second time in Piccadilly Circus. 'Why the devil +can't I go into that theatre? I'm not nervous. I'm not a bit nervous.' +It was so curious that he felt an impulse to confide to someone how +curious it was. + +Then he went into the Criterion bar and sat down. The clock showed +seventeen minutes to nine. His piece was advertised to start at +eight-thirty precisely. The Criterion Bar is never empty, but it has its +moments of lassitude, and seventeen minutes to nine is one of them. +After an interval a waiter slackly approached him. + +'Brandy-and-soda!' Henry ordered, well knowing that brandy-and-soda +never suited him. + +He glanced away from the clock, repeated 'Punch, brothers, punch with +care,' twenty times, recited 'God save the Queen,' took six small sips +at the brandy-and-soda, and then looked at the clock again, and it was +only fourteen minutes to nine. He had guessed it might be fourteen +minutes to ten. + +He caught the eye of a barmaid, and she seemed to be saying to him +sternly: 'If you think you can occupy this place all night on a +ninepenny drink, you are mistaken. Either you ought to order another or +hook it.' He braved it for several more ages, then paid, and went; and +still it was only ten minutes to nine. All mundane phenomena were +inexplicably contorted that night. As he was passing the end of the +short street which contains the stage-door of Prince's Theatre, a man, +standing at the door on the lookout, hailed him loudly. He hesitated, +and the man--it was the doorkeeper--flew forward and seized him and +dragged him in. + +'Drink this, Mr. Knight,' commanded the doorkeeper. + +'I'm all right,' said Henry. 'What's up?' + +'Yes, I know you're all right. Drink it.' + +And he drank a whisky-and-soda. + +'Come upstairs,' said the doorkeeper. 'You'll be wanted, Mr. Knight.' + +As he approached the wings of the stage, under the traction of the +breathless doorkeeper, he was conscious of the falling of the curtain, +and of the noisiest noise beyond the curtain that he had ever heard. + +'Here, Mr. Knight, drink this,' said someone in his ear. 'Keep steady. +It's nothing.' + +And he drank a glass of port. + +His overcoat was jerked off by a mysterious agency. + +The noise continued to be terrible: it rose and fell like the sea. + +Then he was aware of Jane Map rushing towards him and of Jane Map +kissing him rapturously on the mouth. 'Come _on_,' cried Jane Map, and +pulled him by the hand, helter-skelter, until they came in front of a +blaze of light and the noise crashed at his ears. + +'I've been through this before somewhere,' he thought, while Jane Map +wrung his hand. 'Was it in a previous existence? No. The Alhambra!' What +made him remember the Alhambra was the figure of little Doxey sheepishly +joining himself and Jane. Doxey, with a disastrous lack of foresight, +had been in the opposite wing, and had had to run round the stage in +order to come before the curtain. Doxey's share in the triumph was +decidedly less than half.... + +'No,' Henry said later, with splendid calm, when Geraldine, Jane, Doxey, +and himself were drinking champagne in Jane's Empire dressing-room, 'it +wasn't nervousness. I don't quite know what it was.' + +He gathered that the success had been indescribable. + +Jane radiated bliss. + +'I tell you what, old man,' said Doxey: 'we must adapt _The +Plague-Spot_, eh?' + +'We'll see about that,' said Henry. + + +Two days afterwards Henry arose from a bed of pain, and was able to +consume a little tea and dry toast. Geraldine regaled his spiritual man +with the press notices, which were tremendous. But more tremendous than +the press notices was John Pilgrim's decision to put _Love in Babylon_ +after the main piece in the bill of Prince's Theatre. _Love in Babylon_ +was to begin at the honourable hour of ten-forty in future, for the +benefit of the stalls and the dress-circle. + +'Have you thought about Mr. Doxey's suggestion?' Geraldine asked him. + +'Yes,' said Henry; 'but I don't quite see the point of it.' + +'Don't see the point of it, sweetheart?' she protested, stroking his +dressing-gown. 'But it would be bound to be a frightful success, after +this.' + +'I know,' said Henry. 'But why drag in Doxey? I can write the next play +myself.' + +She kissed him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +HE SHORTENS HIS NAME + + +One day Geraldine needed a doctor. Henry was startled, frightened, +almost shocked. But when the doctor, having seen Geraldine, came into +the study to chat with Geraldine's husband, Henry put on a calm +demeanour, said he had been expecting the doctor's news, said also that +he saw no cause for anxiety or excitement, and generally gave the doctor +to understand that he was in no way disturbed by the work of Nature to +secure a continuance of the British Empire. The conversation shifted to +Henry's self, and soon Henry was engaged in a detailed description of +his symptoms. + +'Purely nervous,' remarked the doctor--'purely nervous.' + +'You think so?' + +'I am sure of it.' + +'Then, of course, there is no cure for it. I must put up with it.' + +'Pardon me,' said the doctor, 'there is an absolutely certain cure for +nervous dyspepsia--at any rate, in such a case as yours.' + +'What is it?' + +'Go without breakfast' + +'But I don't eat too much, doctor,' Henry said plaintively. + +'Yes, you do,' said the doctor. 'We all do.' + +'And I'm always hungry at meal-times. If a meal is late it makes me +quite ill.' + +'You'll feel somewhat uncomfortable for a few days,' the doctor blandly +continued. 'But in a month you'll be cured.' + +'You say that professionally?' + +'I guarantee it.' + +The doctor shook hands, departed, and then returned. 'And eat rather +less lunch than usual,' said he. 'Mind that.' + +Within three days Henry was informing his friends: 'I never have any +breakfast. No, none. Two meals a day.' It was astonishing how frequently +the talk approached the great food topic. He never sought an opportunity +to discuss the various methods and processes of sustaining life, yet, +somehow, he seemed to be always discussing them. Some of his +acquaintances annoyed him excessively--for example, Doxey. + +'That won't last long, old chap,' said Doxey, who had called about +finance. 'I've known other men try that. Give me the good old English +breakfast. Nothing like making a good start.' + +'Ass!' thought Henry, and determined once again, and more decisively, +that Doxey should pass out of his life. + +His preoccupation with this matter had the happy effect of preventing +him from worrying too much about the perils which lay before Geraldine. +Discovering the existence of an Anti-Breakfast League, he joined it, and +in less than a week every newspaper in the land announced that the ranks +of the Anti-Breakfasters had secured a notable recruit in the person of +Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight. It was widely felt that the Anti-Breakfast +Movement had come to stay. + +Still, he was profoundly interested in Geraldine, too. And between his +solicitude for her and his scientific curiosity concerning the secret +recesses of himself the flat soon overflowed with medical literature. + +The entire world of the theatre woke up suddenly and simultaneously to +the colossal fact of Henry's genius. One day they had never thought of +him; the next they could think of nothing else. Every West End manager, +except two, wrote to him to express pleasure at the prospect of +producing a play by him; the exceptional two telegraphed. Henry, +however, had decided upon his arrangements. He had grasped the important +truth that there was only one John Pilgrim in the world. + +He threw the twenty-five chapters of _The Plague-Spot_ into a scheme of +four acts, and began to write a drama without the aid of Mr. Alfred +Doxey. It travelled fast, did the drama; and the author himself was +astonished at the ease with which he put it together out of little +pieces of the novel. The scene of the third act was laid in the +gaming-saloons of Monte Carlo; the scene of the fourth disclosed the +deck of a luxurious private yacht at sea under a full Mediterranean +moon. Such flights of imagination had hitherto been unknown in the +serious drama of London. When Henry, after three months' labour, showed +the play to John Pilgrim, John Pilgrim said: + +'This is the play I have waited twenty years for!' + +'You think it will do, then?' said Henry. + +'It will enable me,' observed John Pilgrim, 'to show the British public +what acting is.' + +Henry insisted on an agreement which gave him ten per cent. of the gross +receipts. Soon after the news of the signed contract had reached the +press, Mr. Louis Lewis, the English agent of Lionel Belmont, of the +United States Theatrical Trust, came unostentatiously round to Ashley +Gardens, and obtained the American rights on the same terms. + +Then Pilgrim said that he must run through the manuscript with Henry, +and teach him those things about the theatre which he did not know. +Henry arrived at Prince's at eleven o'clock, by appointment; Mr. Pilgrim +came at a quarter to twelve. + +'You have the sense _du theatre_, my friend,' said Pilgrim, turning over +the leaves of the manuscript. 'That precious and incommunicable +gift--you have it. But you are too fond of explanations. Now, the public +won't stand explanations. No long speeches. And so whenever I glance +through a play I can tell instantly whether it is an acting play. If I +see a lot of speeches over four lines long, I say, Dull! Useless! Won't +do! For instance, here. That speech of Veronica's while she's at the +piano. Dull! I see it. I feel it. It must go! The last two lines must +go!' + +So saying, he obliterated the last two lines with a large and imperial +blue pencil. + +'But it's impossible,' Henry protested. 'You've not read them.' + +'I don't need to read them,' said John Pilgrim. 'I know they won't do. I +know the public won't have them. It must be give and take--give and take +between the characters. The ball must be kept in the air. Ah! The +theatre!' He paused, and gave Henry a piercing glance. 'Do you know how +I came to be _du theatre_--of the theatre, young man?' he demanded. 'No? +I will tell you. My father was an old fox-hunting squire in the Quorn +country. One of the best English families, the Pilgrims, related to the +Earls of Waverley. Poor, unfortunately. My eldest brother was brought up +to inherit the paternal mortgages. My second brother went into the army. +And they wanted me to go into the Church. I refused. "Well," said my +old father, "damn it, Jack! if you won't go to heaven, you may as well +ride straight to hell. Go on the stage." And I did, sir. I did. Idea for +a book there, isn't there?' + +The blue-pencilling of the play proceeded. But whenever John Pilgrim +came to a long speech by Hubert, the part which he destined for himself, +he hesitated to shorten it. 'It's too long! It's too long!' he +whispered. 'I feel it's too long. But, somehow, that seems to me +essential to the action. I must try to carry it off as best I can.' + +At the end of the second act Henry suggested an interval for lunch, but +John Pilgrim, opening Act III. accidentally, and pouncing on a line with +his blue pencil, exclaimed with profound interest: + +'Ah! I remember noting this when I read it. You've got Hubert saying +here: "I know I'm a silly fool." Now, I don't think that's quite in the +part. You must understand that when I study a character I become that +character. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that I know more +about that character than the author does. I merge myself into the +character with an intense effort. Now, I can't see Hubert saying "I +know I'm a silly fool." Of course I've no objection whatever to the +words, but it seemed to me--you understand what I mean? Shall we strike +that out?' + +A little farther on Henry had given Veronica a little epigram: 'When a +man has to stand on his dignity, you may be sure his moral stature is +very small.' + +'That's more like the sort of thing that Hubert would say,' John Pilgrim +whispered. 'Women never say those things. It's not true to nature. But +it seems to fit in exactly with the character of Hubert. Shall +we--transfer----?' His pencil waved in the air.... + +'Heavenly powers!' Mr. Pilgrim hoarsely murmured, as they attained the +curtain of Act III., 'it's four o'clock. And I had an appointment for +lunch at two. But I never think of food when I am working. Never!' + +Henry, however, had not broken his fast since the previous evening. + + +The third and the greatest crisis in the unparalleled popularity of +Henry Shakspere Knight began to prepare itself. The rumour of its +coming was heard afar off, and every literary genius in England and +America who was earning less than ten thousand pounds a year ground his +teeth and clenched his hands in impotent wrath. The boom and resounding +of _The Plague-Spot_ would have been deafening and immense in any case; +but Henry had an idea, and executed it, which multiplied the +advertisement tenfold. It was one of those ideas, at once quite simple +and utterly original, which only occur to the favourites of the gods. + +The serial publication of _The Plague-Spot_ finished in June, and it had +been settled that the book should be issued simultaneously in England +and America in August. Now, that summer John Pilgrim was illuminating +the provinces, and he had fixed a definite date, namely, the tenth of +October, for the reopening of Prince's Theatre with the dramatic version +of _The Plague-Spot_. Henry's idea was merely to postpone publication of +the book until the production of the play. Mark Snyder admitted himself +struck by the beauty of this scheme, and he made a special journey to +America in connection with it, a journey which cost over a hundred +pounds. The result was an arrangement under which the book was to be +issued in London and New York, and the play to be produced by John +Pilgrim at Prince's Theatre, London, and by Lionel Belmont at the +Madison Square Theatre, New York, simultaneously on one golden date. + +The splendour of the conception appealed to all that was fundamental in +the Anglo-Saxon race. + +John Pilgrim was a finished master of advertisement, but if any man in +the wide world could give him lessons in the craft, that man was Lionel +Belmont. Macalistairs, too, in their stately, royal way, knew how to +impress facts upon, the public. + +Add to these things that Geraldine bore twins, boys. + +No earthly power could have kept those twins out of the papers, and +accordingly they had their share in the prodigious, unsurpassed and +unforgettable publicity which their father enjoyed without any apparent +direct effort of his own. + +He had declined to be interviewed; but one day, late in September, his +good-nature forced him to yield to the pressure of a journalist. That +journalist was Alfred Doxey, who had married on the success of _Love in +Babylon_, and was already in financial difficulties. He said he could +get twenty-five pounds for an interview with Henry, and Henry gave him +the interview. The interview accomplished, he asked Henry whether he +cared to acquire for cash his, Doxey's, share of the amateur rights of +_Love in Babylon_. Doxey demanded fifty pounds, and Henry amiably wrote +out the cheque on the spot and received Doxey's lavish gratitude. _Love +in Babylon_ is played on the average a hundred and fifty times a year by +the amateur dramatic societies of Great Britain and Ireland, and for +each performance Henry touches a guinea. The piece had run for two +hundred nights at Prince's, so that the authors got a hundred pounds +each from John Pilgrim. + +On the morning of the tenth of October Henry strolled incognito round +London. Every bookseller's shop displayed piles upon piles of _The +Plague-Spot_. Every newspaper had a long review of it. The _Whitehall +Gazette_ was satirical as usual, but most people felt that it was the +_Whitehall Gazette_, and not Henry, that thereby looked ridiculous. +Nearly every other omnibus carried the legend of _The Plague-Spot_; +every hoarding had it. At noon Henry passed by Prince's Theatre. Two +small crowds had already taken up positions in front of the entrances to +the pit and the gallery; and several women, seated on campstools, were +diligently reading the book in order the better to appreciate the play. + +Twelve hours later John Pilgrim was thanking his kind patrons for a +success unique even in his rich and gorgeous annals. He stated that he +should cable the verdict of London to the Madison Square Theatre, New +York, where the representation of the noble work of art which he had had +the honour of interpreting to them was about to begin. + +'It was a lucky day for you when you met me, young man,' he whispered +grandiosely and mysteriously, yet genially, to Henry. + +On the facade of Prince's there still blazed the fiery sign, which an +excited electrician had forgotten to extinguish: + + + THE PLAGUE-SPOT. + + SHAKSPERE KNIGHT. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE PRESIDENT + + +Prince's Theatre, when it was full, held three hundred and forty pounds' +worth of solid interest in the British drama. Of _The Plague-Spot_ six +evening and two morning performances were given every week for nearly a +year, and Henry's tenth averaged more than two hundred pounds a week. +His receipts from Lionel Belmont's various theatres averaged rather +more. The book had a circulation of a hundred and twenty thousand in +England, and two hundred thousand in America, and on every copy Henry +got one shilling and sixpence. The magnificent and disconcerting total +of his income from _The Plague-Spot_ within the first year, excluding +the eight thousand pounds which he had received in advance from +Macalistairs, was thirty-eight thousand pounds. I say disconcerting +because it emphatically did disconcert Henry. He could not cope with +it. He was like a child who has turned on a tap and can't turn it off +again, and finds the water covering the floor and rising, rising, over +its little shoe-tops. Not even with the help of Sir George could he +quite successfully cope with this deluge of money which threatened to +drown him each week. Sir George, accustomed to keep his nerve in such +crises, bored one hole in the floor and called it India Three per +Cents., bored a second and called it Freehold Mortgages, bored a third +and called it Great Northern Preference, and so on; but, still, Henry +was never free from danger. And the worst of it was that, long before +_The Plague-Spot_ had exhausted its geyser-like activity of throwing up +money, Henry had finished another book and another play. Fortunately, +Geraldine was ever by his side to play the wife's part. + +From this point his artistic history becomes monotonous. It is the +history of his investments alone which might perchance interest the +public. + +Of course, it was absolutely necessary to abandon the flat in Ashley +Gardens. A man burdened with an income of forty thousand a year, and +never secure against a sudden rise of it to fifty, sixty, or even +seventy thousand, cannot possibly live in a flat in Ashley Gardens. +Henry exists in a superb mansion in Cumberland Place. He also possesses +a vast country-house at Hindhead, Surrey. He employs a secretary, though +he prefers to dictate his work into a phonograph. His wife employs a +secretary, whose chief duty is, apparently, to see to the flowers. The +twins have each a nurse, and each a perambulator; but when they are good +they are permitted to crowd themselves into one perambulator, as a +special treat. In the newspapers they are invariably referred to as Mr. +Shakspere Knight's 'pretty children' or Mrs. Shakspere Knight's +'charming twins.' Geraldine, who has abandoned the pen, is undisputed +ruler of the material side of Henry's life. The dinners and the +receptions at Cumberland Place are her dinners and receptions. Henry has +no trouble; he does what he is told, and does it neatly. Only once did +he indicate to her, in his mild, calm way, that he could draw a line +when he chose. He chose to draw the line when Geraldine spoke of +engaging a butler, and perhaps footmen. + +'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry. + +'But, dearest, a great house like this----' + +'I couldn't stand a butler,' said Henry. + +'As you wish, dearest, of course.' + +He would not have minded the butler, perhaps, had not his mother and +Aunt Annie been in the habit of coming up to Cumberland Place for tea. + +Upon the whole the newspapers and periodicals were very kind to Henry, +and even the rudest organs were deeply interested in him. Each morning +his secretary opened an enormous packet of press-cuttings. In a good +average year he was referred to in print as a genius about a thousand +times, and as a charlatan about twenty times. He was not thin-skinned; +and he certainly was good-tempered and forgiving; and he could make +allowances for jealousy and envy. Nevertheless, now and then, some +casual mention of him, or some omission of his name from a list of +names, would sting him into momentary bitterness. + +He endeavoured to enforce his old rule against interviews. But he could +not. The power of public opinion was too strong, especially the power of +American public opinion. As for photographs, they increased. He was +photographed alone, with Geraldine, with the twins, and with Geraldine +and the twins. It had to be. For permission to reproduce the most +pleasing groups, Messrs. Antonio, the eminent firm in Regent Street, +charged weekly papers a fee of two guineas. + +'And this is fame!' he sometimes said to himself. And he decided that, +though fame was pleasant in many ways, it did not exactly coincide with +his early vision of it. He felt himself to be so singularly +unchangeable! It was always the same he! And he could only wear one suit +of clothes at a time, after all; and in the matter of eating, he ate +less, much less, than in the era of Dawes Road. He persisted in his +scheme of two meals a day, for it had fulfilled the doctor's prediction. +He was no longer dyspeptic. That fact alone contributed much to his +happiness. + +Yes, he was happy, because he had a good digestion and a kind heart. The +sole shadow on his career was a spasmodic tendency to be bored. 'I miss +the daily journey on the Underground,' he once said to his wife. 'I +always feel that I ought to be going to the office in the morning.' 'You +dear thing!' Geraldine caressed him with her voice. 'Fancy anyone with +a gift like yours going to an office!' + +Ah, that gift! That gift utterly puzzled him. 'I just sit down and +write,' he thought. 'And there it is! They go mad over it!' + +At Dawes Road they worshipped him, but they worshipped the twins more. +Occasionally the twins, in state, visited Dawes Road, where Henry's +mother was a little stouter and Aunt Annie a little thinner and a little +primmer, but where nothing else was changed. Henry would have allowed +his mother fifty pounds a week or so without an instant's hesitation, +but she would not accept a penny over three pounds; she said she did not +want to be bothered. + + +One day Henry read in the _Times_ that the French Government had made +Tom a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and that Tom had been elected +President of the newly-formed Cosmopolitan Art Society, which was to +hold exhibitions both in London and Paris. And the _Times_ seemed to +assume that in these transactions the honour was the French Government's +and the Cosmopolitan Art Society's. + +Frankly, Henry could not understand it. Tom did not even pay his +creditors. + +'Well, of course,' said Geraldine, 'everybody knows that Tom _is_ a +genius.' + +This speech slightly disturbed Henry. And the thought floated again +vaguely through his mind that there was something about Geraldine which +baffled him. 'But, then,' he argued, 'I expect all women are like that.' + +A few days later his secretary brought him a letter. + +'I say, Geraldine,' he cried, genuinely moved, on reading it. 'What do +you think? The Anti-Breakfast League want me to be the President of the +League.' + +'And shall you accept?' she asked. + +'Oh, certainly!' said Henry. 'And I shall suggest that it's called the +National Anti-Breakfast League in future.' + +'That will be much better, dearest,' Geraldine smiled. + + +BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Great Man, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GREAT MAN *** + +***** This file should be named 29860.txt or 29860.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/6/29860/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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