CHAPTER III
"About that book you sent us up a few days ago, Temple—let me see—'The Reverse of the Medal,' wasn't it?"
"Yes, Mr. Alexander."
"You thought very highly of it?"
"Very highly indeed," replied Gareth.
"It's really not at all a bad piece of work"; the junior partner was almost enthusiastic.
"Have you come to any decision on it?" Gareth enquired, with feigned nonchalance. It was a week to-morrow that his promise to Pat O'Neill fell due.
"Impossible while Mr. Campbell is still away. I've just heard from him that he intends stopping in Scotland over the New Year. But I fancy he will agree with me that it's worth while to prevent this author from entering into a contract with Locker and Swyn; he's very much their style."
For Alexander did not regard the firm of Leslie Campbell with the eye of its proud founder, as a definite and individual establishment; but as a negative result of what had to be positively prevented from straying to any rival firm of publishers.
"The characterization is fairly strong, and the central idea passably original," continued the unemotional young Oxonian.
And again the reader assented.
"Well, this O'Neill—whoever he may be—" referring to the manuscript again, "must wait another fortnight. He'll have to alter the title; I'm not keen on it, and it's bad for the ads. I daresay we can get it out by April. And there's a passage near the end will certainly have to be cut.... I shall have trouble with Mr. Campbell over that," resignedly; "he'll want it left in for a dead cert. Is Burnett here? You might send him in to me...."
The reader was summarily dismissed.
He was glad that Alexander had praised the book; but it bothered him that Patricia should unnecessarily be kept on the rack pending Campbell's return from his native heath. For if Alexander spoke already of the "ads," there was not the slightest doubt that the book was virtually accepted.
He decided he could, in an unofficial capacity, betray as much to the girl. After all, her patience had already been unfairly stretched over the six weeks that "The Reverse of the Medal" had lain in the bottom drawer of the sitting-room at Pacific Villa.... Alexander could not know this, of course; but Gareth had promised her some certain relief by the morrow.
He wrote to her, saying he had news that could not possibly be imparted by letter—though why not, was a matter entirely between him and his God!—and would she do him the pleasure of meeting him to-morrow (Saturday) at half-past two, at the bookstall of the Piccadilly Tube, and have tea with him?
He told Kathleen that evening that he would be detained at the office the following afternoon for some special work connected with the "White Review." Unlike what had been her contemptuous method of tossing him some entirely inadequate excuse at the period when she was deceiving him with Napier Kirby, he was very punctilious in the details of his falsehood; and kept on nervously elaborating it, feeling somehow less guilty as he did so....
After all, it was business detaining him; Alexander had as good as bidden him inform the author of "The Reverse of the Medal" that the firm was favourably considering the novel.... Had Alexander issued any such message? By the time Gareth had separately dealt with Kathleen and with his own conscience, he could not remember any more what was the unveiled truth of the matter....
"Shall we go for a saunter in the country?" suggested Patricia O'Neill, directly on encounter; "we can change from this line for Chorley Wood; and the weather is just as I like it!"
Through the Tube entrance could be seen a pale leaden sky, and a hailstorm lashing the pavement. But Gareth was so relieved at her easy assumption of command, that he assented enthusiastically to all she said: certainly, it was just the afternoon for a country stroll.... She directed him to the booking-office; then down to the train—change safely effected at Baker Street ... and they found themselves perforce divided until arrival at Chorley Wood.
"Which way? I'm quite helpless, you know!" he smiled at her confidentially, as they emerged from the small country station into a slanting fury of hail.
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows ... about three miles from here. We'll go and pick it for tea. Come along—to the right; I'm at home in these parts. Why, what's all this going on over my head?" as, looking joyfully skywards, she found her view blocked by an affair of silk and spikes; "my dear man, I appreciate your delicious old-world courtesy, truly I do, and none more than I ... I used to paint it on satin. But for Heaven's sake remove that obstreperous object!"
"I don't want you to get wet," said Gareth gently, still shielding her with his umbrella. "You had better take my arm."
Patricia's eyes danced ... and suddenly she yielded. She was being rather good to him, for she detested umbrellas, never caught cold, liked best to swing along free and aloof, and had bitten back several flippantly witty comments to his request—simply because she both liked and respected this man with the rugged handsome face, and the wistful smile; and instinct told her how immeasurably her refusal to accede to his manly protection, would hurt him at this juncture. Besides, why not accept with appreciative good grace the different wares that were offered her at their different times of offering? Stirring taste of matched equality with Dacres Upton; and Temple's grave romantic charm that savoured of a bygone era. With the gesture of slipping her hand through his arm, Patricia's fancy envisioned him in a tall beaver hat, mull-coloured breeches, and three-caped overcoat ... herself in dove-colour, with a large poke bonnet and a trustful expression.
"The vision passeth away, but the shadow of the gamp remaineth ..." murmured Patricia piously, already beginning to be restive in her role of a-hundred-years-ago. "You might break the blow to me," she said aloud; "are they going to refuse my book?"
"Good Heavens, no! what a brute I am to let you be worrying your heart out all this time."
"Oh, I wasn't," Patricia owned frankly; "I've a sneaking sort of confidence in the worth of my own work which has upheld me during the damnably long time you have taken to decide on its merits. Forgive the language; I daresay it wasn't your fault."
Gareth winced.... And quickly told her what Alexander had said that morning.
"And you think that means——?"
"Acceptance; I'm quite sure of it. If Vincent Alexander admits anything to be tolerably average, it's equivalent to a delirious outburst from Mr. Campbell, our chief. They have about the same standard of judgment, but different ways of expressing it. You'll be summoned to an interview shortly, and then you'll see for yourself. Our junior partner doesn't think authors ought to be encouraged."
"But the best writers publish with you, don't they? an awfully good array. I selected the firm for a first try because I thought I would look well in the catalogue all among your Graham Carrs and Ran Wymans and—let me see—who else is of the illustrious company?"
Gareth named a few more of "Campbell's Young Men"; wondering meanwhile if anything of his own forfeited glamour of belonging to that arrogant little band of intellects, was shared by the girl? or whether any other good firm of publishers would have satisfied her equally.
But just at present he could not feel quite as bitter over his lost chance as during the brooding dreary evenings at home.... Now, with her shoulder brushing his at every step, and her wind-bitten cheek poppy-stained against the blown gold of her hair. Presently he asked her solicitously if she were not tired?
"We're nearly there," she encouraged him, thinking this to be a confession on his part. "I'm taking you to a nice ramshackle mill, where a nice fat Yorkshire woman will give us tea and a fire and her family history: the miller drinks; and somebody quite important was once murdered there and they can't get used to the distinction; and she makes perfectly wonderful cake—Cornish heavy-cake; and cures swine and makes them into ham; and has almost cured her husband.... Oh, she's remarkably versatile!"
She was surprised at Gareth's delight in her description. The haphazard jumble of geography and jam and millers and murders and swine, appealed to him as a spinner of words.... He was very happy; and happier still when they finally arrived at their fairy-tale destination, and were able at last to cower from the malevolent weather in front of a jovial red fire, in the parlour of the mill-house. He insisted on removing Patricia's slouch hat, and her tweed jacket with its deep leather pockets, and her gauntlet gloves; and on strenuously holding up each dripping article in turn before the blaze ... till her lazy laughing voice remonstrated that she had no use for toasted gloves, and would he please make room for her to dry her hair.... Turning, he saw that she had loosened the wet coils, which now lay in a rumpled glister about her shoulders.
"I'm enjoying this," she remarked with the innocent candour that, had he but known it, always presaged her most disconcerting remarks. "The miller's lady is getting our tea, and my book is as good as accepted, and you're well on the way to fall in love with me.... I put it to you—what could be more pleasant?"
"Sit down and let me scrape the mud from your shoes." He was glad of an excuse to avert his face; glad too to be kneeling in an attitude of worship in front of her; most of all glad that he was looking after her so well.... Yes, undoubtedly he was looking after her; he had conducted this expedition without a hitch so far; and he had been masterful over the umbrella—the memory enfolded him in a sense of rest to which he had been a stranger for years.
Patricia lay back in her arm-chair, and watched him from under her drooping lids. Let matters take their course—why not? It was two years now since Dacres' curt good-bye on that nightmare thirtieth of December. Her dormant vitality was unashamedly eager for another awakening and a different awakening; anything less excellent in the same line would inevitably have invited comparison. But Gareth Temple touched a semi-humorous semi-maternal fount of tenderness within her, which Upton never had approached.... Her hand stole out towards his massive iron-grey head bent before her—then quickly she drew back, as their Yorkshire hostess entered with the Cornish heavy-cake and the teapot.
"Ah, now, I came all the way from London to taste that cake of yours, Mrs. Thorpe," Patricia announced gallantly.
Mrs. Thorpe looked lugubrious; and gave information that she was not Mrs. Thorpe, but Mrs. Thorpe's sister; and Mrs. Thorpe was dead; and she hoped the cake would be to their liking—"And that be her funeral-card yonder on wall; and ef ee want anything else ee'll be speakin' fur et..." the door closed.
"Oh, Hell!" ruefully exclaimed Patricia, whose tongue all too easily became profane. "I hope the talent runs in the family."
Evidently this was not the case. The cake proved to be sopping wet, and beyond all normal heaviness of heavy-cake.
"We simply dare not leave it untouched, after my injudicious remarks. I'm sorry for you, Gareth Temple, but you'll have to swallow double portion, as an act of fealty to me."
But at his apprehensive gaze towards the cake, she relented; and suggested instead that they should burn it. "Chuck it on the fire! Will it leave any traces of itself, I wonder?"
It did not. It merely put out the fire.
Patricia shrugged her shoulders: "A clear example of the survival of the fittest. Not only have we still on our hands a whole round damp cake in perfectly healthy condition; but we shall also have to account to the miller's deceased wife's sister for the suspicious demise of the fire!"
Gareth stood helplessly with the blackened cake in his hands: "Shall I—shall I shove it under the carpet? Or climb through the window and bury it in the garden? I'll do anything for you——"
"Commit any crime? This comes of it, when a publisher goes traipsing round with his mad young clients."
"I'm only reader to the firm," he reminded her.
"I don't know ... somehow or other I shall always think of you as responsible for the publication of my book."
He was silent for a moment. And then, driven by an unconquerable impulse, said quietly: "I was very nearly responsible in preventing the publication of your book."
"What do you mean?"
He set down the cake on the table; walked to the window; stood with his back to her, seeking courage for confession.
Her voice came to him with a new grave note in it: "Mr. Temple—what do you mean?"
Desperately he faced round. It had got to be done.
"I kept back your book—kept it back for six weeks—hid it away so that no one else should see it. I hated it ... your book that contained the idea of my book—God! shall I ever forget the reading of it! And then I thought ... if only I could get mine done first; get it in first, and published first.... It was the same idea, you see—just the same idea. And it wasn't fair——"
He halted; came slowly back to the fire; stood looking down into it, head steadily averted from her eyes ... the gold-shot gold-veiled green of her eyes. Then he went on more coherently:
"It was quite fair; yours was ready first, so it ought to have had first chance with the public. I took it home to read in my official capacity; and just because of that, it was unspeakable that I should have done such a thing—to you, dear, now that I know you ... and to anyone. Pat O'Neill was just a name to me. I imagined him an ambitious boy—a boy with genius, who was bound to get there in the long run. But I was middle-aged, and a failure, and this one idea had come to me—and I could write only this one book; it was my justification. Oh, all this is no excuse. I have no excuse. I'm only telling you how it happened...."
Would she speak now? Say that she was disappointed?—more than that: utterly contemptuous; not because it was her own career he had tampered with, but because Patricia O'Neill could not condone—meanness. Would she never speak? He stood longing for absolution; honestly ashamed—yet shame not unmixed with a queer strain of gladness that he should have challenged her attention, stamped his personality upon her consciousness, with anything so definite as a confession.
"Is your book finished yet?"
"No."
"Then why did you send up mine ... after all?"
He looked at her now. "You know why...."
"Say it!" her mandate was imperial.
"I love you, Patricia." He did not seek to touch her, nor even to draw nearer. At any moment she might pronounce sentence. He felt her mind unfathomably concentrated on some purpose behind speech.
After a pause, she said in quite altered tones: "Which is the exact theme of my book which poached on yours?"
"I never said you poached; of course you didn't—any more than I. But I'm curious to know how and under what circumstances you were inspired by the duplicate theme.... It was adventure completed by pain—especially the adventure of a man and a woman. "The Round Adventure" was the title of my novel. And both our heroes carried about a secret fear, and recognized this fear to be part of the fun. And both died by it—deliberately. You stumble across that sort of truth by what you didn't do yourself; at least, that was the way with me ... the shadow-side of the circle, as well as the other ... if you shirk it, you're never free—never free again."
She repeated musingly: "Never free again. You earn that sort of truth by what youdidscrew yourself up to do—at least, that was the way with me."
"And then you wrote a book about it. Because you had always wanted to write?"
"Not a bit of it! Just because I had an abstract discovery on my hands and wanted to get rid of it in some tangible form. It worries me when things lie about untidily and are wasted. I grant you it was quite exciting to discover I had a talent in my napkin."
Gareth asked, jealously, who was the prototype of Robert Nugent. And she favoured him with that smile at once tantalizing and enigmatic which the best of girls cannot refrain from using on one male when speaking to him of another.
"He was a dashing cavalry captain, and he treated me badly. Have I never struck you as a sorrowful victim to a man's perfidy?"
"You didn't care for him," infinitely relieved; "or you wouldn't make a joke of it."
She laughed. "I've paid my toll, and I'm free as air. It was a full two years ago—a long and wearisome tale. Do you want to hear it? Dying to, aren't you? And you're being so delightfully shocked at my bright and breezy allusions.... Own up! it would have cheered you considerably if I'd gone off into a highly respectable decline. I'll start my narrative directly you unhook that attentive funeral expression—it embarrasses me to such an extent that I shall shortly break into bitter sobs...."
"And now we're going home," when in the same mood of hectic flippancy, she had retailed her episode with Dacres Upton. Gareth was doubtful whether or not the flippancy were assumed. Nor did he feel safe in an assumption that Patricia had altogether forgiven him for the retention of her book. She was a baffling creature—why had she insisted on hearing him say that he loved her?...
Had he known more of Patricia, it would have been clear to him that she was off again on one of her recurring star-scampers; swept up by an idea to which her entire life of action must swiftly be altered and reset, no matter at what cost of destruction and upheaval.
She was silent all the way home, and abstracted; only seemed to become re-aware of him at parting. "It's—all right, you know, Gareth."
"Is it? Is it? When shall I see you again?"
"Oh, leave it to chance, my dear man!"
He returned to Pacific Villa with the reaction of utter flatness upon him.
He heard no word from Patricia during the next ten days; and tormented himself by the alternate beliefs that he had disgusted her utterly by his confession, that he had merely bored her on that afternoon they had spent together, or that he was expected now to take the initiative—do something vigorous and unexpected—he had not the remotest idea what! She had said: "Leave it to chance"—which might have cloaked the message: "I leave it to you!"
But she must see, surely she must see, that he could not insolently thrust himself upon her presence, now, after the injury she was aware he had done her; by all the rules in the game, it was incumbent upon him to wait her pleasure in the matter. "It's all right, you know, Gareth!"—was that meant for reassurance?
And after all, what had he to do with all this fretting and questioning? He, who since sixteen springs had known that when the girl came along, he was not free. "Grant the path be clear before you...."
Let him stick to his dream-girl, and safety. Dream-girl—he tried to recall her from the shadow-wood wherein she dwelt ... but she faded to insipidity beside the vivid reality of Patricia.
His book, then, with last chapters waiting to be completed; the old anodyne of work....
And what was the good of that, when with Mr. Campbell's return, "The Reverse of the Medal" would doubtless be put instantly into preparation for the spring season? There was no room in the world for two books of one idea.
And suddenly it struck him that he was bound to see Patricia directly the firm requested their interview with her. Why then, his mind might cease from nagging; he would see her then, for a certainty. Gareth mistrusted the offices of chance.
As he had anticipated, Leslie Campbell immediately hailed in "The Reverse of the Medal" a success which would rival even "Piccadilly," now booming in its cheap edition, and on the verge of dramatization and production. Pat O'Neill was to be sent for instantly, to sign a contract with an option on his next two books. Pat O'Neill was a find—the genius of the age—a feather in the cap of the publisher who discovered him!... The offices hummed with the new name. Alexander was impotent to stem the cataracts of his partner's enthusiasm. Campbell prattled about Pat O'Neill to Graham Carr, to the charwoman, to Mona Gurney, to the Heart-breaker.... It was a queer sensation for Gareth to hear the name bandied to and fro, and to realize that he alone had walked and talked with the owner.
And all this fizzing excitement might have been for his book....
He would see Patricia enter through those swing-doors to-morrow at eleven-thirty; so rumour and young Burnett declared....
All this might have been for his book....
Thus, pendulum-wise, his mind feverishly ticked between the two points.
Leslie Campbell, meeting Gareth the next morning on the stairs, informed him confidentially and for the hundredth time, that the unknown celebrity was that day expected at the office. Then he hurried on to the inner room where Alexander already waited, his early presence a rare tribute to the impending interview.
Gareth found it well-nigh impossible to concentrate on his work. It was the more difficult since Ran Wyman and Graham Carr, the one accidentally and the other by intent, had both established themselves in the outer office, to catch a glimpse of their future colleague.
"Is he going to write for the 'White 'Un'?"
"Sure. And crowd us all out. Your days are numbered, Carr; you know what the chief is like over a new swan of intellect. And he's keen on paying out poor old Alex for taking that ghastly South-African serial."
"What—by those Frinton-on-Sea people?—Kate and Jasper Thurgood? Nonsense, Wyman, he hasn't! Not for the 'White 'Un'!"
"He has, and I've seen it," chuckled Ran Wyman. "Six hundred pages of 'Queer thraldom of the Veldt.' Treks and kraals and kopjes sprinkled like pepper; and a heroine with a Biblical name who stands all day long in a doorway, her blouse minus its top button to show the full generous curves of her bosom."
"Oh well, if Alex, curse his hardened greed-bitten soul, is out for that sort of thing, he'd better ask Gilman for a contribution at once. I came across a pearl of Gilman's the other day, in an old paper-back: 'The Earl of all the Beaumaynes behaved at the dinner-party with the simplicity and affability that distinguishes true breeding from its counterfeit brother'—yes, really, I'm not making this up ... listen: 'Several times he even took an entrée-dish from the servant's hand, and helped Gracie himself, that the blushing girl might feel more at her ease....' My servant can't understand what's come to me lately at my little informal dinner-parties, when I keep on snatching the dishes away from him; he doesn't know that I'm emulating the aristocracy."
"You probably only succeed in behaving like its 'counterfeit brother.' But what a priceless person Gilman is!" Wyman picked up an eccentric headgear in yellow felt. "After all, I shan't stay to cheer our infant prodigy. His conceit will doubtless be enormous without the added compliment that is bound to be shed by my presence. Conceit is for the poor in spirit,n'est ce pas, Jimmy, mon enfant?" and tweaking, as he passed, the ear of the Heart-breaker, who interrupted his whistling by a soul-shattering yell, Wyman slammed the glass door; then returned to say: "Bring him round to supper some time next week, Carr, if he's presentable"—and ran downstairs.
"H'any more, Mr. Temple?"
"Yes, these can go." Gareth handed Jimmy a couple of brown-paper-bound manuscripts. He wished Carr and Burnett would likewise depart, and leave him in peace to ... wait for Patricia. But they lingered on, exchanging anecdotes of the profession.
"Can I see Mr. Campbell?"
It was of Burnett, nearest the door, that the entrant made careless enquiry. He replied, in the melancholy and regretful tones reserved especially for unsolicited female intruders on the firm's precious time: "I'm afraid Mr. Campbell is away. Did you wish to make an appointment?"
"I have one, thanks. Say Miss O'Neill is here."
"'Er!" exclaimed Jimmy audibly, in the silence following this announcement; "an' I never tumbled to it!"
Carr came quickly forward, releasing the stricken Burnett of responsibility.
"Pleased to meet you, Miss O'Neill. The chief is most anxious to see you, of course. We've all heard such a lot of your novel. May I introduce myself?—Graham Carr."
Patricia had read "Piccadilly," and lingered a moment, talking to Carr. Then Campbell, mysteriously aware of her presence, burst open the door of his sanctum, and overwhelmed the author of "The Reverse of the Medal" in a gale of welcome; shaking her by both hands, congratulating her, congratulating everyone; introducing Alexander, unnecessarily introducing Carr, introducing Jimmy and young Burnett, and Gareth.... (Pat's eyes regarded him with perfect calmness from under her level brows!)... "A masterpiece! proud of ye, my lass, proud of ye!"—trying, against breathlessness and cough, to quote what the junior partner had said about the book.... Then a mild interpolation from that gentleman that they might as well talk some business, if Mr. Campbell had no objection—and the door of the private office sharply shut; young Burnett and Graham Carr exchanging admiring commentary down the stairs; their tread dying away; low continuous murmur of voices from the inner room; save for that, silence all about the reader, where he sat at his desk, amid a medley of proofs and manuscript, blotting-paper, ledgers, and foolscap.
... She would speak to him, coming out. Of course she would. She had simply relied on their secret understanding to explain her masquerade of indifference....
The murmur of voices swelled suddenly louder, as Alexander opened the glass door, and came through to fetch a thick roll of paper; the contract, no doubt. Contract, yes. Gareth knew exactly all the outward symbols of having got there, and how they would accumulate in the future: contract for the next book, and the book after that; pile of advertisements and posters; of press reviews; of letters from unknown admirers and fellow celebrities; discussionsreAmerican rights, and the cheap edition, and a possible édition de luxe with illustrations; editors applying for photographs and favourite 'hobby' of this new star on the firmament; journalists appealing for an interview; rival publishers with tempting and persistent bait; diffident request from Alexander that Miss O'Neill might be prevailed upon to contribute (expensively) to the "White Review" ... Gareth knew; and all these prosaic and troublesome matters were poetry in his silent singing of them. Gareth knew; he had imagined the scene often enough with—notPat O'Neill as its hero. And a rueful smile twitched his lips, wondering if the girl were now astride of the table, in the delirium of insolent enjoyment once described by Graham Carr.
"And she'll swing her legs with the proper amount of—swing! As for me——"
Well, here he sat in the outer office.
And behind the door marked in black lettering: "Private," a world given away....
Would she speak to him—coming out?
"And now if you'd just put your name to the contract, Miss O'Neill——"
The preliminaries of the interview had been conducted on a note of frigid decorum from Alexander—in case anyone should suspect that he admired the cut of this creature's tan tailor-made—and with much demure diffidence on the part of Patricia; while Campbell dashed himself alternately on one and then the other, after the fashion of an all too youthful Aberdeen terrier; and: "down, sir, down!" expressed in Alexander's restraining: "Certainly, Mr. Campbell, I was just coming to that."
"And I should like to tell ye, my dear young leddy, what my friend Lennox, editor of the 'Critic,' said to me about your closing chapter when I showed it to him——"
"Wouldn't it be as well, Mr. Campbell, to get this attended to, before we begin repeating the eulogies which Miss O'Neill's work so richly deserves?"
"Alexander's impetuous," Campbell confided to Pat, in an aside. "Ah, he's young! It's verra reesky to tek a young partner."
All of which, Patricia found immensely entertaining.
Then Alexander brought in the contract. "Take it home to digest at your leisure, if you'd rather!" Pat ran her eye down the clauses.
"'In the event of the author's death' is rather tactlessly over-emphasized, isn't it?"
Alexander explained that this was a mere matter of form.
"I rather like the chorus that runs through," she continued; "'Thirteen copies shall be reckoned as twelve.'... It would set rather well to part-music. Or is it a magic incantation to preserve me from harm?"
The junior partner did not budge a muscle of his face; but he said: "On the contrary, Miss O'Neill, it's a magic incantation to preserveUSfrom harm."—And she discovered that she liked him.
Laying down the parchment on the table, she looked Campbell steadily in the eye: "Am I to understand that you're trying to do me out of elevenpence every time that twelve goes into a thousand, and one over to make thirteen? Because I'm only an unprotected girl, without—without"—her voice quivered—"without even a nice kind agent to look after me!"
"It's like this, ye see——" Campbell, very distressed, began to calculate the author's percentage of profit in ratio to the publisher's, with expenses deducted. And Alexander flipped the window-cord, and crossed his legs, and looked as if senior partners were really rather a mistake.
"You will find the last two clauses relate to your future books, Miss O'Neill. And now, if you'll sign——"
Patricia finished her perusal of the contract, and laid it aside. There was a curious impishness to the upward-tilted corners of her mouth; but her eyes were misted and far-away.... In a hundred different directions, little shutters seemed to have flown open, with attractive vistas beyond ... on and on and out ... vigour of creation, fun of popularity, rivalry and applause and stimulation; then the next book, and the next ... paths of literature—jolly little twisted paths ... rewards of literature; literary jargon and literary companions, literary grooves and outlook.... Well—it vrould have been rather fun!
"I'm going to withdraw 'The Reverse of the Medal,'" she said. "I've decided not to publish, after all."
Gareth, straining his ears for all sounds from the inner room, was surprised to hear the word "murder" hurled forth in Campbell's distinctest bellow.... "Yes, I will say it, Alex; I mean it, Miss O'Neill. It's your ain genius ye're strangling, weelfully...."
His voice died down again, probably beneath the admonishment of Alexander's lifted eyebrow.
And then Gareth remembered that the junior partner had, on first reading of the "Reverse of the Medal," remarked to him that a certain passage would have to be cut, and that there would be trouble with Mr. Campbell on the subject. The trouble was evidently in full swing. Perhaps Patricia had yielded too easily to Alexander's suave suggestions; too easily—for Leslie Campbell's liking.
Presently the door opened, and she came out. Gareth did not notice if either of the partners were in attendance upon her exit. Breathlessly he waited; and only when she was level with his desk, did he raise his eyes to meet hers.... She bestowed on him a careless nod, and without pausing, walked straight on to the outer door, and down the stone stairs.
... He sat very still, with the array of uncorrected proofs before him; disappointment like a damp cloud weighing down his soul.
It was as he had dreaded. She had gone past him, actually and in spirit. She was a Personage now. And for weeks and months he would be doomed to move in an atmosphere effervescent with her triumphs; the while she became ever more absorbed by her intellectual intimacies with "Campbell's Young Men"; swang her legs from the table of Campbell's inner sanctum; was impudent as she pleased to Alexander; permitted the awed worship of Jimmy and young Burnett; sometimes graciously remembered to nod to the reader in the outer office!
Worse, far worse, than if she had been the boy he had originally envisioned. Far worse—being Patricia....
For that black hour, it seemed to Gareth that no nightmare could exceed in horror the nightmare of Patricia as One of Them. For that hour he found himself wishing that he had never yielded up her book from its hiding-place in Pacific Villa; never confessed to her his part in its retention....
Then, with a long breath as of one who has been stifled in a clogged slime-fettered stream, he made an attempt to rise above this despondency of sick envy; to regain his old resignation of last summer,—before little Moll Aynsleigh had stirred him with the pages of her "Spring-fret"; before the dream-girl had slipped to him between the pale green beech-stems; before he had been given an attic and a harbour to play with, and sweet prospects of solitude, and a book of his own; before ambition was lit, and flamed, and was quenched again in the heart of the world; and before the coming of Patricia to make him young as romance, and mad as romance, and in love with romance.
All over now. He took up his pencil, and went on quietly correcting proofs. Other people's books had the laugh of him after all. Other people's books would always have the laugh of him.
By and by he became vaguely aware that the partners were thoroughly upset over something that had occurred, and that all was not harmony in the firm since the interview with Pat O'Neill. He wondered if she could have refused to sign any contract till a literary agent should have inspected it in her interests. Campbell howled like a jackal at the very mention of an agent; and invariably, and with the utmost lack of manners, turned the species over to Alexander to deal with.
But even that would hardly account for the "two thundering bad tempers" of which Burnett complained to Gareth later on: "Wonder what our new darling of the gods can have done to upset 'em. I asked quite innocently when 'The Reverse of the Medal' was to be sent to the printer, and the chief nearly bit my head off."
But lunch with his confidential secretary seemingly loosened Campbell's tongue; so that Burnett, himself loyally sharing the prevalent mood of angry consternation, was able afterwards to enlighten Jimmy and the reader simultaneously.
"She's withdrawn the manuscript!"
"Not never!" Jimmy's eyes nearly goggled out of his head. And Gareth's: "What for?" sounded sharp and unnatural to his own ears. His blood was singing so loudly in his head that he could hardly hear Burnett's reply:
"Lord only knows. If our firm's not good enough for my lady, I should like to know what is. But the chief says she's not taking it to anyone else—simply has changed her mind about it and doesn't want to have it published at all. It'sherbook—what is one to do? Can't bring it out against the author's consent. Though it's criminal letting stuff like that be wasted. She can't have thought what good it might have done to US. We haven't nabbed a real winner since 'Piccadilly.' Well—there you are...."
He awoke to the fact that the Heart-breaker was his sole audience. Gareth had disappeared.
Gareth was on his way to Sydenham.
The maid who opened the door informed him that Miss Patricia was out, but would probably be in presently, and would he care to wait?
He paced for half an hour in her sitting-room. Then the furious barking of dogs and clang of bicycle bells drew him to the window—whence he just received a fleeting vision of Patricia, in a warm crimson jersey, coasting full speed down the hill, and leaping from the saddle, encumbered by an adoring frenzied surge of dogs and flappers.... Then she swung, with that loose supple movement of the hips that was so intensely hers, into the porch and out of sight.
He stood upright in the middle of the room, heart beating violently.
Footsteps down the passage. Her voice, clear and loud and fresh: "Down, Rix! Down, you brute!... Ah, that's right—good fellow——" And she entered, still clamorously surrounded; hair in a bright tangle; cheeks aglow.
"Hullo—it was dear of you to come.... Now then, off with you, the whole pack; I'm done with you for the moment—private audience awaiting me. No, Rix can stop. No, Hetty, I'm not bringing the handsome gentleman into the schoolroom for tea—Great Scott, what next! and you and your pals the merest puling babes, who haven't even learnt yet not to whisper in company...." Remonstrating noisily, the three healthy schoolgirls departed, with the terriers at their heels. "Let me introduce you—this is Vercingetorix, my special property." Pat talked very fast, as though not quite ready yet to hear what the man had to say; "Not quite so affectionate, my angel!" as the four-foot-high St. Bernard dabbed clumsily with his tongue at Gareth's face; "You needn't use all the syllables of his name at once; but the man who gave him to me had called him Tiny ... can you conceive of anything less subtle? I informed him that his was a primitive type of humour, and he departed utterly crushed. That's right—not an inch of room for us!" for by now Vercingetorix had contrived to put most of himself on to the divan, where he lolled in voluptuous pomp, with a big rough sheet of red tongue hanging out; "...bless you, we love to deny ourselves for you!... He's a mere puppy, you know; eight months old; has only just started to grow, really. And the pathos of it all is that he thinks he's small; he does, indeed. He tries to behave like an ordinary puppy—these bundlesome little things that you can pick up with one finger. And I ask you—look at him!"
But for all her casual and airy chatter, Patricia could not fail to perceive that Gareth's looks were for her. She tossed off her jersey, picked up a book and laid it down again ... and faced him, rather a tremulous smile on her lips, but with head erect, and chin more than ever dented.
"Well, my man...."
"Why did you do it?"
She did not speak—but then her hands came out in a swift movement towards him, as though she were giving—giving——
And he seized them and held them.
"Patricia, was it for me?—Was it?... You cared enough for that?"
"Oh, but I'm so glad if it's to be your book!" she cried impetuously ... and he felt as though he stood in an open place, the centre of a great gale of love.
"Adorable...." And surely he could allow himself to kiss her, gently, for gratitude's sake.... But control left him at the quick hot response of her lips.... And Heaven had showered its madness upon him before control ever came back again——
He released her. Remained standing just where he was, arms hanging inert at his sides. His eyes were weary and troubled. Presently, replying to her silent questioning gaze, he said slowly:
"Yes—but you see ... there's Kathleen...."