I
It was Hinde who brought the good news to John. Mr. Clotworthy, the editor of theDaily Sensation, had met Hinde in Tudor Street that afternoon and when he had heard that John and Hinde were living together, he said, "Tell him I'll take him on the staff if he'll promise to keep the Truth well under control!" and had named the following morning for an appointment.
"It's a queer thing," said Hinde as he related the news to John, "that I'm advising you to take the job when I was telling you the other night that journalism's no work for a man; but that only shows what a journalist I am. No stability ... carried off my feet by any excitement. And mebbe the life'll disgust you and you'll go home again!..."
"With my tail between my legs?" John demanded. "No, I'll not do that. I'd be ashamed to go home and admit I hadn't done what I set out to do. What time does Mr. Clotworthy want me?"
Hinde told him.
"I'll write to my mother at once," said John, "and tell her he's sent for me. That'll impress her. Shell be greatly taken, with the notion that he sent for me instead of me running after him!..."
"The great fault in an Ulsterman," said Hinde, "is his silly pride that won't let him acknowledge his mistake when he's made one. You'll get into a lot of bother, John MacDermott, if you go about the world letting on you've done right when you've done wrong, and pretending a mistake is not a mistake!"
"I'll run the risk of that," John replied.
II
Mr. Clotworthy spoke very sharply to him. "You understand," he said, "that you're here to write what we want you to write, and not to write what you think. If you start any of your capering about Truth and Reforming the world, I'll fire you into the street the minute I catch you at it. You're here to interest people. That's all. You're not here to elevate their minds or teach them anything. You're here to keep up our sales and increase them if you can. D'you understand me?"
"I do," said John.
"Well?"
"I'll try the job for a while and see how I like it!"
Mr. Clotworthy sat back in his chair and rubbed his glasses with his handkerchief. "You've a great nerve," he said, smiling. "I don't know whether you talk like that because you're sure of yourself or just stupid!"
"I always knew my own mind," John replied.
Mr. Clotworthy turned him over to Mr. Tarleton, the news-editor, who was instructed to give him hints on his work and introduce him to other members of the staff.
For two days John did very little in the office, beyond finding his way about, but on the third day of his employment, Tarleton suddenly called him into his room and told him that the musical critic had telephoned to say he was unwell and would not be able to attend a concert at the Albert Hall that evening.
"You'll have to go instead," said Tarleton.
"But I don't know anything about music," John protested.
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Well, I thought one was supposed to know something about music before you wrote a criticism of it!"
"Look here, young fellow," said Tarleton. "Let me give you a piece of advice. Never admit that there's anything in this world that you don't know. ADaily Sensationman knows everything! ..."
"But I have no ear for music. I hardly know a minim from a semi-quaver!..."
"Well, that doesn't matter. Get a programme. Mark on it the songs and pieces that get the most applause. Those are the best things. See? Anybody can criticise music when he knows a tip or two like that. If the singer is a celebrated person, like Melba or Tetrazzini, you say she was in her usual brilliant form. If the singer isn't celebrated, just say that she shows promise of development!..."
"But supposing I don't like her?"
"Then say nothing about her. If we can't praise people on this paper, we ignore them. Get your stuff in before eleven, will you? Here's the ticket!"
Tarleton thrust the card into John's hand and, a little dazed and a little excited, John went out of the room. This was his first important job. Words that he had written would appear in print in the morning, and hundreds of thousands of people would read them. TheDaily Sensationhad an enormous circulation ... a million people bought it every morning, so Tarleton said, and that meant, he explained, that about three or four million people read it. Each copy of a paper was probably seen by several persons. The thought that some judgment of his would be read by a million men and women in the morning caused John to feel tremendously responsible. He must be careful to give his praise judiciously. All of the persons present at the concert that night, but more especially the singers and instrumentalists, would turn first of all to his notice. There might be a great political crisis or a sensational murder reported in the morning's news, but these people would turn first to his notice to see what he had said about the music. And it would not do to let them have a wrong impression about the concert. Tarleton had told him not to dispraise anything ... "it'll be cut out if you do" ... but at all events he would take care that his praise was justly given. He would send copies of the papers, marked with blue pencil, to his mother and Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff. He could imagine the talk there would be in Ballyards about his criticism of the concert. The minister and the schoolmaster would be greatly impressed when they realised that the paper with the largest circulation in the world had asked him to say what he thought of Madame Tetrazzini. Mr. McCaughan had never heard anything greater than a cantata sung by the church choir in the church room, and he had been deeply impressed by the statements made about it by a reporter from theNorth Down Heraldwho declared that the rendering of the sacred work reflected great credit on all concerned in it, but particularly on the Reverend Mr. McCaughan to whose sterling instruction in the principles of true religion, the young people engaged in singing the cantata clearly owed the sincerity and fervour with which they sang their parts. If he were so greatly impressed by a report in theNorth Down Herald, would he not be overwhelmed by the fact that one of his congregation had been chosen to pronounce judgment on the greatest singer in the world in the greatest newspaper in the world ... for John was now satisfied that theDaily Sensationwas enormously more important than any other paper that was published. He went to a tea-shop in Fleet Street where he knew he could hope to meet Hinde, and found him sitting in a corner with a friend who, soon after John's arrival, went away.
"You needn't go to the concert if you're not desperately keen on it," Hinde said when John had told him of his job. "You can write your notice now!..."
"Write it now! ... But I haven't been to the concert!"
"I wouldn't give much for the man who couldn't write a criticism of a concert without going to it," Hinde contemptuously replied. "Say that Tetrazzini's wonderful voice enthralled the audience and that there were scenes of unparalleled enthusiasm as the diva graciously responded to the clamorous demands for encores. Add a few words about the man who played her accompaniments and the number of floral tributes she received, and there you are. That's all that's necessary!"
"I couldn't do it," said John. It wouldn't be honest!"
"Don't be a prig," Hinde exclaimed.
"Prig! Is it being a prig to do your work fairly?"
"No, but it's being a prig to treat a thing as important that isn't important at all. I wanted you to come to a music-hall with me to-night!"
"I'm sorry," John replied stiffly, "I'd like to go with you, but I couldn't think of doing such a thing as you suggest to me!"
"I wonder how long you'll feel like that, Mac?" Hinde laughed.
"All my life, I hope!"
"Well, have it your own way, then. But you're wasting your time!"
"And another thing," John continued, "I want to hear the woman singing. I've never heard anybody great at the music yet!"
III
He entered the great circular hall, and sat, very solemnly, in his seat on the ground floor. He felt nervous and uneasy and certain that he would not be able to write adequately of the concert. He tried to think of suitable words to great music, but it seemed to him that he could not think at all. He glanced about the Hall, hoping that perhaps he would find inspiration in the ceiling, but there was no inspiration there. He could see wires stretched across the roof from side to side, and there were great pieces of canvas radiating from the central cluster of lights in the dome. He wondered why the wires were there. Blondin, he remembered, had walked across a wire, as thin-looking as those, which was stretched high up in the roof of the Exhibition at the Old Linen Hall in Belfast; but he could scarcely believe that these wires were intended for tight-rope performances. He turned to a man at his side. "Would you mind telling me what those things are for?" he asked, pointing to them.
"To break the echoes," the man replied, entering into an involved account of acoustics. "It's all humbug really," he added. "They don't break the echoes at all, but we all imagine that they do, and so we're quite happy!"
The warm, comfortable look of the red-curtained boxes in the softened electric light pleased him, and he liked the effect of the tiers rising up to the high roof, and the great spread of floor, and the gigantic magnificence of the organ.
"How many people does this place hold?" he demanded of his neighbour.
"About ten thousand," his neighbour answered, glancing at him quizzically. "Is this the first time you've been here?"
"Yes. I'm new to London. They must take a great deal of money in a night at a place like this. An immense amount!"
"They do. It's part of the Albert Memorial, this hall. The other part is in the Park across the road. Have you seen it?"
"No," said John. "Is it any good?"
"Well," said the stranger, "we've tried to overlook it ... but unfortunately it's too big. There are some excellent bits in it, but the whole effect!... Poor dear Queen Victoria ... she was a little woman, and so, of course, she believed in magnitude. She liked Bigness. She's out of fashion, nowadays ... people titter behind their hands when they speak of her ... and there's a tendency to regard her as a somewhat foolish and sentimental old woman ... but really, she was a very capable old girl in her narrow way, and there was nothing soft about her. She was as hard as nails ... almost a cruel woman ... she'd compel her maids-of-honour to stand in her presence until the poor girls fainted with fatigue.... I'm sure she'd have made Queen Elizabeth feel uncomfortable in some ways. This hall is a memorial to her husband."
"Yes," said John. "There's a Memorial in Belfast to him. What did he do?"
"He was Queen Victoria's husband!"
"I suppose," said John, "it wasn't much fun being her man?"
"Fun!" exclaimed the stranger. "Well, of course, it depends on what you call fun!"
There was a bustling sound from the platform and some applause, and then a dark-looking man emerged from the sloping gangway underneath the organ and sat down at the piano. He played Mascagni'sPavana delle Maschere, and while he played it, John took some writing paper from his pocket and prepared to note down his opinions of the evening's entertainment.
"Hilloa," said the stranger in a whisper, "are you a critic?"
John, feeling extraordinarily important, nodded his head and continued to listen to the music. It sounded quite pleasant, but it conveyed nothing to him. All he could think of was the contortions of the pianist as he played his piece, and he wished that all pianists could be concealed behind screens so that their grimaces and gyrations should not be seen. He ought to say something about the man, but he had no idea of what was fitting!... The solo ended and was followed by another one, and then the pianist stood up to acknowledge the applause.
"What do you think of it?" the stranger respectfully asked, and John, aware of the respect in his voice and conscious that he did not know what to think of it, murmured, "Um-m-m! Not bad!"
"Coldish, I think," the stranger continued. "Technically skilful, but hardly any feeling!"
John considered for a moment or two, and then answered very judicially. "Yes! Yes, I think that's a fair description of him!"
He waited until the stranger was engaged in reading the programme, and then he jotted down on his writing-paper, "Mr. Pietro Mancinelli played Mascagni'sPavana delle Mascherewith great technical ability, but with hardly any emotional quality!"
"I'm very glad I sat down beside this chap," he murmured to himself, as the accompanist played the opening bars of Handel'sDroop not, young lover, and then he settled down to listen to the man who sang it. He was happier here, for singing was more easy to judge than instrumental music. Either a song was well sung, he told himself, or it was not well sung, and the gentleman who was singingDroop not, young lovercertainly had a voice that sounded well in that great hall.... He wrote in his report that "Mr. Albert Luton's magnificent voice was heard to great advantage in Handel's charming aria..." and was exceedingly glad that he had lately read some musical notices in one of the newspapers, and could remember some of the phrases that had been used in them.
"Now for a treat," said the stranger, as a burst of hearty applause opened out from the platform and went all round the hall.
John glanced towards the passage leading to the artist's room and saw a smiling, plump lady, with very bright, dark eyes and dark hair come on to the platform. She was clad in white that made her Italian looks more pronounced.
"Tetrazzini!" the stranger whispered in John's ear.
The applause died down, and the singer stood rigidly in front of the platform while the pianist played the opening of Verdi'sCaro nome. Then her voice sounded very clear and bell-like in the deep silence of the great hall. ... She sangSolveig's Songby Greig andA Pastoralby Veracini, and then the satiated audience allowed her to retire from the platform.
John sat back in his seat in a dazed fashion. All round him were applauding men and women ... and he could not applaud. There was a buzz of admiring talk, and he could hear the words "wonderful" and "magnificent" ... and he had not been moved at all. The great voice had not caused him to feel any thrill or emotion whatever. It was wonderful, indeed, but that was all that it was. There was no generous glow in her music; she did not cause him to feel any emotion other than that of astonishment at the perfection of her vocal organs. He had imagined that the great singer's voice would compel him to jump out of his seat and wave his hands wildly and shout and cheer ... but instead he had sat still and wondered at the marvellous way in which her throat functioned.
"Well?" said his neighbour, in the tone of one who would say that only words of an extremely adulatory character were conceivable after such a performance.
"She's a very remarkable woman," John replied.
"Remarkable!" his neighbour indignantly exclaimed. "She's a miracle!..."
John disregarded his ecstatics. "I kept on thinking of a clever machine," he said. "The wheels went round without a hitch. She's a grand invention, that woman! She can sing her pieces without thinking about them. She hardly knows the notes are coming out of her mouth ... she doesn't know where they come from or why they come at all, and I don't suppose it matters to her where they go. There's a grand machine in our place that prints the papers. You put a big roll of white paper on to it, and you turn a wee handle, and the machine sends the roll spinning round and round until it's done, and a lot of folded papers, nicely printed, come tumbling out in counted batches, all ready to be taken away and sold in the shops and streets. It's a wonderful machine ... but it can't read its own printing and it doesn't know what's in the papers after it's done with them. That's what she's like; a wonderful machine!..."
"My dear sir," the stranger exclaimed, but John prevented him from saying any more.
"That's my opinion anyway," he went on, "and I can only think the things I think. I can't think what other people think!"
"A limitation," said the stranger. "A distinct limitation!"
"Mebbe it is, but I don't see what that matters!"
After Tetrazzini had left the platform and the applause of her admirers had died away, there was a violin solo, and then came an interval of fifteen minutes. John determined to write part of his notice in the vestibule of the Hall, and he got up from his seat to do so. He mounted the stairs that led to the first tier of boxes, and as he approached them, he saw Eleanor Moore sitting in the box nearest the exit through which he was about to pass. There were other people in the box ... girls, he thought ... but he hardly saw them. As he came nearer to her, she raised her eyes from her programme and looked straight at him, and for a few moments neither of them averted their eyes. Then she looked away, and he passed through the curtained exit.
IV
He had found her again! She had not flown away from London ... she was not ill, as he had so alarmingly imagined, nor, as he had horribly imagined for one dreadful moment, was she dead. She lived ... she was well ... she was here in this very hall, separated from him only by a thin partition of wood ... and she had looked at him without fear in her eyes. He mounted the short flight of stairs leading to the corridor on to which the doors of the boxes opened, and read the name written on the card underneath the number painted on the door of the box in which Eleanor was sitting. "The Viscountess Walbrook." The name puzzled him, and he turned to an attendant, a lugubrious man in a dingy frock-coat looking extraordinarily like a dejected image of Albert the Good, and asked for an explanation.
"It means that she owns that box," he explained. "Lots of the seats and boxes 'ere belong to private people. That one belongs to the Viscountess Walbrook. She in'erited it from 'er father. Very kind-'earted woman ... always gives 'er box to orphans and widders and people like that!"
"Then the ladies in the box now are not friends of hers?" John asked, meaning by "friends," relatives.
"I shouldn't think so," the attendant answered. "I noticed the party comin' in. They come in a 'ired carriage. No, they're orphans or widders or somethin'. There's always a lot of orphans an' widders about this 'All, partic'lar on a Sunday afternoon when they're doin' 'Andel'sMessiar. And theElijiar, too! You know! Mendelssohn's bit! Reg'lar fascination for orphans an' widders that 'as. I call it depressin' meself, but some 'ow it seems to fit in with orphans an' widders!..."
John thanked the attendant and moved down the corridor. He must not lose sight of Eleanor now that he had found her again. If only he could discover where she lived ... He stood where he could see the door of the Viscountess Walbrook's box, and brooded over the chances of discovering Eleanor's home. He must not lose sight of her ... that was imperative. The luckiest thing in the world had brought him into her company again, and he might never have such an opportunity again if he let this one slip away from him. He could look round every now and then from his seat to assure himself that she was still in the box, but supposing she were to go away in the interval between his assuring glances? Even if he were to see her leaving the box, he would have some difficulty in getting to her in time to keep her in sight!... No, no, he must not run the risk of losing her again. He must stay in some place from which he could immediately see her leaving the box and from which he could easily follow her without ever missing her. He looked about him, and felt inclined to sit down in the corridor and wait there until Eleanor emerged from the Viscountess Walbrook's private property! But the corridor was a draughty and conspicuous and depressing place in which to loiter, and he felt that the cheerless attendant might suspect him of some felonious or other criminal intent if he were to stay there during the whole of the second part of the programme. He peered through the curtains which separated the corridor from the auditorium and saw an empty seat on the opposite side of the gangway to that on which Lady Walbrook's box was situated; and when the interval was ended and the violinist began to play the first movement of Beethoven'sRomance in G, he slipped into the seat, and sat so that he could see every movement that Eleanor made. How very beautiful she looked! She seemed more beautiful to him in her blue evening dress even than she had seemed on the first day that he saw her. Until he had come to London, he had never seen a woman in evening dress, except in photographs and in illustrated papers, and when, for the first time, he had seen real women in real evening clothes in a theatre, the sight of their bare white shoulders and bosoms had appeared to him both beautiful and improper. Eleanor's shoulders were bare, and as he looked at her, he could see her bosom very gently rising and falling with her breathing, but he felt no confusion in seeing her in that bare state. She was beautiful ... he could think of nothing else but her beauty. Her shapely head was perfectly poised upon her strong neck, and he was aware instantly of the graceful line of her shoulders. If she had not been in those pretty evening clothes, he would not have known that her neck and shoulders were so beautiful. Her soft, dark hair, loosely dressed over her ears, glowed with loveliness, and the narrow golden band that bound it was no brighter than her eyes. How lovely she is, he said to himself, indifferent to the applause that was offered to the violinist, and then he fell to admiring the way in which she clapped her gloved hands together, slowly but firmly. Her applause was not languid applause, neither was it without discrimination. She seemed to John to be telling the violinist that he had played well, but might have played better....
"She's the great wee girl," he said to himself.
He saw now that she shared the box with two other girls, but he had no further interest in them than that they were in her company and that they were not men. He wished that her hands were not gloved so that he might see whether she wore rings on her fingers, and if so, on which fingers they were worn. Supposing she were engaged to some other man ... or worse still, supposing she were married! It was possible for her to have been married since he last saw her!... An agony of doubt and despair came upon him as he brooded over the thought of her possible marriage, and although he was aware that Tetrazzini was singing Mazzone'sSogni e Cantiand Benedict'sCarnevale di Venezia, the music was no more than a noise in the air to him. What should he do if Eleanor were married? Bad enough if she were engaged, but married!... An engagement was not an irrefragable affair, and he could woo her so ardently that his rival would swiftly vanish from her thoughts ... but a marriage!... He knew that marriages were not so irrefragable as they might be, and that a very desperate couple might go to the length of running away together even though one of them were married to someone else ... but he did not like the thought of running away with a married woman. Eleanor might not wish to run away with him ... his agony of mind was such that he stooped to that humility of imagination ... she might very dearly love her husband!...
Lord alive, why couldn't that Italian woman stop singing! Why was not this silly music ended so that he could settle his doubts about Eleanor's freedom to marry him! Why could the audience not be content with two songs from the woman instead of demanding encores from her!...
And then the concert ended after what seemed an interminable time, and the audience began to emerge from the Hall. John went quickly into the corridor and waited until the door of the Viscountess Walbrook's box opened and Eleanor, followed by her friends, came out of it. She had a long coat with a furry collar over her pretty blue frock, and as she gathered her skirts about her, he could see that she was wearing blue satin shoes and blue silk stockings. One hand firmly grasped her skirts and the other hand held the furry collar in front of her mouth. She passed so close to him that he could have touched her glowing cheeks with his hands, but she did not see him. The crush of people made progress slow and difficult, but he was glad of this for it enabled him to be near to her much longer than he could otherwise have hoped to be. As she passed him, he had fallen in behind her, and now he could touch her very gently without her being aware that his touch was any more than the unavoidable contact of people in the crowd. There was a faint smell of violets about her clothes, and he snuffed up the delicate odour eagerly. Mrs. Cream had smelt strongly of perfume, an overpowering hothouse-smelling perfume that had made him feel as if he were stifling, but this delicate odour pleased him. How natural, how very obvious even, that Eleanor should use the scent of violets!
When they reached the front of the Hall, Eleanor turned to her friends and made some remark about a carriage. He supposed they had hired a vehicle to bring them to the Hall and take them home again, and when he discovered that his supposition was right, a sense of disappointment filled him. He had hoped that they would walk home or that they would get on to a 'bus!...
He watched them climb into the shabby hired brougham, and when the door was closed upon them and the driver had whipped up his horse, he followed it into the Kensington Road. The traffic was so congested that the horse had to move at a walking pace, and John was easily able to keep close to it; but in a few moments, he told himself, the driver would get clear of the congestion and then the horse would begin to trot; and while the thought passed through his mind, the driver cracked his whip and the slow, spiritless horse began to move more rapidly ... and as it gathered speed, resolution suddenly came to John out of a sudden vision of a boy's pleasure.
"Fancy not thinking of this before," he said, as he swung himself on to the back of the carriage and balanced uncomfortably on the bar.
V
The brougham drove along Kensington Road and then turned sharply into Church Street along which it was drawn at an ambling pace to Notting Hill. It turned to the right, and went along the Bayswater Road, and then John lost his bearings. He was in one of the streets off the Bayswater Road, but in the darkness he could not tell what its name was. Presently the driver shouted "Whoa!" to his horse and drew up in front of a dreary, tall house, with a pillared portico, and John had only sufficient time in which to drop from the back of the carriage and skip across the street to the opposite pavement before the three girls alighted from the brougham and stood for a few moments in front of the house. The driver drove off, and John, lurking in the shadow of a doorway, watched the girls as they stood talking together. Then he saw two of them climb up the steps leading to the house, and Eleanor, calling out "Good-night!" to them, went round the corner. He hurried after her, and saw her going up the steps of a similar house immediately round the corner from the one into which her friends had entered. She was fumbling at the keyhole with her key as he came opposite the house, and she did not see him until he spoke to her.
"Miss Moore," he said in a hesitating manner, taking off his hat as he spoke.
She started and turned round. "What is it?" she said in an alarmed manner.
"I ... I've been trying to find you for a long time!..."
She shrank away from him. "I don't know you," she said. "You've made a mistake. Please go away!"
"Don't be afraid of me," he pleaded. "I know you don't know me, but I know you. You're Eleanor Moore!..."
She came forward from the shadow. "Yes," she said, half in alarm, half out of curiosity. "Yes, that's my name, but I don't know you!..." Then she recognised him. "Oh, you're that man!" she said, now wholly alarmed.
"I saw you at the tea-shop," he replied hastily. "You remember you left a letter behind and I picked it up and gave it to you. That's how I know your name!"
"Why are you persecuting me?" she demanded, almost tearfully.
He was daunted by her tone. "Persecuting you!" he said.
"Yes. You follow me about in the street, and stare at me. I saw you this evening at the Albert Hall, and you stared at me!..."
"Because I love you, Eleanor!" He went nearer to her, and as he did so, she retreated further into the shadow. "Don't be afraid of me, please," he said. "I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but I'm a stranger in this town and I had no way of getting to know you. I tried hard, Eleanor!..."
"Don't call me Eleanor!"
"I can't help it. I think of you as Eleanor. I always call you Eleanor to myself. You see, dear, I'm in love with you!"
"But you don't know me. I wish you'd go away. I shall ring the bell or tell the policeman at the corner!..."
"Let me tell you about myself," he pleaded.
"I don't want to hear about you. I don't like you. You stare so hard, and you're always looking at my stockings!..."
"Oh, no!"
"Yes, you are. You're looking at them now!"
"Only because you mentioned them. I won't look at them if you tell me not to!..."
"I don't want to tell you anything," she murmured. "I only want you to go away!..."
"I know that, dearest, but just let me tell you this. My name is John MacDermott!..."
"I don't care what your name is," she interrupted. "It doesn't interest me in the least!..."
"But it will, Eleanor, darling. When you're married to me!..."
She burst out laughing, "I think you're mad," she said.
"I was very lonely, Eleanor, when I saw you. I have not got a friend in London!..." He omitted to remember the existence of Hinde. "I come from Ireland!..."
"Oh!"
"And I had not been in London more than a day when I saw you. I fell in love with you at once!..."
"Absurd!" she said.
"It's true. After you'd gone back to your office, I went for a long walk, but all the time, I was thinking of you, and I hurried back to the shop at teatime, hoping I'd see you. And you were there, looking lovelier than you looked in the middle of the day. Do you remember?"
"Yes," she said. "You looked so ridiculous!..."
"Perhaps I did, but I didn't care how I looked so long as I was near you. I felt miserable and lonely, and you were the only person in London I knew!..."
"But you didn't know me!" she insisted.
"I knew your name, and I was in love with you. That was enough. I tried to speak to you, but you would not let me. I asked you to be friends with me, and you got up and walked away. I felt ashamed of myself because I thought I had frightened you, and I hurried out of the shop and followed you so that I might tell you how sorry I was and how much I loved you, but I lost you at your office, and the man at the lift nearly had a fight with me!..."
"Then itwasyou who had been asking for me? He told me that a suspicious character had been hanging about the hall, enquiring for me. I thought it might be you!"
"I don't look suspicious, do I?"
"You behave suspiciously. You speak to people whom you do not know, and you follow them in the street!..."
"Only you, Eleanor. Not anybody else!"
There was a silence for a few moments, and then she turned to the door and inserted the key in the lock.
"Well, please go away now," she said. "You can't do any good here!..."
"Let me come in and tell your father and mother I want to marry you!"
She opened the door and gazed at him as if she could not believe her ears.
"This is a residential club for women," she said. "I have no parents, I think you're the silliest man I've ever encountered. Please go away! You'll get me talked about!..."
She shut the door in his face.
He stared blankly at the glass panels of the door for a few moments and then went down the steps into the street, and as he did so, he saw a light suddenly illuminate the room immediately above the pillared portico. He stared up at it, and saw that the window was open, and while he looked, he saw Eleanor come to it and begin to draw it down.
He called out to her. "Eleanor!" he said, "Hi, Eleanor!"
She peered out of the window, and then leant her head through the opening. "There's a policeman at the corner," she said, "I shall call him if you don't go away!"
"Very well," he replied. "They can't put a man in gaol for loving a woman!"
"They can put him in gaol for annoying her!"
"I'm not annoying you. How can I annoy you when I'm in love with you? No, don't interrupt me. You haven't let me get a word out of my mouth all night!" He could hear her laughing at him. "Are you codding me?" he said.
"What?" she replied in a puzzled voice.
"Are you codding me?" he repeated. "Are you making fun of me?"
She leant out of the window as if she were trying to see him more closely. "You really are funny," she said. "I was afraid of you ... you stared so ... but I'm not afraid of you now. You're a funny little fellow, but I do wish you'd go away!"
"Come down and talk to me, and I'll go home content!..."
"You're being silly again!"
"No, I'm not. I tell you, girl, I'm mad in love with you, and I'll sit on your doorstep all night 'til you agree to go out with me!"
"The policeman would lock you up if you were to do that," she replied. "I'm not in love with you ... I don't even like you ... I think you're a horrid man, staring at people the way you do ... and I won't 'go out with you,' as you call it. I'm not a servant girl!..."
"What does it matter to me what sort of a girl you are, if I'm in love with you. You must like me ... you can't help it!..."
"Oh, can't I?"
"No. I never heard tell yet of a man loving a woman the way I love you, and her not to fall in love with him!"
"Don't talk so loudly, please," she said in a lowered tone. "People will hear you, and there's someone coming down the street."
"I don't care!..."
"But I do. Now listen to me, Mr.... Mr.... I can't remember your name!"
"My name's MacDermott, but you can call me John."
"Thank you, Mr. MacDermott, but I don't wish to call you John. Now listen to me. I think you're a very romantic young man!... No, please let me finish one sentence! You're a very romantic young man, and I daresay you think that all you've got to do is to tell the first girl you meet that you're in love with her, and she'll say, 'Oh, thank you!' and fall into your arms. Well you're wrong! You may think you're very romantic, but I think you're just a tedious fool!..."
"A what?"
"A tedious fool. You've made me feel exceedingly uncomfortable more than once. I had to stop going to that tea-shop because I couldn't eat my food without your eyes staring at me all the time. Fortunately, the work I was doing in the City was only a temporary job, and I got a permanent post elsewhere and was able to move away from the City altogether!..."
"But Eleanor!..."
"How dare you call me Eleanor!"
"Because I love you!" he said.
She seemed to be nonplussed by his reply. She did not speak for a few moments. Then, altering her tone, she said, "Oh, well, I daresay you think you do!"
"I don't think. I know. I'll not be content till I marry you. Now, Eleanor, do you hear that?"
"I know nothing whatever about you!..."
"Come down to the doorstep and I'll tell you. Will you?"
"No, of course not!"
"Well, how can you blame me then if you won't listen to me when I offer to tell you about myself. You know my name. John MacDermott. And I'm Irish!..."
"Yes," she interrupted, "I'm making big allowances for that!"
"My family's the most respected family in Ballyards!..."
"Where's that?" she asked.
"Do you not know either? You're the second person I've met in London didn't know that. It's in County Down. My mother lives there, and so does my Uncle William. I've come here to write books!..."
"Are you an author?" she exclaimed with interest.
"I am," he said proudly. "I've written a novel and I'm writing a play!... Come down and I'll tell you about them!"
"Oh, no, I can't. It's too late. And you must go home. Where do you live?"
"At Brixton," he answered.
"That's miles from here. And you'll miss the last bus if you don't hurry!..."
"I can walk. Come down, will you!"
"No. No, no. It's much too late," she said hurriedly. "And I can't stay here talking to you any longer. Someone will make a complaint about me. You'll get me into trouble!..."
"Well, will you meet me to-morrow somewhere? Wherever you like!"
"No!..."
"Ah, do!"
"No, I won't. Why should I?"
"Because I'm in love with you and want you to meet me."
"No!..."
"Then I'll sit here all night then. I'll let the peeler take me up, and I'll tell the whole world I'm in love with you!"
"You're a beast. You're really a beast!"
"I'm not. I'm in love with you. That's all. Will you meet me the morrow?"
"I don't know!..."
"Well, make up your mind then."
She remained silent for a few moments.
"Well?" he said.
"I don't see why I should meet you!..."
"Never mind about that. Just meet me!"
"Well ... perhaps ... only perhaps, mind you ... I don't promise really ... I might meet you ... just for a minute or two!..."
"Where?"
"At the bookstall in Charing Cross station. Do you know it?"
"I'll soon find it. What time?"
"Five o'clock!"
"Right. I'll be there to the minute!..."
"Go home now. You've a long way to go, and I'm very tired!"
"All right, Eleanor. I wish you'd come down, though. Just for a wee while!"
"I can't. Good-night!"
"Good-night, my dear. You've the loveliest eyes!..."
She closed the window, but he could see her standing behind the glass looking at him.
He kissed his hand to her and then, when she had moved away, he walked off.
"Good night, constable!" he said cheerily to the policeman at the corner.
The policeman looked suspiciously at him.
"How do you get to Brixton from here?" John continued.
"First on the right, first on the left, first on the right again, and you're in the Bayswater Road. Turn to the left and keep on until you reach Marble Arch. You'll get a 'bus there, if you're lucky. If you're too late, you'll have to walk it. Go down Park Lane and ask again. Make for Victoria!"
"Thanks," said John.
He walked along the Bayswater Road, singing in his heart, and after a while, finding that the street was almost empty, he began to sing aloud. The roadway shone in the cold light thrown from the high electric lamps, and there was a faint mist hanging about the trees in Kensington Gardens. He looked up at the sky and saw that it was full of friendly stars. All around him was beauty and light. The gleaming roadway and the gleaming sky seemed to be illuminated in honour of his triumphant love, for he did not doubt that his love was triumphant. The night air was fresh and cool. It had none of the exhausted taste that the air seems always to have in London during the day. It was new, clean air, fresh from the sea or from the hills, and he took off his hat so that his forehead might be fanned by it. He glanced about him as if in every shadow he expected to see a friend. London no longer seemed too large to love.
"I like this place," he said, waving his hat in the air.
A policeman told him of a very late 'bus that went down Whitehall and would take him as far as Kensington Gate, and he hurried off to Charing Cross and was lucky enough to catch the 'bus.
"How much?" he said to the conductor.
"Sixpence on this 'bus," the conductor replied.
John handed a shilling to him. "You can keep the change," he said.
VI
Hinde was lying on the sofa in the sitting-room when John, slightly tired, but too elated to be aware of his fatigue, got home.
"Hilloa," he said sleepily, "how did the concert go?"
John suddenly remembered.
"Holy O!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his head.
"What's that?" Hinde said.
"I forgot all about it," John replied.
"Forgot all about it! Do you mean you didn't go to it?"
"I went all right, but I forgot to take my notice to the office!"
Hinde sat up and stared at him. "Youforgot!..." He could not say any more.
John told him of the encounter with Eleanor.
"You mean to say you let your paper down for the sake of a girl," Hinde exclaimed incredulously.
"I'll go back now," John said, turning to leave the room.
"Go backnow! What's the good of that? The paper's been put to bed half an hour and more ago. My God Almighty ... you let the paper down. For the sake of a girl!"
He seemed to have difficulty in expressing his thoughts, and he sat back and gaped at John as if he had just been informed that the Last Day had been officially announced.
"You needn't show your nose inthatoffice again," he said again. "I never heard of such a reason for letting a paper down! Good heavens, man, don't you realise what you've done?You've let the paper down!"
"I'm in love with this girl!..."
Hinde almost snarled at him. "Ach-h-h,love!" he shouted. "And you propose to be a journalist. Let your paper down. For a girl. You sloppy fellow!... My heavens above, I never heard of such a thing. Letting your paper down!..."
He walked about the room, repeating many times that John had "let his paper down."
"And I recommended you to Clotworthy, too. I told him you had the stuff in you. I thought you had. I thought you could do a job decently, but by the Holy O, you're no good. You let your own feelings come between you and your work. Oh! Oh, oh! Oh, go to bed quick or I'll knock the head off you. I'll not be responsible for myself if you stand there any longer like a moonstruck fool!"
"If you talk to me like that," said John, "I'll hit you a welt on the jaw. I'm sorry I forgot about the paper, but sure what does it matter anyway?..."
"What does it matter!" Hinde almost shrieked at him. "Your paper will be the only paper in London which won't have a report of that concert in it to-morrow. That's what it matters? I'd be ashamed to let my paper down for any reason on earth. If my mother was dying, I wouldn't let her prevent me from doing my job!... If you can't understand that, John MacDermott, you needn't try to be a journalist. You haven't got it in you. Your paper's your father and your mother and your wife and your children! Oh, go to bed, out of my sight, or I'll forget myself!..."
John walked towards the door.
"I'd rather love a woman any day than a paper," he said.
"Well, go and love her then, and don't try to interfere with a paper again! Don't come down Fleet Street pretending you're a journalist!"
"Good-night!"
"Yah-h-h!" said Hinde.
I
It had been exceedingly difficult for John to explain his defection to Mr. Clotworthy and to Tarleton. The only mitigating feature of the business was that the matter to be reported was only a concert. Both Mr. Clotworthy and Tarleton trembled when they thought of the calamity that would have befallen the paper if the forgotten report had been of a murder! They hardly dared contemplate such a devastating prospect. They invited John to think of another profession and wished him a very good morning. Tarleton quitted the room, leaving John alone with the editor, and as he went he showed such contempt towards him as is only shown towards the meanest of God's creatures.
"Well, where's your Ulster now?" said Mr. Clotworthy very sardonically when they were alone together.
"I know rightly I'm in the wrong from your point of view, Mr. Clotworthy," John replied, "but I'd do the same thing again if twenty jobs depended on it. It's hard to make you understand, and mebbe I'm a fool to try, but there it is. The minute I clapped my eyes on her, I forgot everything but her. I'm sorry I've lost my post here, but I'd be sorrier to have lost her. That's all about it. You were very kind to give me the work, and I wish I hadn't let your paper down the way Hinde says I did, but it's no good me pretending about it. I'd do it again if the same thing happened another time. That's the beginning and end of it all. I'd rather be her husband than edit a dozen papers like yours. I'd rather be her husband than be anything else in the world!"
"Well, good afternoon!" said Mr. Clotworthy.
"Good afternoon!" said John, turning away.
He moved towards the door of the room, feeling much less assurance than he had felt when he came into it.
"If you care to send in some articles for page six," Mr. Clotworthy added, "I'd be glad to see them!"
"Thank you," said John.
"Not at all," the editor replied without glancing up.
He left theDaily Sensationoffice, and walked towards Charing Cross. A queer depression had settled upon his spirits. Hinde had treated him as if he were mentally deficient, and he knew that Mr. Clotworthy and Tarleton, particularly Tarleton, regarded him with coldness, but he was not deeply affected by their disapproval. Nevertheless, depression possessed him. He felt that Eleanor would fail to keep her appointment. Quietly considered, there seemed to be no reason why she should keep it. She knew absolutely nothing of him except what he had told her while she leaned out of the window. How was she to know that he was speaking the truth? What right had he to expect her to pay any heed to him at all? Dreary, drizzling thoughts poured through his mind. He felt as certain that his novel would not be published as he felt that Eleanor would not be at the bookstall at Charing Cross station when he arrived there. The tragedy on which he was working had seemed to him to be a very marvellous play, but now he thought it was too poor to be worth finishing. He had been in London for what was quite a long time, but he had achieved nothing. He had not even written the music-hall sketch for the Creams. He had not earned a farthing during the time that he had been in London. All the exaltation which had filled him as he walked along the Bayswater Road on the previous night, with his mind full of Eleanor and love and starshine and moonlight and gleaming streets and trees hanging with mist and friendliness for all men, had gone clean out of him. Fleet Street was a dirty, ill-ventilated alley full of scuffling men and harassed women. London itself was a great angry thing, a place of distrust and contention, where no one ever offered a friendly greeting to a stranger. He would go to Charing Cross station and he would stand patiently in front of the bookstall, but Eleanor would not come to meet him. He would stand there, dumb and uncomplaining, and no one of the hurrying crowd of people would turn to him and say, "You're in trouble. I'm sorry!" They would neither know nor care. They would be too busy catching trains. He would stand there for an hour, for two hours ... until his legs began to ache with the pain of standing in one place for a long time ... and then, when it was apparent that waiting was useless and he had, perhaps, aroused the suspicions of policemen and railway porters concerning his purpose in loitering thus so persistently in front of the bookstall, he would go home in his misery to a contemptuous Hinde!...
II
And while these bitter thoughts poured through his mind, he entered Charing Cross station, and there in front of the bookstall was Eleanor Moore. The bitter thoughts poured out of his mind in a rapid flood. He felt so certain that his novel would be published that he could almost see it stacked on the bookstall behind Eleanor. He would finish the tragedy that week and in a short while England would be acclaiming him as a great dramatist!... He hurried towards her and held out his hand, and she shyly took it.
"Have you been here long?" he anxiously asked.
"No," she answered, "I've only just come!"
"Let's go and have some tea," he went on.
"I've had mine, thanks!..."
"Well, have some more. I've not had any!..."
"I don't think I can, thanks. I've really come to say that I can't!..."
"There's a little place near here," he interrupted hurriedly, "where they give you lovely home-made bread. I found it one day when I was wandering about. We'll just go there and talk about whatever you want to say. Give me that umbrella of yours!" He took it from her hand as he spoke. "This is the way," he said, leading her from the station. As they crossed the road, he took hold of her arm. "These streets are terribly dangerous," he said. "You never know what minute you're going to be run over!"
He still held her arm when they were safely on the pavement, but she contrived to free herself without making a point of doing so. He tried to bring her back to the mood in which they were when she leaned out of the window to listen to him ... "like Romeo and Juliet," he told himself ... but the congestion of the streets made such intimacies impossible. They were constantly being separated by the hurrying foot-passengers, and so they could only speak in short, dull sentences. He brought her at last to the quiet tea-shop where he ordered tea and home-made bread and honey!...
"Eleanor," he said, when the waitress had taken his order and had departed to fulfil it, "it's no good, you telling me that you can't go out with me. You must, my dear. I want to marry you!..."
"But it's absurd," she expostulated. "How can you possibly talk like that when we're such strangers to each other!"
"You're no stranger to me. I've loved you for two months now. I've hardly ever had you out of my mind. I was nearly demented mad when I lost you. I used to go and hang about that office of yours day after day in the hope that you'd come out!... And if ever I get the chance, I'll break that liftman's neck for him. He insulted me the day I asked him what office you were in. He called me a Nosey Parker!"
She laughed at him. "But that was right, wasn't it?" she said. "You wouldn't have him give information about me to any man who chooses to ask for it?"
"He should have known that I was all right. A child could have seen that I wasn't just playing the fool. But you're mebbe right. I'll think no more about him. Do you know what happened last night?"
"No."
He told her of his relationship with theDaily Sensation.
"Then you've lost your work?" she said.
He nodded his head, and they did not speak again for a few moments. The waitress had brought the tea and bread and honey, and they waited until she had gone.
"I'm so sorry," she said.
"It doesn't bother me," he replied. "I only told you to show you how much I love you. I'm not codding you, Eleanor. You matter so much to me that I'd sacrifice any job in the world for you. I told Clotworthy that ... he's the editor of the paper ... I told him I'd rather be your husband than have his job a hundred times over. And so I would. Will you marry me, Eleanor?"
"I've never met anyone like you before!..."
"I daresay you haven't but I'm not asking you about that. Will you marry me? We can fix the whole thing up in no time at all. I looked it up in a book this morning, and it says you can get married after three weeks' notice. If I give notice the morrow, we can be married in a month from to-day!"
"Oh, stop, stop," she said. "Your mind is running away with you. I spoke to you for the first time last night!..."
"Beg your pardon," he said, "you spoke to me the first day we met. I handed you your letter!..."
"Oh, but that doesn't count. That was nothing. I really only spoke to you last night, and I don't know you. I'm not in love with you ... no, please be sensible. How can I possibly love you when I don't know you!..."
"I love you, don't I?" he demanded.
"You say so!"
"Well, if I love you, you can love me, can't you. That's simple enough!"
She passed a cup of tea to him. "Do all Irishmen behave like this?" she said.
"I don't know and I don't care. It's the way I behave. I know my mind queer and quick, Eleanor, and when I want a thing, I don't need to go humming and hahhing to see whether I'm sure about it. I want you. I know that for a fact, and there's no need for me to argue about it. I'll not want you any more this day twelvemonth than I want you now, and I won't want you any less. Will you marry me?"
"No!"
"How long will it be before you will marry me, then?"
She threw her hands with a gesture of comical despair. "Really," she said, "you're unbelievable. You seem to think that I must want to marry you merely because you want to marry me. I take no interest whatever in you!..."
"No, but you will!"
She shrugged her shoulders. "It isn't any use talking," she said. "Your mind is made up!..."
"It is. I want to marry you, Eleanor, and I'm going to marry you. I have a lot to do in the world yet, but that's the first thing I've got to do, and I can't do anything else till I have done it. So you might as well make up your mind to it, and save a lot of time arguing about it when it's going to happen in the end!"
She pushed her cup away, and rose from her seat. "I'm going home," she said. "This conversation makes me feel dizzy!"
"There's no hurry," he exclaimed.
She spoke coldly and deliberately, "It's not a question of hurry," she replied. "It's a question of desire, Iwishto go home. Your conversation bores and annoys me!"
"Why?"
"Because you treat me as if I were not human, and had no desires of my own. I'm to marry you, of whom I know absolutely nothing, merely because you want me to marry you. I don't know whether you are a gentleman or not. You have a very funny accent!..."
"What's wrong with my accent?" he demanded.
"I don't know. It's just funny. I've never heard an accent like that before, and so I can't tell whether you're a gentleman or not. If you were an Englishman, I should know at once, but it's different with Irish people. Your very queer manners may be quite the thing in Ireland!"
He put out his hand to her, but she drew back. "Sit down," he said. "Just for a minute or two till I talk to you. I'll let you go then!"
She hesitated. Then she did as he asked her. "Very well!" she said primly.
"Listen to me, Eleanor, I know very well that my behaviour is strange to you. It's strange to me. Till last night we'd never exchanged a dozen words. I know that. But I tell you this, if you live to be a hundred and have boys by the score, you'll never have a man that'll love you as I love you. I'm in earnest, Eleanor. I'm not codding you. I'm not trying to humbug you. I love you. I'm desperate in love with you!..."
She leant forward a little, moved by his sincerity. "But," she said, and then stopped as if unable to find words, adequate to her meaning.
"There's no buts about it," he replied. "I love you. I don't know why I love you, and I don't care whether I know or not. All I know is that the minute I saw you, I loved you. I wanted to see you again, and I schemed to make you talk to me!..."
"Yes, and very silly your schemes were. Asking me if I wanted theGraphicback again!..."
"You remember that, do you?" he asked.
"Well, it was so obvious and so stupid," she answered.
"Listen. Tell me this. Do you believe me when I tell you I love you? It's no use me telling you if you don't believe me!"
"It's so difficult to say!..."
"Do you believe me," he insisted. "Do I look like a man that would tell lies to a girl like you. Answer me that, now?"
She raised her eyes, and gazed very straightly at him. "No," she said; "I don't think you would. I ... I think you mean what you say!..."
"I do, Eleanor. As true as God's in heaven, I do. Will you not believe me?"
"But I don't love you," she burst out.
"Well, mebbe you don't. That's understandable!" he admitted.
"And the whole thing's so unusual," she protested.
"What does that matter? If I love you and you get to love me, does it matter about anything else? Have wit, woman, have wit!"
"Don't speak to me like that. You're very abrupt, Mr. MacDermott!..." "My name's John to you! Now, don't flare up again. You were nice and amenable a minute ago. You can stop like that. You and me are going to marry some time. The sooner the better. All I want you to do now, as you say you don't love me, is to give me a chance to make you love me. Come out with me for a walk ... or we'll go to a theatre, if you like! Anyway, let's be friends. I don't know anybody in this town except one man, and him and me's had a row over the head of theDaily Sensation!..." "Yes," she interrupted, "you've lost your work through your foolishness. What are you going to do now? It isn't very easy to get work." "I'll get it all right if I want it, I've enough money to keep me easy for a year without doing a hand's turn, and I daresay my mother and my Uncle William 'ud let me have more if I wanted it. I don't want to be on a paper much. I want to write books!" Her interest was restored. "Tell me about the book you've written. Is it printed yet?" she said. He told her of his work, and of the Creams and of Hinde. He told her, too, of his life in Ballyards. "Where do you come from?" he said. "Devonshire," she answered. "My father was rector of a village there until he died. Then mother and I lived in Exeter until she died!..." "You're alone then?" he asked. "Yes. My mother had an annuity. That stopped when she died. My cousin ... he's a doctor in Exeter ... settled up her affairs for me, and when everything was arranged, there was just enough money to pay for my secretarial training and keep me for a year. I trained for six months and then I went as a stop-gap to that office where you saw me. I'm in an office in Long Acre now—a motor place!" "And have you no friends here—relations, I mean?" "Some cousins. I don't often see them. And one or two people who knew father and mother!" "You're really alone then ... like me?" he said. "Yes," she answered. "Yes, I suppose I am!" He leant back in his chair. "It seems like the hand of God," he said, "bringing the two of us together!" "I wish," she said, "you wouldn't talk about God so much!"
III
When he went home that evening, he wrote to his mother.Dear Mother, he wrote,I've got acquainted with a girl here called Eleanor Moore, and I've made up my mind I'm going to marry her. She's greatly against it at present, but I daresay she'll change her mind.... There was more than that in the letter, but it is not necessary to repeat the remainder of it here. He also wrote to Eleanor.My dearest, the letter ran,I'm looking forward to meeting you again tomorrow night at the same place. I know you said you wouldn't meet me, but I'm hoping you'll change your mind. I'll be waiting for you anyway, and I'll wait till seven o'clock for you. Remember that, Eleanor! If you don't turn up, it'll be hard for you to sit in comfort and you thinking of me waiting for you. You'll never have the heart to refuse me, will you? We can have our tea together, and then go for a walk or a ride on a 'bus till dinner-time, and then, if you like, after we've had something to eat, we'll go to a theatre. Don't disappoint me, for I'm terribly in love with you. Yours only, John MacDermott. P. S. Don't be any later than you can help. I hate waiting about for people.
IV
She came, reluctantly so she said, to the bookstall at Charing Cross station, but only to tell him that she could not do as he wished her to do. She would take tea with him for this once, but it was useless to ask her to go for a walk with him or for a 'bus-ride either, and she certainly would not dine with him nor would she go to a theatre. Yet she went for a walk on the Embankment with him, and they paced up and down so long that she saw the force of his argument that she might as well have her dinner in town as go back to her club where the food would be tepid, if not actually cold, by the time she was ready to eat it. She need not go to a theatre unless she wished to do, but he could not help telling her that a great deal of praise had been given to a piece calledJusticeby a man called Galsworthy. Mebbe she would like to see it. She was not to imagine that he was forcing her to go to the theatre.... And so she went, and they sat together in the pit, hearing with difficulty because of the horrible acoustics of the Duke of York's Theatre; and when the play was over, he had to comfort her, for the fate of Falder had pained her. They climbed on to the top of a 'bus at Oxford Circus and were carried along Oxford Street to the Bayswater Road. They sat close together on the back seat of the 'bus, with a waterproofed apron over their knees because the night was damp and chilly; and as the 'bus drove along to Marble Arch they did not speak. The rain had ceased to fall before they quitted the theatre, but the streets were still wet, and John found himself again realising their beauty. Trees and hills and rivers in the country and flowers and young animals were beautiful, but until this moment he had never known that wet pavements and wooden or macadamised roads were beautiful, too, when the lamps were lit and the cold grey gleam of electric arcs or the soft, yellow, reluctant light of gas lamps fell upon them. He could see a long wet gleam stretching far ahead of him, past the Marble Arch and the darkness of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens into a region of which he knew nothing; and as he contemplated that loveliness, he remembered that the sight of tramlines shining at night had unaccountably moved him more than once. Once, at Ballyards, he had stood still for a few moments to look at the railway track glistening in the sunshine, and he remembered how puzzled he had been when, in some magazine, he had read a complaint of trains, that they marred the beauty of the fields. He had seen trains a long way off, moving towards him and sending up puffs of thick white smoke that trailed into thin strips of blown cloud, and had waited until the silence of the distant engine, broken once or twice by a shrill, sharp whistle, had become a stupendous noise, and the great machine, masterfully hauling its carriages behind it, had galloped past him, roaring and cheering and sending the debris swirling tempestuously about it! ... The sight of a train going at a great speed had always seemed to him to be a wonderful thing, but now he realised that it was more than wonderful, that it was actually beautiful.... He turned his head a little and looked past Eleanor to the Park. Little vague yellow lights flickered through the trees, all filmy with the evening mists, and he could smell the rich odour of wet earth. He looked at Eleanor and as he did so, they both smiled, and he realised that suddenly affection for him had come to life in her. Beneath the protection of the waterproofed apron, his hand sought for hers and held it. Half-heartedly she tried to withdraw her fingers from his grasp, but he would not let them go, and so she did not persist in her effort.
"Look!" he said, snuggling closer to her.
She turned towards the Park, and then, after a little while, turned back again. "I've always loved the Park," she said. "It's the most friendly thing in London!"
He urged his love for her again. He had seen affection for him in her eyes and had felt that her hand was not being firmly withdrawn from his.
"No, no," she protested, "don't let's talk about it any more. I don't love you!..."
"Well, marry me anyhow!"
Backwards and forwards their arguments passed, returning always to that point:But I don't love you! Well, marry me anyhow!...
He took her to the door of her club, and for a while, they stood at the foot of the steps talking of the play they had seen that evening and of his love for her.
"It's no good," she said, trying to leave him, but unable to do so because he had taken hold of her hand and would not release it.
"Don't go in yet," he pleaded. "Wait a wee while longer!"
"What's the use?" she exclaimed.
"You'll meet me again to-morrow?..."
"I can't meet youeverynight!"
"Why not?" he demanded. "Tell me why not!"
"Well... well, because I can't. It's ridiculous. You're so absurd. You keep on saying the same thing over and over... and it's so silly. If I were in love with you, I might go out with you every evening, but!..."
"Do you like me!"
"I don't know. I... I suppose I must or I wouldn't go out with you at all. Really, I'm sorry for you!..."
"Well, if you're sorry for me, come out with me tomorrow night. We'll have our dinner in town again!"
"No, no! Don't you understand, Mr. MacDermott!..."
"John, John, John!" he said.
"I can't call you by your Christian name!..."
"Why not? I call you by yours, don't I?"
"Yes, but you oughtn't to. I've asked you not to call me Eleanor, but it doesn't seem to be any good asking you to do anything that you don't want to do. But even you must understand that I can't let you take me out every evening. I can't let you pay for things!..."
"Oh," he said, as if his mind were illuminated. "Is that your trouble? We can soon settle that. If you won't let me pay for things, pay for them yourself ... only let me be with you when you're doing it. You have to have food, haven't you? Well, so have I. We have no friends in London that matter to us, and you like me ... you admitted it yourself ... and I love you ... so why shouldn't we have our meals together even, if you do pay for your own food?"