Title: A Man's Life (1929)
Author: Arthur H Adams (1872-1936)
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Language:  English
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Title: A Man's Life (1929)
Author: Arthur H Adams (1872-1936)




PROLOGUE


"Well," sighed the nurse. "He's gone!"

She had seen so many deaths that the experience had become a commonplace
in that big London hospital. She peered down at him with a professional
scrutiny. Yes, another of them. Everybody died at last; they all came to
it.

In this case, a fatal accident in a London street, there was nothing to
be done. No hope at all...a cracked skull. The resident surgeon had
looked at him, and passed on to his other duties. A matter of routine.
The police must be called for identification.

"A cracked skull. Street accident. A hopeless case," was the resident's
report.

He was swiftly put to bed, unconscious. The nurses were busy. He might
linger for a little time, but he would not awaken to any recognition of
the world he was leaving, though there might possibly be a final flicker
of the man's consciousness; the eyes might open and he would look at the
white ceiling of the ward. White...just whiteness. All the amazing
miracle of a human being in this world, dissolved into white; and after
that, the utter dark.

The nurse looked at him. A man of sixty, perhaps, with clear-cut
features. His clothes were good. Perhaps a gentleman. Some money in his
pocket. She was somewhat curious; she wondered who he was.

"Well," she said again to herself, "he's gone, poor thing!"

She was to be forgiven, with all her experience in the casualty ward, in
thinking that the man was dead. True, she could see no sign of life in
that still warm body. But the nurse was alive; and the living do not know
what the dying think.

For in that final flash of Life there had surged into the man's
consciousness one thing after the other that he had done or thought of
since childhood. His whole life flashed up in disconnected scenes,
pictures startlingly vivid leaping into his mind, and as abruptly dying.
There was no order in these pictures. With the amazing speed of thought,
whole stories and incidents leaped into being, and even trivial moods and
subconscious phases, recaptured from his memory.

Though light travels with an inconceivable swiftness, the speed of
thought is a million times swifter.


* * * * *



A MAN'S LIFE


The man in the bed found himself again. He was a boy at home, condemned
to toil in his father's garden without respite. It was a hostile garden,
horribly rectangular. It was laid out in squares and rows, and no weed
was allowed to enter. It was his job to see to that. He hated the sight
of the severely pruned plants condemned to their yearly toil. There were
no untidy plots, no unevenness; the raspberry canes stood as stiffly as
soldiers on parade, without an unlawful bud spoiling their terrible and
tortured symmetry. The bushes were all in a formal pattern, just as his
life was. Regularly the garden was manured; and how he loathed the smell
of manure! Yet from it Life sprang with a terrifying zest. And the boy
felt that Life had cut and pruned him, too. He could not look ahead: it
seemed to him that he would always be a prisoner in that terrible garden.

His mother was kinder. She, by some strange dispensation, was allowed to
scatter seeds anywhere, never quite sure what she was scattering, and
allowing the plants--useless flowers, not ungainly vegetables--to follow
their vagrant dispositions. That was what the world should be, a tangle
of arrogant plants, springing even from the rectangular paths. And he
felt the inhibitions of his personality so keenly that he looked forward
to his future with a silent terror. He could not see over the trimmed
hedges to the world without.

There was one escape--books. He read everything he could find. Night
after night he would slip down to a library, bathing himself in wonderful
beauty, only half understood, but letting strange and exciting worlds
invade his soul. He read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and Shakespeare;
scientific books, adventures, poetry--anything that promised him
knowledge. For he felt within him a strange and eager desire to
understand everything. But the more he read the more he faltered. He used
to look up at the backs of the volumes on the shelves. Some day he would
know them all, every page in every book! He was not going to let Life
beat him in his tremendous quest.

So night after night, having done his lessons--of what use were
lessons?--he would look up with a sigh of discontent. He would never know
all--everything! Life was too short for that. Of course, he told himself
in self-pity that he would die young. Poets, he had read, oft-times died
young: that was their luck; they did not have to face a grown-up world.
But he felt within him so much that he could not express. How terrible
for him--and for the world--if he died that night! Humanity would never
know what it had lost. Other poets were growing all around him,
threatening his supremacy, getting a start in the quest of Fame. If only
he knew how to express himself, but his mind was all fluidity--images
that he could not grasp, eluding, tremendous and staggering wonders. Life
wasn't large enough for him to express all that was in his soul.

That phase passed.

He was an undergraduate at his university. He and a fellow student were
walking home from the night lectures. Some of the classes were held in
the evening, for his university was then a minor one in a far part of the
Empire. His friend was a divinity student. Both were terribly in earnest,
both being young. They had been discussing God.

"It comes to this," said the divinity student. "You deny that there is a
God looking after this world, and all the souls in it?"

"I do deny that!" he said. "A lot God cares about us. We just happened to
evolve, like the fishes and the snakes. We are only a chance happening in
the universe, and we've just got to make the best of it. We're only
animals that happened to develop sufficiently to be able to stand up and
reason. A lot your God cares!"

His friend hotly protested.

"Well," said he, "let us put it to the test!"

"How can you?" said his friend.

"Easily! Wait a minute! You'll soon see. I'm going to blaspheme God."

The divinity student shuddered. "For God's sake, don't!" he muttered.
"You don't know what you're doing!"

He laughed. "I'll show you--to prove there is no God--or at least a God
who doesn't care anything about us or about the world!"

His friend almost shook. But he recovered himself. "It is my duty, though
I'd hate to have anything happen--as I'm sure something will happen."

"Nonsense!" said he; "I'll soon show you! Nobody is about. We're under
the stars."

"Don't be theatrical!" exclaimed the other. "What's the game?"

"Listen. I'm going to blaspheme God!"

"Well," said the divinity student, almost inaudibly, "I'm game enough,
anyhow. Nothing will happen to me."

"Right! I'll stand out in the middle of the road. There's nobody about.
You'll see!"

He could not help noticing that his friend had taken his place some yards
away from him. He could not help cynically thinking that the divinity
student, for all his daring, did not want to be involved in any cosmic
cataclysm.

"Well, I'm going to blaspheme God! Are you ready?"

"Stop!" cried the student. "This may be murder!"

"It won't be murder. Nothing is going to happen!"

"My God, you don't know! Remember the miracles in the Bible! Our God is a
jealous God!"

"I've had enough of this," said he. "Let's get it over!"

"Well, I've warned you!"

He stepped into the open and looked up at the stars. What did one do when
one wanted to blaspheme. There ought to be some terrible words. But
enough of that. Looking up at the immense array of distant worlds, locked
in their places in the sidereal system, he uttered a curse--a silent
curse against God...

He waited, as his friend waited, for the thunderbolt.

Feeling foolish, he at last turned from that menacing expanse of callous
worlds. He waited...and waited, with just a foolish little fear that
perhaps, after all, something might happen.

In that interminable pause, he noted that his divinity friend had
stealthily stepped back, leaving the blasphemer with a clear space around
him. He did not want to take any risks; he might, after all, be involved
in the forthcoming tragedy.

The sidereal system took no notice of these insignificant atoms in the
universe. To the youth's surprise he had felt a faint tremor of
expectation, which he soon dismissed with a foolish laugh. But his friend
was not beaten.

"It might come in the night, in the middle of the night," he whispered.
"You never know. God is not theatrical: he may have other means to punish
you."

It was an inconclusive victory.

He was in China. (That flash had faded.) He and his friend,
war-correspondents in the Boxer campaign, were marching through the flat
plains in the environs of Peking. The Allies were making a surprise
attack upon an enemy stronghold. They had marched all night through the
immensity of the vast plain, the immemorial plain of that changeless
civilization. The two correspondents were tired out. The adventure had
become stale. Disregarding the strict injunctions to keep close to the
body of troops--for there were troops of all nationalities in the
expedition, and correspondents played a lone hand--his friend, an artist
for a London paper, paused for a rest.

Idly they contemplated the huge stooks of kowliang. Suddenly he observed
a movement in one of the stooks. The main body of allied troops had
passed on.

"Hold on!" he said, "there is something in that stook! Might be chickens
underneath those stalks!" (Chickens were the favourite form of loot.)
"Wait till the stragglers pass!"

The troops passed. No one in sight! They cautiously approached. Yes,
there was a tremor in that piled-up stook. Something living there!
Quickly they pulled the outer sheaves away. Crouching as in a tent, was a
Chinese--a girl, hidden, shivering with fear! She stared in utter
anguish. These foreign devils would kill her--or worse! But such a
beautiful young girl, evidently a daughter of a prosperous farmer, a girl
of seventeen!

The correspondents looked at each other. These were the people who had
been conquered, though why they did not know, except that this was war.

She did not move, keeping her black and beautiful eyes staring at these
foreign devils, resigned to her horrible fate.

Without a word they looked again at each other.

"Thought there was somebody there?" said his friend.

"So did I--at first," he said.

The correspondents replaced the stook, carefully covering up their secret
posse, and went on.

"What fools we were!" he said, when they had covered another mile across
that desolate plain. "Somebody else is sure to find her!"

"Yes!" muttered his mate.

For the rest of the day they regretted their chivalry.

He was a child. The family was going to the sea-side, a tremendous event
in his little life. There was to be a picnic. There were six children in
the family; and, as a special favour to mark the day, each child was
allowed to choose a toy to take to the sands. There was only one thing in
the world that he wanted for the excursion. He had prayed on going to bed
that God would play fair with him. God could not always be depended upon
in important matters. But on the day, before the departure, the toys
arrived; and, sure enough, his mother had brought home all the presents.
His was to be a beautiful spade. He wasn't allowed to see it inside its
wrappings of brown paper; but he could feel it all over. Yes; God had not
forgotten. But in his heart he knew that something would happen to the
spade. Something always did to his toys. But there was no mistake this
time: it was just the spade for which he had yearned a whole fortnight,
though it seemed a year.

The other boys of the family were pleased with their presents, but he
swelled with pride because he had got the finest of them all. But all the
time he knew that something would happen to his spade. He could not help
tearing a bit of the brown paper off the parcel, just to see if it was
all right. It was. The digging part was all shiny black, and the handle
was bright yellow. A wonderful spade! How he would dig and dig and dig in
the sands with it! The others could have their presents; he didn't want
any of them; he had his spade.

There was no one about in the back yard. He could not resist fondling it.
And then the string around the paper came undone. The brown paper seemed
to slip away. There was his spade! There could be no harm done; it was
his, anyhow. Making sure that the other children were round at the side
of the house, he took the spade and pretended that he was shovelling sand
on the sea-shore, making glorious castles on the beach. He put his foot
on the blade of the spade, just as he had seen the gardener do it. He dug
into the soil. The spade crumpled up. It was only tin.

In his heart he cursed God. It was just the sort of thing that God did!
And all the other children had their own toys to play with. His mother
told him that it was his own fault. Toy spades were not meant for digging
in heavy soil, but for sand.

He could not bear to look at the broken thing. He crept away round the
side of the house. He cried bitterly. He wanted to be utterly alone in
his misery. But even that was not permitted to him.

A voice spoke to him through the palings that divided his home from the
next door house.

"Cry-baby!" said the voice.

He peered through the slits in the palings, indignant at being caught
crying. Then he climbed upon the cross-piece of the fence, and hoisted
himself up, forgetting to wipe his eyes.

There was the little girl next door. He had often peered through the
slits surreptitiously at her. She was always eating raspberries, greedy
little thing. But he loved her with a passionate yearning. He had never
dared to speak to her, of course. He was frightened of her. But now he
didn't care what he did; his spade was broken.

Of course, being a boy, he wasn't going to tell the little girl of his
trouble. She would only laugh at him, and call him "Cry-baby!" But he
could not help looking at her. She was cramming raspberries into her
mouth, munching even the yellow ones. But she had always gone away when
he had looked at her; but now she came to the fence, and said, "Have some
raspberries, little boy?"

He hesitated.

"Can't you climb the fence?" she taunted him.

He wasn't going to stand that. He would show her how he could climb! He
managed to get to the top railing and looked down on her. He felt better
that way.

"Here!" she said softly, and handed up her fistful of raspberries. He
dropped some in his agitation, and she was cross. But he didn't care. He
loved her, passionately, for ever. But the barrier that had been so
miraculously broken down was soon closed. He never dared to speak to her
again, though he imagined wonderful feats that he would perform, just for
her.

One day he saw a lot of big carts taking away tables and beds and things;
and he never saw her go.

He had lost his job. He had to go home that afternoon to tell his wife.
He had tried every avenue for a month past. "Too old!" was the usual
verdict. Younger men could do his work at half his salary. And he had
felt so safe! Not the slightest warning. He had to tell his wife. When he
came home, he waited, postponing his disclosure. During dinner he had
been angry with the children, and his wife had noticed his irritation,
and had been nice to him, guessing, as a wife subtly will, that he was in
trouble. After dinner, he waited till the children had gone to bed. And
his wife, that wonderful woman! had already guessed, though she did not
know how serious it was.

So the two, together, sat talking of trivialities. Then quietly and
curtly he told her. Ah! but what a wife he had found in this life! She
made him tell her everything--the search for a job, any job, to carry
on. And immediately her courage came, shaming him for his weakness. How
often he had turned things over, seeking for a clue out of his trouble.

In the old days when they were newly married, and when the boy was only
dreamed of, she and he would sit together in the big roomy armchair,
talking and dreaming of their hopes. And now she was beside him--it was
such a cosy fit for the two of them, though it needed some managing. And
she was softly consoling him, and valiantly prophesying of the radiant
future. Not a word of blame. How brave she was, how tender, feeling only
for him! He could not fail. She was more than his wife; she was his
comrade. They were together now, as they had never been together in their
first night of mating.

But at the back of his brain there was a dull pang, as if he had been
stunned by a crashing blow. The terrible thing was that he had failed
her!

She did not cry. She was too brave for that. It was impossible that their
little world could come crashing down. The children! Their lives had been
too serene, as if Fate had overlooked them.

No matter! She was by his side. With her comfort and her confidence she
soothed him, as she had soothed the children when they were babes.

Yet when he tried to seize and recapture the beauty of her, he could not
recall the wonder of his wife. Other flashes of his past he could vividly
recapture, but the picture of her came to him as through a mist. It
seemed to him that she had so merged herself in him that the twain were
one. He felt himself grasping at her vivid reality; he tried to stand
apart from her, though not to judge her, but a mist intervened. He was
half herself and half him. He could not stand outside. All he could do
was to feel himself one twin-personality.

Clearer, though, came the picture of their first moment of meeting. It
was on a tennis court. He was playing, and he noted a girl watching him.
It was only vaguely that he saw her; just a beautiful girl with a
wonderful figure. How gallantly he strove to play his match! He strove to
perform feats at the net, hoping that she had noticed him. He could not
help showing off. If only she had looked his way when he brought off that
brilliant smash! But she had missed that fine stroke. Some man had
diverted her attention from him. She wasn't looking at him! How could she
laugh and chatter to those men? It was an agony for him to end the set.
Surely she was not going? No; she had been persuaded by one of her girl
friends to wait for tea. What luck!

But a greater piece of luck was in store for him. He came off the court,
and another girl promptly introduced him to her.

He did not know till some time afterwards that the meeting had been
deliberately arranged. A girl friend of hers had told her of the new
member of the club. The friend had soon found that he had no interest in
her, but she thought that they should meet.

Only a few conversational remarks were made. She seemed to like him.

And that night he told two of his chums that she--the girl at the tennis
court, whose name he had not caught in the introduction--was the girl he
meant to marry.

One of the two men laughed. "How do you know that she isn't engaged to
marry somebody else?"

"Had she a ring on?" the other asked.

"I never looked," he replied.

He did not even know on which finger a girl wore an engagement ring.

But, by a glorious chance, there was a dance three days later. They
kissed. And she promised to marry him.

He was a youth, aimlessly walking down a back street in the dusk. He was
mooning along with inchoate thoughts in his mind. Suddenly he was aware
of a girl leaning over the back gate of one of a row of houses. She was
looking at nothing across the road, with a quiet gaze, dreaming, too. She
was more suddenly aware of him than he of her. He looked into her face,
and noticed that her young breasts were soft against the top of the
wicket gate. The night seemed suddenly to drop upon the road, like a
theatre curtain noiselessly coming down upon the climax of a play.

He unconsciously slackened his pace. There was in her brooding eyes a
dreamy look, a yearning pause, as if the world had quietly run down like
an unwound clock. He half paused, and dared to look back.

She was looking quietly after him. There was no sound in the darkening
street. His feet dragged him onward, away from her. He wanted to stop, to
speak, though what could he say? He went on. It seemed to him, in that
pause of time, that he could capture all that Woman meant, leaning there,
in a quiet daze of content.

It was the first time he had become aware of Woman, her mystery, her
weaving of magic ropes round the soul.

So he passed on. So she remained static, waiting to be aroused, content
to wait till the one man in the world would startle her to womanhood.

Later that night, he came hurrying back past the gate, but the girl had
withdrawn herself, and he was alone again.

He was in London, careless and care-free, a youth lured from overseas to
conquer the big city. Everything was possible then. He would write
splendid novels and pen exquisite poems. He lived in a dream, for in
those days Chelsea was a dream. He had his friend, destined to become a
famous painter. Together they would take London and use it as a footstool
to fame. He was offered employment as a journalist, but with the superb
gesture of Youth he refused such humdrum work. He was a poet: he must not
lower his standard. He had done with the petty journalism of his
birthplace. All or nothing! He would write plays. The world was waiting
for him.

His friend held high his ideal of painting great pictures. It was all
such tremendous fun. Who cared? With banners flaunting their entry into
the metropolis, they pictured their splendid dreams.

But it was not long before London turned away from them. Nobody noticed
them. In their lodgings they would await the post bumping into the
letter-box. One of his short stories had come back again. What did they
care? They soon discovered that cheques used to drop silently into the
letter-box, while the thump at the door meant a disappointment. No
matter! Out the articles and stories used to go, and sometimes they
didn't come back.

Once a week--his friend with his black-and-white portfolio--they both
would mount the horse-bus on the way to the city. How cheerful they were
as they climbed up to the driver's seat! But they went warily. They soon
found that some of the penny sections on the bus route were shorter than
others. They would walk the lesser distances, and pick up another bus for
the longer sections.

At Piccadilly they separated. The poet would offer his poems and stories
to editor after editor, and his friend would graciously, and with a
superb gesture, allow the art editors to criticize the illustrations for
the magazines. Each would tackle those grudging fellows, making the
rounds of the magazine city.

If his friend had sold a drawing, or the poet had later got a story
accepted, they would meet at a teashop, and there would be a high tea.
When they had thrown their pearls before swine, there was a fourpenny
tea, and homeward they cursed the stony-hearted city. Sometimes they felt
a tinge of fear. But Youth would win!

They owned the world.

One evening he was making his way through a sudden shower to his friend's
lodgings. Amazingly enough, he had purchased an umbrella. It certainly
kept his clothing dry, but a poet with an umbrella was an anachronism
hardly to be borne. He hated to open it: it was terribly bourgeois.
Still, there was an inward glow in the mere fact of possessing an
umbrella. It meant one more stride into prosperity.

Ahead of him was a girl scurrying across the wet road. Ah! Here was a use
for his purchase! As the girl stepped from the pavement he opened his new
umbrella and silently held it above her head. She glanced swiftly
sideways, but took no apparent notice of her unexpected escort. She was
trapped. Thus he walked silently but rapidly with her for the length of
the side-street. Not a word was said. Was she pretty? He couldn't tell.

He had, at last, to speak. He asked her which way she was going. She
showed him. Of course, he insisted on escorting her to her home. It was
only a day later that he found out she had led him right round a square,
having passed her dwelling without mentioning her mistake.

He met her, by appointment, the following night. They kissed in a
sheltered corner in the still pouring rain. She was so soft and sweet!
And how useful was that sheltering umbrella! She was in the choir of a
close-by church. She had been going to practice. She missed many nights
when she should have been at the church. She was all shyness and
timidity. She feared her stern father.

One night her father discovered them together in the square. He fled.

For weeks he haunted that square, carefully peering round in case her
father was prowling near. Then she disappeared. He never knew what had
become of her.

He was in a rowing boat, with an elder boy, upon a great placid river.
They were pulling slowly downstream between high cliffs. Both had guns.
The face of the cliff was honey-combed with rabbit burrows. They could be
easily seen among the tussocks, swarming like insects. The bluff seemed
moving and alive. It was almost too easy to hit and hit. They came
tumbling down into the river. It was glorious fun. They revelled in the
slaughter. Sometimes a rabbit crumpled up and came bounding into the
river; others just died after a shudder. It was delightful to see them
die. It was so easy to pot them. The blood-lust was in their hearts.
Something to kill, to kill! There was no skill in their shooting. They
let the dead or dying bodies float past them.

At last they grew tired of their fun. It was so easy to pick them off.
But it had been a glorious day.

He was a university boy, terribly shy. There was to be a dance. There was
a girl in her first year at the university who was quite unlike the other
girls. This girl had all the first-year students around her. The other
girls were studious dull things, meant merely to be tormented in the
classes. Girls should not go to a university. She had not shown any
preference among her admirers, but it was rumoured that in the Latin
class the professor was "sweet" on her. He wondered if she would let
him--a lad in his first year--take her to the dance? It was a daring
thing to do. So many other fellows liked her. He anxiously debated with
himself whether he would venture to ask her. Then, one night, he called
at her people's house. The girl opened the door, with a start of
surprise. She invited him in. He blurted out his request. Would she allow
him to take her to the dance?

"My dear boy," she murmured, "I've been invited by lots of men; but it
was very sweet of you! But won't you stay?"

He got out of the house precipitately. He had bought two tickets! He did
not go to the dance.

He had heard of a woman whose husband had divorced her. A friend
introduced him, and she invited him to her rooms where she lived alone. A
divorced woman sounded to him delightfully dangerous. He had read of such
women, in books. One day he met her in the street, and she suggested that
he might come in and have a talk. There was nothing strange or terrible
about her sitting-room, though he could not help seeing through the door
ajar the tumbled bed-clothes of her bedroom. How delightfully Bohemian,
he thought! He had read of such things. Now he was seeing Life. But he
felt very uneasy. He was afraid that, perhaps, she might kiss him. He
wouldn't have liked that. She was so much older than he was. She must
have been quite twenty-four.

They sat and talked. He felt very nervous. He had never had a
_tête-à-tête_ with a grown woman.

Suddenly she put her arms around him and whispered strange words to him.
He did not know what to do next. But gradually she pressed him to her. He
could feel her warmth. She was playing with him. He did not like it. If
only he could get out of that room! But he had to go through with it now.
What a fool he had been to come at all! But she suddenly became playful.
He liked that better. He was terribly frightened suddenly. What was he
there for?

She was kissing him now, horrible kisses. He had kissed girls before, but
this seemed to drain all his desire away. Yet he felt his heart beating
hurriedly.

There she was, clasping him, holding him to her breast. There was a scent
that he did not like.

Suddenly dominant, he seized her. His whole being was in a tumult.

"Wait!" she whispered.

But he would not let her go.

"You silly boy!" she said, trying to evade him.

"I want you!" he cried.

"But not in such a hurry," she laughed, triumphant. "I'll be back in a
minute!" It seemed a long minute, waiting.

He remembered the room wavering about him.

The first thing he was conscious of was a sudden coldness on his face.
What was this? Water?

He had fainted. She was anxiously looking down upon him, infinitely
tender. "There, poor child," she murmured.

He thought he was back in his mother's arms.

She brought him a glass of milk, and he had to drink it.

When he was all right again she laughed tenderly, and murmured, "You
silly kid." He never went back.

He was with his girl-wife. They were inconceivably happy. The world was
all golden, like the day. They had laughed, though shyly, at the
contretemps of their voyage across the Pacific. His girl-wife had been
seasick all the time. How brave she had been about it! She had insisted
on dressing herself each day to go on deck, anywhere out of the cabin.
She had to ask him to find her dainty garments for her. Exhausted as she
was, she could not get at them.

But when at last they entered harbour she was once again herself. Passion
came and reticence waned. All the world was theirs. And then that
wonderful morning came. They had reached the rushing river in a world of
radiance. She stood entranced with bloom, drinking in the beauty of the
scene. The blue mists were rising around them, with wisps of white clouds
tangled in the tall trees and the brilliant green of the cleared
expanses. Across the little river there was a creaking narrow bridge.

"Let's cross!" she cried, and led the way. And then he failed her. He was
afraid to look down at the swirling river below; he dared not follow her.

She had no fears. "Come on!" she cried. "You can't fall!"

He had to follow her; but he felt that he had failed her. But she
laughed, and forgot his stupid fear. The world did not matter; these two
were the world.

It had suddenly struck him that he was an old man.

He was walking down the street. He looked at the young girls passing him.
He looked at them, yearningly, but--this was remarkable--they did not
see him. He was invisible to all those young people. They looked straight
through him. There was a camaraderie of the streets that did not include
him. It seemed to him that he glided invisibly and noiselessly through
the crowd. They made way for him, but only as one moves aside, as one
would get out of the way of a dog. There was no recognition of the fact
that he had passed them. Apparently there was nothing to interest them in
his passing.

He had grown old. He had passed his manhood: he was no use. The
chattering girls missed him altogether. He did not exist. It seemed to
him that they averted their eyes as if he were a funeral that was
passing. He was a corpse still surviving, but that did not matter. He was
no use.

"I must be dead," he said to himself. That is what being dead meant,
being outside the gay, happy, chattering streams of girls and boys. That
is Life, but he had passed on through Life. If only one girl had actually
perceived him he would have been happy. Just a passing recognition that
an old man had gone by.

He was at school, in the Headmaster's own room.

The Headmaster had just arrived from England; and there was an anxious
time for the boys. There would be changes, of course. But it did not
occur to him that he would be involved in the new order of things. And
now he was anxiously awaiting the entrance of the ruler of the boys.

The Head had instituted a new order. For each class there had been
appointed two monitors, who had the unpleasant, yet proud, duty of
assuming leadership among their classmates. To the boy's consternation
his name and that of another had been read out as monitors for his class.
There was no doubt about Black's pre-eminence in his class. He was the
leader of the gang that bullied him in the gymnasium class!

The Rector, plump and cheery, entered the room.

"Well," he began, "you're in the fourth, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir. I had to come. It's about this monitor business."

"You and Black are appointed for the fourth, aren't you? I'm glad you
came. You're the first boy to see me about it. Naturally you want to talk
over your duties and responsibilities with me? I am glad you take your
new position so seriously. I attach a great deal of importance to the new
system. It will impart a tone to the school."

"It isn't that, sir," he said. "I want to resign, sir."

"Indeed! What's the trouble?" The Head lit his pipe, adopting the pose of
two comrades. "Well?"

"I'm not fit to be a monitor, sir."

"Indeed? But surely I am the proper person to decide that? I feel that
Black and you are the most fitted for those duties. And now you decline
to help me in my work of carrying on the discipline of the school?"

"I can't do it, sir. I couldn't boss the smallest boy in my class.
They're not afraid of me.

"But," said the Head, "you have another boy to help you. I don't want you
to come to me in this matter. If your authority is questioned, you can
call, if necessary, upon the physical assistance of Black. You're
shirking your job, aren't you? You're afraid?"

"Yes, sir!"

"But aren't we all cowards, my boy? And did you think I didn't know
you're one? That's a great discovery to make--that every boy, and most
men, are cowards." He flushed.

The Head smiled. "Black is a fine athletic type, but he doesn't know that
he is also a coward. Black is rather to be pitied, I think. You see, he
has never had a chance to find himself out. You have. He has never had
the opportunity to doubt himself--a fine athlete, well able to look after
himself. You're really lucky to get these unpleasant things over like
that when you're quite young. Well," he smiled, "I'll take your name off
the list."

He paused.

"Oh, no, sir!" he said. "If you'll let me remain, I'll do my best and--"

"I knew it," said the Head. "You've got to go through it. It won't be
easy; and you won't get much assistance from me. You've got your own
codes. Stick to them!"

It wasn't easy. The class gave him trouble. But one day when he was being
badgered, Black intervened, and rather contemptuously backed him up. He
pulled through.

He was walking along the street, dreaming of the wonders he would do in
the world. But suddenly he came out of his daze: a girl passing gave him
a hesitant look. He swept his dream away; this was real. He turned his
footsteps and lingered, letting her pass him. He swiftly scrutinized her:
she was not a professional woman--but could you ever tell? He was
frightened of that sort of girl. There seemed to him a fragrance about
her; she was so young. But quietly she sidled up to a shop-window and
peered in. The window was stocked with garden tools and fertilizers. It
was with a start that she looked hurriedly and covertly up at him.

One of those girls, after all! But she had no sign of the professional
habituées of the street. He took up his place beside her; and quietly she
turned to meet his sidelong gaze. A girl of the street, but surely she
was innocent, or almost so? Still carefully scrutinizing the bags of
patent fertilizers, she smiled at him.

They were so young, both of them. He asked her about herself. She had
come from the country, but did not say why.

She looked weary. Perhaps she was hungry. Yes; she would like something
to eat and drink. Luckily he had some money in his pocket. They entered a
teashop, and she told him some lies. He was almost as young as she. He
asked her to meet him that night. Yes, she was tired; she had walked a
long way. Her mother? Oh, she didn't matter; her mother wouldn't mind her
staying out late. Not too late.

He had never taken out a girl for the night. He wondered vaguely where he
could find a place. He was new to London, living in lodgings. It seemed
to him a great adventure. He asked her if she knew of a place where they
could go. She didn't know. She really did not know. He cursed himself for
being so immature; but he had heard of a locality where they might try
for a room. In the end he asked a railway porter, feeling himself utterly
gauche. The porter directed them to an address where people who had
missed a train could find accommodation for the night.

They found the little hotel. They rang the bell and he bravely led the
way into a tiny, stuffy hall. On his inquiry a pasty-white man asked them
to wait. All the time he was dreadfully afraid that the porter would ask
where their luggage was. They sat down thankfully after their long walk.
Nobody seemed to trouble about them. His spirits rose. But they did not
talk much; they were frightened. It seemed such a long time for the
porter to summon them. They entered a little room, very stuffy. It was
too obvious to him that it was only a bedroom. There were no chairs.

It was horrible having to undress together; but he pretended to look out
the dark window giving on to a blank wall. He determinedly turned his
back on her. And how he hated the sordidness and furniture, designed
for only one purpose! Horrible! She had slipped into the double bed.
He wondered if it had been the first time, or the second.

He woke in the night. A clock was telling the time.

He roused her. He had had enough of it.

"I'm going to leave you," he said.

"By myself?" she gasped.

"It'll be all right," he tried to reassure her. "I've paid for the room
and the breakfast. You needn't worry at all in the morning."

"But," she almost wailed, "you might stay. I'll be lonely by myself.
Besides," she said softly, "I'm happy with you. I love you, you foolish
boy. Didn't you know that? Please don't leave me now. If you don't want
me, let's cuddle up and go to sleep. I love your eyes. And it is so nice
to find such a dear boy. The others----!" She shuddered.

How beautiful she was, how happy with him!

"You can't go now, you dear?" she pleaded. "Just let me kiss you, and
I'll put my arms round you? It would be horrible to wake up and find you
gone, and have to get up and sneak out early in the morning? I know," she
pleaded, "I'm not a professional girl at all. But I had no money. I've
done it before, but not often. But I could really love you, you darling!"

He was adamant. He slipped out to the floor and began to dress. It did
not take long.

"I hate you!" she muttered.

He kissed her, gave her some money for herself, and left the room. The
sleepy porter looked his surprise as he opened the hall door.

The streets were empty. It was a long way to his lodgings. Everything was
dead. The poor sweet thing, compelled to put up with such things! Never
again, he said to himself. It must have been about three o'clock. He let
himself in carefully, afraid that the other people might overhear him.
Quickly he undressed and crept into his bed--and she, lonely in hers! How
beautiful she was! Poor thing, she was not to blame at all. How could he
blame her--she was only a child?

Merciful sleep came to him.

But early next morning he woke, with a terrible anxiety. She had
promised to meet him again the day after in Trafalgar Square. Suppose
anything had happened after he had crept out of that disreputable house?
Suppose, later in the night some other man had found his way to her
room? Suppose, unprotected, had taken her...murdered her? He shuddered
with fright. He pictured it all with a penetrating vividness. Some
drunken man making his way into the bedroom. If she had been murdered,
the police might identify him as the man who took her to that mean
little place. What story could he tell, if anything had happened
afterwards? The coward that he was, to leave her thus unprotected! Such
a soft thing to be left so lonely! What a brute he had been! Who would
believe that he had taken her to that place and left her in the night?
But could the police identify him? You never knew!

So all that day and the following night he cursed himself for his
callousness, with always the fear that he might be brought into the
sordid affair.

On the day appointed he was waiting at Trafalgar Square an hour before
the time. There were many policemen about: he wondered if they had
already identified him. The hour dragged on, a long, long hour.

Somebody touched him on the shoulder. He swung round, with a start. It
wasn't a constable; it was she!

Thank God!

But never again!

He was an elderly man, walking down a Dorset lane. He had discovered it
himself. It was the longest day of the year, and the hottest. He was
staying for one blessed week in that county of green fields and lovely
lanes, walking briskly beneath the glorious sun. It was a genial pause in
his brief holiday, that week in ancient Dorset. He had found paradise in
a corner of England.

Soon, he told himself, he would be but part of that beauty of gentle
death, beneath these gracious trees. He was marvellously happy, alone
with the land from which his forefathers had gone forth. A pity to die!
But what matter? One less on the crowded globe. He had lived, not
fiercely, but honestly. He had been blessed with children and a wife
above all wives. But he had company in his solitude: the foxgloves like
an army with banners, incredibly blue forget-me-nots, and a streamlet
that had oozed from damp mosses until it grew bolder and became a
tinkling brook, hidden in ferns. Yes, he said to himself, he had had
enough of Life: he had given it an honest trial, and was content. If
only, though, his wife were with him now just for a pause to remember all
the good that had come to him on his long way, and with just a parting
sigh for all these good things to fade. But his children! They held his
heart in thrall; and oh! for the boon of having his wife to close his
tired eyes and leave him in peace!

He looked for no anticlimax of resurrection. These noble trees would in
their turn crash to earth, and acorns would rebuild that leafy lane,
until the sun went out. But the perfection of the day and the splendour
of the sky and the beauty of the flowers he would forget in death, and be
content.

One boon he had been given: he was hale and full of vibrant life; no
lingering on the edge of the grave, please God!...If there was a God? No
matter, if not. He wanted no after-life: he had had enough of life; he
had lived to the utmost. There should be no opening of tombs for him and
his people to begin Life over again, in no matter what realms of eternity
and bliss that were reserved for him and his kind. When he died he
passionately wanted to be dead--quite dead. He had run through the
permitted gamut: he was content with the experiment that he had not
arranged.

Enough of that! The sun looked down at the man, hale and calmly happy,
loitering along, kin with the very white horse that stood beside the
brook. Enough that he could feel the balm of the day, the longest day of
the English summer. Would he ever see another?

He was a small boy in church. He had to kneel on bare knees. It was very
dull, but he did not mind during the prayers. You could think all sorts
of thoughts in church, and when you folded your hands you could make a
lattice of your knitted fingers, and look through them when people did
not know you were gazing at them. That evening he peered from his place,
carefully exploring.

There, in a pew that was placed sideways on, he noticed a girl new to the
church services. He felt a sudden thrill, she was so beautiful! He
carefully widened his fingers. He could see her quite clearly through his
hands, at his leisure. The pretty girl was quite unconscious of his keen
scrutiny, utterly absorbed in her devotions. Who was she? How was it that
he had never noticed her before? Was she only a chance comer to the
services? He eagerly hoped not. He did not dare to glance in her
direction during the singing of the hymn; but when he knelt again he was
at liberty to dwell upon her beautiful face. He loved her devoutness.

The next prayer began. Eagerly he stared through his fingers at her. It
seemed to him that invisibly he was kissing her. She was so earnest in
her devotions. But as he gazed he suddenly saw her interlaced fingers
open stealthily! She had discovered his secret; she was steadily gazing
at him through the lattice of her crossed hands. She was peering at him
with dark, beautiful eyes!

It was the first nascent thrill in his life. Her presence startled him.
He had never seen so beautiful a girl before.

But could it be real? He must have imagined it. But in the last prayer,
she deliberately dropped her delicate hands and solemnly spoke to him
with her eyes. It was as if she was kissing him, though he had had no use
before for kissing. He had kissed little girls in round games at parties,
but he thought it rather silly. But how could he ever dare to imagine
himself kissing her lips? It was a profanation.

No, it was real! As she rose to follow her mother out of the church she
glanced interestedly round, with a provocation in her eyes. The daring of
it! It was like a blinding flash of flame, searing him.

Who was she? Would she be there next Sunday at church? How had he never
seen her before? Would she be in church next Sunday? But that would be a
whole week! How could he bear those seven days and nights? And he was
helpless, utterly helpless. He could not dare to ask any questions of his
mother. He had to endure this amazing experience for a whole week; and
perhaps she would not be there next Sunday. Or never?

It was an agonizing week. Every minute, it seemed, he was thinking of
her, trying to recapture the memory of that revelation. He went to bed,
hoping that he would dream of her, and every morning he would count the
days before Sunday came round. He had never before experienced anything
so amazing in his life. One night he discovered that he had forgotten
her face; he could not recall that perturbing glance. It seemed to him
that hitherto he had never existed; all his life had gone as nothing;
all that was to come was inextricably bound up with her; and he didn't
even know who she was. He made clumsy efforts to discover her, hoping
that someone might chance to mention her existence or her name; but he
was working in the dark. A malign fate had snatched her from him. But
God could not be so unmindful as to let her go away, now that he had
found her?

His clumsy efforts failed to discover her identity; and then Fate
amazingly befriended him. His mother happened to mention a woman's
name..."Oh, yes," she said, "that must have been Mrs. Trevel I saw in
church last Sunday. They have taken that big house with the creepers over
it, you know..."

That was all. He knew the house, and on his way home from school he
walked deliberately past it. Perhaps she was looking out for him? But
there was no sign. But there was next Sunday. He would see her again! It
was strange that nobody else in the family happened to mention her. How
he would like to know her name! But he had to go cautiously; nobody must
know that he loved her. Going to bed at night he lay awake thinking of
her in a sensuous ecstasy.

He surprised his mother by offering to accompany her to church in the
morning. But the girl was not there. Could she have gone away, or perhaps
she was ill? It was maddening to be kept wondering about her. It would be
so like God to get her run over and killed.

He eagerly set out for the evening service. He did not dare to look
towards her pew until the first prayer came. Shielding his eyes he peered
through his fingers and saw nothing but a big black hat that intervened.

As the congregation stood up he had his chance. She was looking, almost
challenging, straight at him! But the glance she gave him was keenly
critical. He felt that she had summed him up. He felt utterly abashed.
But as she looked carelessly past him, he intent on her every feature,
she absently seemed to touch her lips. It seemed to him as if she were
kissing him.

Till that moment his adoration had been limitless but vague. It had been
enough for such a wonderful being to exist in the world with himself; but
now he could not think of anything but her lips. At the next opportunity
he dared to face her, and make a sign on his own lips. It seemed to him
that a message had secretly passed between them. These two souls shared
an amazing secret.

Henceforth he lived for the Sunday services. He would gaze deliberately
at her as she stood seemingly unconscious of his burning eyes; then she
would let her eyes flutter, like a bird in dipping flight, through his
steady stare. And once he caught the delicious hint of a smile on her
face. And then, one memorable day in church, she actually looked at him
with a naked boldness, with eyes widely opened, a straight, penetrating,
triumphant arrow of a glance that made him shiver with a delicious shame.
In that cold church the air was sensuous with throbbing, passionate
messages. And how dangerously delightful were those forbidden looks!

And yet he could not have divined what he wanted of her, except the cool
touch of her lips. That would be sufficient for him in this world.

Cunningly he made it his habit to linger outside the church to watch her
coming out; and he found that her way home was, for part of the road,
also his. Devoutly he followed her, noting every insignificant detail of
her walk, her figure, her gestures, waiting anxiously for the sound of
her voice. It was just as he had imagined, a tinge of the contralto. But
all the time he had not found an opportunity to speak to her, though
every glance was the closest intercourse.

The impossible plans that he imagined, the romantic situations that he
designed, seemed all in vain. Was she deliberately ignoring his presence?
Was she torturing him for her own delight? So demure always, and so eager
with her glances!

Then one evening--just like any other evening--her mother stopped on the
way home from church to speak to his mother; and in the most casual
manner the boy and the girl found themselves talking together! But what
they said was quite prosaic.

"I've often seen you in church," he began.

"Have you?" she innocently asked. "Whereabout do you sit?"

Foolishly he said, "Haven't you noticed me?"

All the romantic, passionate interchanges of their glances had gone for
nothing. She hadn't even seen him before? The whole delicious adventure
had meant nothing to her. It was all his stupid imagination. His
wonderful world had crumbled to fragments. The invisible chain that had
so closely bound them was broken--or, rather, it had never existed. He
must begin all over again.

"I know so many boys like you," she calmly murmured. "I rather like boys,
but they are so rough. I like dogs, too. Don't you?"

Thus it was that these two, who in his mind were inextricably joined,
haltingly talked. All the immense, tremendous things that he had to tell
her dropped from his vacant mind. He insisted that she must have seen him
in church, and located his seat for her information. But she was vague.
She chattered on, telling him that she went to the High School, and that
she was fifteen.

It was on that important occasion that by chance he learnt her
name--Gipsy! What a wonderful name, worthy indeed of such a wonderful
girl! How exactly it suited her! "Gipsy!"

But that rencounter was futile. He hated himself for his nervousness; and
when the time came for them to part he felt a vast relief. Gipsy was not
interested in him; she put him with all the other boys she had known. The
world had come to an end.

There was one discovery, however, that consoled him. He learnt that he
could see from his bedroom the house where Gipsy lived. That brought her
nearer to him. He might even see the light in her window at night! Where
she slept! Or where she could look across the intervening houses and
dream of him!

He must find out! The next day he invented a pretext to pass her
dwelling-place. Furtively he studied it. That must be her bedroom. And
that night, going to bed, he extinguished his candle and gazed with a
devout delight at the lit window across the dark. Soon the lights were
extinguished, but he soon picked out the one window that must be hers.
Reverently he gazed at it. He pictured her in her nightgown, but even his
imagination was devout. But a shattering blow came; he learnt that Gipsy
had gone away for a holiday--had been gone a week while he had been
adoring another window. Eagerly he hoped that she would send him a
letter, but none came.

Her fading image did not linger long in his mind, for just then he found
Rosy. She was the idol of the schoolboys, the most popular girl in her
school. She picked him out to adore her; and he was extremely proud of
being chosen. He was not one of the athletic leaders, which made it all
the more remarkable. She had all the boys she wanted. To be seen walking
home from school with her was a proud distinction for him. She would wait
for him down the street, and she allowed him, sometimes, to accompany her
to her parents' house, though, of course, not daring to enter the gate.
It was the public parade that she wanted.

She welcomed him; he was her favourite, envied by the other boys who kept
out of her regal way. The younger ones looked up to him as a hero. There
was an air of pride in his walk. He heard the rumour that he and Rosy
were going to get married when they were grown up. But much more exciting
was the news that Rosy had invited him to her birthday picnic. The image
of Gipsy had swiftly faded from his memory. He had something nearer. How
silly he had been over Gipsy. Why, he had never even kissed her; and
Rosy, he told himself, would not mind at all being kissed. But would he
dare?

He was filled with pride when he met her in the street; and carefully
considered himself in the looking-glass secretly at home. Rosy had told
him that she considered him the most handsome boy in the school. He
believed her.

The seal was set upon his pride when Rosy invited him to her birthday
picnic. Her parents were quite rich, and that, too, added to the flame
she had kindled in him. The picnic was, he found, to be a large one; and
several of his schoolboy friends were included. He had hoped for a less
pretentious affair; but he could easily keep her for himself. Arrived at
their destination, the party broke off in pairs. But he was shy. Rosy
seemed so sure of herself, disdaining any assistance. The two soon found
themselves alone in a shady nook. He did not altogether like this
solitude, but she was so gay and happy. He wondered uneasily whether she
had taken other boys to that place. He was beginning to be afraid.
Afraid of her. Hitherto their intercourse had been conducted almost in
public. He found it difficult to keep up the conversation. He had never
been so close and so isolated with a girl before. There was something
terrifying in these soft, fluffy things. It seemed to him that something
predatory looked out of those pale blue eyes. Those slim fingers, so
trustingly held in his rough hand seemed to him to have the coldness of
handcuffs. And now he and one of those incalculable things of prey were
shut in together, as in a cell, in a terrifying solitude.

If only they could turn back? If only some of the others would cheerfully
invade their prison?

Rosy laughed gaily, with an excited tremor in her high voice.

He wished there were no girls in the world.

"Let's sit down?" said Rosy.

The light filtered through the green bush. Her eyes in the shade changed
into the colour of a cat's.

He hesitated, but already she had chosen her seat.

"I suppose it's quite dry?" he hesitated.

"Of course, silly!" she purred, "if you sit close to me, here."

He contrived to seat himself somewhat away from her. He glimpsed her
eager look.

"Come on, don't be silly?" she insisted.

He waited, horribly afraid.

Then, after a dreadful silence, she gently put her hand in his. It lay
there, in his palm, helpless, dead--an alien, terrible thing.

He did not know what to do with it.

"Can you tell fortunes?" she eagerly murmured. "Tell me mine!"

He mumbled that he didn't know how.

"Then I can," she quickly said. "I'll tell yours."

She laughed on a high note. She started to trace the lines on his palm.
Her warm fingers, incredibly soft, weakened him: he felt himself bound
and prisoned in her softness. She spun off a rigmarole of lines of Fate,
and went on eagerly to tell of a dark man and a fair girl. He itched to
get away, away from this feline thing. He would not have minded if she
had cut off his captive hand and thrown it away.

He felt such a fool, too!

At last, almost angrily, she dropped his useless hand, and sat away from
him, aloof. He saw her hard little profile. He caught her swift slanting
glance at him. Why on earth had he ever slipped away from all the others?
There was an uneasy feeling in his heart. He had been trapped,
deliberately trapped.

He turned to see what his gaoler was doing: she was playing with a
beetle.

He asserted himself. He was not going to be her slave. He felt aggrieved.

"You might be interested in a fellow," he sulkily said. "What's the good
of coming to a picnic to play with a beetle?"

"It's the only thing that I can play with," she sharply said. Suddenly
she melted. "Look!" she murmured, pointing to a pair of birds that
twittered on a bush. "What are they doing?"

"They're only birds," he said.

"Look!" she insisted. "They're actually making love to each other,
kissing each other! The darlings!"

"Isn't it time we got back to the picnic," he hurriedly suggested.

"How could we?" she triumphantly asked. "They're lost. And we're lost.
And a lot we care, anyway!"

He hurriedly made an effort to rise, but she pulled him down to her.

"Here's a nice place to lie down, on these ferns," she softly said, with
a new warmth in her voice. "Look, there's just room for us together. It
was made for us--to kiss each other!"

She leaned over to him, and pulled him down by her side. She stretched
her arms to him with a sudden eagerness.

"There's plenty of room for both of us, darling boy!" she crooned.

He felt himself drowning in her eager gaze; but he resisted desperately
her provocation. She seemed so soft, so weak, so fragile--and yet so
terribly strong.

It was horrible. He hated her--hated himself. So this was what he had
dreamed about! But he had not pictured it at all like this. It had been
something beautiful, but this was dreadful, menacing.

She lifted her arms above her head, stretching herself, showing beneath
her light dress her immature breasts. He heard her rapid heart-beats in
the silence of the grove.

Suddenly she lifted her body and caught him in her arms, roughly pulling
him down upon her.

"You haven't kissed me!" she crooned. "You darling!"

But at the contact of her softness, the incredible softness of her body,
he revolted. There was something horrible about it all. He was frightened
of her, of everything.

"We'll be late!" he cried. "The others will be waiting for us. We'd
better go!"

She uttered a bitter cry. "You fool!" she said savagely. She looked like
a beast of prey.

"Come on!" he whispered. "They'll be looking for us, wondering where we
are." He had got up from the ground. He was standing over her. All he
wanted was to get out into the sunlight, to get away.

Reluctantly she rose. He did not even help her up. He hated her.

They made their way back to the picnic grounds, to be greeted meaningly
by the others. There was an undercurrent in their laughter. Had they,
too--but he reassured himself. Rosy was the exception; she was older than
the others; she knew more. The others were surely innocent? If not, why
was the world made so beautiful?

How clean and sweet was his adored one, Gipsy! And he had almost
forgotten her. If only he could find her again!

On the way back he eagerly strode ahead with another of the boys,
carrying the baskets. It was good to be out of sight of the tired boys
and girls. And at the leave-taking he merely shook Rosy's cold hand, and
knew that in future he would only raise his hat to her when they met by
chance in the street.

That night he lay sleepless in his tumbled bed. Why couldn't he have
played the man, as was expected of him? He pictured himself, strong,
triumphant, assured, kissing her hotly, her supple, immature figure in
his arms, with his eager mouth pressed to her willing lips. What a fool
he had been!

He was walking home after a game of bridge. It had been an exciting
series of rubbers, and he had come away winning. They were good fellows
all. Every week the four took turns to meet at each other's house; and
they played frequently till long after midnight.

"Just one more rubber?" the gambler would persuasively say; and once past
midnight they would go on and on.

After the last drink, and perhaps another, he came out into the silent
street. The other two had different ways to go. He liked the walk home.
The trams had long since stopped. He saw the darkened houses, with here
and there a solitary light in a window, heard a fretful child being
soothed by its mother, observed a doctor's car at a gate. All those
insignificant lives would run through the brief gamut of existence, and
be dead. They were almost dead now, unconscious of themselves. And after
the night they would wake to take up in turn their dull tasks, almost as
comatose as when they were sleeping in their beds. His own existence was
as theirs, tedious harassments, disappointments mingled with happiness
that was so terribly brief. Life was just a haphazard muddle, with no
guiding beacon to point the way--if there was any way.

Half of the population of the globe lay in the dark, drugged with sleep,
with no sentience, no knowledge of their hapless plight. He looked up at
the vast, star-studded sky. Ah, there was order unseen by day! The Milky
Way seemed to him an enormous breaking billow of foam that would thunder
on the sands of Space, yet would never fall. That tremendous arch of
Space hung relentlessly, held in the vault of night, brooding over this
little immature world called the Earth. What were we doing in that
immensity of the overarching sky. Here we were, for good or evil--and
apparently the gods did not care--herded in a minor sphere, left to our
own resources. We were merely scum that had casually formed on a cooling,
insignificant planet. We were poorly housed in the suburbs of the
galactic system. Our only home was a tiny, dying globe, only recently
born, and soon--in the time-system of the universe--to die. Millions of
years had passed by that minor mass of incandescence, a useless little
smouldering globe, until the cold of Space had chilled it, and Life came
forth--how and why?--and began to evolve, but to what end? All the
enormous striving, through countless aeons, just to produce this
make-shift being, Man! And now Man has just begun to evolve, and already
his doom was irrevocably pronounced! There was, he thought, such an
appalling waste of material used up in past ages to produce him. So the
globe will have its brief flowering--just a short Spring--and the
inexorable doom will be pronounced. But he saw in that amazing
efflorescence of stars in the sky no guiding sign, no goal in sight,
shut in as in a prison in Space. It just happened; that was all! So it
will happen to him, and to all of us.

Yet for this brief existence he was thankful. It was something, after
all, that he had lived and died, though no memory would wake him to the
realization of his mere passing through Time.

But how marvellous was the magnificence of the heavens above him; and how
amazing it was that he, himself, should be permitted to ponder on the
cosmic enigma. For that he should be thankful; and the beauty of the
silver hordes of misty stars uplifted him.

But he wished he had not doubled that four spades call in the last rubber
at bridge.

He was in China, an insignificant correspondent in the Boxer Rebellion.
The Allies had broken the back of the revolt, and punishment was decreed.
There had to be punishment, to leave a red mark upon the Chinese Empire
and prevent the enemy saving their faces. That day the Allies had blown
down the corners of the Chinese walled city, in punishment for the murder
and mutilation of the white missionaries. A fine was exacted, too; and
the order came that only officers would be allowed to enter the captured
city until sundown. This was a veiled permission to officers to do a
little private looting.

His friend and he had gained permission to enter, as correspondents
ranked as officers. They set off eagerly, for it was rumoured that there
was an enormous amount of silver and gold, and perhaps pearls, hidden in
the city. They hastened to make their way within the smashed wall. They
paid a call upon a defenceless mandarin. They had demanded entrance, and
after passing through many walled courtyards they reached the central
mansion. The owner came himself, in answer to their demands. He was a
courteous Chinese gentleman, with manners most ingratiating and polished.

His poor hovel, he explained, contained only worthless articles, since
he, himself, was abjectly poor. His apology was accepted, though not in
such gracious terms. It was obviously impossible to discover any
treasures at that hour; the owner had safely buried all his household
gods. Against that perfect polish of manner it was difficult to go
further; but in the wonderfully decorated room there were priceless
souvenirs.

"Not much here," said his friend. "What we're after is silver bricks and
jewels; but there's no chance of finding them."

"Well," he said, "what about these trifles, to begin with! He'll never
miss them!"

In pidgin-English he politely asked for a beautiful bronze Buddha,
several trays and bowls, exquisitely beautiful. His friend and he quickly
collected those ornaments and put them into their haversacks.

The Chinese gentleman politely shrugged his shoulders at the bad manners
of the foreign devils, but acquiesced with a gracious charm as they stole
his treasured ornaments. It was a shameful thing to do.

He picked up the courtly gentleman's Chinese pipe, perhaps his best, and
put it into his haversack.

As they looked guiltily back, for thieves were thieves, the charming old
gentleman shook hands with himself, with his wide sleeves statuesque, and
bowed humbly to these superior beings.

"Come on!" cried his friend. "We can take what we like till sundown.
Better hurry!"

Here and there in the city were officers hurrying in their quest for
stolen goods. Suddenly they found a group of officers entering a Chinese
bank. They eagerly followed. It was asserted that there were thousands of
pounds worth of silver in the immense building. The correspondent with
him had heard that silver was to be found for the picking up. Officers
were running to the rumoured treasure; and they met, coming out, men with
heavy haversacks. Deeper and deeper they penetrated the underground
tunnels. Men with empty bags were hurrying on, and others came staggering
back with heavy loads of treasure, jostling each other in the alleys
through which a dim light filtered. They followed a side alley and
paused, gazing eagerly at a vast matting cylinder, towering up. His
friend grabbed a pike with a red tassel on its haft, and eagerly prodded
the circular mass. A clink of metal answered!

Hurriedly he enlarged the gap made in the matting, and a shower of coins
almost buried him. He picked up a handful of coins that gleamed in the
semi-darkness. They were Chinese cash, tokens of insignificant value,
hundreds of which were worth no more than a penny, the currency of the
extremely poor, not worth carrying away in a cart.

They looked at each other with comic disgust.

But where such coins were there would be more valuable money. They were
on the trail of incalculable riches. From a tunnel, men came staggering
with heavy sacks.

"I say," said his friend, "if you could only have a look at yourself!"

"What's the matter with me?" he asked in surprise.

"Well, old man, isn't it time for us to take a pull on ourselves? There's
plenty of loot about, but...don't you think it's time we came to
ourselves? We've gone crazy, haven't we? I'm just as bad as you are. All
for money; but is it worth it? Let's pull ourselves up! It's quite time.
We've stripped ourselves until we're mad. All the loot we'll get if we
keep on won't make up for this madness. Hang it all, let's get back to
sanity! We've let everything go. We're just beasts. Let's get away while
we can, before this rotten game gets us!"

There was nothing more to say. He and his friend left the half-demented
looters to their gains. They got back to camp with comparatively clean
hands. But they had been perilously near to stripping themselves of
common decency.

He and his elder brother had been sent with a message. He was seven years
old. They had found their way to the street in which the house was, but
it was a very long street. Such a long street for such tired legs!

Up and down they went, but they could not find the house. So, as the
errand was an important one, he and his elder brother determined to
inquire at every gate. There were no numbers on the houses, and the
indications given by their mother were not helpful. His elder brother
suggested that he should call at every house on his side of the street
while he would call at the houses opposite.

Their lack of identification had caused several of the householders to
resent having had to open front doors for, apparently, no purpose. But
the boys went steadily on, never missing a house. But he thought grown-up
people were very unkind; for he was becoming dreadfully tired.

At last he came to a house, set back from the street and sheltered by big
trees. It looked to him a very long way to the front door; and he was
getting more and more tired. But he heard from the closed door the
cheerful sounds of a piano and a woman's voice singing. He felt glad, for
there had been no music and no welcome at the other houses. He wouldn't
have minded sitting down to rest.

He pulled the bell. Someone glanced out of a window. Then, very quietly,
the front door was opened, and a young lady stared at him.

But how funnily she was dressed! He saw that she hadn't finished
dressing. She was wearing a sort of wrapper and had no stockings on her
legs, and no shoes. She looked surprised at him, and laughed when he gave
his message. There was something about the house and the woman that
vaguely frightened him. He wanted to run away without making his inquiry,
but it wouldn't have been fair to his elder brother if he shirked his
job.

The young lady, however, did not seem dangerous, though he seemed to
scent something unusual. She could not help him in his quest.

He turned, after thanking her, but she beckoned to him and asked if he'd
like some milk and a bit of nice cake?

Without waiting for his response, she called to a woman inside, and two
came out with eager smiles to the verandah. The other woman told him to
sit down on the step of the verandah; and she tried to help him to
remember what the house was like.

"What a pretty boy!" said one of the girls. "You must be dreadfully
tired, walking all that way. You must come in while I get you some cake
and a glass of milk."

So he went in, and the women--there were other women there, all such
pretty young ladies, but not doing anything at all.

Impulsively they petted him, and he liked it, but he did not care for the
perfumes that he smelt. His mother never had any scents like that. But
why weren't they dressed when they weren't going to bed? Hadn't they any
proper clothes to put on?

But they were so kind to him; and one of them kissed him--such soft
kisses--not like the hard little pecks which his aunts always gave him,
and which he quickly wiped off when they weren't looking.

They wanted him to stay; but he suddenly remembered that his bigger
brother would be wondering where he was.

But as he came away he felt that there was something secret, something
wrong, in that warm, scented, untidy house behind the trees.

He never told his big brother about it.

Gipsy had come back! He had seen her in church. She was peering at him
between her interlaced fingers.

They met, desperately casual, coming out of church. It was his mother who
had instinctively felt that there was something between them, and who had
stopped to welcome Gipsy back from her trip to Australia.

They talked.

"So you're a 'varsity man now?" Gipsy eagerly began. She seemed more
mature, while he felt that he was still a boy.

"And you're going to be a lawyer?"

He was delighted. She had found out all about him. But a constraint
severed them. He could not pick up their acquaintance again so easily.
Gipsy seemed a new personality, supremely confident of herself, while he
still felt an awkward boy, despite his entrance to the university. Her
trip had brought her into bud. He eagerly but secretly scanned her
rounder figure. It seemed to him that the soul of a dormant woman had
stirred within Gipsy. She seemed to be secretly proud that her womanhood
had budded. She had almost grown up. He felt with an almost humiliating
awe that she had passed him in the race. He was years younger than this
assured wonderful thing.

As they walked, she bent upon him her half-troubled, considering glance.

"It's a pity," she murmured, "you're going into law. It's a pity. I
thought you'd be--something different."

"Well, Law is a fine profession, isn't it?"

"It's all right," she indifferently agreed, "when you get on and make
money; but it's so commonplace. Every boy I know is going to be a
lawyer."

"Well, that's what my father wants me to be," he sturdily replied. "You
can't always do what you'd like in the world."

"But you're different," she ventured. "I always thought you'd be
different."

"What?"

"Oh, an artist, or a novelist, or a poet--something wonderful! Something
famous!"

He looked at her, stunned. Fancy her guessing that he had it in him to be
all that, and more! In that moment her conviction of his future seemed
the easiest thing in the world.

"But you write things, stories and verses, even now?"

"You knew that, too?" He was awestruck at her uncanny instinct. And he
felt for the first time afraid of woman's restlessly prying mind. Ah, but
he wasn't going to divulge all that he had in his heart. He had his
secrets. She gave him a glorious smile.

"My poet!" she exclaimed with her low chuckling ripple.

"I shall be the greatest poet in New Zealand!" he boasted.

"Only that?" she lightly jeered. "This little out-of-the-way place?
There's all the world to conquer, isn't there?"

"Yes," he gravely said.

She drew back; it seemed to him as if she had lighted a fuse unwittingly
that might burn them both. He felt that he could do great things. And so
could she. His fine egoism and hers let loose on the world, with
incalculable youth to back them, might achieve wonderful things. What a
mate she would be for him, and he for her! For he had heard that she was
studying art--had, indeed, already painted pictures exhibited in the
picture galleries. What might these two do together with their mated
arts?

It seemed to him that intangible, invisible antennae wavered from him to
her and back.

"I'd like to have a real talk with you some day," she said shyly. "I'd
like to tell you about my visit. But we never seem to meet, except by
chance. I've been back for a fortnight. You don't come to church now."

He told her he was too busy with his studies at the university.

"That's curious," she said, "because my favourite walk--I love
walking--is past the university gates."

He quickly, suspiciously, asked: "By yourself?"

"Sometimes."

"Dull, isn't it?"

She smiled with bright eyes. "It needn't be!"

He felt that she was luring him, playing him as an angler does with a
hooked fish. But how urgently he wanted to see her again, to talk with
her once more. Eagerly he asked when she took those solitary walks.

Airily she answered: "Any fine afternoon, perhaps."

"What time"--he felt himself the dominating male--"to-morrow?"

She slowly considered, wondering. He waited. She was slipping away from
him, as she had so often slipped away, from promise or dull fact.

"How can I say?" she smiled, looking down sideways to the pavement, and
running the tip of her parasol along a crack in the pavement. "It all
depends whether I'm in the mood or not--to-morrow."

"Oh, well! I'll be going for a walk down to the harbour," said he
determinedly. "I'll be there; and I rather like solitary walks."

It was a challenge.

She shrugged her shoulders. She felt, it seemed to him, that she would
like to shake him.

They parted sullenly.

An eternity of a day and a night had to be dragged through somehow before
he found himself loitering at the street corner of her house, nervously
posted at a strategic corner commanding a view of her gate. She kept him
waiting; and three times he made up his mind to desert his post. He
decided that he would give her another ten minutes--though he had already
given her twice that time.

She came! She dawdled down the front path, like a moth fluttering idly in
the afternoon. It seemed to him that there was an exuberance in her
movements that made her appear almost as if she were dancing. Yet she
approached; all the time she was drifting to him.

She was astonished when she looked down at his shadow.

"I'm so glad you remembered," he was foolish enough to say.

"But I don't understand?" she wondered. "Of course, I don't mind you just
meeting me; it's such a nice day for a walk, isn't it?"

"But you promised?" he insisted.

"Did I?" She was astonished at his pertinacity. "I happened to be here,"
she murmured..."And it is really such a nice day. Oh, well; but I'd
rather be by myself."

It had begun all wrong. He had built up a marvellous approach for their
talk, but he had nothing to say. They walked on in silence, lagging on
their way.

"I'm going to Paris," she suddenly, almost casually, said. "My father is
taking me to the best students' school in Paris, and I'm going to be an
artist."

But she was a girl, he thought. Girls don't count. It's men who do all
the great things in the world. And he felt it wasn't fair for such an
opportunity to be given to a girl.

"But, after all," she said, "a great poet is much more wonderful than an
artist. Me? I only draw a bit, but you--!"

They wandered on, drawn together. She had warmed to him. She made him
point out to her the windows of the rooms where he worked. They verged
towards the shore of the harbour. A gaunt, monstrous dredge was wheezily
sucking up the mud of the shallow foreshore and pouring it through a
long, snake-like pipe into the reclamation area. It occurred to him that
she was not caring much whither they went. Was she, too, preoccupied with
him in her thoughts?

They paused on a little bridge crossing a culvert that had been a stream.
They paused, and talked. Every trifle was strangely and portentously
significant to him, content with her presence. The bloom of her, the
nearness of her, the darkness of her half-shaded eyes, the soft grace of
her swaying figure, balancing herself even when she was still, entranced
him. He had forgotten that they were no longer walking. She was leaning
against the frail railing of the bridge. How beautiful was her slim
figure! But there was a false note in the picture. She was acting a
part, but a perfect part. She was all female, deliberately parading
herself for the admiration in his eyes. She called him with the voice of
her physical beauty. He was dizzy with her nearness. And he knew that
she was, for that amazing moment, passionately in love with him.

She was toying with a ring on her finger, a silver ring, curiously
wrought. "How pretty it looks!" he murmured.

"Would you like to have it?" she carelessly asked. "It's only a cheap
little thing."

He knew that she wanted him to take it. She handed it to him. It was warm
from her skin. And suddenly he sensed an overwhelming impression of the
soft warmth of her body, of all her mysterious seductive body. He flushed
awkwardly, ashamed at the desecration of his daring thought.

He tried the ring on his little finger; but how small it was! It would
not fit. How wonderful to have such thin fingers.

"I like your hands," Gipsy said. "They're capable--not like mine."

She daintily spread her tapering fingers upon his workmanlike hand. The
warm touch of naked hand to hand almost dizzied him.

"Give it back!" she suddenly, dictatorially, said.

He could not.

"You must! It's mine!"

A daring desire came to him. "No, I'm going to keep it. For always!"

"Really?" she laughed, her slow, soft, warm laugh. "It's no use to you.
It's mine now! That's not fair! It's no value now. I'll throw it into the
stream. Well, take it, there!"

He eagerly put it into his pocket, and felt that it was safe. It seemed
to him that he had wrested it by main force from her. They stood gazing
at each other, both curious.

"We'll be late," Gipsy sighed. The moment that he had meant to kiss her
had fled. Together they turned homeward. Why hadn't he kissed her then?

"It's mean of you," she said, reviving. "Give me back my ring!"

"No!" he valiantly muttered.

Gipsy peremptorily demanded her ring. "Give it to me, at once! How dare
you?" He hotly protested. That ring had bound them together, for ever.

"You've stolen it!" she insisted.

They grew angry. Sullenly he took it from his pocket. She snatched it.

Why had he been so silly as to give the ring back? He felt all through
his being that she had almost passionately desired him to keep it.

He was looking down upon the scaffold.

He had had the luck to be one of the representatives of the two daily
newspapers in the town to be permitted to witness the hanging of a
notorious murderer. Everything was in readiness for the appearance of the
central figure. It was the first execution he was to see in his
journalistic life. It was an important job for him--one of the most
responsible he had been permitted to handle.

He was very young to write the story of the hanging; but he felt that he
had had a good claim upon his paper. He had been detailed to what had at
first been merely regarded as a featureless murder; and little interest
was taken by the public and the press. He went day after day to attend
the trial. Apparently there were no sensational details brought out in
the first hearing; but suddenly the interest quickened. The chief witness
for the prosecution, after having given his evidence, was arrested and
indicted, mainly upon the testimony he had given in court.

When his editor had sent for him the evening before, he felt that his
chance of writing up a really good murder case had been taken from him.
Some more experienced journalist would be put on to such a responsible
job. But, to his surprise, his editor played fair.

"You've handled the court case, my boy," he said; "and you've done it
very well. Of course, I would have given it to the senior reporter if I
had seen how it was going to turn out; but if you want to see a
hanging--it's something that doesn't happen very often--and you feel up
to it, here's your pass to the gaol for to-morrow morning. But I want the
job thoroughly done, and if you break down--well, it will go against you.
Your duty is never to let your paper down."

He had taken assignments for his paper with a careless joy; but this was,
he thought, a very hard job to tackle. But he'd got his chance. It wasn't
every junior reporter that had the luck.

He woke in the night, and found the rope round his neck.

Hangings, he knew, were the only really punctual arrangements in the
world; but he was in ample time, waiting outside the gaol for admittance.
To his surprise it was his equally young rival on the other paper whom he
met at the gaol. He, too, was getting his chance.

They were admitted through cold stone corridors, and came out on a
platform five feet above the scaffold, dreadfully close. A representative
of other papers, an old man, was waiting. Eagerly he and his rival
mentally pictured the scene, thinking of head-lines, with every salient
detail set in place.

The noose was slowly swinging above the trapdoor. Then came slowly up the
steps to the platform the clergyman, saying the prayers for the dead, two
warders and the pinioned condemned man. He had expected the murderer to
raise his eyes for a moment to the blue sky above the walls; but he was
disappointed. It was always done on the melodramatic stage. He stood
stolid. Drugged, perhaps?

Eagerly the two reporters asked if the man had made any confession. No;
he was carrying his secret away from the world. Details! That was what he
was eager about. He mustn't miss the slightest gesture. For a moment he
thought of taking notes in his sheaf of copy-paper, but there was no time
for that. He wondered what was passing in the murderer's mind. But he
must come back to reality. In a few moments, perhaps, he would be only a
lump of flesh, slowly swinging. Would there be a last shudder? But his
face would be covered by the cap.

The dreadful business went swiftly on.

Then the man began to speak. He was going to confess!

Yes! In broken English he began. The journalist had no time to look at
the prisoner. He had to get down that speech, word for word, made harder
by the alien tongue. Hurriedly and almost automatically the two pressmen
took their shorthand notes, glancing swiftly down to see any gesture.
Yes; he told the truth, very near to the facts of the case, as they had
been known, but with startling force. Yes, it was thus that he had killed
the old couple, for a few pounds. He even detailed the final bludgeoning.

He ceased. A signal was given. He stood erect while the cap was adjusted.
The lever was pulled; the body dropped beneath the platform; the rope
quivered; the body swung, a dead thing, to and fro. The hangman slipped
down below--to hang on to the legs--to make sure.

He wondered, as they waited for the swinging to subside, whether in that
dreadful moment of death all his past life had flashed into his quickened
brain, seeing forgotten scenes, taking part in incidents when he was a
boy, when he was a man, scenes of gaiety and mourning, trivial flashes of
fun, miseries which until that last moment he had utterly forgotten?

How could anyone tell? How might it be for every man when at his last
dying throes? He, himself, for all he knew, might experience a lifetime,
just on the point of death, in which he might call up all that had been
of worth, or triviality, that had accompanied him from birth to the end.
But how would he know? How could he tell? The time would be so
short--just as short as the drop of the murderer's body. Thought, he said
to himself, is a million times as swift as the speed of light. A million
scenes and thoughts might speed through his own brain in the last flicker
of Life. But he would never know, or knowing he could never recall.

Those thoughts, that take so long to set forth, sped through his brain
as the body dropped. It was gently swinging from the opening of the
trap. He gave a critical look at the Thing, covered with the grey hood.
The next thing to do was to get his stuff ready for the early special
edition of his paper--and, if possible, to beat his rival in the matter
of time.

But there was a blessed pause. For regulations insist on a gaol being
kept locked for the period of one hour--probably to make quite sure that
no rescue could be attempted. The two reporters were led into a gloomy
room, lit by electric light, to write their stories of the horror, for
the waiting ghouls outside.

Opposite, with the big bare table between the two reporters, they set
steadily to work to build up their separate stories. But as he reached
the notes of the all-important confession, he had some difficulty in
translating it. His shorthand had played him false. He must have been
very shaky as he took the story down.

He looked across at his rival, equally busy with his notes.

The other reporter looked up, too.

"I say," he said, "how does the confession go on after he got to the
place where he knocked at the door?"

"That's just where I've got to," said the other reporter. "And I'm not
too clear about that part. I hope your notes are easier to make out than
mine?"

They studied their notes; but each found gaps, important gaps, in the
narrative. At last his confrère looked up. "We'd better make one job of
the confession, and patch it up somehow, eh?"

"Something's slipped in my shorthand. Can't even guess what," he said.
"Same here," sighed his rival.

"Well," he said, "the other journalist took no notes. He was just looking
on. We two are the only persons who know exactly how he told his story.
Nobody can contradict us if we make a composite yarn of it. Anyhow, that
is our official story."

"Right!" The two reporters grinned. "And," said he, "we can put in some
really artistic touches in his story, a bit of pathos and all that stuff;
and we'll play up well and good with his broken English. Hang it all,
we'll give him a really beautiful confession, full of colour and pathos!"

He was abjectly waiting in the beautiful, artistic room in Chelsea. He
was making his first call upon her. He was only a youth.

Through some of his artistic friends he had been introduced to a sweet,
beautiful girl. He had heard of her loveliness long before he was
permitted to meet her, and he had despaired of ever knowing her. He was
only a young man, gauche, and unsure of himself. It was at a students'
costume ball that he was introduced to a beautiful demoiselle, a lovely
picture from the Middle Ages. He had one dance with her, afraid almost to
touch her, she was so delicately beautiful. He felt himself a mere
outsider in that gay and sophisticated gathering. He was nervously
tongue-tied, feeling solitary in the happy, easy-going throng of
strangers.

But she seemed as shy as he was. His few remarks were halting, and it
appeared to him that she was more concerned with her costume than with
any of the partners who were privileged to dance with her. But perhaps he
might be permitted to take her home. He wanted to know her, to break
through the reserve that held her as well as him. Everybody was gay and
happy, though he noticed that she always kept her poise. At last she
graciously granted him a dance, but he was tongue-tied with nervousness;
and after the waltz he led her to her seat with a sense of utter failure.
He had wanted so much to know her; and he felt that an occasion like this
would not recur. How else to meet her?

As he had sadly expected, her parents took her home in their carriage.
They were the most important guests at the gathering. But he determined
to see her again. There had been a shy liking in her beautiful eyes,
meant for him, he was sure. Well, there was nothing for him to do but to
call upon her.

Yes, she replied in a formal little note, she would be glad to see him at
her home on the following day.

He was shown up to the drawing-room through a beautiful hall. There were
etchings by well-known masters. He had never been in such an artistic
home before. It seemed almost too refined. And a fear came that he was
out of place in such surroundings.

She came into the big drawing-room, with a shy smile. He shook hands--her
hands were cool and shapely--and they sat down on "period" chairs, rather
uncomfortably. She was to him a grande dame receiving a stranger guest.
Their talk was desultory, appallingly impersonal. She was so sweet, too
sweet! He felt himself crude and immature. She was a frail hot-house
flower in her perfect milieu, aloof and delicate.

How could he approach her, he sitting on his chair, she gracefully on a
couch which seemed too beautiful to desecrate, even though she occupied it?
Suddenly he found he had nothing to say. If only the door between her
aloofness and his shyness could be broken down, and the two could become
companionable!

There were dreadful silences. Then, apparently desperate, she sat down on
the piano stool and asked him if he could sing. He couldn't. But he asked
her to do so--to fill in the dreadful pause. She sang sweetly, and he
took the opportunity to scrutinize her gracefulness without her notice.
But the song ended, and again he felt himself lacking in words.

If only he could approach her, she sitting alone on the piano stool, idly
turning over the music!

But he was a man and she was a girl; and there was nothing to help him to
approach. He was glued to the beautiful frail chair on which he sat. Why
couldn't he spring up and have her warm and eager in his arms? How soft
and sweet she would be!

He even wished that her mother would come in--if anybody would come in.
Someone did; it was the maid with afternoon tea. He made a pretence of
sipping it and passing cakes. He recalled the period dance and his two
dances with her. Yes. That subject died in the dreadful silence.

He made it a briefest of calls, though it had seemed an eternity. She was
graceful in her adieu. She was always in on Wednesday afternoons. She
would be delighted. He promised, and shook her soft, delicate hand.

It had been a horrible failure. He had been conquered by politeness.

But, once he had left the house, he felt that he could have triumphantly
taken her in his arms and made her coldness vanish.

He did not mention his defeat to his friends.

He sent a little note asking if he could call again, and received a reply
as colourless as his own letter. But he meant to go through with it.

She was waiting idly at the piano as he was shown in by the maid. And
immediately he felt that they were two prisoners in separate cells, with
iron bars between them. They chatted in a dismal aloofness, never
reaching out to touch. She was so softly desirable, but there were so
many inhibitions surrounding them. The maid brought in tea; and they
talked nothings, chiefly art. Once again she sat at the piano, and he
ventured to look at her slim, beautiful fingers trailing over the keys.
If only he could close his eager hand over hers, and hold it for a mad
second. But he couldn't.

Why couldn't something happen? There was no allure in her eyes. It seemed
to him that she, too, was just as unhappy as he. The cold etchings stared
at them aloofly: they seemed as lifeless as these two within the room.

She was surrounded by an atmosphere into which he could not intrude. And
he knew--and she knew--that he was only an impecunious young poet, while
she was the daughter of a rich man. But there was the one compelling bond
between them: they were both young. He was miserably tongue-tied; but
what was worse, he dared not even look into her eyes. He avoided her few
direct glances.

If only he could knock over one of the tables, with knick-knacks rare and
precious, in the confusion he might manage to break the bars that
separated them; and he would take her into his arms. But there was no
avenue leading them to each other. She lived in a realm utterly remote
from his, a secluded little life, while he had his way to make in the
world.

As they parted, glad to escape from the silence of the room, he ventured
to press her soft hand, but there was no response.

That was all.

He was on the links with his friend. The wide area of green invited them.
Once more he was eager to be the victor, feeling confident that this time
he would win. If only he could avoid the stupid mistakes he had made
again and again just in sight of victory. They were silent as they
stepped on to the first tee. He _must_ keep his head down! His friend had
to give him half a stroke a hole, a tremendous handicap, but he felt no
disgrace. A game was a game, and it was only rarely that he could keep up
with that steady, methodical player.

The night before he had carefully studied his faults, unknown to his
opponent, who did not need such aids. He had grown up with the game, and
was a difficult man to beat. The least bit of carelessness was avidly
taken advantage of. He _must_ be careful of his back swing. On the greens
he was a little better than his friend; and there was a thirty feet putt
that flopped into the hole which would always remain in his memory,
perhaps when he was dying. And there was the long hole, where stroke
followed stroke, with only a few yards between the two balls, lying
nicely in the middle of the fairway. They halved it in bogey; and the
world was wonderful to play with. For the first nine holes he kept the
advantage--his friend was a bit off his game--while he brought off some
amazing (to him) mashie shots to the green. They stayed put. But he knew
the doggedness of his rival: there were no desperate adventures. Every
shot was calculated. There was nothing between them. How long could he
hold the precarious advantage? But the luck stayed with him. There was a
lovely little stream, or a horrible dirty ditch (the alternative
description depended upon whether you got over or not.) The tee shots
were correctly played, though his had been the longer ball. His opponent
topped the ball; it hit the bridge, jumped out, slithered along the banks
of the stream and flopped into the deep water. "Hard luck!" he said; but
in his heart he rejoiced. But he, also, had to get over the stream. Would
it be better to play short, and make sure of getting the green? No! He
must risk it. Head down, slow swing back and follow through. He was on
the green! But he took three putts and just won the hole. It had
nevertheless been a glorious shot. He would remember it all his life, and
could picture in his mind exactly how he had played it, though he
inwardly doubted whether he could do it again. But there was all the
unknown still ahead, and he must never stray from the fairway in the
remaining holes to come. He was only two up now. Could he hold the slight
advantage?

Only one good hole and the match would be won. His friend was tense and
silent, determined to win. Approaching the last green, over the river,
they were square again. It all depended upon the last approach. Both were
on the outside of the green.

His opponent just missed the hole. It depended on his putt. The world
stood still for those two men. He must get his putt down. He studied the
lie of the land. He putted. It was going in! No, it would miss the hole!
The distance was right, but it could not hole. No; at the last inch it
rimmed the cup and decided, not without hesitation, to go down!

He hardly heard his friend's felicitations, for he was congratulating
himself, inwardly.

Then to the club house, hoping that he would not swank. Then the drink,
the hot shower, with the cold douche afterwards, and the change of
clothes, and the grateful dallying with the cups of tea.

Then home with the story of his victory. A man can feel above himself in
his own home. But there was, as always when he won, a slackening of
pride. He had to capture his wife and tell her the full story of the epic
fight; but as she did not play the game, her applause was meek and
perfunctory. Often he felt that was the one thing lacking in an otherwise
perfect wife.

He was coming back from school, by a track that led up the hill through a
belt of native bush. It was a short cut to his home. He was thinking of
nothing. He started from his reverie when he saw a girl approaching him
at a lonely by-path. She was older than he, and he took in with a quick
glance her budding breasts. She was, even at that distance, alluring,
though he could not have said why.

Their ways converged. There was no one near them. The twilight was
beginning to fall.

As she slowly sauntered towards him, she gave him a quick, meaning
glance; there was magic in the rencounter. The whole world seemed a-hush,
expectant of some tremendous event. Hers was a look of half shrinking
boldness, as if she feared a repulse. He felt a thrill of delicious
weakness trembling through him. Something was about to happen.

As he neared her she paused. They were looking at each other furtively.

She spoke in a voice that thrilled him, a contralto warm and positive,
asking him her way. Should she take the road or the bush track?

The bush track was his way. In that brief minute the world did not exist.
And as they stood, so near that he could see the rise and fall of her
bosom, there seemed to be an emanation stealing from her personality into
his. It assumed the quality of a call, soft but compelling. She seemed to
him as she gently swayed on doubtful feet, like a moth newly alighted,
still trembling from tired wings.

He dared not shatter by the noise of a word the strange sense of
miraculous intimacy. They had known each other in some other sphere,
remote and strange.

The girl did not seem to find his intent silence strange. She waited,
drinking in and savouring the moment to the utmost, sure of herself and
of her sex, warming herself deliciously in his enveloping nearness.

At last he forced himself to face her with lifted head. He was staring
deep into the half-veiled eyes with a compelling sense of mastery. He was
a man, and she was only a girl. She returned his deep gaze until there
flowered on her beautiful face a smile of certainty trembling on her
lips.

"You'd better take that track," he said, though he wanted nothing but to
remain for ever without moving.

"This way?" she murmured, as if to speak above a whisper might shatter a
dream. "I thought the other way was best." She flashed him a surer
glance. "But I'm not in any particular hurry. The other way looks nicer,
doesn't it?"

"It's steeper," he said. "I must be going. Unless--?"

"Yes?" she eagerly helped. "It's a lonely track, isn't it?"

She reluctantly turned on her way. Why shouldn't he go with her? There
would be nobody there to pilot her, and they might go together into the
shadows. There was no one near. He could kiss her in the growing
twilight.

"Thank you," she murmured reluctantly, and as she turned into the track,
she looked back and was gone. Their ways parted. She had passed on, and
he might never see her again.

But he could catch her up, if he hurried. Ah! he knew a short cut that
would by a detour bring him out to the road she must have taken. It meant
a run to catch her up. But he could do it.

He would find her. There was only one exit to gain the road higher up.
What a fool he had been to refrain! Always uncertain of himself, always
missing his destination!

But not this time. He still had his chance. He must see her again, to
watch the slow smile dawn on her lips, with a message that meant
everything in the world.

Almost madly he made his way to the outlet where he could meet her once
more. He had a hundred things to say to her; but he had been a fool, and
had let her go. But she shouldn't escape him, after all. And she was just
as eager to meet him again.

She was a long time emerging from the track. He ventured some distance
down. She might have rested on the way. But she would soon appear. Well,
there was nothing for it now but to go back by the track on which she had
set off. He went farther and farther down, but there was no sign of her,
or of anybody that he could question. He came at last to the place where
they had first met. She was nowhere about. She must have ventured only a
little way along the bush, and, as he did not follow her, had turned
back. He anxiously waited about for nearly an hour, but she did not
return.

Perhaps she had met another boy, who wasn't such a fool. He went home
utterly miserable, aching for her. He had fled from temptation like a
frightened child. He cursed himself. If only he had been dominant and
reckless! But he was but a makeshift of a man, missing through hesitation
all the great things in the world.

For weeks afterwards he felt like one who had lost everything he held
dear in his life.

He never saw her again. No matter what sort of girl she was--and he knew
what sort of girl she was, though only vaguely--he wanted her as he had
wanted nothing else in his life.

He was a man: a first-year student at the university. In his home he was
still regarded by his father as a boy, but once within the precincts of
the gaunt grey building he was free from the family. His pen had brought
him into prominence in his first year. Owing to a keen rivalry between
two well-known undergraduates for the secretaryship of the debating
society, the Council decided in the cause of peace to pick neither of
these applicants. To his surprise he was approached by the seniors. He
was enraptured: he felt as if he were a made man.

As secretary he found himself the target of both the rival bodies; but
his arrogant youth brought him unexpected support. The first-year boys
formed a bodyguard about him, noisily challenging the crude ideals of the
conservative third-year men. It was Youth against Age. In the enthralling
debates his party of youth usually won, chiefly by mere noise. He was
already a personality in that flux of Youth. But publicity had its perils
even in the university.

He contributed, of course, to the university magazine, and had poured
humour upon the various faculties; but though these young students liked
to read his articles, he sailed too closely when he attacked the medical
students. They did not take his humour lightly, but he was too much
wrapped up in big phrases to notice that he might offend. And all he
looked forward to was the issue of the forthcoming article. He was, that
day, waiting to see how his tirade of youthful humour would go down. He
made his way to the university early, ready for congratulations. As he
entered the gates a class-mate hurried up to him, with an affected
carelessness.

"If I were you," he said, "you'd better make yourself scarce."

"Whatever for?"

"I shouldn't tell you; but there's trouble. The Meds are furious about
that article of yours. Pretty good stuff, I call it. It was time the Meds
were shown up. They never could stand a joke, unless it was preserved
bones. I wouldn't go into the undergrads' room, anyway."

He was utterly surprised. Fancy the Meds taking his harmless jokes so
seriously! But already he felt himself under observation of curious eyes;
and with a nod of thanks to his friend, he made his way to the
undergraduates' room. He could not help noticing that there were many
students hanging about the door. He pushed his way in, and felt that the
atmosphere was hostile. The greetings he met with seemed to him reserved.

The room was thronged with medical students. He paused, on his guard. He
looked about for a friendly glance. Nobody seemed to want to speak to
him. He felt the gaze of the room like a cold douche.

A big fellow advanced to him, with a copy of the magazine in his hand.
"Did you write this about us?" he demanded.

"He can't deny it!"

"He'd better not, anyhow!"

He faced them, inwardly trembling. "Of course I wrote it. Where's the
harm?" There was a shout of anger.

"I wrote it!" he repeated when he could be heard above the noise.

"Then I've got something to say to you," said a member of the first
eleven. "You've got to apologize. You've got to take it back!"

"It was only...only fun," he replied as steadily as he could.

But already the hostility in that crowded room was affecting him, like a
poisonous gas. His heart was thumping. It was only with a tremendous
effort that he stared at his enemies. "Don't you fellows see it was only
a joke?"

But this was not the time for humour. Suddenly he was away from all the
tumult. He saw Life as Literature. Humanity was the curious beast behind
the bars. He could prod it with a pen, and he could make the beasts feel
his goad. But the furious beasts had got loose, and there were no bars
between him and them. A pen, however pointed, was but a poor defence
against an angry beast.

"We're going to make you apologize, publicly," said the big fellow.

"But it was all fun! Surely you can't take a thing like that seriously?"

"Can't we?" said another voice. "You'll soon see!"

The crowd swayed threateningly at him. There was no escape. But what
could he do? What punishment was the mob preparing?

"Make him write out a public apology!"

Did they think they could play false with his pride in writing? "No," he
shouted. "I'll write more! You'll see! You pack of bullies!"

"Bullies, are we?" snarled a voice. "Well, pick your man, pick any one of
us, the smallest of us, and we'll play fair!"

Something seemed to slip within him. He knew that he couldn't fight. He
was physically afraid. He had found that out long ago, at school. He
didn't dare to shape up to the smallest boy.

The mob sensed his weakness, his cowardice.

"So you won't fight?" sneered his tormentor. "Well, you'll have to sign
your name over an apology."

"I'll write that I exaggerated a bit!"

"That won't do for us. Better be quick about it, too!"

"I won't do it!" he almost shrieked.

A silence fell. What were they going to do next?

The leader of the medical men sighed. "Then there's nothing but the
river!"

"The river!" he echoed faintly. They were going to duck him in the river.
It was only a shallow stream, but the humiliation!

"Come on! We'll duck him!"

The public disgrace, the ignominy! How could he ever survive it? It would
be always remembered.

He almost collapsed. "Very well," he muttered weakly, "I'll write
anything you want me to."

They put the pen in his hand--not his, it seemed, a cold hand--and he
wrote shakily the apology demanded.

Quickly the piece of paper was pinned firmly to the notice-board. He did
not lift his eyes to it.

The others, possibly afraid of the affair, averted their faces as the
room gradually emptied. He remained inert, and with an effort came out
into the sunlight. He wondered why the sun was still shining. The other
undergraduates kept away from him.

But after his first lecture he sent in his resignation of secretary of
the Debating Society and of his other positions.

He heard from one of the fellows that both notices were immediately
removed from the board. But the pins had been driven deep.

That night, going home, he felt himself an utter coward. Why hadn't he
stood up to them, and let them kill him if they liked? He should have
refused to surrender--and what was a ducking, after all? Suppose they
had done their worst. It would have been a dramatic end.

It was all forgotten within a month, and he soon regained his position as
a leader of the undergrads. Nothing is final in Life until Life has gone
out.

He was a very little boy playing in an enormous garden. Through the
garden ran a little stream grown over with strawberries which he and his
brothers were forbidden to pick until they were ripe. He was lying down
on the bridge with a stick in his hand when somehow he reached too far
over, and fell into the bed of the stream. It was a dreadful sensation,
falling. When he scrambled out he was covered with blood.

He screamed and clambered up the bank. His mother ran out and carried him
into the house. He was so glad to be in her arms. She stanched the blood
with a towel, but the blood would keep on pouring down his face. He could
not help feeling a hero, despite the pain. This amazing thing had
happened to him, not to his brothers; and his mother was crying. It must
have been a wonderful thing to make his mother cry. He was so glad that
it was not his father who had picked him up. Mothers were so nice to
little boys when they got hurt. It hurt very much, but his mother put him
to bed, in the daytime, with bandages all over his face. But he felt
cruelly disappointed when she said she need not ask the doctor to come.
It would have been so glorious to have a doctor come and fuss over him.
He loved, now that the pain was going, being nursed by his mother. And
all the other children envied him, lying in bed while the sun was up; and
he had all sorts of nice things to eat. But what he liked best was to
show the other children the awful mark over his eye. None of them had
ever had such a big cut. It was discovered that there had been a broken
bottle in the stream, and that was how he had gashed himself. He felt
tremendously important. Nobody else in the world had had such a cut.

He was glad that his father was away then, for he would have told him to
be a man, and not to make a fuss. He had to be brave. Well, he was. His
mother had told him so.

And because he had been such a good boy he was taken to a wonderful place
where there were all sorts of exciting things to see. There were funny
little houses, with curtains made of pretty-coloured beads that chattered
when you opened the door, and pretty ladies in beautiful bright yellow
overcoats; and you could go inside the curtains and there was a funny
smell that reminded one of the Chinamen who came to the door, in a funny
sort of trot, with baskets full of all sorts of vegetables.

He had always known it as the Chinese camp. They all lived together and
were very nice. He heard that they picked up gold--tiny specks of
gold--out of ugly holes; and his mother had a ring that was admired very
much because it was made out of the first bit of gold that had been found
on the diggings.

And then the Chinamen began to pull down their funny little houses, and
pack up all their bundles; and he heard that they and their pretty
yellow wives were leaving because there was no more gold to find there,
and they were going away to another place. How he would have liked to go
with them!

And then his mother told his brothers that they were going away too. And
there was such a bustle packing up, and he had to leave all his toys,
because there wasn't room in the coach, and besides, they would get much
more lovely toys in the town.

Anyhow, it was all awfully exciting. They had never known any other place
than what they called _The Diggings_. They were going to stay in a big
town. But first, all the things had to be packed in the coach, with
bundles strapped on everywhere, and just room for the six children and
their mother. His father had gone off the week before, to find a house in
the town. It was such a tight pack in the coach with its team of six
horses. The driver was such a tall big man. And then they were off,
rattling past the Chinese town, and away out on to the winding roads over
hills and fording the wide gravelly rivers, until it grew too exciting to
look out and see the coach going through the river with nothing but water
rushing past up to the middle of the wheels.

And how they were bumped and bumped and bumped! And then it got dark, and
still the coach--with a fresh lot of horses--went on and on and on. He
went to sleep in his mother's arms, but she had to nurse all the others,
too. And they snuggled down where they could; and in the night he wakened
and saw the stars out late.

Then the morning came, and there was another lot of nice big shiny horses
waiting, and a new driver with a big black beard climbed up to the
box-seat--not so nice as the other driver--and the coach went on and on
again. All through the day they went: and there were other drivers, and
other people climbed in and climbed out, until at last they looked out at
the top of a hill, where they saw millions of lights twinkling at them,
and his mother said: "Thank God! We're here at last!"

And that night, in a great big house--he had never seen such a huge house
before--he did not remember being put to bed at all.

He had taken the plunge. He was going to conquer Sydney, the siren city
of the South, the Athens of Australia. Four days' steaming across the
Pacific had brought him to that centre of art and letters, and he saw the
gaunt cliffs of the Heads open to receive him. New Zealand was merely a
materialistic paddock for mutton and beef and butter. No hope for him
there: he needed a wider arena. His grey-headed editor had always told
him he would be called to Sydney.

He soon found friends, a coterie of artists and poets and musicians,
though he deemed musicians merely players, since he could not even
whistle in tune. His companions welcomed him to Belle's Cafe, in a tiny
arcade in the heart of the city. This was the sacred home of all the
arts, and of a three-course dinner for sixpence. But those dinners were
flavoured with splendid optimism and gallant hope.

He was accepted as one of the crowd; but he was quite new to his
environment. He had to learn to smoke cigarettes, for everyone did. He
arrived at an opportune moment, for Bardsley had had a glorious slice of
luck. Bardsley had actually sold a second-hand piano (whether it was his
own piano or somebody else's no one was rude enough to inquire). There
was an opportune orgie on the profits. But the newcomer found himself a
stranger in the company. He was so uncouth, so puritanical, so mean. He
felt utterly ashamed when his new friends discovered that he possessed a
savings bank book.

He set out the following day to find his way about the city. Idling by,
he looked up and saw a name, the name of a weekly paper known throughout
Australia, and beyond. He had actually had a cheque sent him in New
Zealand for an accepted poem. For a week he had been too awed to cash it;
he would have liked to have kept it for the rest of his life.

A week later he dared to enter those sacred, though gloomy, precincts.
There was no one to stop him. The editor's door was half open, possibly
to entice reluctant poets to enter. He dared not disturb the great man,
who was running through galley proofs. The room was cluttered with slips
of copy.

"Sit down!" said the editor, oblivious to the fact that there were no
chairs. Daring to interrupt the lean, long man, he announced himself.

"Oh, you?" he muttered. "Thought you'd be over soon. Good stuff that of
yours--that poem. Sorry I hadn't got a gold mine to pay you what it was
worth. Journalist? Yes. Good training, journalism, teaches you to cut out
adjectives. Poets do run to adjectives."

His eyes raced down the proof, pounced on a paragraph that had seventeen
words and made it seven. "'Toeing and heeling,' that's my eternal job.
If anybody submitted the Ten Commandments for insertion I'd have to
shorten them by half to get them into my columns. But some of those old
chaps knew their job. The journalist who wrote the story of Ruth would
suit my paper. That's just the length I want for my short stories. But
there are too many 'begats' in the Old Testament."

He sighed and grabbed another proof slip.

He felt that he was disturbing the editor. "Hadn't I better look in, sir,
when you're not so busy."

"I'm always busy. I'm always being disturbed. That's what an editor is
for. Good-bye!"

Gipsy had returned! She had not forgotten him. But she had travelled over
the world, while he had been condemned to remain in that out-of-the-way
corner of the globe. But, of course, his boyish infatuation was gone. She
had changed, surely? Yet in some strange way she and he were linked.

She met him in the city, by chance, and was politely delighted to see
him.

"You must come and see me," this mature young woman said. "It is you,
isn't it? I recognized you even beneath your disguise--your moustache.
But you've still got your dimple and you're still able to blush! Oh, I
like it. It's so long since I've met a man who could blush! Come and see
me soon. I'm staying with my married sister."

She gave him the address, and asked him to call the next evening. But he
had to do a concert that evening. He was a musical critic now--knowing
really nothing about music. "Well, the next evening?"

Why not, he said, take her to the concert?

"You _are_ in a hurry!" she laughed happily.

"They send me two tickets, you know," he replied importantly.

The evening came. He called at her sister's place. It was a strange
woman--Gipsy in evening dress--who received him. He had forgotten her
beauty in her new rôle. He felt himself an ignorant boor beside her.
After the concert he suggested that they might walk back, as the evening
was so warm and still. When he took her by a back street he felt sure she
knew why; but it was thrilling that she didn't mind.

She let him see. "I'm in your charge to-night. You're responsible for
me."

What a woman she was, complex, subtle, polished, alluring,
provocative--and he had wasted his boyish love on a mere girl at whom he
used to peer in church. They talked eagerly and disconnectedly, seeking
contact after so many years. With her, he felt he was the dominant one
now.

He took her, for all her wariness, by a surprise kiss. He held her
roughly, and she resisted. But he had kissed her for all her struggles.
Suddenly she became inert--so suddenly that he had a dreadful fear she
had fainted. But in that sudden slackening of her muscles she smiled
weakly. He saw in her eyes no sign of anger, no trace of anything except
a quiet demureness.

Then she shook herself free from him. She had gone far from his
contaminating touch. Only the quick rise and fall of her breast remained
of the warm contact.

"You had better take me home," she said in a most matter-of-fact voice,
"they'll be waiting supper for us."

Her equanimity shocked him. He was shaking all over. But as they turned,
she let her deep eyes dwell on him with a slow, considering smile. Her
gaze rested on his face like a wafted kiss.

She must have been surprised next. For he did not attempt to crush her to
him in a fierce embrace. All he did was to take her listless hand.

"You're such a nice boy," she murmured. "Don't spoil it all, please! How
you'll laugh, if you remember this when you're older. You hadn't even
looked at my hand!"

She held up her fingers: there was a ring--he supposed an engagement
ring, though he wasn't sure on which finger a girl wears an engagement
ring.

"You ought to be more observant," she smiled. "Though this isn't really
an engagement ring, it may be when I get back to England. Now don't look
pained. We may meet again, who knows?"

There was something infinitely comforting, he found, in holding a girl's
hand. "You baby!" she almost crooned.

So, swinging hands, they walked quickly to the house.

But as Gipsy entered the brightly lit hall, she became another woman. She
was all vivacity and warmth.

He felt himself a man, striding home.

He was at the university, passing his examinations with ease, for he had
found out the trick of preparing for them. But the urge to write overcame
him. Those were the early days of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He had
the joy of seeing his satirical verses in the newspaper. To his surprise
he suddenly discovered that there were people in the world who were ready
to pay for what he had considered his fun. Once he got three guineas for
a political skit. It was amazing!

He called upon the editor who had printed his work, and was asked to dine
at his house. After dinner the editor talked. So he wanted to write! He
explained that he was only a sub-editor, and admitted with a quiet smile
that his chief instrument was a large pair of scissors. He was a little
man, with tired eyes. He wore, even at that interview, after the meal, a
green shade over his eyes. He had been, he confessed, all his life a
journalist. He solemnly warned him against the profession--if, he
doubted, it was a profession. There was no chance for journalism in the
country, except the routine of providing news. He recounted the fate of
this and that bright young man who had gone jauntily into journalism with
the same high hopes that had sustained him, and had ended up as a
shipping reporter or as a mere sub-editor.

"But you're studying law, aren't you?" he ended hopefully. "Now, that's a
profession, if you like! My boy, stick to it. You're lucky to have the
chance!"

"But it's so dull!"

"Dull?" The little, bent, half-bald man blinked at him. "My boy, drop all
this and tuck yourself into a profession. Journalism isn't a profession.
Youth is wanted--only youth. One gets along all right for a good long
time, but when you're old there is nothing left for you. Stick to a
profession, my boy. I wish I had your chance!"

He left him in the suburban cottage, the little, weary, kindly man who
had to get through his proofs sometime before midnight.

The stage had an immense interest for him. He used to call upon the stage
manager of visiting companies, and write local verses in the topical
songs, for a ticket in the stalls. It was a thrilling moment for him when
the comedian put his gags into his song.

If the audience but knew that among the crowd there was the real author
of the concluding verses! _The Mikado_ was a turning-point of his life.
Gilbert's brilliant versification enraptured him. There was nothing else
then for him to do but to write a comic opera better than _The Mikado_.
But there was no composer in his town. Yet he completed a tremendous
three-act comic opera; then, failing to find a composer, he studied
counterpoint, and tried to set his songs to music, of which he knew
nothing.

Then by chance he heard of a New Zealand composer, and eagerly sent his
script to him. The composer was a young musician, recently returned from
Leipzig. Here was the ideal conjunction of genius. What eager and
rapturous letters they interchanged! What wonderful suggestions! What
grandiose schemes! What writings and re-writings, and flat refusals to
re-write his cherished gems! How fine it was to call oneself a
collaborateur! But the great comic opera died in its glorious youth. It
was hopefully offered to stage-managers, who never bothered to read it.
It masqueraded under five successive titles. And it was torn up without
the least regret--for were not his friend and he already engaged on a
still more wonderful work?

Then he travelled to the city in which his collaborateur lived, and they
met! Both were terribly disappointed; but they found that first
appearances had lied to them. They had met like lovers long estranged,
silent, abashed, critical. But that night--which lasted into the
dawn--their first impressions melted in the ardour of Youth. They slept
in the same room; and he was awakened by someone whis