Part 72 (2/2)

Hinde looked up sharply. ”Oh?” he said in a questioning manner.

”I'm going to her ... as soon as I can. I've had my fill of this life.

Do you remember asking me why I didn't sell happorths of tea and sugar?” Hinde nodded his head. ”Well, I'm going back to sell them. The author of _The Enchanted Lover_ and _Hearts of Controversy_ has retired from the trade of writing and will now ... now devote himself to ... selling happorths of tea and sugar!” He laughed nervously as he spoke.

Hinde did not make any reply.

”I shall go and see the man who has the flat to-morrow. He wants to buy our furniture. It's a piece of luck, isn't it? The only piece of luck I've had.... By G.o.d, Hinde, this serves me right. Eleanor always said I was selfish, and I am. I'm terribly self-satisfied and thick-skinned. I had no qualification for this work ... nothing but my conceit ... and I've been let down. I'm a failure!...”

”We're all failures,” said Hinde. ”The only thing we can do, all of us, is to lull ourselves to sleep and hope for forgetfulness. Compared with you, I suppose I'm a success ... as a journalist anyhow ... but this is the end of my work ... this room, with Lizzie and Miss Squibb and sometimes the Creams. You've got Eleanor and a son ... what more do you want? Isn't it enough luck for a man to have a wife that he loves and who loves him, and to have a child? What's a book anyway? Paper with words on it. All over the world, there are thousands and thousands of books ... with millions and millions of words in them. What's the good of them? We make a little stir and then we die ... we poor scribblers.

And that's all. It's much better to marry and breed healthy babies than to live in an attic making songs about the stars. The stars don't care, but the babies may!”

”You're a cheerful fellow, Hinde,” said John, rallying a little.

”Don't pay any heed to me. I was always a dismal devil at the best of times. You see, Mac, I've got ink in my veins. I'm not a man ... I'm part of a printing press. That's what you'd become if you were to stay in Fleet Street. Go home, my lad, and get more babies!...”

III

He wrote to Eleanor that night, telling her that he would capitulate.

Immediately he had settled about the flat and had arranged for his withdrawal from the office of the _Sensation_, he would return to Ballyards. He would write no more books!... In the morning, there was a letter from Eleanor. She could hold out no longer. If he would come and fetch her and the little John, she would do whatever he asked of her.

She loved him so much that she could not keep up this pretence of strength!...

He laughed to himself as he read her letter. ”She wrote before I did,” he said. ”I suppose I've won. I suppose I held out longer than she did ... but I don't feel that I've gained anything!”

The copies of _Hearts of Controversy_ were lying where he had left them on the previous night. ”I don't care what the papers say about them,” he said to himself picking one of them up. ”What's a book anyway when I've got Eleanor!”

He was able to arrange the sale of his furniture to the sub-tenant and get his release from the _Sensation_ in less than a week, and he wired to Eleanor to say that he was coming home and would arrive at Ballyards on Sunday. ”I'm going home with my tail between my legs,” he said to himself, as he walked down the gangway from the Liverpool boat on to the quay at Belfast. He was too early for the Ballyards train, and he went for a walk to fill the time of waiting. He pa.s.sed the restaurant where Maggie Carmichael had been employed, and saw that a new name was on the lintel of the door. ”Well, I hope she's happy with her peeler!” he said to himself. He went on, and presently found himself before the Theatre Royal, and when he glanced at the playbills, he saw that a Shakespearian Company were in possession of it. _Romeo and Juliet_ had been performed on Sat.u.r.day night, and he remembered the line that had sustained him after his love-making with Maggie Carmichael:

_If love be rough with you, be rough with love._

”How can you?” he said aloud. ”You can't, no matter what it does to you!”

He went at last to the station and caught his train to Ballyards.

Eleanor was waiting on the platform for him. She did not speak when he arrived. She ran to him and put her arms about him and hugged him and cried over him. ”My dear, my dear!” she said when she had recovered herself. He took her arm and led her out of the station, and they walked home together.

”It was terrible.” she said. ”I had to fight hard to keep myself from going to you. We've been very foolish, John, haven't we?”

He nodded his head.

They entered the house by the side-door and went into the kitchen where Mrs. MacDermott was preparing the mid-day meal. She waited for him to speak to her.

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