Ashamed of my weakness, ashamed of everything about me, I burst into tears; and that of course made me still more ashamed. To add to my discomfort, I had no handkerchief. Holding me with one hand—it was quite sufficient—Norah produced her own, and wiped my eyes. The park-keeper, satisfied, I suppose, that at all events I was not dangerous, with a grin passed on.
“Where have you been, and what have you been doing?” asked Norah. She still retained her grip upon me, and in her grey eyes was quiet determination.
So, with my face turned away from her, I told her the whole miserable story, taking strange satisfaction in exaggerating, if anything, my own share of the disgrace. My recital ended, I sat staring down the long, shadow-freckled way, and for awhile there was no sound but the chirping of the sparrows.
Then behind me I beard a smothered laugh. It was impossible to imagine it could come from Norah. I turned quickly to see who had stolen upon us. It was Norah who was laughing; though to do her justice she was trying to suppress it, holding her handkerchief to her face. It was of no use, it would out; she abandoned the struggle, and gave way to it. It astonished the sparrows into silence; they stood in a row upon the low iron border and looked at one another.
“I am glad you think it funny,” I said.
“But it is funny,” she persisted. “Don't say you have lost your sense of humour, Paul; it was the one real thing you possessed. You were so cocky—you don't know how cocky you were! Everybody was a fool but Vane; nobody else but he appreciated you at your true worth. You and he between you were going to reform the stage, to educate the public, to put everything and everybody to rights. I am awfully sorry for all you've gone through; but now that it is over, can't you see yourself that it is funny?”
Faintly, dimly, this aspect of the case, for the very first time, began to present itself to me; but I should have preferred Norah to have been impressed by its tragedy.
“That is not all,” I said. “I nearly ran away with another man's wife.”
I was glad to notice that sobered her somewhat. “Nearly? Why not quite?” she asked more seriously.
“She thought I was some young idiot with money,” I replied bitterly, pleased with the effect I had produced. “Vane had told her a pack of lies. When she found out I was only a poor devil, ruined, disgraced, without a sixpence—” I made a gesture expressive of eloquent contempt for female nature generally.
“I am sorry,” said Norah; “I told you you would fall in love with something real.”
Her words irritated me, unreasonably, I confess. “In love!” I replied; “good God, I was never in love with her!”
“Then why did you nearly run away with her?”
I was wishing now I had not mentioned the matter; it promised to be difficult of explanation. “I don't know,” I replied irritably. “I thought she was in love with me. She was very beautiful—at least, other people seemed to think she was. Artists are not like ordinary men. You must live—understand life, before you can teach it to others. When a beautiful woman is in love with you—or pretends to be, you—you must say something. You can't stand like a fool and—”
Again her laughter interrupted me; this time she made no attempt to hide it. The sparrows chirped angrily, and flew off to continue their conversation somewhere where there would be less noise.
“You are the biggest baby, Paul,” she said, so soon as she could speak, “I ever heard of.” She seized me by the shoulders, and turned me round. “If you weren't looking so ill and miserable, I would shake you, Paul, till there wasn't a bit of breath left in your body.”
“How much money do you owe?” she asked—“to the people in the company and anybody else, I mean—roughly?”
“About a hundred and fifty pounds,” I answered.
“Then if you rest day or night, Paul, till you have paid that hundred and fifty—every penny of it—I'll think you the meanest cad in London!”
Her grey eyes were flashing quite alarmingly. I felt almost afraid of her. She could be so vehement at times.
“But how can I?” I asked.
“Go straight home,” she commanded, “and write something funny: an article, story—anything you like; only mind that it is funny. Post it to me to-morrow, at the latest. Dan is in London, editing a new weekly. I'll have it copied out and sent to him. I shan't say who it is from. I shall merely ask him to read it and reply, at once. If you've a grain of grit left in you, you'll write something that he will be glad to have and to pay for. Pawn that ring on your finger and get yourself a good breakfast”—it was my mother's wedding-ring, the only piece of dispensable property I had not parted with—“she won't mind helping you. But nobody else is going to—except yourself.”
She looked at her watch. “I must be off.” She turned again. “There is something I was forgetting. B—”—she mentioned the name of the dramatist whose play Vane had stolen—“has been looking for you for the last three months. If you hadn't been an idiot you might have saved yourself a good deal of trouble. He is quite certain it was Vane stole the manuscript. He asked the nurse to bring it to him an hour after Vane had left the house, and it couldn't be found. Besides, the man's character is well known. And so is yours. I won't tell it you,” she laughed; “anyhow, it isn't that of a knave.”
She made a step towards me, then changed her mind. “No,” she said, “I shan't shake hands with you till you have paid the last penny that you owe. Then I shall know that you are a man.”
She did not look back. I watched her, till the sunlight, streaming in my eyes, raised a golden mist between us.
Then I went to my work.
Chapter IX.
The Princess of the Golden Locks sends Paul a Ring.
It took me three years to win that handshake. For the first six months I remained in Deptford. There was excellent material to be found there for humorous articles, essays, stories; likewise for stories tragic and pathetic. But I owed a hundred and fifty pounds—a little over two hundred it reached to, I found, when I came to add up the actual figures. So I paid strict attention to business, left the tears to be garnered by others—better fitted maybe for the task; kept to my own patch, reaped and took to market only the laughter.
At the beginning I sent each manuscript to Norah; she had it copied out, debited me with the cost received payment, and sent me the balance. At first my earnings were small; but Norah was an excellent agent; rapidly they increased. Dan grew quite cross with her, wrote in pained surprise at her greed. The “matter” was fair, but in no way remarkable. Any friend of hers, of course, he was anxious to assist; but business was business. In justice to his proprietors, he could not and would not pay more than the market value. Miss Deleglise, replying curtly in the third person, found herself in perfect accord with Mr. Brian as to business being business. If Mr. Brian could not afford to pay her price for material so excellent, other editors with whom Miss Deleglise was equally well acquainted could and would. Answer by return would greatly oblige, pending which the manuscript then in her hands she retained. Mr. Brian, understanding he had found his match, grumbled but paid. Whether he had any suspicion who “Jack Homer” might be, he never confessed; but he would have played the game, pulled his end of the rope, in either case. Nor was he allowed to decide the question for himself. Competition was introduced into the argument. Of purpose a certain proportion of my work my agent sent elsewhere. “Jack Homer” grew to be a commodity in demand. For, seated at my rickety table, I laughed as I wrote, the fourth wall of the dismal room fading before my eyes revealing vistas beyond.