"Not a bit of it. The next century, if I'm not mistaken, will see a
pretty big flare up of a revolution; and the soul will come out on
top. Robespierre and Martin Luther won't be in it, Jewdwine, with the
poets of that school."

"I'm glad you feel able to take that view of it. I don't seem to see
the poets of the twentieth century myself."

"I see them all right," said Rickman, simply. "They won't be the poets
of Nature, like the nineteenth century chaps; they'll be the poets of
human nature--dramatic poets, to a man. Of course, it'll take a
revolution to produce that sort."

"A revolution? A cataclysm, you mean."

"No. If you come to think of it, it's only the natural way a healthy
poet grows. Look at Shakespeare. I believe, you know, that most poets
would grow into dramatic poets if they lived long enough. Only
sometimes they don't live; and sometimes they don't grow. Lyric poets
are cases of arrested development, that's all."

Jewdwine listened with considerable amusement as his subordinate
propounded to him this novel view. He wondered what literary enormity
Rickman might be contemplating now. That he had something at the back
of his mind was pretty evident. Jewdwine meant to lie low till, from
that obscure region, Rickman, as was his wont, should have brought out
his monster for inspection.

He produced it the next instant, blushingly, tenderly, yet with no
diminution of his sublime belief.

"You see--you'll think it sheer lunacy, but--I've a sort of idea that
if I'm to go on at all, myself, it must be on those lines. Modern
poetic drama--It's that or nothing, you know."

Jewdwine's face said very plainly that he had no doubt whatever of the
alternative. It also expressed a curious and indefinable relief.

"Modern poetic drama? So that's your modest ambition, is it?"

Rickman owned that indeed it was.

"My dear fellow, modern poetic drama is a contradiction in all its
terms. There are only three schools of poetry possible--the classic,
the romantic and the natural. Art only exists by one of three
principles, normal beauty, spiritual spontaneity, and vital mystery or
charm. And none of these three is to be found in modern life." These
were the laws he had laid down in the _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_,
which Rickman, in the insolence of his genius, had defied. Somehow the
life seemed to have departed from those stately propositions, but
Jewdwine clung to them in a desperate effort to preserve his critical
integrity. He was soothed by the sound of his own voice repeating
them. He caught as it were an echo of the majestic harmonies that
once floated through his lecture-room at Lazarus. "Besides," he went
on, "where will you find your drama to begin with?"

"In modern men and women."

"But modern men and women are essentially undramatic, _and_ unpoetic."

"Still, I must take them, because, you see, there's nothing else to
take. There never was or will be. The men and women of Shakespeare's
time were modern to him, you know. If they seem poetic to us, that's
because a poet made them so; and he made them so because he saw
that--essentially--they _were_ so."

Jewdwine pushed out his lips in the manner of one unwillingly dubious.

"My dear Rickman, you have got to learn your limitations; or if not
your limitations, the limitations made for you by the ridiculous and
unlovely conditions of modern life."

"I have learnt them. After all, what am I to do? I _am_ modern--modern
as my hat," said Rickman, turning it in his hands. "I admit that my
hat isn't even a fugitive form of the eternal and absolute beauty. It
is, I'm afraid, horribly like everybody else's hat. In moments of
profound insight I feel that _I_ am horribly like everybody else. If
it wasn't for that I should have no hope of achieving my modest
ambition."

"I'm not saying anything against your modesty or your ambition. I'm
not defying you to write a modern blank verse play; but I defy anybody
to act one."

"I know," said Rickman, "it's sad of course, but to the frivolous mind
of a critic there always will be something ridiculous in the notion of
blank verse spouted on the stage by a person in a frock-coat and a
top-hat. But do you think you'd see that frock-coat and top-hat if
once the great tragic passions got inside them?"

"Where _are_ the great tragic passions?"

"They exist and are poetic."

"As survivals only. They are poetic but not modern. We have the
passions of the divorce-court and the Stock Exchange. They are modern,
if you like, but not strikingly poetic."

"Well--even a stock-broker--if you insist on stockbrokers--"

"I don't. Take the people--take the women I know, the women you know.
Is there--honestly, is there any poetry in them?"

"There is--heaps. Oceans of poetry--There always has been and will be.
It's the poets, the great poets that don't turn up to time."

"Well; I don't care how great a poet you may be. Modern poetic drama
is the path of perdition for you. I wish," he added with an
unmistakable air of turning to a subject of real interest. "I wish I
knew what to do with Fulcher."

"I don't know. I only know Mr. Fulcher's art hasn't much to do with
nature. I'm afraid it's the illegitimate offspring of Mr. Fulcher and
some young shepherdess of Covent Garden."

"He seems to have proved himself pretty much at home in Arcadia."

"Don't you believe him. He's only at home in Downing Street. You'd
better leave him there."

But Jewdwine did not leave him there. He exalted Mr. Fulcher to the
seventh heaven in four and a half columns of _Metropolis_. With his
journalistic scent for the alluring and the vivid phrase, he took
everything notable that Rickman had said and adapted it to Mr.
Fulcher. _In Arcadia_ supplying a really golden opportunity for a
critical essay on "Truth to Nature," wherein Mr. Fulcher learnt, to
his immense bewilderment, that there is no immaculate conception of
that truth; but that to Mr. Fulcher, as poet, belonged the exultation
of paternity. Jewdwine quoted Coleridge to the effect that Mr. Fulcher
only received what he was pleased to give, and that in Mr. Fulcher's
life alone did Nature live. And when Rankin, falling on that article,
asked Maddox what it meant, Maddox replied that it meant nothing
except that Mr. Fulcher was a Cabinet Minister.

But within three months of the day on which Jewdwine had pronounced
the modern poetic drama to be dead, Rickman had written the First Act
of his tragedy which proved it (as far as a First Act can prove
anything) to be very much alive.

Jewdwine received the announcement of this achievement with every
appearance of pleasure. He was indeed genuinely relieved to think that
Rickman was thus harmlessly employed. The incessant successful
production of _Saturnalia_ would have been prejudicial to the
interests of _The Museion_; a series of triumphant _Helens in Leuce_
would have turned Rickman aside for ever from the columns of
_Metropolis_; but Jewdwine told himself that he had nothing to fear
from the rivalries of the modern Tragic Muse. Rickman the journalist
would live; for Rickman the poet had set out on the path of perdition.

Nobody could say that it was Jewdwine who had encouraged him to take
it.




CHAPTER LXVI


In January, ninety-eight, _Metropolis_ began to pay, and Rickman's
hopes were justified. He was now a solid man, a man of income. For
eighteen months he kept strictly within the limits he had allowed
himself. His nature inclined him to a riotous and absurd expenditure,
and for eighteen months he wrestled with and did violence to his
nature. Each sum he saved stood for some triumph of ingenious
abnegation, some miracle of self-restraint. And for eighteen months
Dicky Pilkington, beholding the spectacle of his heroism, laid ten to
one against his ultimate success. The thing, Dicky said, was
impossible; he could never keep it up. But Rickman once abandoned to a
persistent and passionate economy, there was no more holding him in on
that path than on any other. By the middle of the following year, out
of an income of four hundred he had saved that sum.

He said to himself that the worst was over now. He had paid off more
than half of his debt, and the remainder had still another fourteen
months to run. Only fourteen months' passionate economy and the Harden
library would be redeemed. As he saw himself within measurable
distance of his end, he was seized by an anxiety, an excitement that
he had not been aware of at the start. The sight of the goal perturbed
him; it suggested the failure that up to that moment he had not
allowed himself to contemplate. Like an athlete he gathered himself
together for the final spurt; and ninety-nine was a brilliant year for
_The Planet_ made glorious by the poems, articles and paragraphs
showered on it by S.K.R. Maddox shook his head over some of them; but
he took them all and boasted, as he well might, that _The Planet_
published more Rickman--the real Rickman--in six months than
_Metropolis_ would do in as many years. He distinguished between
Rickman's genius and his talent; provided he got his best work,
anybody else was welcome to his second-best. By anybody else he meant
Jewdwine.

Yet it was a nobler feeling than professional rivalry that made him
abhor the poet's connection with _Metropolis_; for Maddox was if
anything more jealous for Rickman's reputation than for his own. From
the very beginning he had never ceased to wonder at his unaccountable
affection for Horace Jewdwine; the infatuation, for it amounted to
infatuation, would have been comprehensible enough in any other man,
but it was unaccountable in Rickman, who was wholly destitute of
reverence for the sources of his income. Jewdwine of _The Museion_ had
been in Maddox's opinion a harmless philosophic crank; he had done
nothing, absolutely nothing for Rickman's genius; but Jewdwine of
_Metropolis_ was dangerous, for he encouraged Rickman's talent; and
Rickman's talent would, he was afraid, be ultimately destructive to
the higher power.

So Maddox prayed to heaven for promotion, that he might make Rickman
independent of Jewdwine and his journal. There were many things that
he had in his mind to do for him in the day of advancement. His eyes
raked the horizon, sighting promotion from afar. And in the last two
years, promotion had come very near to Maddox. There were quarters,
influential quarters, where he Was spoken of as a singularly original
young man; and he had the knack of getting hold of singularly original
young men; young men of originality too singular perhaps to make the
paper pay. Still, though the orbit of _The Planet_ was hardly so vast
as Maddox had anticipated, as to its brilliance there could be no two
opinions. In the year ninety-eight, the year that saw Rickman first
struggling in the financier's toils, Maddox had delivered his paper
from the power of Pilkington. Promotion played with Maddox; it hovered
round him, touching him tentatively with the tips of its wings; he
lured it by every innocent art within his power, but hitherto it had
always settled on some less wild and wanton head.

At last it came, it kept on coming, from a quarter where, as he had
every right to look for it, he had of course never dreamed of looking.
Rankin's publishers, grown rich on the proceeds of Rankin's pen, were
dissatisfied with their reader (the poor man had not discovered
Rankin); on Rankin's advice they offered his post to Maddox (who had),
and that at double his salary. They grew richer, and at a further hint
from Rankin they made Maddox a director. In the same mad year they
started a new monthly, and (Rankin again) appointed Maddox as their
editor.

His opportunity had come. On the very night of this third appointment
Maddox called on Rickman and proposed on behalf of Rankin and Stables
to hand over to him the editorship of _The Planet_. For Stables, he
said, was too dog lazy, and Rankin too grossly prosperous to have
anything to do with it. He didn't think any of them would ever make a
fortune out of it; but its editor's income would be at any rate
secure. He omitted to mention that it would be practically secured out
of his, Maddox's, own pocket.

"You may reckon," said he, "on three hundred and fifty." He named the
sum modestly, humbly almost; not that he thought Rickman would be
sorry to have that little addition to his income, but because he was
always diffident in offering anything to Rickman, "when you thought of
what he was"; and he found something startling, not to say upsetting,
in the joy that leapt up in his young eyes. You never could tell how
Ricky-ticky would take a thing; but if he had known he was going to
take it that way he would have written him a note. He wondered whether
Ricky-ticky was in a tight corner, head over ears in debt or love. Did
the young lunatic want to marry after that near shave he had two years
ago? You wouldn't exactly refuse three hundred and fifty; but a beggar
must be brought pretty low to be crumpled up in that way by the mere
mention of the sum.

Maddox was not aware that no other combination of figures could have
excited precisely those emotions; three hundred and fifty being the
exact sum that Rickman needed for the accomplishment of his purpose.
It brought his dream nearer to him by a year. A year? Why, it did
more. He had only to ask and Maddox would advance the money. His dream
was now, this moment, within his grasp.

And all he could say was, "I say, you know, this is awfully good of
you."

"Good of you, Rickets, to take the thing off my hands. I can't very
well run a monthly and a weekly with all my other jobs thrown in."

"The question is whether I can manage two weeklies and the other
things."

"No, you can't. You're not built that way. But if you take _The
Planet_, you can afford to chuck _Metropolis_. Tell you the truth,
that's one reason why I want you to take it."

Some of the joy died out of Rickman's face.

"The other reason is, of course, that I can't think of a better man."

"It's awfully good of you to think of me at all. But why do you want
me to chuck _Metropolis_?"

"Never mind why. I don't say _The Planet_ is the best imaginable place
for you, nor are you the best imaginable man for _The Planet_; but I
really can't think of a better."

"No, but why--"

"(Confound him, why can't he leave it alone? I shall lose my temper in
another minute," said Maddox to himself.) "The question is, would you
like it? Because, if you wouldn't, don't imagine you've got to take it
to oblige me."

"Of course I'd like it. There isn't anything I'd like so well."

"It's settled then."

It might have been, but Rickman turned on him again with his
ungovernable "Why?"

"If you'd like it, Ricky, there's nothing more to be said. I know it
isn't exactly a sumptuous berth for you, but it's a bit better
salary."

"I'm not thinking of the salary. Oh, yes, I am, though; God forgive
me, I'm thinking of nothing else."

"Salary apart," said Maddox, with the least touch of resentment, "it's
a better thing for you to edit _The Planet_ than to sub-edit
_Metropolis_."

"Of course it is. Still, I should like to know why you want me to
throw Jewdwine over."

"Hang Jewdwine. I said _Metropolis_."

"I'm glad you admit the distinction."

"I _don't_ admit it."

"Why do you want me to throw the thing over, then? Do you mean that I
can't work for you and Jewdwine at the same time?"

"I never said anything about Jewdwine at all. But--if you will have
it--I can't say I consider the connection desirable for the editor of
_The Planet_."

"I think I'm the best judge of that."

"I said--for the editor of _The Planet_."

"For the editor of _The Planet_ then, why not?"

"Ours is a poor but honest paper," said Maddox with his devilish
twinkle.

"I don't see how I can very well be the editor of _The Planet_ so long
as it insists on shying a dead cat every week at the editor of
_Metropolis_."

"We have never mentioned the editor of _Metropolis_. Still--if you can
induce Rankin to give up his little jest--the cat is certainly very
dead by this time."

"He'll have to give it up if you make me editor."

"You'd better tell him so."

"I shall."

"All right, Rickets; only wait till you _are_ editor. Then you can put
as much side on as you like."

"Good heavens, did you ever see me put on side?"

"Well, I've seen you strike an attitude occasionally."

"All my attitudes put together hardly amount to side."

"They do, if they assume that they're going to affect the attitude of
our paper."

"I didn't know it had one."

"It has a very decided attitude with regard to the ethics of
reviewing; and whatever else you make it give up, it's not going to
give up that. _The Planet_, Ricky, doesn't put on side. Side would be
fatal to any freedom in the handling of dead cats. I wouldn't go so
far as to say that it makes its moral being its prime care; but there
are some abuses which it lives to expose, though the exposure doesn't
help it much to live."

"Oh, I say, Maddy! That's what keeps you going. My poems would have
sunk you long ago, if it hadn't been for your thrilling
personalities."

"Personalities or no personalities, what I mean to rub into you is
that _The Planet_ is impartial; it's _the_ only impartial review in
this country. It has always reserved to itself an absolutely
untrammelled hand in the shying of dead cats; and because a man
happens to be a friend of the editor, it's no guarantee whatever that
he won't have one slung at him the minute he deserves it. His only
security is to perpetrate some crime so atrocious that we can't
publish his name for fear of letting ourselves in for an action for
libel. Your attitude to Mr. Jewdwine is naturally personal. Ours is
not. I should have thought you'd have been the first to see that."

"I don't see what you've got against him, to begin with. I wish you'd
tell me plainly what it is."

"If you will have it, it's simply this--he isn't honest."

"What the devil _do_ you mean?"

"I mean what you mean when you say a woman isn't honest. As you've so
often remarked, there's such a thing as intellectual chastity. Some
people have it, and some have not. You have it, my dear Rickets, in
perfection, not to say excess; but most of us manage to lose it more
or less as we go on. It's a deuced hard thing, I can tell you, for any
editor to keep; and Jewdwine, I'm afraid, has latterly been induced to
part with it to a considerable, a very considerable extent. It's a
thousand pities; for Jewdwine had the makings in him of a really fine
critic. He might have been a classic if he'd died soon enough."

"He _is_ a classic--he's the only man whose opinion's really worth
having at this moment."

"Whom are we talking about? Jewdwine? Or the editor of _Metropolis_?"

"I'm talking about Jewdwine. I happen to know him, if you don't."

"And I'm talking about the other fellow whom you don't happen to know
a little bit. Nobody cares a tuppenny damn about _his_ opinion, except
the fools who read it and the knaves who buy it."

"And who do you imagine those people are?"

"Most of them are publishers, I believe. But a good few are authors, I
regret to say."

"Authors have cheek enough for most things; but I should like to see
one suggesting to Jewdwine that he should sell him his opinion."

"My dear fellow, anybody may suggest it. That's what he's there for,
since he turned his opinion on to the streets. Whether you get a
pretty opinion or not depends on the length of your purse."

"Why don't you call it bribery at once?"

"Because bribery's too harsh a term to apply to an editor, _mon
semblable, mon frère_; but in a woman, or a parliamentary candidate,
it might possibly be called corruption."

"Thanks. Well, you've made me a very generous offer, Maddox, so
generous that I'm glad you've explained yourself before I took it. For
after that, you know, it would have been rather awkward for me to have
to tell you you're a liar!"

"You consider me a liar, do you?" said Maddox in a mild dispassionate
voice.

"Certainly I do, when you say these thing about Jewdwine."

"How about Rankin? He says them."

"Then Rankin's a liar, too!"

"And Stables?"

"_And_ Stables--if he says them."

"My dear Rickman, everybody says them; only they don't say them to
you. We can't all be liars."

"There's a difference, I admit. Anybody who says them is a liar; and
anybody who says them to _me_ is a d----d liar! That's the
difference."

Whereupon Maddox intimated (as honour indeed compelled him) that
Rickman was the sort of young fool for which there is no salvation.
And by the time Rickman had replied with suitable hyperbole; and
Maddox, because of the great love he bore to Rickman, had observed
that if Rickman chose to cut his confused throat he might do so
without its being a matter of permanent regret to Maddox; and Rickman,
because of the great love he bore to Maddox, had suggested his
immediate departure for perdition, it was pretty clearly understood
that Rickman himself preferred to perish, everlastingly perish, rather
than be connected even remotely with Maddox and his paper. And on that
understanding they separated.

And when the door was closed between them, Rickman realised that his
folly was even as Maddox had described it. In one night, and at a
crisis of his finances, he had severed himself from a fairly permanent
source of income; flung up the most desirable chance that had
presented itself hitherto in his career; and quarrelled disgracefully
and disagreeably with his best friend. He supposed the split was bound
to come; but if he could only have staved it off for another year,
till he had collected that seven hundred and fifty! There could be no
doubt that that was what he ought to have done. He ought to have been
prudent for Lucia's sake. And on the top of it all came the terrible
reflection--Was it really worth it? Did he really believe in Jewdwine?
Or had he sacrificed himself for an idea?




CHAPTER LXVII


Rickman could never be made to speak of the quarrel with Maddox. He
merely mentioned to Jewdwine in the most casual manner that he had
left _The Planet_. As for his grounds for that abrupt departure
Jewdwine was entirely in the dark. It was Lucia that enlightened him.

For all things, even the deep things of journalism, sooner or later
come to light. Rickman, before the quarrel, had given Miss Roots an
introduction to the young men of _The Planet_, and its editor had
taken kindly to Miss Roots. Maddox, it is true, did his best to keep
the matter quiet, until in a moment of expansion he allowed that
shrewd lady to lure him into confidences. Maddox tried to take it and
present it philosophically. "It was bound to happen," he said. "Our
Ricky-ticky is a bad hand at serving two masters," but as to which was
God and which Mammon in this connection he modestly reserved his
opinion. Jewdwine's name was carefully avoided, but Miss Roots was
left in no doubt as to the subject of dispute.

She and Maddox were one in their inextinguishable enthusiasm for their
Rickman, for Rickman had the gift, the rarest of all gifts, of uniting
the hearts that loved him. If Jewdwine had showed anything like a
proper appreciation of the poet, Maddox would have spared him now. So
the two looked at each other, with eyes that plumbed all the depths of
the unspoken and unspeakable, eyes that sent out a twinkling flash of
admiration as they agreed that it was "just like Rickman." That phrase
was for ever on the lips of his admirers, a testimony to the fact that
Rickman was invariably true to himself.

He was being true to himself now in being true to Jewdwine, and it was
in that form that the tale went round. "I can't tell you all the ins
and outs of it," wrote Miss Roots to Lucia, "but he is paying for his
loyalty to Mr. Jewdwine;" and Lucia, with equal pride in her cousin
and her friend, repeated it to Kitty Palliser, who repeated it to
somebody else with the comment, "I'm not surprised to hear it"; and
somebody else repeated it in a good many quarters without any comment
at all. For everybody but Lucia understood that it spoke for itself.

And nobody understood it better than Jewdwine when his cousin said,
"You _will_ be nice to him, Horace, won't you? He is suffering for his
loyalty to you." Lucia herself had adopted a theory which she now set
forth (reluctantly, by reason of the horrible light it threw on human
nature). Mr. Maddox (whoever he might be) was of course jealous of
Horace. It was a shocking theory, but it was the only one which made
these complications clear to her.

But Jewdwine had no need of theories or explanations. He understood.
He knew that a certain prejudice, not to say suspicion, attached to
him. Ideas, not very favourable to his character as a journalist, were
in the air. And as his mind (in this respect constitutionally
susceptible) had seldom been able to resist ideas in the air there
were moments when his own judgment wavered. He was beginning to
suspect himself.

He was not sure, and if he had been he would not have acted on that
certainty; for he had never possessed the courage of his opinions. But
it had come to this, that Jewdwine, the pure, the incorruptible, was
actually uncertain whether he had or had not taken a bribe. As he lay
awake in bed at four o'clock in the morning his conscience would
suggest to him that he had done this thing; but at noon, in the office
of _Metropolis_, his robust common sense, then like the sun, in the
ascendant, boldly protested that he had done nothing of the sort. He
had merely made certain not very unusual concessions to the interests
of his journal. In doing so he had of course set aside his artistic
conscience, an artistic conscience being a private luxury incompatible
with the workings of a large corporate concern. He was bound to
disregard it in loyalty to his employers and his public. They expected
certain things of him and not others. It was different in the
unexciting days of the old _Museion_; it would be different now if he
could afford to run a paper of his own dedicated to the service of
the Absolute. But Jewdwine was no longer the servant of the Absolute.
He was the servant and the mouthpiece of a policy that in his heart he
abhorred; irretrievably committed to a programme that was concerned
with no absolute beyond the absolute necessity of increasing the
circulation of _Metropolis_. Such a journal only existed on the
assumption that its working expenses were covered by the
advertisements of certain publishing houses. But if this necessity
committed him to a more courteous attitude than he might otherwise
have adopted towards the works issued by those houses, that was not
saying that he was in their pay. He was, of course, in the pay of his
own publishers, but so was every man who drew a salary under the same
conditions; and if those gentlemen, finding their editor an even more
competent person than they had at first perceived, were in the habit
of increasing his salary in proportion to his competence, that was
only the very correct and natural expression of their good opinion.

Whatever he had thought of himself at four o'clock in the morning, by
four o'clock in the afternoon Jewdwine took an extremely lenient, not
to say favourable view. Unfortunately he had not the courage of that
opinion either. Therefore he was profoundly touched by this final
instance of Rickman's devotion, and all that it argued of reckless and
inspired belief. In the six months that followed he saw more of
Rickman than he had seen in as many years. Whenever he had a slack
evening he would ask him to dinner, and let him sit talking on far
into the night. He was afraid of being left alone with that
uncomfortable doubt, that torturing suspicion. Rickman brought with
him an atmosphere charged with stimulating conviction, and in his
presence Jewdwine breathed freely and unafraid. He felt himself no
longer the ambiguous Jewdwine that he was, but the noble incorruptible
Jewdwine that he had been. Up there in the privacy of his study
Jewdwine let himself go; to that listener he was free to speak as a
critic noble and incorruptible. But there were moments, painful for
both men, when he would pause, gripped by his doubt, in the full swing
of some high deliverance; when he looked at Rickman with a pathetic
anxious gaze, as if uncertain whether he were not presuming too far
on a character that he held only at the mercy of his friend's belief.

Though as yet he was not fully aware of the extent to which he relied
on that belief, there could hardly have been a stronger tie than that
which now bound him to his subordinate. He would have shrunk from
loosing it lest he should cut himself off from some pure source of
immortality, lest he should break the last link between his soul and
the sustaining and divine reality. It was as if through Rickman he
remained attached to the beauty which he still loved and to the truth
which he still darkly discerned.

In any case he could not have suffered him to go unrewarded. He owed
that to himself, to the queer personal decency which he still managed
to preserve after all his flounderings in the slough of journalism. It
was intolerable to his pride that Rickman should be in any pecuniary
embarrassment through his uncompromising devotion. He hardly knew
whether he was the more pleased because Rickman had stuck to him or
because he had thrown his other friends over. He had never quite
forgiven him that divided fealty. He cared nothing for an allegiance
that he had had to share with Maddox and his gang. But now that
Rickman was once more exclusively, indisputably his, he was in honour
bound to cherish and protect him. (Jewdwine was frequently visited by
these wakenings of the feudal instinct that slept secretly in his
blood.) If he could not make up to Rickman for the loss of the
proposed editorship, he saw to it that he was kept well supplied with
lucrative work on his own paper. As an even stronger proof of his
esteem he allowed him for the first time a certain authority, and an
unfettered hand.

For six months Rickman luxuriated in power and increase of leisure and
of pay. If the pay was insufficient to cover all his losses the
leisure was invaluable; it enabled him to get on with his tragedy.

Now if Rickman had been prudent he would have finished his tragedy
then and there and got it published in all haste. For there is no
doubt that if any work of his had been given to the world any time
within those six months, Jewdwine would have declared the faith that
was in him. Whatever the merits of the work he would have celebrated
its appearance by a sounding Feast of Trumpets in _Metropolis_. He
would have done anything to strengthen the tie that attached him to
the sources of his spiritual content. But Rickman was not prudent. He
let the golden hours slip by while he sat polishing up his blank verse
as if he had all eternity before him.

Meanwhile he did all he could for Jewdwine. Jewdwine indeed could not
have done a better thing for himself than in giving Rickman that free
hand. In six months there was a marked improvement in the tone of
_Metropolis_ and the reputation of its editor, and, but for the
unexpected which is always happening, Jewdwine might in the long run
have emerged without a stain.

Nothing in fact could have been more utterly unforeseen, and yet, in
reviewing all the steps which led to the ultimate catastrophe, Rickman
said to himself that nothing would have been more consistent and
inevitable. It came about first of all through a freak, a wanton freak
of Fate in the form of a beardless poet, a discovery, not of
Jewdwine's nor of Rickman's but of Miss Roots'. That Miss Roots could
make a discovery clearly indicated the finger of fate. Miss Roots
promptly asked Rickman to dinner and presented to him the discovery,
beardless, breathless also and hectic, wearing an unclean shirt and a
suit of frayed shoddy.

He came away from that dinner, that embarrassing, palpitating
encounter, with a slender sheaf of verses in his pocket. It did not
take him long to read them, nor to see (the unforeseen again!) that
the verses would live longer than their maker. They were beardless,
breathless, and hectic like the boy, but nobody could have been keener
than Rickman to recognize the immortal adolescence, the swift panting
of the pursuing god, the burning of the inextinguishable flame. He
wrote a letter to him, several letters, out of the fulness of his
heart. Then Maddox, to whom he had not spoken since the day of their
falling out, came up to him at the Junior Journalists, shook his hand
as if nothing had happened, and thanked him for his appreciation of
young Paterson. He said that it had put new life into the boy. They
made it up over young Paterson. And that was another step towards the
inevitable conclusion.

The next step was that somebody who was paying for the boy's doctor's
bills paid also for the publication of his poems. They arrived (this
of course was only to be expected) at the office of _Metropolis_ (the
slender sheaf grown slenderer by some omissions which Rickman had
advised). But it was Fate that contrived that they should arrive in
the same week with a volume (by no means slender), a volume of Poems
issued by the publishers of _Metropolis_ and written by a friend (and
an influential friend) of the editor. Therein were the last sweet
pipings of the pastoral Fulcher. No other hand but Jewdwine's, as
Jewdwine sorrowfully owned, could have done anything for this work,
and he meant to have devoted a flattering article to it in the next
number. But in the arrangements of the unforeseen it was further
provided that Jewdwine should be disabled, at what he playfully called
the "critical moment," by an attack of influenza. The two volumes, the
slender and the stout, were forwarded to Rickman in the same parcel,
and Jewdwine in a note discreetly worded threw himself and the poems
of his influential friend on Rickman's mercy. Would Rickman deal with
the big book? He would see for himself that it _was_ a big book. He
gave him as usual a perfectly free hand as to space, but he thought it
might be well to mention that the book _was_ to have had a two-page
article all to itself. He drew Rickman's attention to the fact that it
was published by So and So, and hoped that he might for once at least
rely on his discretion. Perhaps as he was reviewing the work of a
"brother bard" it would be better to keep the article anonymous.

There was nothing coarse about Jewdwine's methods. Through all his
career he remained refined and fastidious, and his natural instincts
forbade him to give a stronger hint. Unfortunately, in this instance,
refinement had led him into a certain ambiguity of phrase!

On this ambiguity Rickman leapt, with a grin of diabolical delight. He
may have had some dim idea that it would be his shelter in the day of
rebuke; but all he could clearly think of as he held the boy's frail
palpitating volume in his hand, was that he had but that moment in
which to praise him. This was his unique and perfect opportunity, the
only sort of opportunity that he was not likely to let slip.

_Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat_; and it really looked as if
madness had come upon Rickman in the loneliness and intoxication of
his power. With those two volumes of poetry before him, a small one by
a rank outsider, unknown, unkempt and unprotected; a boy from whom no
more was to be expected, seeing that he was about to depart out of the
world where editors are powerful; and one, a large, considerable
volume by a person eminent already in that world and with many years
of poetry and influence before him, he gave (reckless of all
proportion) the two-page article to the slender volume and the
paragraph to the stout. That was what he did--he, the sub-editor.

Of the paragraph the less said the better. As for the article it was
such a song of jubilation as one poet sings over the genius of
another; and nothing that he had ever done for _Metropolis_ delighted
him so much as the making of it. He sent the proofs to Jewdwine as
usual with a note. "Here they are. I _think_ I've been discreet. I've
done what I could for Mr. Fulcher, but, as you'll see, I've dealt
nobly with young Paterson, as he deserves." As he heard nothing from
Jewdwine, he could only suppose that the chief was satisfied, and he
could not help reflecting with some complacency that no doubt old
Maddox would be satisfied too.

The next thing that happened was that he was cut by Maddox at the
Junior Journalists. (It was on a Saturday, and _Metropolis_, _the_
number, had appeared the night before). Cut unmistakably, with a
thrust from the blue eyes and an expressive turning of the enormous
shoulders. A number once issued from his hands Rickman never looked at
it again if he could help it, and he never troubled to look at it now.
He simply regarded Maddox's behaviour as unaccountable. In the hope of
lighting on some explanation he called at Tavistock Place one Sunday
afternoon, at a time when he was pretty sure of finding Miss Roots
alone. He wanted to know, he said, what was the matter with Maddy.
Apparently Miss Roots had something the matter with her too, for her
only answer was to hand him stiffly a copy of _Metropolis_ with the
pages scored in blue pencil at his own article. He took it with a
radiant and confiding smile, a smile that assumed such a thoroughly
delightful understanding between him and Miss Roots that the little
lady, who had evidently counted on a very different effect, was put to
some intellectual confusion. She noticed that as he read the smile
vanished and gave place, first to an expression of absolute
bewilderment, and then to a furious flush, whether of shame or
indignation she could not tell, but it looked (again to her confusion)
uncommonly like both.

"I see," he said quietly, and laid the paper aside.

What he had seen was that, save for a few ingenious transpositions,
the two reviews stood very much as he had written them. The only
striking alteration was that Mr. Fulcher had got the article and young
Paterson the paragraph.

"Oh, you see, do you?" said Miss Roots bitterly. "That's more than I
do."

"I see there's been some astonishing mistake." For one moment he
exonerated Jewdwine and embraced the wild hypothesis of a printer's
error. He took back the accursed journal; as he held it his hand
trembled uncontrollably. He glanced over the notices again. No. It was
not after this fashion that the printers of the _Metropolis_ were wont
to err. He recognized the familiar hand of the censor, though it had
never before accomplished such an incredible piece of editing as this.

And yet it was in strict accordance with the old tradition. The staff
of _Metropolis_ knew that before a line of theirs was printed it had
to pass under their editor's reforming hand; that was the understood
condition on which they wrote for him at all; it was the method by
which Jewdwine maintained the unity of his empire. But in the case of
Rickman he either forbore to exercise his privilege, or exercised it
in such a manner as preserved the individuality of the poet's style.
Like some imperial conqueror Jewdwine had absorbed the literary spirit
of the man he conquered, and _Metropolis_ bore the stamp of Rickman
for all time. So now the style of the articles remained intact; they
might have passed equally for the work of Rickman or of Jewdwine.

"I suppose," he said helplessly, "it is a little short."

"Short? You weren't bound to make it long; but there was no occasion
to be so contemptuous."

"Contemptuous? Good God!"

"That's what it amounts to when you're so insufferably polite."

Oh yes he recognized it, the diabolical urbanity that had seemed the
very choicest method of dealing with Mr. Fulcher.

"Politeness was not exactly all you led us to expect from you."

He passed his hand wearily over his forehead and his eyes. Miss Roots
had a moment of compunction. She thought of all that he had done for
her. He had delivered her from her labours in the Museum; he had
introduced her to the young men of _The Planet_, and had made Maddox
send her many books to review; he had lifted her from the obscurity
that threatened to engulf her. And he had done more for her than this.
He had given her back her youth and intellect; he had made her life a
joy instead of a terror to her. But Miss Roots was just. The agony on
his face would have melted her heart, but for another agony that she
saw.

"If the poor boy knew that _you_ had written that paragraph--"

"He needn't know unless some kind friend goes and tells him. It isn't
signed."

"No. I don't wonder that you were ashamed to put your name to it."

He rose to go. She looked up at him with a queer little look, half
penetrating and half pleading, and held out her hand.

"Well," she said, "what am I to say if he asks me if you wrote it? Can
you deny it?"

"No," he said curtly, "I can't deny it."

"And you can't explain it?"

"No, and I can't explain it. Surely," he said with a horrible attempt
at laughter, "it speaks for itself."

"It does indeed, Keith."

And Maddox, to whom Miss Roots related the substance of that
interview, echoed her sentiment.

"It does indeed."

Of all that brilliant band of young men lured by journalism to ruin
they looked on their Rickman as the most splendid, the most tragic.




CHAPTER LXVIII


Up till now it had never occurred to Rickman that his connection with
_Metropolis_ could directly damage him, still less that Jewdwine could
personally inflict a blow. But the injury now done to him was
monstrous and intolerable; Jewdwine had hurt him in a peculiarly
delicate and shrinking place. Because his nature was not originally
magnificent in virtue of another sort, it was before all things
necessary that he should perserve his intellectual chastity. That
quality went deeper than the intellect; it was one with a sense of
honour so fine that a touch, impalpable to ordinary men, was felt by
it as a laceration and a stain. He walked up to Hampstead that Sunday
evening, taking the hill at a round swinging pace. Not all the ardour
and enthusiasm of his youth had ever carried him there with such an
impetus as did his burning indignation against Jewdwine. And as he
went the spirit of youth, the spirit of young Paterson, went beside
him and breathed upon the flame.

And yet he was the same man who only an hour ago had been defending
Jewdwine's honour at the expense of his own; without a thought that in
so defending it he was doing anything in the least quixotic or
remarkable. He had done nothing. He had simply refrained at a critical
moment from giving him away. Maddox was Jewdwine's enemy; and to have
given Jewdwine away at that moment would have meant delivering him
over to Maddox to destroy.

No; when he thought of it he could hardly say he had defended his
friend's honour at the expense of his own; for Jewdwine's honour was
Lucia's, and Lucia's was not Jewdwine's but his, indistinguishably,
inseparably his.

But though he was not going to give Jewdwine up to Maddox, he was
going to give him up. It might come to the same thing. He could
imagine that, to anybody who chose to put two and two together, an
open rupture would give him away as completely as if he had accused
him in so many words. That, of course he could not help. There was a
point beyond which his honour refused to identify itself with
Jewdwine's. He had never felt a moment's hesitation upon that point.
For in his heart he condemned his friend far more severely than Maddox
could have condemned anybody. He had a greater capacity for disgust
than Maddox. He would draw up, writhing at trifles over which Maddox
would merely shrug his shoulders and pass on. In this instance Maddox,
whose Celtic soul grew wanton at the prospect of a fight, would have
fallen upon Jewdwine with an infernal joy, but he would have been the
first to deprecate Rickman's decision as absurd. As for Rankin of
Stables, instead of flying into a passion they would, in similar
circumstances, have sat still and smiled.

If it had not been for young Paterson, Rickman would have smiled too,
even if he had been unable to sit still; for his vision of Fulcher
pocketing the carefully selected praise intended for Paterson was
purely and supremely comic; so delightful in fact, that he could have
embraced Jewdwine for providing it. But Paterson, who had looked to
him as to the giver of life or death, Paterson on his death-bed taking
Fulcher's paragraph to himself and wondering whether it were indeed
Rickman who had done this thing, the thought of Paterson was too
painful to be borne. Honour or no honour, it would be impossible for
him to work for Jewdwine after that.

He had got to make that clear to Jewdwine; and anything more
unpleasant than the coming interview he could not well conceive.

Unpleasantness you would have said, was far from Jewdwine's mind that
Sunday evening. He himself suggested nothing of the sort. He was in
his study, sitting in an armchair with a shawl over his knees, smoking
a cigarette and looking more pathetically refined than ever after his
influenza, when Rickman burst in upon his peace. He was so frankly
glad to see him that his greeting alone was enough to disarm
prejudice. It seemed likely that he would carry off the honours of the
discussion by remaining severely polite while Rickman grew more and
more perturbed and heated. Rickman, however, gained at the outset by
making straight for his point. As Jewdwine gave him no opening he had
to make one and make it as early as possible, before the great man's
amenities had time to lure him from the track.

"I wish," said he abruptly, "you'd tell me what was wrong with those
reviews of mine, that you found it necessary to alter them?"

"The reviews? Oh, the reviews were all right--excellent material--they
only wanted a little editing."

"Do you mind telling me what you mean by editing?"

"_That_ is the last point an editor is competent to explain."

"All the same I'd like to hear what you've got to say. I think you'll
admit that you owe me some explanation."

"My dear fellow--sit down, won't you?--I admit nothing of the sort."

Jewdwine no longer stood on his dignity, he lay back on it, lounged on
it, stretched all his graceful length upon it, infinitely at ease.
Time had mellowed his manners and made them incomparably gentle and
humane.

"You seem to think I took a liberty with your articles. I didn't. I
merely exercised an ancient editorial right. I couldn't possibly have
let them be printed as they stood. Conceive my feelings if I'd had to
sit next to Mr. Fulcher at dinner that evening. It might easily have
happened. It's all very well for you, Rickman; you're young and
irresponsible, and you haven't got to sit next to Mr. Fulcher at
dinner; but you'll own that it would have been rather an awkward
situation for me?"

"I can forgive you Fulcher, but I can't forgive you Paterson."

"And I could have forgiven you Paterson, but I couldn't forgive you
Fulcher. Do you see?"

He allowed a few moments for reflection, and continued.

"Of course, I understand your feelings. In fact I sympathize
profoundly. As a rule I never dream of touching anything with your
signature; I've far too great a reverence for style."

"Style be d----d. For all I care you may cut up my style till you
can't tell it from Fulcher's. I object to your transposing my meaning
to suit your own. Honestly, Jewdwine, I'd rather write like Fulcher
than write as you've made me appear to have written."

"My dear Rickman, that's where you make the mistake. You don't appear
at all." He smiled with urbane tolerance of the error. "The editor, as
you know, is solely responsible for unsigned reviews."

So far Jewdwine had come off well. He had always a tremendous
advantage in his hereditary manners; however right you had been to
start with, his imperturbable refinement put you grossly in the wrong.
And at this point Rickman gave himself away.

"What's the good of that?" said he, "if young Paterson believes I
wrote them?"

"Young Paterson isn't entitled to any belief in the matter."

"But--he knew."

There was a shade of genuine annoyance on Jewdwine's face.

"Oh of course, if you've told him that you were the author. That's
rather awkward for you, but it's hardly my fault. I'm sorry, Rickman,
but you really _are_ a little indiscreet."

"I wish I could explain your behaviour in the same way."

"Come, since you're so keen on explanations, how do you propose to
explain your own? I gave you certain instructions, and what right had
you to go beyond them, not to say against them?"

"What earthly right had you to make me say the exact opposite of what
I did say? But I didn't go against your instructions. Here they are."

He produced them. "You'll see that you gave me a perfectly free hand
as to space."

Jewdwine looked keenly at him. "You knew perfectly well what I meant.
And you took advantage of--of a trifling ambiguity in my phrasing, to
do--as you would say--the exact opposite. That was hardly what I
expected of you."

As he spoke Jewdwine drew his shawl up about his waist, thus
delicately drawing attention to his enfeebled state. The gesture
seemed to convict Rickman of taking advantage not only of his phrase
but of his influenza, behaviour superlatively base.

"I can give you a perfectly clear statement of the case. You carefully
suppressed _my_ friend and you boomed your own for all you were worth.
Naturally, I reversed your judgment. Of course, if you had told me you
wanted to do a little log-rolling on your own account, I should have
been only too delighted--but I always understood that you disapproved
of the practice."

"So I do. Paterson isn't a friend of mine."

"He's your friend's friend then. I think Mr. Maddox might have been
left to look after his own man."

Rickman rose hastily, as if he were no longer able to sit still and
bear it.

"Jewdwine," he said, and his voice had the vibration which the master
had once found so irresistible. "Have you read young Paterson's
poems?"

"Yes. I've read them."

"And what is your honest--your private opinion of them?"

"I'm not a fool, Rickman. My private opinion of them is the same as
yours."

"What an admission!"

"But," said Jewdwine suavely, "that's not the sort of opinion my
public--the public that pays for _Metropolis_--pays to have."

"You mean it's the sort of opinion I'm paid to give."

"Well, broadly speaking--of course there are exceptions, and Paterson
in other circumstances might have been one of them--that's very much
what I do mean."

"Then--I'm awfully sorry, Jewdwine--but if that's so I can't go on
working for _Metropolis_. I must give it up. In fact, that's really
what I came to say."

Jewdwine too had risen with an air of relief, being anxious to end an
interview which was becoming more uncomfortable than he cared for. He
had stood, gazing under drooping eyelids at his disciple's feet.
Nobody would have been more surprised than Jewdwine if you had
suggested to him that he could have any feeling about looking anybody
in the face. But at that last incredible, impossible speech of his he
raised his eyes and fixed them on Rickman's for a moment.

In that moment many things were revealed to him.

He turned and stood with his back to Rickman, staring through the open
window. All that he saw there, the quiet walled garden, the rows of
elms on the terrace beside it, the dim green of the Heath, and the
steep unscaleable grey blue barrier of the sky, had taken on an
unfamiliar aspect, as it were a tragic simplicity and vastness. For
these things, once so restfully indifferent, had in a moment become
the background of his spiritual agony, a scene where his soul appeared
to him, standing out suddenly shelterless, naked and alone. No--if it
_had_ only been alone; but that was the peculiar horror of it. He
could have borne it but for the presence of the other man who had
called forth the appalling vision, and remained a spectator of it.

There was at least this much comfort for him in his pangs--he knew
that a man of coarser fibre would neither have felt nor understood
them. But it was impossible for Jewdwine to do an ignoble thing and
not to suffer; it was the innermost delicacy of his soul that made it
writhe under the destiny he had thrust upon it.

And in the same instant he recognized and acknowledged the greatness
of the man with whom he had to do; acknowledged, not grudgingly, not
in spite of himself, but because of himself, because of that finer
soul within his soul which spoke the truth in secret, being born to
recognize great things and admire them. He wondered now how he could
ever have mistaken Rickman. He perceived the origin and significance
of his attitude of disparagement, of doubt. It dated from a certain
hot July afternoon eight years ago when he lay under a beech-tree in
the garden of Court House and Lucia had insisted on talking about the
poet, displaying an enthusiasm too ardent to be borne. He had meant
well by Rickman, but Lucia's ardour had somehow put him off. Maddox's
had had the same effect, though for a totally different reason, and so
it had gone on. He had said to himself that if other people were going
to take Rickman that way he could no longer feel the same peculiar
interest.

He turned back again.

"Do you really mean it?" said he.

"I'm afraid I do."

"You mean that you intend to give up reviewing for _Metropolis_?"

"I mean that after this I can't have anything more to do with it."

He means, thought Jewdwine, that he won't have anything more to do
with me.

And Rickman saw that he was understood. He wondered how Jewdwine would
take it.

He took it nobly. "Well," he said, "I'm sorry. But if you must go, you
must. To tell the truth, my dear fellow, at this rate, you know, I
couldn't afford to keep you. I wish I could. You are not the only
thing I can't afford." He said it with a certain emotion not very
successfully concealed beneath his smile. Rickman was about to go; but
he detained him.

"Wait one minute. Do you mind telling me whether you've any regular
sources of income besides _Metropolis_?"

"Well, not at the moment."

"And supposing--none arise?"

"I must risk it."

"You seem to have a positive mania for taking risks." Yes, that was
Rickman all over, he found a brilliant joy in the excitement; he was
in love with danger.

"Oh well, sometimes, you know, you've _got_ to take them."

Happy Rickman! The things that were so difficult and complicated to
Jewdwine were so simple, so incontestable to him. "Some people,
Rickman, would say you were a fool." He sighed, and the sigh was a
tribute his envy paid to Rickman's foolishness. "I won't offer an
opinion; the event will prove."

"It won't prove anything. Events never do. They merely happen."

"Well, if they happen wrong, and I can help you, you've only got to
come to me."

Never in all his life had Jewdwine so nearly achieved the grace of
humility as in this offer of his help. He would have given anything if
Rickman could have accepted it, but refusal was a foregone conclusion.
And yet he offered it.

"Thanks--thanks awfully." It was Rickman who appeared nervous and
ashamed. His mouth twitched; he held out his hand abruptly; he was
desperately anxious to say good-night and get it over. It seemed to
him that he had been six years taking leave of Jewdwine; each year had
seen the departure of some quality he had known him by. He wanted to
have done with it now for ever.

But Jewdwine would not see his hand. He turned away; paced the floor;
swung back on a hesitating heel and approached him, smiling.

"You're not going to disappear altogether, are you? You'll turn up
again, and let me know how you're getting on?"

To Rickman there was something tragic and retrospective in Jewdwine's
smile. It had no joy in it, but an appeal, rather, to the memory of
what he had been. He found it irresistible.

"Thanks. I shall get on all right; but I'll turn up again sometime."

Jewdwine's smile parted with its pathos, its appeal. It conveyed a
promise, an assurance that whatever else had perished in him his
friendship was not dead.

For there were ways, apart from the ways of journalism, in which
Jewdwine could be noble still. And still, as he watched Rickman's
departing back, the back that he seemed doomed to know so well, he
said to himself--

"He's magnificent, but I can't afford him."




CHAPTER LXIX


In all this his history had only repeated itself. When six years ago
he had turned his back on Rickman's he had made it inevitable that he
should turn his back on Jewdwine now. On each occasion his behaviour
had provoked the same melancholy admission, from Jewdwine--"He is
magnificent, but I can't afford him"; from Isaac Rickman--"I can't
afford to pay your price, my boy." The incredible thing was that
Jewdwine should have been brought to say it. Jewdwine was changed; but
Rickman was the same Rickman who had swung the shop door behind him,
unmoved by the separation from his salary.

But after all he could only keep half of that rash vow he had made to
himself on the way to Hampstead. He must give up the Editor of
_Metropolis_; but he could not give up Horace Jewdwine. It was not the
first time he had been compelled to admit the distinction which Maddox
for decency's sake had insisted on. When it came to the point, as now,
he found himself insisting on it with even greater emphasis than
Maddox. He knew that in his soul Jewdwine still loved and worshipped
what was admirable, that in his soul he would have given anything to
recall his injustice to young Paterson. But young Paterson was too
great to have need either of Jewdwine or of him. Young Paterson had
his genius to console him. His profounder pity was for the man who had
inflicted such awful injuries on himself; the great man who had made
himself mean; the spiritual person who had yielded to a material
tyranny; the incorruptible person who had sold his soul, who only
realized the value of his soul now that he had sold it.

And yet he knew that there could be nothing more sundering than such
meanness, such corruptibility as Jewdwine's. Their friendship could
never be the same. There was a certain relief in that. There could
never be any hypocrisy, any illusion in their relations now. And
nobody knew that better than Jewdwine. Well, the very fact that
Jewdwine had still desired and chosen that sad-hearted, clear-eyed
communion argued a certain greatness in him.

Therefore he resolved to spare him. It would cost him the friendship
of better men than he; but that could not be helped. They must
continue to think that he had sold or at any rate lent himself at
interest to Jewdwine. Honour debarred him from all explanation and
defence, an honour so private and personal that it must remain
unsuspected by the world. In the beginning he had made himself almost
unpleasantly conspicuous by the purity of his literary morals; his
innocence had been a hair-lifting spectacle even to honest
journalists. And now the fame he would have among them was the fame of
a literary prostitute, without a prostitute's wages.

On the contrary he would have to pay heavily for the spiritual luxury
of that break with the editor of _Metropolis_. When he reached his
comfortable room on the third floor in Torrington Square, he sat down
by his writing-table, not to write but to think. It was war-time,
fatal to letters. Such terrors arose before him as must arise before a
young man severed by his own rash act from the sources of his income.
What a moment he had chosen for the deed, too! When money was of all
things the thing he most passionately desired; when to his fancy the
sum of a hundred and seventy-five pounds was the form that most
nearly, most divinely presented the adored perfection; when, too, that
enchanting figure was almost in his grasp. A few brief spasms of
economy, and ten months of _Metropolis_ would have seen him through.

And yet there was no bitterness in the dismay with which he
contemplated his present forlorn and impecunious state. It was
inevitable that he should sever himself from the sources of his income
when they were found to be impure. Much more inevitable than that he
should have cut off that untainted supply which six months ago would
have flowed to him through Maddox. Common prudence had not restrained
him from quarrelling with Maddox over a point of honour that was
shadowy compared with this. It was hardly likely that it should have
restrained him now. There were few things that he would not do for
Lucia Harden, but not even for her sake could he have done otherwise
than he had done. It was the least that honour could require of him,
the very least.

His attitude to honour had in a manner changed. Eight years ago it had
seemed to him the fantastic child of a preference for common honesty,
coupled with a preposterous passion for Lucia Harden. He had indulged
it as a man indulges the creature of fantasy and caprice, and had felt
that he was thrusting a personal infatuation into a moral region where
such extravagances are unknown. It belonged rather to the realm of
imagination, being essentially a poet's honour, a winged and lyric
creature, a creature altogether too radiant and delicate to do battle
with the gross material world, a thing as mysterious and indomitable
as his genius; a very embarrassing companion for a young journalist in
his first start in life. And now he had grown so used to it that it
seemed to him no longer mysterious and fantastic; obedience to it was
as simple as the following of a natural impulse, a thing in no way
conspicuous and superb. It was the men who knew nothing of such
leadership who seemed to him separated from the order of the world.
But to the friends who watched him Rickman's honour had been always an
amazing spectacle. Like another genius it had taken possession of him
and led him through what Jewdwine had called the slough of journalism,
so that he went with fine fastidious feet, choosing the clean places
in that difficult way. Like another genius it had lured him, laughing
and reckless, along paths perilous and impossible to other men. How
glad he had been to follow that bright-eyed impetuous leader.

And this was where it had led him to, the radiant and delicate comrade
of his youth. As he sat propping his chin up with his hands the face
that confronted destiny had grown haggard in an hour.

He pulled himself together, and deliberately reviewed the situation.
He had at that moment three and eightpence in his pocket, and lying
about somewhere in the table-drawer there was part of last week's
salary and a cheque for nine pounds, the price of a recent article.
He could count on five pounds at Michaelmas, the quarterly rent of the
furniture in the little house at Ealing. Added to these certain sums
there was that unknown incalculable amount that he might yet receive
for unsolicited contributions. He had made seventy-five pounds in this
way last year. The casual earnings of ninety-nine were no security for
nineteen hundred; still, invincible hopefulness fixed the
probabilities at that figure.

But it was now January, and Dicky Pilkington's bill would be due in
November. By successive triumphs of ingenious economy he had reduced
that once appalling seven hundred and fifty to a hundred and
seventy-five. He couldn't actually count on more than twenty-six
pounds three and eightpence with which to meet the liability. And he
had also to live for ten months before he met it. Even invincible Hope
was nervous facing those formidable figures. It did indeed suggest the
presence of a shadowy army in the rear, whole columns of figures
marching invincibly to his aid. They were the sums that might, that
ought to be obtained by a dramatic poet in the hour of his success.
But Rickman had not been born over a bookseller's shop for nothing;
and an austere hereditary voice reminded him that he couldn't really
count on a penny from his tragedy. He couldn't even afford to write
it. The thing was, economically speaking, a crime. It would of course
be finished, as it had been begun, in defiance of economy, as of all
other human pieties and laws, but it would be unreasonable to expect
that any financial blessing could rest on it.