THE EDUCATION 
 OF ERIC LANE 
 
 > < 
 
 STEPHEN MCKENNA
 
 MRS. 1- E. HALSELL 
 
 1601 W. 57th St. 
 KANSAS CITY, MO.

 
 THE SENSATIONALISTS: II 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF 
 ERIC LANE 
 
 STEPHEN McKENNA
 
 BY STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 THE SENSATIONALISTS 
 
 PART ONE: LADY LILITH 
 PART Two: THE EDUCATION 
 OF ERIC LANE 
 PART THREE: In preparation 
 
 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 SONIA 
 
 MIDAS AND SON 
 
 NINETY-SIX HOURS' LEAVE 
 
 THE SIXTH SENSE 
 
 SHEILA INTERVENES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 THE EDUCATION OF 
 ERIC LANE 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPHEN McKENNA 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LADY LILITH," "SONIA MARRIED," 
 "MIDAS AND SON," "SONIA," "NINETY- 
 SIX HOURS' LEAVE," ETC. 
 
 NEW >Ur YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBE PAGE 
 
 I AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION . . . .11 
 
 II LADY BARBARA NEAVE 52 
 
 III LASH MAR MILL-HOUSE 88 
 
 IV INTERMEZZO i 120 
 
 V MORTMAIN 149 
 
 VI DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 184 
 
 VII EDUCATION FOR THOSE OF RIPER YEARS . . 210 
 
 VIII THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL .... 237 
 
 IX THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE . 260
 
 "Because lust was not good enough, the Celt 
 invented romance." 
 
 SHANE LESLIE : The End of a Chapter.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF 
 ERIC LANE 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 
 
 "... A genial . . . bachelor, whom the outside world called 
 selfish because it derived no particular benefit from him. . . ." 
 OSCAR WILDE: "THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY." 
 
 ERIC LANE, visible only from ear to chin above the water- 
 line, peered through the steam of the bathroom at a 
 travelling-clock on his dressing-table. The bath would 
 have been improved by another half handful of verbena 
 salts; but, even lacking this, the water was still too hot 
 to be lightly dismissed with an aggrieved gurgle down the 
 waste-pipe. It was an added self-indulgence to know that, 
 if he lay gently boiling himself for more than another 
 minute, he would be late for dinner with Lady Poynter; 
 but, if any one had to suffer, let it be Lady Poynter. It 
 was not his fault that the rehearsal of "The Bomb-Shell" 
 had dragged on until after seven ; something had to be sac- 
 rificed the letters which his secretary had left for him 
 to sign, or the hot bath, or the cigarette and glass of sherry 
 as he dressed, or (in the last resort and quite obviously) 
 Lady Poynter. He had already foregone a cocktail, which 
 would have made him two minutes later. 
 
 ii
 
 12 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 As the water began to cool, Eric threw a towel over his 
 shoulders, wiped the steam from the face of the clock and 
 began to dry himself slowly, looking round with ever-fresh 
 delight at the calculated ingenuity of comfort in his new 
 flat. It was his reward for the successful play. For ten 
 years after coming down from Oxford he had lived in the 
 Temple, first with Jack Waring and afterwards by himself ; 
 lonely, hard-working years, when he had painfully learned 
 the value of money and time. With one play running inde- 
 fatigably, another rehearsing and a third in sight of com- 
 pletion, he had decided to construct a frame better suited 
 to his new position. Ten years ago he had dreamed at 
 Oxford of a day when he would burst upon London as a 
 new young Byron; and, when the dream was almost for- 
 gotten, he found himself living in its midst. He was 
 courted and quoted, photographed and "paragraphed"; 
 Lady Poynter and the rich, malcontent world which 
 aspired to intelligence humbly invited him to dine, and it 
 did not matter whether she wanted to pay him homage or 
 to exhibit him as her latest celebrity. It was time to leave 
 the Temple and to burst, fully equipped, upon London. A 
 friend in the artillery made over the remainder of his 
 lease, and Eric gave himself a fortnight's holiday to order 
 the furnishing and decoration of the six tiny rooms. When 
 he surveyed telephone and dictaphone, switches and presses, 
 files and cases, tables and lights, he felt that the ease and 
 beauty of which he had dreamed were dulled and stunted 
 by the reality. 
 
 Over the dressing-table hung a framed poster of his 
 play: "Regency Theatre" in a scroll of blue lettering: "A 
 Divorce Has Been Arranged" under it ; then his own name ; 
 then the cast. Eric looked affectionately at the trophy, as 
 he began to comb his dripping, black hair. He was proud 
 of the play and grateful to it ; grateful for money, reputa- 
 tion and the added importance of himself. As he entered
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 13 
 
 the Carlton that day one unknown woman had whispered 
 to another, "Isn't that Eric Lane ? I thought lie was older." 
 He was boy enough to be gratified that seventeen people 
 had stopped him that morning between Grosvenor Street 
 and Piccadilly. Eight months ago no one outside Fleet 
 Street or the Thespian Club had heard of him. Jack 
 Waring and O'Rane, Loring and Deganway always seemed 
 to regard him as a harmless eccentric who wrote unaccept- 
 able plays for his own amusement. . . . 
 
 The hair-brushing completed, he put on a dressing-gown 
 and crossed the hall to his smoking-room for the sherry 
 and cigarette. On the table lay a pile of typewritten let- 
 ters, awaiting his signature, and another pile not yet 
 opened and secured from the late summer breeze by a glass 
 paper-weight. It was shaped like a horse-shoe and had 
 been sent him on his first night, to be followed by a tele- 
 gram: "Best wishes for all possible success Agnes." He 
 had kept it for luck and in gratitude to Agnes Waring, 
 who had been a sympathetic, if rather undiscriminating, 
 friend for many years. Until eight months ago he had 
 never earned enough money to think of marrying; and, at 
 thirty-two, he told himself that he was not a marrying man ; 
 but more than once in the early hours of triumph he had 
 thought of Agnes and of his own return to Lashmar; they 
 had often talked jestingly of the day when he would come 
 back famous, and behind the jest lay a hint of romance and 
 sentiment which told him that she was waiting for him and 
 believed in his success when he himself doubted it. 
 
 Next to the letters lay an album in which his secretary 
 had at last finished pasting his press-cuttings. He could 
 not resist the temptation to glance at two or three of his 
 favourite notices before opening the letters. The critics 
 had treated him kindly, for he had been a critic himself 
 and had not scrupled to secure a good press; but mere 
 flattery never kept a bad play running. . . . He decided
 
 14 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 that he was going to enjoy his dinner with the Poynters, 
 though the chiming of the clock in the hall warned him 
 that he could not hope to be dressed and in Belgrave Square 
 by a quarter past eight. The new Byron would achieve an 
 effect, if he gained the reputation of always being ten 
 minutes late for everything; but the pose offended Eric's 
 sense of tidiness. Signing his letters, he ripped open half- 
 a-dozen envelopes and glanced at the contents, pushed the 
 news-cutting album neatly into its shelf and hurried into 
 his bedroom with a glass of sherry in his hand. 
 
 It was time to order a taxi, and a tall Scotch parlour- 
 maid, of whom he lived in secret dread, came in answer to 
 his ring. He would have preferred a man, but men were 
 unprocurable in war-time. He let fall a word of instruc- 
 tion on the correct way of laying out dress-clothes and was 
 beginning to get ready in earnest, when the telephone-bell 
 rang simultaneously in bedroom, bathroom, dining-room 
 and smoking-room. As he finished his sherry, he tried to 
 remember where he had left the instrument. 
 
 "Hul-lo," he cried, exploring to see whether the bath- 
 room chair was dry. 
 
 "That you, Ricky? Sybil speaking. I say, are you com- 
 ing down on Saturday? You've not been here for months, 
 and we want to see you." 
 
 Eric sighed patiently before he remembered that the 
 sigh was unlikely to carry as far as Winchester. The 
 prophet could look for affection in his own country and in 
 his own house; he would not find honour. 
 
 "If you feel I'm essential to the family happiness " he 
 
 began. 
 
 "You're not. But we've got some people dining on 
 Saturday Agnes Waring amongst others. You can bring 
 your work with you. . . . Say you'll come, like a good boy, 
 and don't be selfish." 
 
 "Well, I might," Eric answered. "Good-bye, Sybil."
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 15 
 
 "You needn't be in such a hurry! What are you doing 
 to-night ?" 
 
 "I'm being extraordinarily late for dinner with some 
 people I don't know," he answered. 
 
 His sister's voice in reply was slightly aggrieved. 
 
 "I wouldn't detain you for worlds. I only wanted to 
 know if you'd seen a full-page photograph of yourself " 
 
 "In the 'Gallery.' Yes, I know the editor and I got him 
 to shove it in. As my own advertising agent, I take a lot 
 of beating. Good-bye, Sybil." 
 
 "Good-bye, selfish pig. You're being spoilt by success, 
 you know." 
 
 Eric made no answer, but, as he snatched up his hat and 
 cane, still more as he settled himself in the taxi with his 
 feet on the opposite seat, he reflected with philosophic in- 
 dulgence how wide of the mark bis sister had fired. He 
 was self-satisfied, perhaps, as he had some reason to be; 
 self-sufficient, assuredly, as he had set out to become. After 
 all, he could have entered the Civil Service ten years before, 
 as his father had wished ; and there would have been ten 
 years of material comfort, an unchallengeable social posi- 
 tion, a wife, a home, spiritual paralysis and soul-destroying 
 domestic worries as his portion. Instead, he had elected 
 to make his own way in a hard and somewhat despised 
 school. A young journalist had no status. People invited 
 him to their houses, because he had been at the same college 
 as their sons, because other people had already taken the 
 plunge ; but 'he had always had enough detachment to recog- 
 nize where the intimacy was to stop. 
 
 Now he was being accepted at his own valuation. As he 
 passed the Ritz, two officers and a girl hailed a taxi and 
 told the driver to take them to the Regency. At eleven 
 o'clock they would be saying: "Good show, that." (Had 
 he not loitered in the hall of the theatre, with coat-collar 
 turned up, to hear just that?) In another month they
 
 would be going to "The Bomb-Shell," because it was by the 
 fellow who wrote "A Divorce Has Been Arranged." . . . 
 He had money, friends, adulators and the health to do a 
 full day's work. In speaking to Sybil, he had only hesi- 
 tated because he was not sure whether he wanted to meet 
 Agnes Waring yet. When they became engaged. . . . If 
 they became engaged, he would lose in interest with the 
 women like Lady Poynter who were always inviting him 
 to be lionized. . . . 
 
 As the taxi drew up in Belgrave Square, he looked at 
 his watch. Twenty-seven minutes past eight. He handed 
 his hat and cane to a footman and followed the butler up- 
 stairs with complete self-possession. As he was asked his 
 name at the door of the drawing-room, however, he stam- 
 mered : 
 
 "Mr. Eric L-lane." 
 
 It was intolerable that he could not overcome that stam- 
 mer, so entirely alien to a new young Byron. . . . 
 
 2 
 
 Lady Poynter had finished dressing and was writing in 
 her diary when her maid entered to ask whether Mrs. 
 Shelley might come in. At luncheon the Duchess of Ross 
 had complained that no one would give her a chance of 
 meeting young Eric Lane; Gerald Deganway had mur- 
 mured, "One poor martyr without a lion"; and, as 
 Deganway was incapable of originating anything, Lady 
 Poynter felt that she was not infringing any copyright in 
 recording the jest against that day when Eleanor Ross tried 
 to steal any more of her young men the moment she had 
 put a polish on them and made them known. . . . 
 
 "Angel Marion!" cried Lady Poynter, throwing down 
 her pen so that it described an inky semi-circle. "The idea 
 of asking!"
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 17 
 
 She embraced her guest as effusively as she had addressed 
 her. Lady Poynter was forty-eight years of age, daily in- 
 creasing in bulk, masculine in voice, intellectual through 
 vanity and childless by preference. Her husband was rich, 
 patient, stupid and self-indulgent, bearing with her literary 
 passions and in self-defence displaying that care for house- 
 hold comfort which it was Lady Poynter's pride to neglect. 
 Why, she asked, were men given brains if they made gods 
 of their bellies? Mrs. Shelley was the widow of a well- 
 known free-lance journalist, who in his day had brought 
 her into contact with a sufficient number of authors for 
 her to imitate on austerely simple lines the symposia of wit 
 and learning which Lady Poynter assembled on the strength 
 of her own personality and her husband's cellar. There 
 was a long-standing gentle competition between the two, 
 which they abandoned in common hostility to Lady Mait- 
 land, who excelled them both in the ruthlessness and speed 
 of her hunting. At the moment, however, Mrs. Shelley had 
 eclipsed both her rivals by the chance of having known Eric 
 Lane for ten years; to Lady Maitland he was still "Mr. 
 Eric," to Lady Poynter "Mr. Lane." 
 
 "You don't mind my coming like this, do you ?" she asked 
 timidly, disengaging herself from Lady Poynter's embrace 
 and indicating her commandant's uniform. "I was at the 
 hospital until eight." 
 
 "As if I minded what you wore !" her hostess cried. "In 
 war-time, when we haven't a moment to turn round . . . ! 
 And it isn't as if this were a party." 
 
 Mrs. Shelley walked to a mirror and looked thoughtfully 
 at her unassertive reflection. Her hair was a dusty brown, 
 her eyes an unsoftening grey, and her cheeks, which were 
 careworn with exacting, humble ambition, acted at once as 
 frame and background for a thin nose and unrelaxing 
 mouth. 
 
 "You always say that, darling," she protested gently,
 
 1 8 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 leaning forward to the mirror and dabbing at herself with 
 a powder-puff. "And it means the most delightful " 
 
 "I've got Eric Lane coming," interrupted Lady Poynter, 
 groping for a crumpled half-sheet of paper marked as with 
 the sweeping strokes of a hay-rake in soft mud. "Who 
 else? Sonia O'Rane you know; Max or did Max say he 
 was dining at his club? It doesn't matter, because I can't 
 pretend that Max contributes much, even though he is my 
 husband; then there's my nephew, Johnnie Gaymer; and 
 Babs Neave " 
 
 "Dear Babs," murmured Mrs. Shelley with conscientious 
 enthusiasm. It was her favourite boast that she sincerely 
 tried to make allowances for all and permitted ill-speaking 
 of none. In the years before the war, when Lady Barbara's 
 friends were wondering whether they really could continue 
 to know her, Mrs. Shelley remained embarrassingly loyal. 
 "I haven't seen her for months." 
 
 "She's been nursing at Crawleigh all this time, simply 
 wearing herself out. I've never seen any one so changed. 
 We met in Bond Street this morning; I hadn't meant to 
 invite her, but I felt I must do something. . . ." Lady 
 Poynter projected herself from the sofa and rustled to the 
 door, murmuring : "I must find out whether Max is dining 
 at home to-night." 
 
 Mrs. Shelley made her way downstairs to the drawing- 
 room and stood on the balcony outside one of the French 
 windows, looking down through the warm dusk on Belgrave 
 Square. An open taxi drew up at the door, and she 
 watched Mrs. O'Rane descending daintily and smiling at 
 the driver; a second taxi drove from the opposite corner 
 of the square, and Captain Gaymer, in Flying Corps uni- 
 form, jumped out and hurried to the door, looking appre- 
 hensively at his watch. Mrs. Shelley left the balcony and 
 shook hands with Lord Poynter who was dutifully dressed
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 19 
 
 in time to receive any guests who might arrive before his 
 wife appeared. 
 
 "Two. Four," he counted timidly. "Babs Neave is sure 
 to be late. That leaves only Lane. Does every one know 
 him?" 
 
 An indistinct murmur was drowned by Gaymer, who 
 knitted his brows and repeated : 
 
 "Lane? Eric Lane? The dramatist fellow? I saw 
 something about him in one of the picture-papers to-day, 
 when I was having my hair cut. Oh, I know ! He'd left 
 London, and letters weren't going to be forwarded. Didn't 
 he tell you ?" he asked as his aunt crossed the room in con- 
 cern. 
 
 Lady Poynter's jaw fell in affronted indignation. Lady 
 Maitland had already secured Mr. Lane for luncheon, the 
 Duchess of Ross had wired: "Don't know you but must 
 Have just seen your play. When will you dine?" and Mrs. 
 Shelley had staked out a claim before any one else had 
 heard of the man. 
 
 "That is really too abominable," she cried. "He made 
 a note of the time in his book . . . only two days ago. . . . 
 And then he hasn't the consideration even to telephone." 
 
 She counted the numbers and turned angrily, as the door 
 was thrown open. After pausing on the threshold to see 
 who was present, Lady Barbara Neave entered the room 
 falteringly and with a suggestion that she was belatedly 
 repenting a too venturesome effect in dress. The men, she 
 knew, were only watching her eyes and waiting for the 
 surprised smile of recognition which always made them feel 
 that they had been missed ; but Mrs. Shelley, she would 
 wager, was privately noting that a dove-coloured silk dress 
 and a scarlet shawl embroidered with birds in flight made 
 a white face look ashen ; Sonia O'Rane was probably won- 
 dering why her maid did not tell her that a band of black 
 tulle with a red rose at one side simply emphasized her
 
 20 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. . . . She moved listlessly 
 and smiled mysteriously to herself as though unconscious 
 that every one was silent and watchful ; then the surprised 
 smile transfigured her, she kissed the other women with 
 childlike abandon, leaving the men to watch and envy. 
 
 "Babs, darling, it is sweet of you to come. I've no party 
 for you," said Lady Poynter, forgiving the girl's lateness 
 and forgetting her own discomfiture. 
 
 Barbara shook her head and looked round the room with 
 eyes which had lost their momentary colour, as though the 
 light behind them had been doused. 
 
 "I've forgotten what it's like to meet people and try to 
 talk intelligently," she laughed with the mirthlessness of 
 physical exhaustion. "Well, Max! And Johnnie! I'm 
 sorry to be late, Margaret, but until the last moment I 
 didn't know that I should feel up to coming." 
 
 "If you'd thrown me over, too " began Lady Poyn- 
 ter. "Give us some light, Max. My dear, you're losing all 
 your looks, and that black thing gives you a face like a 
 sheet of mourning note-paper. You must take proper care 
 of yourself. And you're nothing but skin and bones." 
 
 Barbara smiled again, as listlessly as before. 
 
 "Yes. My maid has given notice ; I don't do her 
 credit. . . . But I'm a dull subject of conversation. How's 
 dear Marion been all this time?" 
 
 She broke up the group by drawing Mrs. Shelley to a 
 sofa with her and again looked cautiously round the room. 
 This was the first time that she had dined out since her 
 illness, almost the first time since the beginning of the war ; 
 and the light and noise, magnified by fancy and sensitive 
 nerves, made her dizzy. Her mother and the doctor had 
 tried to keep her at home ; but natural obstinacy and uncon- 
 trollable whim had been too much for them. A few weeks 
 ago she had fainted in the train, as she returned to London 
 from Crawleigh Abbey; an unknown man had taken care
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 21 
 
 of her, but, though she remembered his voice, she was too 
 giddy to see or recall his face. On arriving at her father's 
 house in Berkeley Square, she found her fingers grasping 
 a silver flask with a monogram "E. L." ; and that morning, 
 when Lady Poynter invited her to dinner, she had divined 
 that "E. L." must stand for Eric Lane. The coincidence 
 would not have been worth following by itself, but in the 
 latter days of her illness she had repeatedly dreamed of a 
 child with the stranger's voice; and, vaguely and shame- 
 facedly, Barbara believed that dreams had an influence on 
 life and were glimpses beyond the veil of the unknown. 
 She was coming to believe, too, in predestination as the one 
 cause able to explain a long series of isolated acts for 
 which she could not hold herself responsible; and to-night 
 predestination would be put to the test, for half-a-dozen 
 people had already invited her to meet Eric Lane and for 
 one reason or another she had never been able to accept. 
 It was the thought that she might be meeting him at last 
 which had so taken away her composure that she had hardly 
 been able to cross the room. 
 
 "I don't think it's worth waiting," muttered Lady Poyn- 
 ter, her indignation returning reinforced by hunger. "You 
 might ring the bell, Max, and find whether any telephone 
 message has been received " 
 
 "It's Eric Lane," Mrs. Shelley explained. "Captain 
 Gaymer was saying that he'd left London." 
 
 "Oh ! I'm sorry. I've never met him," said Barbara. 
 
 Evidently she was predestined never to meet him; and 
 the noise and light made her too giddy to decide whether 
 she was relieved or disappointed. Predestination was win- 
 ning another round ; and, while she was ill and unresisting, 
 it was comforting to feel that she was not responsible for 
 all the follies and the one crime which had ruined her life ; 
 but it was sad to feel that she would never meet the hero 
 of her dream-romance. He might have filled the whole of
 
 a life that for a year had been empty and aching; at the 
 lowest computation, their meeting would have been an ex- 
 periment in emotion. . . . 
 
 Lord Poynter had shambled flat-footedly half-way to the 
 bell, when the door was thrown open again and the butler 
 announced "Mr. Eric Lane." There was a tiny stir of 
 interest among those who had not met him and of surprise 
 among all. Eric's eyes narrowed for a moment under the 
 light of the chandelier; then he collected himself, swiftly 
 identified Lady Poynter and shook her hand with a mur- 
 mur of apology for his lateness. 
 
 "But, dear man, we'd given you up!" she exclaimed. 
 "Why did you frighten us by announcing in the papers that 
 you'd left London? You've not met Max, have you?" 
 
 Eric shook hands with Lord Poynter. 
 
 "That was my s-secretary," he explained. Shyness was 
 rushing in waves to his head, and he could only save him- 
 self from disgrace by pretending to be more icily collected 
 than any one in the room. "I'm f-frightfully overworked 
 at present with rehearsals and things, so I applied for a 
 f-fortnight's leave from my department and everybody 
 thinks I'm f-fishing in Scotland or doing a walking tour on 
 Dartmoor. This party is my f-final dissipation, Lady 
 Poynter." 
 
 He looked round to see with whom he had still to shake 
 hands. As he began to speak, Barbara had shivered so 
 violently that Mrs. Shelley turned at the movement; then 
 she tried to remember even seeing his face as he bent over 
 her in the train and carried her along the platform at 
 Waterloo. She was paralyzed with dread of the moment 
 when he would recognize her, for she had nothing adequate 
 to the drama of their meeting. . . . He shook hands first 
 with those nearest to him, and she hastened to make a 
 mental picture before he saw that she was watching him; 
 black hair, a thin face restless with vitality, bloodless lips
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 23 
 
 tightly shut and eyes that were out of keeping with the 
 assurance of the face eyes unexpectedly big and soft, 
 deep in colour and timid in expression, reminding her of 
 the stammer and quick eagerness of his speech. 
 
 He was shaking hands now with Airs. Shelley, and Bar- 
 bara grew rigid with fear. His face turned, and their eyes 
 met; but he passed on to Gaymer without recognizing her. 
 She found herself trembling with relief; and the reaction 
 swept away disappointment and all interest but dislike. 
 Voice and eyes, movements and manner became hateful to 
 her; she longed for an opportunity of upsetting his pre- 
 carious composure, of pricking his conceit and hurting him. 
 If Margaret Poynter did not put her next to him, she would 
 walk out of the room and go home. . . . 
 
 The butler entered to announce that dinner was served, 
 and Lady Poynter, with an unconcentrated "Babs, you 
 haven't met Mr. Lane, have vou?" tried to remember her 
 ordering of the table. 
 
 "Tell me who 'Babs' is," Eric begged in an undertone, 
 as he and Gaymer prepared to follow the others down to 
 the dining-room. 
 
 "Babs Neave? Don't you know her?" Gaymer asked in 
 surprise. 
 
 "Oh, by name, of course. I didn't recognize her." 
 
 "She's been rather ill, I think." 
 
 As he pulled his napkin out of its folds, Eric stole a 
 glance at Barbara. By sight he had known her distantly 
 for years as a girl who hardly missed a first night or pri- 
 vate view ; she was always to be found acting, reciting or 
 at least selling programmes at charity matinees; he had seen 
 her at Stage Society performances, and the illustrated 
 papers gave her a full-page photograph after any of the 
 big costume balls. And, like most of his generation, he 
 knew her by reputation better than by sight; for half-a- 
 dozen years her epigrams and escapades had been on every
 
 24 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 one's lips; while he was still at Oxford and she a child of 
 twelve, her cousin Lord Loring had wondered despairingly 
 what was to be done with her. On the disclosure of her 
 name, Eric had expected to see some one flamboyant and 
 assertive. He was relieved to find her quiet and reserved, 
 a little hostile, perhaps bored and certainly ill. 
 
 "I'm so sorry to hear you've not been well," he began 
 timidly. Her expression and the angle at which she was 
 seated convinced him that he had left an unfavourable im- 
 pression on her, and he half feared a rebuff. "I suppose, 
 like every one else, you've been overworking?" 
 
 "You'll find me thoroughly dull," Barbara announced 
 abruptly, with the candour of one who studies her effects 
 and with a brusqueness which discouraged further ad- 
 vances. "The doctor says oh, Mrs. O'Rane's trying to 
 attract your attention." 
 
 Eric felt himself dismissed and, submitting to her hint, 
 looked over the malachite bowls of white roses to the place 
 where Mrs. O'Rane was leaning forward with one elbow 
 on the table and her other hand repressing Gaymer. The 
 cast of the "Divorce" was being slightly changed, and they 
 had thought it worth while to venture a sovereign on the 
 name of one nonentity who was retiring in favour of 
 another. Eric adjudicated in Gaymer's favour and was 
 turning to give Barbara a last chance, when he found that 
 the flood-gates were open and that every one, taking his 
 time from Lady Poynter, was prepared to discuss dramatic 
 art in general and, in particular, the construction and his- 
 tory of his play. Their enquiries were simple-minded ; bom- 
 barded from four different quarters at once, he took the 
 questions at the volley; then, as they seemed interested, he 
 became more expansive, losing his stammer and straying
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 25 
 
 unconsciously into an unrehearsed lecture. There were 
 occasional objections and challenges; but Lady Poynter 
 silenced them ruthlessly with a "Now, my dear, you mustn't 
 interrupt when Mr. Lane's explaining the whole basis of his 
 art," and he discovered suddenly that he was talking well. 
 
 "I expect you're tired of hearing it, but I loved that play 
 of yours," said his hostess with a beaming glance which 
 confidently asked her other guests whether she was not 
 well justified in summoning them to meet him. "I've been 
 to see it three times." 
 
 "I've been twice, and some one's taking me to it again 
 to-morrow," continued Mrs. O'Rane, for whom no subject 
 of conversation was complete until she had decorated it 
 with a personal touch. 
 
 "Even I've been once," murmured Barbara, rousing re- 
 luctantly from the silence which she had maintained since 
 the beginning of dinner. "George Oakleigh insisted on 
 taking me. It seems to be having a great success, Mr. 
 Lane." 
 
 Eric smiled a little self-consciously; but her deliberate 
 avoidance of enthusiasm chilled him after Lady Poynter's 
 extravagant appreciation. 
 
 "No one here seems to have escaped it," he said. 
 
 "I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it," 
 she went on, half to herself. 
 
 Such criticism led to nothing but a second self-conscious 
 smile ; and, knowing her reputation, he had expected some- 
 thing more stimulating. 
 
 "Was it a good house?" he asked. 
 
 "Very full, if that's what you mean." She looked past 
 him and lowered her voice. "It was full of Lady Poyn- 
 ters," she went on. "Rows and rows of them. They took 
 it conscientiously, they laughed at the jokes, they missed 
 nothing, even the obvious things ; and, if I went next week, 
 I should find them all there again or other people exactly
 
 26 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 like them. It was a wonderful " she hesitated and 
 looked at him long enough to see that he was perplexed, if 
 not annoyed "experience." 
 
 "I hope you don't regret going?" 
 
 "Very few plays are as amusing as the audience," she 
 answered thoughtfully. "Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for 
 anything. I wondered what you were like. . . ." She 
 turned to look at him with leisurely and unsmiling interest. 
 "I expected to find you much younger. How old are you? 
 Twenty-six? Thirty-two! You're ten years older than 
 I am ! What in the world have you been doing with your- 
 self?" 
 
 "That would take rather a long time to tell !" he laughed. 
 
 "I don't expect it would. Life is not measured by days, 
 but by sensations. . . ." 
 
 "Those you experience or those you create?" Eric inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 Barbara turned away and nodded to herself. 
 
 "It's like that, is it?" she murmured. "Are you declar- 
 ing war? If so, you're clever enough to fight with your 
 own weapons instead of picking up the rusty swords of men 
 I've already beaten. You knew little Val Arden, of course? 
 And my cousin Jim Loring? They taught you to call me a 
 'sensationalist.' Labels are an indolent man's device for 
 guessing what's inside a bottle without tasting." 
 
 "They sometimes prevent accidental poisoning." 
 
 "If the right labels are on the right bottles. That's what 
 I have to find out. And it's worth an occasional risk. . . . 
 Sensationalist! I collect new emotions, but you must be 
 bourgeois yourself if you want to epater le bourgeois. 
 Now, you can't have had many emotions, or you wouldn't 
 have written that play. And yet what were you doing 
 before?" she demanded abruptly. 
 
 "I followed the despised calling of a journalist." 
 
 "Ah!"
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 27 
 
 She nodded and began eating her quail without explain- 
 ing herself further. Eric was nettled by her tone, for she 
 was taking pains to let him see that she had not liked his 
 play, perhaps even that she despised him for writing it. 
 He half turned to Lady Poynter, but she was deep in con- 
 versation with her nephew. For a time he, too, concen- 
 trated his attention on the quail; but every one else was 
 talking, and, though Barbara's challenge was too pert to be 
 taken seriously, he felt that half-praise from her was more 
 valuable than the adulation of women like Mrs. Shelley 
 who were content to worship success for its own sake. 
 
 "What was the precise meaning of the 'Ah!'?" he en- 
 quired lazily. 
 
 " 'Meaning' ; not 'precise meaning.' You surely don't 
 want me to see that you're rather losing your temper and 
 trying to cover it up by being dignified. You've been so 
 careful with your effects, too! ... I said 'Ah,' because 
 you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a 
 very clever journalist, I should think." 
 
 "Isn't that rash on half an hour's acquaintance?" 
 
 "You're forgetting your play for the first time since it 
 was produced ! I felt that, however bad it was as a play, 
 it was first-rate journalism. I've told you that I kept think- 
 ing how clever of you it was to write it. You mustn't 
 think I didn't enjoy myself. The construction's quite toler- 
 able, and the dialogue's admirable not a word too much, 
 not a syllable put in for 'cleverness,' no epigrams for epi- 
 grams' sake. And you've got a good sense of the theatre." 
 
 "I was a dramatic critic for some years. Hence my good 
 press." 
 
 "Ah ! Well, I felt that night that, if you weren't too old 
 and set, you might live to write a really good play." He 
 bowed slightly. "Have you a cigarette? I hate people 
 smoking in the middle of meals ; but Margaret's begun, and 
 I must have something to drown it. Now that, I suppose,
 
 28 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 would be called an ironical bow, wouldn't it? I mean, in 
 your stage directions? You must guard against that kind 
 of thing, you know." 
 
 "I will endeavour to do so, Lady Barbara." 
 ' 'Try,' not 'endeavour/ And you mustn't talk like your 
 own characters; you've no idea how debilitating that is. 
 It's bad enough when you try to drag us into the world of 
 your plays, but it's intolerable if you try to drag your 
 plays into our world. Did you ever read a story about a 
 boy who lost all sense of reality by going to the theatre 
 too much? He became dramatic. He slapped his fore- 
 head and groaned Well, we don't slap our foreheads 
 
 or groan, however great the provocation. And in moments 
 of stress he would shake hands with people and turn away 
 to hide his emotion. And it wasn't only in gestures, he 
 became dramatic in conduct. When compromising letters 
 came into his hands, he used to burn them unread and 
 without any one looking on, which is manifestly absurd. I 
 forget what happened to him in the end, but I expect he 
 was charged with something he hadn't done to save the 
 husband of the woman he wanted to marry and whom 
 he'd have made perfectly miserable, if she hadn't taken 
 him in hand very firmly at the outset. And he'd have 
 insisted on having all their quarrels in her bedroom." 
 
 Barbara seemed to have talked away her listlessness. 
 The champagne had brought colour into her cheeks and 
 eyes. Eric looked at her with new interest, waiting for 
 the next abrupt change. 
 
 "I'm not finding you as thoroughly dull as you warned me 
 to expect," he observed, borrowing her candour of speech. 
 
 "I should think not! I'm never dull when it's worth 
 while taking any trouble. I didn't think you were worth 
 while, till you began talking. Then I saw that in spite of 
 the play " 
 
 "I didn't think I should be spared that," he murmured.
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 29 
 
 * 
 
 "And the poses " 
 
 "Poses?" 
 
 "Oh, my dear child, you've postured and advertised your- 
 self till every one's sick of you! A good press I should 
 think you had ! You're neverout of it ! An announcement 
 that you've left London and the intolerable effrontery of 
 telling us all about it ! The only way you could escape from 
 your mob of adorers." 
 
 "I don't think I used the word 'adorers' ; and I've got to 
 find time somehow to rehearse my new play." 
 
 His voice had grown a little stiff. Barbara smiled to 
 herself and discovered suddenly that the desire to hurt him 
 was dead. 
 
 "When's the new play coming out ?" she asked. 
 
 "In the middle of next month." 
 
 "You can't make it later?" 
 
 "Are you afraid you won't be able to attend the first 
 night?" he laughed. 
 
 "God forbid! But I shan't have time to complete your 
 education in a month. Now, I'm talking seriously. Put 
 that play off ! You're only a child, you've made a mint of 
 money out of this present abomination. If you'll wait till 
 I've educated you " 
 
 Her pupils had dilated until the irises were swamped in 
 black. The early warm flush had shrunk and intensified 
 into two vivid splashes of colour over her cheek-bones. 
 Neurotic, Eric decided ; but arresting and magnetic. 
 
 "And what do you propose to teach me ?" he enquired. 
 
 As he spoke, he was conscious of a lull in the conversa- 
 tion. Without looking round, he knew that every one was 
 watching them and that both their voices had risen a tone. 
 
 "Life !" she cried. "You've never met men and women. 
 I told George Oakleigh so that night. That's why the public 
 loves your play."
 
 30 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 Eric turned to Lady Poynter. 
 
 "I have a new play coming out next month," he ex- 
 plained, "and Lady Barbara wants me to hang it tip till 
 she's taught me did you say 'life'?" 
 
 "Yes ! Margaret, darling, any young man may write one 
 successful bad play " 
 
 There was a gasp of orotund protest from Lady Poynter. 
 
 "My dear Babs!" 
 
 "Of course it's a bad play! What I don't know about 
 bad plays isn't worth knowing, I've seen so many of them ! 
 Have you ever met a woman, Mr. Lane? Have you ever 
 even fancied that you were in love?" 
 
 Eric took a cigarette and lighted one for Barbara. 
 
 "I thought I knew a lot about life when I was twenty- 
 two," he said, studiedly reflective. "I'd just come down 
 from Oxford." 
 
 Her attention seemed to have wandered to her cigarette, 
 for she drew hard at it and then asked for another match. 
 
 "Which was your college?" she enquired with neurotic 
 suddenness of transition. 
 
 "Trinity." 
 
 "Did you know my brother? He must have been up 
 about your time. He was at the House." 
 
 "I knew him by sight. Tall, fair-haired man; he was 
 on the Bullingdon. I never met him, though. I didn't 
 know many men at the House." 
 
 Barbara thought for a moment. 
 
 "I don't believe I know any one who was at Trinity in 
 your time. Did you ever meet a man called Waring?" 
 
 "Jack Waring of New College? I've known him all my 
 life. They're neighbours of ours in Hampshire. You 
 know he's missing?" 
 
 Barbara nodded quickly. 
 
 "So I heard. ... I suppose nothing definite's known?"
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 31 
 
 "I haven't met any of the family since the news was pub- 
 lished, but I shall see his sister this week-end." 
 
 "Well, if you can find out anything without too much 
 bother " 
 
 "Oh, she's a great friend of mine," Eric explained. "It's 
 no trouble." 
 
 Barbara turned to him with a rapid backward cast to 
 her earlier quest. 
 
 "Are you in love with her? Oh, but why not?" she de- 
 manded querulously. "It would do you so much good as 
 a man and as a writer. You'll never get rid of your self- 
 satisfaction till then ; and you'll never write a good play. 
 It's such a pity, when you've everything except the psy- 
 chology. Why don't you fall in love with me? I could 
 teach you such a lot, and you'd never regret it." Barbara 
 caught her hostess' eye and picked up her gloves. "You'd 
 write a tolerable play in the middle of it, a work of genius 
 at the end " 
 
 Eric's laugh interrupted her eager outpour. 
 
 "I'm quite satisfied to be an observer of life." 
 
 "Dear child, you're quite satisfied with everything. 
 You're sunk in soulless contentment; you shirk emotion 
 because it would force you to see below the pink-and-white 
 surface ; that's why you write such bad plays. Margaret !" 
 She approached Lady Poynter with outstretched arms. 
 "I've argued myself hoarse trying to persuade Mr. Lane to 
 fall in love with me. Do see what you can do ! He shews 
 all the obstinacy of a young, weak man; he won't see how 
 much I should improve him. When he'd learnt life at my 
 hands " 
 
 Lady Poynter threw a crushing arm round the girl's 
 waist. 
 
 "Come on, Babs. You're looking better than you did," 
 she said. "I told you you'd fall in love with him," she 
 added, as they walked upstairs.
 
 32 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "There's nothing much the matter with Babs," com- 
 mented Gaymer meaningly, as he shut the door and settled 
 into a chair beside Lord Poynter. 
 
 As Barbara's voice faded and died away, an air of guilty 
 quiet settled upon the dining-room. Eric tidied himself a 
 place among her wreckage of crumpled napkin, sloppy 
 finger-bowl, nut-shells and cigarette-ash. For ten minutes 
 he could rest; conversation with either of his companions 
 threatened to be as difficult as it was unnecessary. John 
 Gaymer, in upbringing, intellect, habits of mind and method 
 of speech, belonged to a self-centred world which cheerfully 
 defied subjugation by a brigade of Byrons, reinforced by 
 a division of Wesleys and an army of Rousseaus; for him 
 there was one school and no other, one college and no other, 
 one regiment, club, restaurant, music-hall, tailor, hair- 
 dresser and no other. Eric was always meeting John Gay- 
 mers and never penetrating below the sleek, well-bred and 
 uninterested exterior; they were politely repellent, as 
 though an intrusion from outside would disturb their 
 serenity and the advantageous bargain which they had 
 struck with life ; it might cause them to think, and thought 
 was a synonym of death. The Flying Corps, at first sight, 
 was an unassimilating environment for a John Gaymer, 
 but this one had not gone in alone and he had certainly 
 not been assimilated. A closely knit and self-isolated group 
 had formed itself there, as it could be trusted to form itself 
 in a house-party or under the shadow of the guillotine, 
 genially unapproachable and uncaringly envied. 
 
 To shew his fairness and breadth of mind Eric tested 
 the specimen under his hand with politics, the war and a 
 current libel action, only to be rewarded at the third ven- 
 ture. Before surrendering to his desire for silence and
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 33 
 
 rest, he glanced under lowered lids at his host's blue-tinged, 
 loosely-hanging cheeks. Conscientiously silent when his 
 wife wished to discuss literature with her new discoveries, 
 Lord Poynter became dutifully loquacious when exposed 
 defenceless to the task of entertaining them and took refuge 
 in gusty, nervous geniality or odd, sly confidences on mat- 
 ters of no moment. 
 
 "Aren't you drinking any port wine?" he demanded of 
 Eric after brooding indecision. 
 
 "Thank you, yes. It's a '63, isn't it?" Eric asked, as he 
 helped himself and passed the decanter. 
 
 Lord Poynter's discoloured eyes shone with interest for 
 the first time that night. 
 
 "Ah, come now ! A kindred spirit !" he wheezed welcom- 
 ingly. "I'll be honest with you ; I was in two minds whether 
 to give you that wine to-night. Women don't appreciate it, 
 they're not educated up to it. It was that or the Jubilee 
 Sandeman, and I'm not an admirer of the Jubilee wines. 
 Very delicate, very good," he cooed, "but well, you'll 
 understand me if I call them all women's wines. Now, if 
 you like port, I've a few bottles of '72 Gould Campbell. . . . 
 Johnny, your grandfather would have had a fit, if he'd seen 
 you trying to drink port wine with a cigarette in your 
 mouth. Not that it makes much difference, when people 
 have been smoking all the way through dinner; your 
 palate's tainted before you come to your wine. People 
 pretend that it makes a difference whether you approach the 
 tobacco through the wine or the wine through the tobacco. 
 I don't see it, myself. . . ." 
 
 His tongue uncoiled, he soliloquized on wines of the past 
 and present, as the survivor of a dead generation might 
 dwell dotingly on the great men and beautiful women of a 
 long life-time. Empire, devolving its cares upon his shoul- 
 ders, enabled him as he explained with sly gusto to 
 secure that there should be no inharmonious inruption of
 
 34 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 coffee and liqueurs until the sacred wine had been in rever- 
 ent circulation for twenty minutes. Half-way through, 
 warming to his new friend, he rang for a bottle of wood 
 port first known to history in 1823, when it was already a 
 middle-aged wine, and fortified from every subsequent 
 vintage. 
 
 "I don't say you'll like it, but it's an experience," he told 
 Eric with an air of cunning, respectable conspiracy. "Like 
 a ve-ery dry sherry. If I may advise you, I would say, 
 'Drink it as a liqueur' ; don't waste your time on my brandy, 
 I'm afraid I've none fit to offer you. There was a tragedy 
 about my last bottle of the Waterloo. . . ." 
 
 He diverged into a long and untidy story about a dinner- 
 party in honour of a late Austrian Ambassador which coin- 
 cided with the collapse of his wife's maid with pneumonia. 
 Eric, listening with half his brain, wondered whether any 
 one would believe him if he transplanted the room, the 
 conversation and Lord Poynter into a play; with the other 
 half he thought of Lady Barbara's advice that he should 
 fall in love, if not with her, at least with somebody. His 
 sister's telephone message had started the train of thought; 
 he was looking forward to the week-end and the oppor- 
 tunity of meeting Agnes Waring. The time would come 
 if there were many hosts like Lord Poynter and if they 
 all talked "Hibernia" port and Tuileries brandy, it would 
 come very soon when he would grow tired of being 
 pushed from one house to another and made to talk for the 
 diversion of sham intellectuals. In this, at least, he had 
 had enough of his triumphal progress; there was rest and 
 companionship in being married, it was the greatest of all 
 adventures. . . . He wondered how Agnes would acquit 
 herself at a party like this; he would not like people to 
 cease inviting him because they felt bound to invite a tire- 
 some wife as well. . . . 
 
 Gaymer, too, was growing impatient of his uncle's cellar
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 35 
 
 Odyssey and was calling aloud for a cigar, while he scoured 
 the side-board for Benedictine. 
 
 "They'll be wondering where we've got to," said Lord 
 Poynter guiltily, recalling his mind from a distance and 
 lapsing into silence. And Eric felt compunction in helping 
 to cut short the man's one half-hour of happiness in the 
 day. 
 
 In the drawing-room they found the four women seated 
 at a bridge-table, disagreeing over the score. Lady Poynter 
 archly reproached her husband and Gaymer for "monopo- 
 lizing poor Mr. Lane" ; there was a shuffling of feet, cutting, 
 changing of chairs, and Mrs. Shelley crept to the door, 
 whispering that she had to start work early next day or 
 she would not dream of breaking up such a delightful 
 party ; she was promptly arrested and brought back by Mrs. 
 O'Rane with the offer of Lady Maitland's brougham, which 
 was to call for her at eleven. After an exhibition of half- 
 hearted self-effacement by all, a new four was made up, and 
 Eric found himself contentedly alone on a sofa with Lord 
 Poynter mid-way between him and the table, uncertain 
 whether to watch the game or venture on more conversa- 
 tion. He had whispered: "I can tell you a story about 
 that cigar you're smoking . . . ," when, at the end of the 
 second hand, Barbara looked slowly round, pushed back her 
 chair and walked to the sofa. 
 
 "Thinking over your wasted opportunities ?" she asked, as 
 she sat down beside Eric. 
 
 "There are none," he answered lazily. "I've been a great 
 success to-night. I can see that our host won't rest content 
 till I've promised to dine here three times a week to drink 
 his port ; I've been good value to Lady Poynter ; if I play 
 bridge, I shall lose a lot of money to Gaymer not that I 
 don't play quite a fair game, but I'm sure, without even 
 seeing him, that he plays a diabolically good game and I 
 know I shall cut against him. Mrs. Shelley? Every one's
 
 36 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 always a success with her ; talking to her is as demoralizing 
 as cracking jokes from the Bench. Mrs. O'Rane wants me 
 to write her a duologue just as one draws a rabbit for a 
 child. . . . That only leaves you. And you capitulated 
 more completely even than Poynter, without the '63 port as 
 an introduction and bond." 
 
 Barbara looked at him with a dawning smile. 
 
 "I think you're the most insufferably conceited young 
 man I've ever met !" she exclaimed. 
 
 "I'm adjusting the balance. If you hadn't disparaged me 
 the whole way through dinner. . . . Now, when you got up 
 here, you pumped Mrs. Shelley with both hands for every- 
 thing you could get her to tell you about me. Didn't you ?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Eric smiled to himself. 
 
 "She's the only one here who knows me, but she didn't 
 tell you much." 
 
 "I shan't say." 
 
 Three impatient voices from the bridge-table met and 
 struggled in an unmelodious chorus of "Bobs I Come 
 here!" 
 
 She returned a moment later, but had hardly sat down 
 before Gaymer spread out the substantial remains of his 
 hand with a challenge of "Any one anything to say about 
 the rest? Babs, don't keep us waiting again!" 
 
 As she stood up, Eric rose, too, and said good-bye. 
 
 "I have some work to finish before I go to bed," he told 
 her. 
 
 "Won't you wait and see me home? Sonia O'Rane's got 
 a brougham, and we'll borrow it first." 
 
 Eric laughed and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Certainly, if you wish it." 
 
 "You're not very gracious," she pouted. 
 
 "It was so transparent. You could go with Mrs. O'Rane.
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 37 
 
 Or Gaymer would be delighted to find you a taxi. Or you 
 could go on foot." 
 
 She drew herself up to her full height. 
 
 "Instead of which I humiliated myself by asking a small 
 thing which was just big enough to give you the opportunity 
 of being rude." 
 
 She turned away to the table, but stopped at the sound 
 of laughter from Eric. He had hesitated a moment before 
 taking the risk, but laughter seemed the only corrective for 
 her theatrical dignity. 
 
 "I spend hours each day watching people rehearsing this 
 sort of thing," he murmured. 
 
 "Why do you imagine I ask you to see me home?" she 
 demanded, with a petulant stamp. 
 
 "Partly because you're enjoying me; partly because you 
 know I want to work and you think it will be such fun to 
 upset my arrangements even by ten minutes." 
 
 Barbara smiled at him over her shoulder. 
 
 "We're a game all," she pleaded, motioning him back to 
 the sofa. 
 
 Eric smiled and lit a cigarette from the stump of his 
 cigar. 
 
 Ten minutes later they were driving along Piccadilly to- 
 wards Berkeley Square, Eric rather tired, Barbara excited 
 and restlessly voluble. 
 
 "Is Mr. Lane going to forget our second meeting as 
 quickly and completely as he forgot the first?" she asked. 
 
 "The first?" Eric echoed. "This is the first time I've 
 set eyes on you except in the distance at theatres and 
 places." 
 
 "It's the first time I've ever seen your face ; but I recog- 
 nized your voice and, if you will come into the house for a 
 moment, I can restore a certain flask." 
 
 Eric turned on her in amazement. 
 
 "Was that you? Well . . . Good . . . Good Heavens !"
 
 38 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 Barbara laughed softly. 
 
 "Try not to forget me so quickly again! I've still to 
 apologize for being such a beast when we met to-night. I 
 was ill ... and miserable " 
 
 "I had no idea!" Eric cried. "And I stared at you for 
 an hour on end trying to count your pulse by a watch 
 without a second-hand. . . . But you've changed so! I 
 used to catch sight of you before the war " 
 
 "I've travelled a lot since then," she interrupted. "The 
 whole way through Purgatory to Hell." 
 
 Eric tried to remember whether the war had robbed her 
 of any one but Jim Loring. 
 
 "Since that day you've changed so much again." 
 
 "Perhaps I'm taking a holiday from Hell. And, as vou 
 know, I'm not a good traveller." 
 
 He let down the window and threw away the end of his 
 cigarette. 
 
 "I thought you were going to die that day," he murmured 
 half to himself. "When I handed you over to your 
 maid. . . . Lady Barbara, why don't you take a little more 
 care of yourself?" 
 
 "D'you think I should be missed ?" 
 
 "I can well imagine Here! He's going wrong!" 
 
 The carriage had overshot Berkeley Street; but, as Eric 
 leaned towards the open window, Barbara caught him sud- 
 denly by the wrist and shoulder until she had turned him 
 to face her. 
 
 "Where d'you live?" she demanded peremptorily; and, 
 when he had told her, "Put your head out and tell him to 
 go there." 
 
 "But we're almost in Berkeley Square now." 
 
 "Do as I tell you ! I'm coming to pay you a call." 
 
 He disengaged her hands and lay back in his corner. 
 
 "It's a little late for you to be calling on me," he said.
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 39 
 
 With a quick tug and push she had opened the window 
 on her own side before he could stop her. 
 
 "Oh, will you drive to 89 Ryder Street first, please," he 
 heard her say. Then she sank back with a pursed-up smile 
 of triumph. "I've no intention of going to bed yet," she 
 explained. 
 
 "I've no intention of opening the door till I've taken you 
 home," he rejoined. 
 
 She made no answer till the carriage drew up opposite his 
 flat. 
 
 "It would be deplorable if you made a scene on the pave- 
 ment," she observed carelessly. 
 
 Then she stepped out and told the driver to go back to 
 Belgrave Square for Mrs. O'Rane. 
 
 It was a moon-lit night between half-past eleven and 
 twelve. Ryder Street had roused to life with a widely- 
 spaced but steady stream of men returning to bed from 
 Pall Mall and sparing the fag-end of their attention for the 
 unexpected tall girl who stood wrapped in a long silk shawl 
 in the shadow of a bachelor door- way. The brougham 
 turned round and drove away. Eric lighted another 
 cigarette. 
 
 "Am I right in thinking that you're being obstinate?" 
 Barbara enquired after some moments of silence. 
 
 "If you want me to take you home, I'll take you home. 
 Otherwise I shall leave you here, go round to the club, 
 explain that I've lost my latch-key and get a bed there." 
 
 "You're almost oriental in your hospitality," she laughed. 
 
 "I've no hospitality to spare for a girl of twenty-two at 
 this hour of the night." 
 
 She stretched out her arm to him. In observing the 
 beauty of her slender, long fingers and the whiteness of her 
 arm against the long fringe of the shawl, Eric forgot his 
 guard. She twitched the cigarette from his lips and laughed
 
 40 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 like a child, as she blew out a cloud of smoke. Cigarette, 
 shawl and manner suddenly reminded him of Carmen. 
 
 "You're so conventional," she sighed. 
 
 Eric became suddenly irritable. 
 
 "Lady Barbara, you're behaving idiotically!" he cried. 
 "I know you'd do anything for a new sensation, but 
 I'm not going to help. Possibly I'm old-fashioned. If you 
 think " 
 
 "I'm so thirsty," she interrupted. "Have you any soda- 
 water?" 
 
 "You're sure to find plenty in Berkeley Square." 
 
 "But you're afraid to give me any, afraid of being com- 
 promised ?" 
 
 "I've too many things to be afraid of without bothering 
 about that. Lady Barbara, you've several brothers, I've one 
 sister. If one of your brothers saw fit to invite my sister 
 to a bachelor flat " 
 
 "But you haven't invited me!" 
 
 "I should horsewhip him," Eric resumed jerkily. 
 
 She considered him curiously with her head on one side. 
 
 "You know, I don't feel afraid of you," she told him. 
 "I could trust you anywhere. You're not old enough to 
 understand that yet, but you will." 
 
 "Then for the present it's irrelevant. Come along, Lady 
 Barbara." 
 
 He advanced a step, but she only smiled at him without 
 moving. Eric looked angrily round, but the stream of 
 passers-by, though sluggish, shewed no signs of drying up. 
 A clock inside the hall began to chime midnight, and he 
 turned on his heel. As he did so, a taxi turned into the 
 street, and an officer climbed gingerly out and hoisted him- 
 self across the pavement on two crutches. Barbara coughed 
 and drew her shawl round her until half her face was 
 hidden.
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 41 
 
 "But, Eric dear, you can't have lost the key," she ex- 
 postulated, purposefully clear. 
 
 Over the shawl her eyes were gleaming with mischief and 
 triumph. 
 
 The officer looked quickly from one to the other. 
 
 "Hullo! You locked out?" he enquired sympathetically. 
 "Rotten luck! Here, let me put you out of your misery! 
 Hope you haven't been waiting long?" 
 
 "That is sweet of you," said Barbara. "Long? I seem 
 to have been standing here all day. Come on, Eric; I'm 
 frightfully tired ; I want to sit down." 
 
 She walked into the hall, beckoning him with a jerk of 
 her head. The officer bade them good-night and limped 
 to a ground-floor flat at the end. 
 
 "I'm going to my club, Lady Barbara," said Eric with 
 slow distinctness from the door-step. 
 
 "Then I shall bang on every door I see until I find your 
 flat," she retorted promptly. "I've told you, I want some 
 soda-water. And, Eric " 
 
 "Yes, Lady Barbara." 
 
 "Eric, I always get what I want. Who lives here, do 
 you suppose? We'll try his door first." 
 
 Eric came in and walked to the foot of the stairs. Bar- 
 bara slipped her arm through his, but he shook it away. 
 
 "I'm tired," she explained. "I wish you wouldn't be so 
 rough with me." 
 
 She replaced her arm, and, rather than engage in a 
 childish brawl, Eric left it there, though the touch of her 
 fingers on his wrist set his blood tingling. They walked 
 slowly, for he was trying to set his racing thoughts in order. 
 This, then, was the true Lady Barbara Neave. He had 
 never believed the fantastic stories about her, but she was 
 now gratuitously shewing him that she was of those who 
 stopped at nothing. 
 
 He felt the sudden unpitying disgust of a disappointed
 
 42 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 idealist. She was very young, with expressions which made 
 her wholly beautiful at times. . . . "Virginal" was the 
 word he was trying to find. . . . He wondered how to rid 
 himself of her without a scene. 
 
 "If you'll let go my arm, I'll open the door," he said with 
 stiff patience. 
 
 She walked into the small inner hall and looked round 
 her with unaffected interest. 
 
 "I've never been in a man's rooms before," she remarked 
 and Eric knew that she was speaking the truth. An ex- 
 traordinary sense of power came to him, rushing to his 
 head. The tired eyes and wistful mouth, the haggard 
 cheeks, the cloud of fine hair, the white arms and slender 
 hands fed his hungry love of beauty. And he had attracted 
 her until she lay at his mercy. . . . 
 
 "I want to see everything, Eric," she said gently. 
 
 He hardly heard the words ; but her tone was confiding, 
 and she slipped her hand into his. A latent sense of the 
 dramatic came to his rescue. 
 
 "You seem to have put yourself pretty completely into 
 my power," he observed, closing the front door behind 
 them. 
 
 "I know you so much better than you know me," she 
 answered. 
 
 "I don't quite follow." 
 
 She laughed gently to herself, then put her arms round 
 his neck and kissed him. 
 
 "No. . . . And you won't for years . . . not till I've 
 educated you. . . . Am I right in thinking that you've 
 forgotten all about my soda-water?" 
 
 Eric led her into the dining-room and gave her a tumbler 
 of soda-water with a hand that trembled.
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 43 
 
 She had taken him by surprise as much as if she had 
 struck him in the face. Incuriosity and fastidiousness, partly 
 timid, partly romantic, ha4 conspired to let him reach the 
 age of two-and-thirty without ever kissing or being kissed. 
 The act, now that he had experienced it, was nothing. A 
 warm body, yielding in self-surrender, had pressed against 
 him for a moment; two hands had impelled his head for- 
 ward ; he had been blinded for an instant by a scented billow 
 of hair; then his cheeks had been touched as though a leaf 
 had blown against them. That was the temperate analysis 
 of kissing. . . . 
 
 "It's a nice room, Eric," she murmured, glancing slowly 
 round over the top of her tumbler at the panelled walls 
 and shining oak table. "And I like your invisible lighting. 
 It's restful, and I hate a glare. What other rooms have 
 you?" 
 
 "Kitchen next door," he answered with intentional 
 abruptness; "then the servants' room you won't make a 
 noise, will you ? or you'll wake them up. Bathroom, spare 
 room, my own room, smoking-room. No, the limits of my 
 unconventionality are soon reached ; you can finish your 
 soda-water in the smoking-room, and then I'll take you 
 home." 
 
 "But I should like to see your room," she answered with 
 the grave persistence of an unreasonable child. "Mine's 
 purple and white in London purple carpet, purple cur- 
 tains, purple counterpane and nothing but white except 
 the rose-wood, of course at Crawleigh." 
 
 "This is the smoking-room," said Eric, conscientiously 
 firm and unimpressed. 
 
 Barbara gave a little gasp of pleasure as he flooded the 
 room with light. Book-cases surrounded three walls, 
 stretching half-way to the ceiling and topped with rose- 
 bowls and bronzes. The fourth was warmed by long rose 
 Du Barry curtains over the two windows; between them
 
 stood a Chippendale writing-table. The rest of the room 
 was given up to an irregular circle of sofas and arm- 
 chairs, white-covered and laden with rose Du Barry satin 
 cushions, surrounding a second table. 
 
 "I am glad I came !" she cried. "You know how to make 
 yourself comfortable, Eric! Of course, the first cigarette 
 I drop on your adorable grey carpet you see how it 
 matches my dress? the first cigarette spoils it for ever. 
 And the roses!" With a characteristically impulsive jerk 
 she dragged the tulle band and artificial flower from her 
 hair, tossed them to Eric and stretched her hand up for a 
 red rose to take their place. "Ah ! beloved celibate ! not a 
 mirror in the room! I shall have to " 
 
 "Please stay where you are, Lady Barbara." 
 
 She crammed the rose carelessly into her hair and 
 dropped on the nearest sofa. 
 
 "Do take that coat off and sit down here!" she begged 
 him. 
 
 "I'm waiting to take you home." 
 
 "But I'm not going home yet. I'm enjoying myself, 
 I'm happy." 
 
 "I'm waiting to take you home," he repeated. 
 
 She pouted and glanced up at him through half-closed 
 eyes. 
 
 "You don't care whether I'm happy or not. You're 
 soullessly selfish!" She looked round and helped herself 
 to a cigarette ; then her hand crept invitingly, with the shy 
 daring of a mouse, along the sofa. "I want a match." 
 
 Eric took the cigarette and replaced it in its box. 
 
 "Bed-time," he said. "This meeting was not of my con- 
 triving, Lady Barbara, and, when you've learned the mean- 
 ing of words, you'll find that it won't affect your happi- 
 ness " 
 
 His flow was arrested by a startling gasp.
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 45 
 
 "Oh, it's no good!" Barbara cried. "You're hopeless, 
 hopeless." 
 
 To his amazement she had sprung to her feet, angry and 
 disfigured, forgetting to break through his guard, tossing 
 her weapon away; no longer teasing, imperious or pur- 
 posely reckless ; and without one of her disarming lapses 
 into simplicity. It was the mingled pain and anger of a 
 flesh-wound clumsily reopened. The next moment she had 
 collapsed on the sofa, stiffly upright, staring at him with 
 hot eyes. Then the set cheeks and compressed lips relaxed 
 like the scattering petals of a blown rose; her mouth 
 drooped, her eyes half-closed, and she began to cry. 
 
 Eric looked in consternation at her puckered, pathetic 
 face, suddenly colourless save for dark rings round the 
 big, hollow eyes. Then he sat down and drew her to him, 
 patting her hand and talking to her half as if she were 
 a child, half as though she were capable of understand- 
 ing his weighty diagnosis. 
 
 "Lady Barbara ! Lady Barbara ! Are you listening to 
 me? You mustn't cry really. ... It takes away all 
 your prettiness. Now, you were fairly hard on me at 
 dinner, weren't you? But I do possess some intelligence; 
 I didn't need to have Lady Poynter shouting from the 
 house-top that you were ill. You're worn out, you ought 
 to be in bed and you ought to stay there, instead of ex- 
 citing yourself. Lady Barbara, please stop crying! I don't 
 know what I said, but I'm very humbly sorry. Won't you 
 stop?" 
 
 She stiffened herself with a jerk and smiled as abruptly. 
 
 "It was my fault. I've not been well and I've been very 
 miserable. Give me a little kiss, Eric, to shew you're not 
 angry with me." 
 
 She leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders 
 again.
 
 46 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Why should I be angry with you?" he asked with a 
 defensive laugh. 
 
 Her hands dropped into her lap. 
 
 "You won't kiss me?" 
 
 "What difference would it make?" 
 
 "I ask you to. What difference would it make to you?" 
 
 Eric fumbled industriously with a cigarette. 
 
 "It so happens that I've never kissed any one," he said, 
 "except my mother and sister, of course." Then, as she 
 sat hungrily reproachful, he repeated : "What difference 
 would it make ?" 
 
 "You wouldn't understand . . ." she sighed. "And 
 yet I thought you would. Where did you get that tray 
 from, Eric ? You've never been to India, have you ?" 
 
 "It was given me by an uncle of mine. Lady Barbara 
 If it will give you any satisfaction. . . ." 
 
 He kissed her forehead with shame-faced timidity and 
 became discursively explanatory. 
 
 "The candle-sticks were looted during the Commune," 
 he began hurriedly. "I was given them as a house-warming 
 present. The clock . . ." 
 
 Barbara was wandering listlessly round the room and 
 paying little attention to what he was saying. She explored 
 the book-cases, ransacked the writing-table and looked 
 curiously at the horse-shoe paper-weight. 
 
 "You can give this to me, Eric," she suggested over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I'm afraid it was a present. Given me on my first 
 night." 
 
 "It would still be a present, if you gave it to me. I had 
 one, but I broke it. All my luck's left me since % then. Are 
 you superstitious?" 
 
 "Not in the least! I keep this for associations and 
 a toy. If I could bring out a play on Friday the thir- 
 teenth "
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 47 
 
 "If you're not superstitious, there's no excuse for not 
 giving it to me." 
 
 She tossed the horse-shoe into the air and caught it 
 neatly with her right hand. 
 
 "I'll see if I can get you another one," he promised, "but 
 I don't know whether they're made in England." 
 
 "It might make all the difference to me," she pleaded, 
 catching the horse-shoe with her left hand. "It's only a 
 toy to you a child's toy." 
 
 Eric shook his head at her. Barbara pouted and threw 
 the horse-shoe a third time into the air, bending forward 
 to catch it behind her back as it dropped. Eric, watching 
 apprehensively, saw a flash of apprehension reflected for 
 an instant in her eyes; then there was a tinkle of broken 
 glass. 
 
 "Oh, my dear! I wouldn't have done that for the 
 world !" she cried, pressing her hands against her cheeks. 
 "I've destroyed your luck now! What a fool I was! 
 Abject fool!" 
 
 "What does it matter?" Eric laughed. 
 
 "I wouldn't have done that for the world," she repeated 
 with a white face. 
 
 "And you're living in the year of grace nineteen-fifteen ? 
 It's only What did we call it? A child's toy. And, be- 
 tween ourselves, it wasn't a very efficient paper-weight. 
 I can assure you I shan't miss it." 
 
 "Perhaps you will some day. And then you'll lift up 
 your hands and curse the hour when you first met me." 
 
 Eric looked complacently at the airy room, the crowded 
 book-cases, the soft chairs, the bellying curtains and the 
 neat pile of manuscript on his writing-table. 
 
 "Aren't you perhaps exaggerating your potential in- 
 fluence on my life?" he suggested. 
 
 Barbara went back to her sofa and helped herself to a 
 cigarette without hurry or fear that this time it would be
 
 48 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 taken from her; she smiled for a match and smiled 
 again when it was given her. 
 
 "Aren't you perhaps boasting too soon, my self-satisfied 
 young friend? Your education's only just beginning." 
 
 Eric lighted a cigarette and sat down beside her. He 
 no longer insisted that, for health or propriety, she must 
 go home at once; and in some forgotten moment he had 
 involuntarily taken off his overcoat. 
 
 "I wonder what you think you can teach me," he mused. 
 "I wonder what you know, to start with." 
 
 "I know life." 
 
 "A considerable subject." 
 
 "I've had considerable experience." 
 
 The clock on the mantel-piece chimed one. Neither 
 seemed to notice it, for Barbara was becoming auto- 
 biographical. Her story was ill-arranged and discursive, 
 with personal characteristics of Lord Crawleigh sand- 
 wiched between her life at Government House, Ottawa, 
 and a thv/arted romance between her brother and a design- 
 ing American. She flitted from her four years in India to 
 Viceregal Lodge, Dublin, with a procession of damaging 
 encounters with her father as stepping-stones in the nar- 
 rative. (From her account it was Lord Crawleigh who 
 sustained most of the damage.) He could never shake off 
 a certain pro-consular manner in private life and had re- 
 duced his sons to blundering and untrustworthy aides-de- 
 camp and his wife to a dignified but trembling squaw. 
 Barbara alone resisted him. 
 
 "What can he do?" she asked. "He whipped me till I 
 was ten, but I'm too big for that now. He can't very well 
 lock me in my room, because the servants would leave in 
 a body. They adore me. If he'd tried to stop my al- 
 lowance, I should have gone on the stage we've settled 
 that point once and for all with Harry Manders, half-way 
 through the stage-door of the Hilarity. Now I've got my
 
 AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 49 
 
 own money. Mind you, I adore father, and he adores me ; 
 most people adore me; but I must do what I like. You 
 see that now; but I had to shew you, I had to break my 
 way in here by main force." 
 
 Eric looked up in time to catch a glint in her eyes. It 
 was unexpected and disconcerting. He had been imagining 
 that she was merely over-indulged; but the glint warned 
 him that Barbara would make a bad enemy, cruel perhaps 
 and unscrupulous certainly. The next moment she was 
 again like a child, grown haggard with fatigue; and he 
 gave her a slice of cake and some milk, which she accepted 
 obediently and with a certain surprised gratitude. 
 
 "Where d'you imagine all this is going to end ?" he asked 
 her, though the question was addressed more to himself. 
 "You're twenty-two, you've been everywhere, seen every- 
 thing, met everybody. You're utterly uncontrolled and so 
 sated and restless that, rather than go to bed, you'll com- 
 promise yourself by sitting talking to me half the night in 
 a bachelor flat." 
 
 "Poor Val Arden used to talk like that. He always 
 called me Lady Lilith, because I was older than good and 
 evil. I'm sorry Val's dead ; he was such fun. 'In six years' 
 time one asks oneself the question. . . .' It wasn't 
 'rather than go to bed,' not altogether." 
 
 "It's a nervous disease," Eric interrupted shortly. 
 
 "Because I cried just now? I was very unhappy, Eric." 
 
 "My dear Lady Barbara, you live in superlatives. You 
 don't know what happiness or unhappiness means. You 
 were badly overwrought then, so you cried and said you 
 were miserable." 
 
 She looked at him and raised her eyebrows without 
 speaking. 
 
 "It's wonderful how wrong quite clever people can be," 
 she said at length. "I was miserable, I wanted to be 
 kissed, I was hungry for the smallest crumb of affection.
 
 50 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 I wanted to be happy. . . . And you can only see me 
 as neurotic. D'you feel you're a good judge?" 
 
 "Of happiness?" 
 
 Eric smiled complacently and again glanced lovingly 
 round the room. Barbara sighed in pity and looked at her 
 watch. 
 
 "I seem to have come in the way rather," she inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "The butterfly that settles on the railway track may be 
 said, I suppose, to come in the way of a train. . . . I'm 
 going to take you home now." 
 
 "You're not sorry I came? I'm not." 
 
 "It was worth while meeting you," he laughed. 
 
 As Eric struggled with the sleeves of his coat, she twined 
 her arms round his neck. The scent of carnations was now 
 faintly blended with the deeper fragrance of the single 
 rose behind her ear. 
 
 "And you'd never kissed any one before," she whispered. 
 
 It was nearly day-light when they found themselves in 
 the street. Two special constables, striding resonantly 
 home, looked curiously at them; but Barbara had again 
 pulled up her shawl until it covered half her face. Pic- 
 cadilly was at the mercy of scavengers with glistening 
 black waders and pitiless hoses; otherwise they seemed to 
 have all London to themselves. 
 
 With a head aching from fatigue, Eric tried to recon- 
 struct the fantastic evening. Little detached pictures jostled 
 their unconvincing way through his brain Lady Poynter's 
 formal dining-room and the barren, self-conscious literary 
 discussion ; Lord Poynter's wheezing confidences about the 
 wood port which should properly be taken as a liqueur. 
 He saw again the bridge-table with Gaymer, neat, im- 
 maculate and repellent, calling in a high nasal voice for 
 Barbara to rejoin them. The drive home was a blank until 
 he was galvanized by her leaning through the window and
 
 directing the coachman to Ryder Street. Thereafter facts 
 gave place to emotions, and the other emotions to an in- 
 credulous elation that Barbara Neave should have thrown 
 herself at his feet. Perhaps, of course, she was only emo- 
 tion-hunting. . . . But she had lain at his mercy. . . . 
 Perhaps that, too, was an emotion to be wooed, enjoyed 
 and recorded. Any one less artificial could at least be glad 
 that they were passing out of each other's life, as they had 
 come into it, without expectation or regret. 
 
 "You'd better not come any farther," she advised him, 
 as they reached the end of Berkeley Street. "If anybody 
 should be awake and looking out of the window . . ." 
 
 He nodded and held out his hand. 
 
 "You have your latch-key?" 
 
 "Yes, thanks. Good-night, Eric." 
 
 "Good-bye, Lady Barbara." 
 
 "Between men on the Stock Exchange it is a platitude 
 that you can only get a price in selling what some one else 
 wants to buy; between men and women outside the Stack 
 Exchange this is often considered a paradox" From the 
 diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 
 
 "CONSTANTINE : From seventeen to thirty-four . . . the years 
 which a man should consecrate to the acquiring of political virtue 
 . . . wherever he turns he is distracted, provoked, tantalised by the 
 bare-faced presence of woman. How's he to keep a clear brain for 
 the larger issues of life? . . . Women haven't morals or intellect 
 in our sense of the words. They have other incompatible qualities 
 quite as important, no doubt. But shut them away from public life 
 and public exhibition. It's degrading to compete with them . . . it's 
 as degrading to compete for them. . . ." 
 
 GRANVILLE BARKER: "THE MADRAS HOUSE." 
 
 THE latest, costliest and most ingenious mechanical de- 
 vice in Eric's bedroom was an electric dial and switch- 
 board communicating with the kitchen and so constructed 
 that, by moving a clock-hand, the corresponding dial 
 abandoned the non-committal elusiveness of "Please call 
 
 me at " for "Please call me at 8.00 (or 9.00 or 9.30)." 
 
 There was something calculatedly dissolute about the in- 
 vention (which cost 17.10 and had struck work four times 
 in three weeks). After a long night of work or frolic, the 
 sybarite moved the hand on for twelve hours his last con- 
 scious act before collapsing into bed; if, again, he had re- 
 tired early or were so much debauched that he could not 
 sleep, he wearily set the hand for "Please call we noii>." 
 
 Eric looked with smarting eyes first at the luminous clock, 
 then at the dial. Half-past five, coupled with "Please call 
 me at eight." He undressed ruminatively, reheated his hot- 
 water can at the gas-ring, methodically folded his clothes, 
 smoothed his trousers away in their press, selected a suit 
 
 52
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 53 
 
 for the following day, washed face and hands, brushed 
 teeth and hoisted himself into bed. The dial must stand 
 as he had left it. Lady Barbara Neave had come and 
 gone ; she was not going to disturb his work. 
 
 His sleep seemed to be interrupted almost instantly by 
 the arrival of a maid with tea, rusks, letters and The Times. 
 His head was hot, but he was singularly untired; that 
 would come later. 
 
 His letters varied little from day to day ; two appeals for 
 free sittings with Bond Street photographers; four re- 
 ceipts ; one bill ; a dignified protest from a country clergy- 
 man who had been shocked by the line: "Oh, you're not 
 sending me down with that woman, Rhoda? She's God's 
 first and most perfect bore." There was an ill-written re- 
 quest for leave to translate his play into French, three 
 news-cuttings to herald his new play, a conventional letter 
 from his mother, two petitions for free stalls from im- 
 pecunious friends and nine invitations to luncheon or din- 
 ner. He had hardly finished reading them, when a pencilled 
 note, sent by hand from Mrs. Shelley, made the tenth. 
 
 Eric piled his correspondence under the butter-dish to 
 await his secretary's arrival and turned methodically to 
 The Times. Half-an-hour later he rang for his house- 
 keeper and subjected her book to scrutiny. A leather- 
 bound journal with a snap-lock lay on his table, and he next 
 wrote his diary for the previous day. "So to dinner 
 rather late with Lady Poynter to meet her nephew, Capt. 
 Gaymer (R. F. C.}. Mrs. O'Rane (as beautiful as ever, but 
 too voluble for my taste}, Mrs. Shelley and Lady Barbara 
 Neave. Meredithian debate on wine with Lord P., which 
 I would give anything to put into a play. Bridge; but I 
 cut out." He hesitated and drummed with his fingers on 
 the thick creamy pages. "Took Lady B. home rather late 
 and circuitously."
 
 54 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 Then his secretary knocked and settled herself on the 
 edge of an arm-chair. 
 
 "Good-morning," Eric began. "Will you write first of 
 all to the manager of the bank " 
 
 The telephone rang with a dull drone at the foot of his 
 bed, and the girl made tentative movements of discreet de- 
 parture. 
 
 "No, you deal with this!" Eric cried. "Out of London. 
 You're not sure when I shall be back. Can you take a 
 message ?" 
 
 The girl picked up the instrument, while Eric glanced 
 again through his letters. 
 
 "Hullo ! Yes. Yes. He's away, I'm afraid. . . . But, you 
 see, he's away. . . ." She looked despairingly at Eric. "He's 
 awa-ay!" Then breathlessly she clapped the receiver back. 
 
 "It was Lady Barbara Somebody; I couldn't hear the 
 surname. She said you weren't away and she must speak 
 to you. I thought it was best " 
 
 Eric had to collect himself before answering. In the 
 sane cold light of early morning the overnight escapade 
 was a draggled, unromantic bit of folly. If he met Bar- 
 bara again, he would make things as easy as possible : there 
 would be no allusions, no sly smiles; the whole thing was 
 to be forgotten. And yet she was already digging it from 
 under the lightly sprinkled earth. If she were throwing her- 
 self on his mercy, it was unnecessary; he had said "Good- 
 bye . . ." very distinctly. And she must surely know that 
 she need not beg him not to talk. . . . 
 
 "You were quite right," he told his secretary. "Where 
 were we? Oh, the manager " 
 
 The bell rang again. Eric frowned and picked up the 
 receiver, while the girl, after a moment's hesitation, tip- 
 toed out of the room. Barbara had already disturbed his 
 time-table for thirty seconds. . . . 
 
 "Hullo? Mr. Lane is away at present," he said. There
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 55 
 
 was a pause. "I told you yesterday, Lady Barbara. Just 
 as when you say 'Not at home.' . . . I'm exceedingly 
 busy and I must have a few days to myself. Good-bye." 
 
 The constant factor in her overnight autobiography was 
 that every one had always done what Barbara wanted ; but, 
 if she fancied that she was going to break into a working- 
 day with any of her nonsense, she would be disappointed. 
 
 At the other end of the line a gentle, rather tired voice 
 said: 
 
 "Don't cut me off. If you know the trouble I've had to 
 get hold of you! Eric, why aren't you in the book? 
 Another device for escaping your adorers? I've been pur- 
 suing you round London for a good half-hour; then your 
 people at the theatre " 
 
 "Is it anything important?" he interrupted curtly. 
 
 "It's very important that you should listen most politely 
 and carefully and patiently and attentively when I'm talk- 
 ing to you. So far you haven't asked how I am, you 
 haven't told me how you are " 
 
 "I've suggested that I'm very busy," he interrupted her 
 again. 
 
 "But I don't allow that sort of thing to stand in the way." 
 
 "And 7 don't allow any one to break into my time. 
 Good-bye " 
 
 "Eric, don't you dare ring me off! I want to know 
 whether you'll lunch here to-day. I've collected rather an 
 amusing party." 
 
 "I'm afraid I can't." 
 
 "Where are you lunching? At home? Then you can 
 certainly come. ... I don't care who's lunching with you. 
 ... If you don't Well, you'll see. In the meantime, has 
 Marion Shelley invited you to dine to-night and are you 
 going?" 
 
 "Yes, to the first; no, to the second," Eric answered. 
 "Lady Barbara "
 
 56 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "It must be 'yes' to the second, too, dear Eric. I rang 
 her up at cock-crow to say that you wanted her to invite 
 us together. You do, you know ; you want to see whether 
 last night's impression was true; that's why I asked you to 
 lunch. . . . Now I want to know if you've a rehearsal 
 to-day, because, if so " 
 
 "Lady Barbara, I am going to cut you off," said Eric 
 distinctly. 
 
 He hung up the receiver and was about to ring for his 
 secretary, when his memory was arrested by the picture 
 of Barbara springing to her feet, reviling him, collapsing on 
 the sofa and bursting into tears. "Bully her, and she 
 cries," he murmured impatiently. "Don't bully her, and 
 she bullies you. I'm not cut out for the part of tame cat. 
 Another forty-eight hours, and she'll expect me to drive 
 round London and look at dresses with her. . . ." But 
 if his petulance had made her cry again . . . Eric 
 hunted for a pen and, without involving himself in deli- 
 cacies of address, wrote "I am not discourteous by pref- 
 erence, but you drive me to it. La comedia e finita." He 
 left the note unsigned and asked his secretary to have it 
 sent by hand to Berkeley Square. When it had left him 
 past recall, he felt that he could have done better; and he 
 knew that he would have done best of all by not writing. 
 . . . But he was irritated by her too insistent unconven- 
 tionality; irritated and yet rawly elated by his ascendancy 
 over her. 
 
 His secretary returned, and he dictated to her until half- 
 past nine struck. It was his signal to get up so that he 
 could be dressed by ten, so that he could work from ten 
 till one, so that he could walk out and lunch at one-thirty, 
 observing his time-table punctually. 
 
 The telephone rang again, and Mrs. Shelley enquired 
 tonelessly whether he had received her invitation. 
 
 "Oh, Eric ! I did hope you could come !" she exclaimed.
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 57 
 
 "Can't you reconsider? Poor Babs seems so anxious to 
 see you again." 
 
 Mrs. Shelley, then, had the wit to guess where the initia- 
 tive lay. 
 
 "I'm afraid that the privilege of gratifying Lady Bar- 
 bara's whims " 
 
 He forgot how he had meant to finish the sentence, and 
 there was a pause. 
 
 "Don't you like her, Eric?" asked Mrs. Shelley. "Most 
 people fall a victim the first time they meet her." 
 
 "I've outgrown the susceptible age," he laughed. "And, 
 anyway, I'm working. It's awfully kind of you to invite 
 me, Mrs. Shelley " 
 
 "Eric, I wish you'd reconsider," she interrupted before 
 he could repeat his refusal. "I feel you'll be doing her a 
 kindness by coming; you amused her and turned her 
 thoughts. ... I was dreadfully distressed last night; she 
 looked as if she were going into a decline. . . ." 
 
 In contrast to Mrs. Shelley's toneless voice Eric heard 
 again Barbara's abrupt, startling cry, "You're hopeless, 
 hopeless !" just before she collapsed limply on the sofa 
 and cried about something which she would not ex- 
 plain. . . . 
 
 "You make it impossible for me to refuse," he said with 
 an uneasy laugh. 
 
 "I'm so grateful ! I knew you'd come, Eric." 
 
 He threw back the bed-clothes and rang for his bath. 
 
 "I suppose Lady Barbara will think she knew I was com- 
 ing, too," he said to himself. "I don't mind being made a 
 fool of once, . . ." 
 
 At noon he tidied his papers and lighted a cigarette while 
 he waited for a call from his agent. The "Divorce" was 
 being produced in America ; and for an arid, perplexing 
 half-hour Mr. Grierson, with eyes half-closed in the grey
 
 5 8 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 smoke of his cigar, pushed cables, letters, copies and a 
 draft agreement across the table. 
 
 "Stay and have some lunch," Eric suggested, as half- 
 past twelve struck. "Manders is due any time now. He 
 wants me to make certain alterations in the 'Bomb-Shell,' 
 and you can keep me in countenance. I'm getting rather 
 tired of being told : 'Of course, with great respect, Lane, 
 you're a new-comer to the theatre. . . .' New-comer I may 
 be, but it doesn't lie in Manders' mouth to say so, if he'll 
 trouble to calculate how many thousands I've put in his 
 pocket. . . . Isn't this the sort of time when one has a 
 cocktail ?" 
 
 Grierson's eyes lighted up at the suggestion, and Eric 
 rang for ice. He was in the middle of his preparations 
 when Harry Manders entered in a suit of light tweeds, 
 clutching a flat-brimmed bowler hat in one hand and a 
 leather-topped cane in the other. 
 
 " 'Mornin', Eric. Hullo, Phil ! Sinister combination for 
 a poor devil of an actor-manager author and agent. 
 What's this you're givin' me? Well, only up to the top 
 On my honour, boy, only up to the top !" He nodded over 
 the brimming glass with a knowing "Well, chin-chin!" and 
 subsided diagonally into a chair with his legs across one 
 arm. 
 
 "I thought Grierson's age and experience might save my 
 play from further amateur surgery," Eric explained. 
 
 "Tootaloo," chirped Manders resiliently and dragged a 
 crumpled script from his pocket. Eric's obstinate as- 
 surance would have exasperated any other manager, but, as 
 Manders wearily said, "I've been too long at the game to 
 lose my temper." 
 
 With that they settled to work and argued their way 
 through the marked passages of Manders' copy heatedly 
 and without reaching conviction or agreement. Once 
 Grierson rose and shook a second cocktail; twice a maid
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 59 
 
 announced that luncheon was on the table. Something, 
 which he attributed to his broken night, made Eric unrea- 
 sonable to a point where he knew that he was being un- 
 reasonable. He was too tired for anything except sustained 
 obstinacy, and his companions grated on him. 
 
 "Oh, let's have something to eat !" he exclaimed at length. 
 "The second act's got to stand as I wrote it. We shan't do 
 any good by talking. . . ." 
 
 "Now don't you be in a hurry, boy," began Manders. 
 "Turn back to the beginning. . . ." 
 
 Eric looked at his watch. 
 
 "Don't forget we've a rehearsal," he said. "I don't 
 know what there is for lunch, but it will be tepid." 
 
 "Then let's wait for it to get cold. Now, in the first act 
 you said Damn!" 
 
 He flapped the script impatiently on his knee as the now 
 familiar knock of Eric's parlour-maid was heard yet again. 
 
 "Lady Barbara Neave to see you, sir," she whispered a 
 little breathlessly. 
 
 "Will you please say that I can't possibly see any one?" 
 Eric answered curtly. "Tell her that two gentlemen have 
 come to see me on business. Ask her to leave a message." 
 
 He turned to find Manders smiling, as though to say, 
 "Why didn't you tell us? We should have understood. 
 We're men of the world." 
 
 "The -first act," Eric repeated earnestly. "As you will, 
 but do go ahead with it. I want some lunch." 
 
 For five seconds the three men turned the limp, dog's- 
 eared pages until they had found the place. Manders 
 cleared his throat unreservedly and then looked up with an 
 expression of ebbing patience, as the door opened again. 
 This time there was no knock, and Lady Barbara walked 
 in after hesitating for a moment on the threshold to 
 identify Eric. She was wearing a black dress with a trans- 
 parent film of grey hanging from the shoulders, a black
 
 6o THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 hat shaped like a butterfly's wings with her hair visible 
 through the spider's web crown. One hand swung a sable 
 stole, the other carried to and from her mouth a half-eaten 
 apple. 
 
 "Eric, please invite me to lunch with you!" she begged. 
 "You've such delicious food. I was shewn into your din- 
 ing-room and I could hardly resist it. There's a dressed 
 crab I behaved perfectly, I didn't touch it and, if all 
 three of you had the weeniest little bit less, there'd be 
 enough for us all. Hullo, there's Mr. Manders !" 
 
 She shook hands and waited for Eric to introduce Grier- 
 son. 
 
 "You're interrupting an important discussion, Lady Bar- 
 bara." 
 
 "Is it about your new play ? Oh, then I can help ! But, 
 if you knew how hungry I was " 
 
 "They're expecting you to lunch at home," Eric inter- 
 rupted. "You told me you had a party." 
 
 "But I've just telephoned to say that I've been Invited 
 to lunch here! I've burnt your boats. Father was per- 
 fectly furious, because mother's lunching with Connie 
 Maitland, and he counted on me to see him through." 
 
 As she smiled at Eric with her head on one side, he re- 
 alized that work was over for the morning. 
 
 "I daresay there will be enough for four," he answered. 
 
 "Then for goodness' sake let's begin before any one else 
 turns up unexpectedly!" she cried, catching him by the 
 sleeves and drawing him to the door. 
 
 Grierson and Manders smiled and followed them, care- 
 fully brushing cigar-ash from their clothes and smoothing 
 the back of their hair. 
 
 Elation battled with annoyance in Eric's mind through- 
 out luncheon. Barbara had sought him out, when a hun-
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 61 
 
 dred other men several of them, like George Oakleigh, 
 undisguisedly in love with her might have been preferred 
 to him ; but he was offeruled by her proprietor/ attitude to- 
 wards his work and life. Manders would have the whole 
 story, too, helped out with first-rate mimicry, running 
 through the Thespian Club by dinner-time ; it would spread 
 in twenty-fours through all of the London that knew him 
 and half of the London that knew her; and Eric Lane 
 would be quoted as the latest foil or companion in the latest 
 Barbara Neave story. One did not even want the girl to 
 be made a peg for Manders' wit. . . . 
 
 The luncheon, Eric observed morosely, was cheaply suc- 
 cessful, for Barbara talked with barely concealed desire to 
 lay Grierson and Manders under her spell. By intuition or 
 accident she gave them what tickled their interest most 
 keenly intimate stories about herself or her friends, the 
 proved history of what to them had hitherto been but allur- 
 ing gossip, anecdotes of Government House and the minor 
 secrets and scandals of her father's three terms of office. 
 Eric felt that it was a little below the dignity of a girl, 
 who was after all the daughter of a distinguished former 
 viceroy, to be discussing herself and her friends so 
 freely. . . . 
 
 They had lost count of time when Grierson looked fur- 
 tively at his watch and jumped apologetically to his feet. 
 As he hurried out of the room Barbara again asked Eric 
 whether he had a rehearsal that day. 
 
 "Because I want to come," she explained wheedlingly, 
 with her head on one side. 
 
 Her eyes were dark and tired after her overnight excite- 
 ment; she had exhausted herself with talking; and for a 
 moment Eric forgot to be irritated and only saw her as a 
 child whom it would be ungracious to disappoint. Then 
 he remembered one phase of a rambling story in which 
 her love of getting her own way had caused her cavalier of
 
 62 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 the day to wait in his car from midnight until six be- 
 cause she had forgotten to leave a message that she had 
 already gone home. In the story Eric could not remem- 
 ber any apology from Barbara. Triumphs came so quickly 
 and easily that she expected everything and valued nothing ; 
 a man was sufficiently rewarded by being allowed to fall 
 in love with her. . . . 
 
 "I'm afraid rehearsals aren't open to the public," he told 
 her, brusquely enough to dismiss the appeal, he hoped, but 
 not so brusquely as to hurt her. 
 
 She looked at him with the glint of defiance which he 
 had seen once before ; then she turned to Manders. 
 
 "Please, I want to come to the rehearsal," she begged. 
 "It's your theatre, Mr. Manders." 
 
 "It's my play," Eric interrupted. 
 
 She turned her head long enough to say : 
 
 "I was asking Mr. Manders." 
 
 "But it happens that I also " 
 
 Manders intervened with a clucking noise of the tongue. 
 
 "Keep the ring, keep the ring!" he cried. "You got out 
 o' bed the wrong side, Eric boy. Don't quarrel, do-ant 
 quarrel! If Lady Barbara wants to come, let her! It's 
 against the rules, but I'll make an exception for her." The 
 girl rewarded him with a glowing smile. "You'll be bored, 
 my dear, I warn you." 
 
 "Oh, if I am, I can talk to Eric." 
 
 "Look here, Manders, if a rehearsal's worth taking at 
 all, it's worth taking seriously," cried Eric petulantly. "I've 
 plenty of other use for my time." 
 
 Manders was faintly amused by the outburst and wholly 
 unmoved. Dire experience of the jealous and irascible had 
 taught him that he could not afford to let other people lose 
 their tempers. 
 
 "Lady Barbara will promise not to talk," he prophesied. 
 "We're late, boy."
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 63 
 
 "I shall talk afterwards," she warned them. "At din- 
 ner to-night Mr. Manders, I can't get Eric to see what 
 bad plays he writes and what good plays he might turn 
 out. He's very funny about it." 
 
 "Authors are a rum lot!" said Manders jocosely, slap- 
 ping Eric's shoulder. "See about a taxi, boy. I don't 
 let my people keep me waiting and I don't want them to 
 wait for me." 
 
 It was a defeat for Eric, formally recorded by Barbara 
 with that glint of triumph which was beginning to fill him 
 with misgiving. They drove in silence to a side street off 
 Shaftesbury Avenue and groped their way through the 
 stage-door down a cork-screw staircase and along several 
 short passages which branched disconcertingly to right or 
 left as soon as Barbara fancied that she could walk ahead 
 with impunity. From above came the mechanical runs 
 and flourishes of a piano-organ against the drone of traf- 
 fic; somewhere below there was a rapid squeak of voices. 
 The corridors and stairs were wrapped in warm dark- 
 ness, and, after one stumble, Eric felt a hand running down 
 his sleeve and twining round his fingers. 
 
 "Are you angry with me?" Barbara whispered. "You 
 were so grumpy in the taxi. And I made such a success 
 of your lunch. Mr. Manders and Mr. Grierson loved me, 
 and I made even you smile." 
 
 Eric tried to locate Manders in the velvety darkness be- 
 fore replying. 
 
 "You were very amusing," he answered unenthusias- 
 tically. "But it's possible to be amusing even 'when you're 
 making rather a nuisance of yourself to several very busy 
 men." 
 
 A sigh fluttered wistfully through the darkness, and he 
 felt her drawing closer to him. 
 
 "Aren't you a little bit brutal, Eric ?" 
 
 "Don't you find every one brutal who doesn't fetch and
 
 64 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 carry and wait out in the snow for you all night and give 
 you material for new stories? . . . Stand still while I find 
 the handle." 
 
 He led her through a studded iron door into the twilit 
 auditorium. The stalls were swathed in holland covers, 
 and there was a brooding warm desolation which invited 
 undertones. Barbara looked with growing interest at a 
 sprawling group of two men and three women on the 
 stage. Without make-up they were white and featureless 
 in the glare of the foot-lights; they were jaded and a little 
 impatient, too, but Manders, who seemed to make his per- 
 sonality unyielding and metallic on entering a theatre, gal- 
 vanized them into alertness. A wooden platform had been 
 built over the middle of the orchestra; and, as soon as he 
 had disposed of Barbara in the stalls, Eric mounted it and 
 seated himself in an arm-chair. Manders cautiously 
 squeezed past him, script in hand, to the stage ; there was a 
 preliminary cough, a cry of "Beginners, please!" and the 
 rehearsal opened. 
 
 Eric allowed the first act to be played without interrup- 
 tion; at the end he jumped up and entered into whispered 
 conversation with Manders, turning the leaves of the manu- 
 script and tapping them impressively with his pencil. One 
 player after another emerged from the wings and stood 
 listening, nodding and discussing as each point was thrashed 
 out. A few minutes later Manders came down into the 
 stalls and sat by Barbara. 
 
 "Just a breather," he explained. "No good nagging your 
 people, particularly when they've been at the job for years 
 and you're a new-comer. . . . Some of my spoiled darlings 
 find that a little Eric goes a long way. You're sure you're 
 not bored, my dear?" 
 
 "I can't see very well," Barbara answered. "If I had a 
 chair on the little platform " 
 
 Manders wasted an unseen wink on her.
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 65 
 
 "Well, you mustn't talk to Eric, that's all. And, if you 
 see you're making him nervous, you must run away." 
 
 He helped her up and accommodated her with a property 
 foot-stool by Eric's chair, leaving her for a moment's re- 
 sentful scrutiny by a young woman who had been arguing 
 with winsome persuasiveness about a speech which Eric 
 under pressure from Manders had consented to cut. 
 
 "Who's that, Eric?" Barbara whispered, as he settled 
 into place. 
 
 "Mabel Elstree." 
 
 "H'm. She doesn't seem to like my being here. . . . 
 Does everybody call you Eric?" 
 
 "You're well placed to answer that. Now, Lady Bar- 
 bara, remember your promise : no talking !" 
 
 The act was played a second time, taking form and life 
 as all warmed to their work. Eric watched with critical 
 narrowed eyes, no longer scattering pencil-marks in the 
 margin of the script, restrained, impassive and absorbed. 
 Barbara sat with her hands clasped round her ankles and 
 her head resting against his knee. Only when the act was 
 ended did he seem to become aware of her; then he edged 
 away and stood up. 
 
 "Better! Very much better! Just turn to the place 
 
 where " He rustled back into the middle of the act 
 
 and had it played through to the curtain. 
 
 Half-an-hour later Barbara emerged into sunshine. 
 Eric was tired and rather husky, but pleased and hopeful. 
 His earlier irritability was forgotten save when it obtruded 
 itself reproachfully to remind him that he had been scantly 
 civil to the girl by his side. 
 
 "The next thing is a taxi," he murmured, as they came 
 out into Shaftesbury Avenue. 
 
 "You wouldn't dream of taking me home and offering 
 me some tea?" she suggested. 
 
 "I would not, Lady Barbara," he answered cheerfully.
 
 66 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Your practice of visiting young unmarried men in their 
 rooms should be promptly checked. But I'll drop you in 
 Berkeley Square, if you like." 
 
 "That would be more respectable. It's curious how 
 you seem to have made up your mind not to do anything I 
 ask you." 
 
 "It doesn't seem to make much difference to the re- 
 sult." 
 
 She ceased pouting and smiled self -confidently for a 
 moment. Then her assurance left her, and she slipped her 
 arm timidly through his. 
 
 "Am I being a nuisance, Eric? You said so, and oh, 
 it did hurt! I honestly enjoyed myself this afternoon; and 
 I wasn't so very much in the way, was I ? Don't you like 
 me to enjoy myself? Don't you like to see me happy? 
 Are you sure you're not a little bit sorry you were so 
 brutal to me?" 
 
 "My conscience is quite easy, thanks. Lady Bar- 
 bara " 
 
 He hesitated and felt himself flushing. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Lady Barbara , I don't understand you, I don't be- 
 gin to understand you." 
 
 "You won't write a good play till you do," she laughed. 
 "All your women are romantic dolls. We're much better 
 and much worse than you think. But that wasn't what 
 you started to say." 
 
 "I know. . . . Well, you oughtn't to have come to 
 my rooms last night. And you oughtn't to have come to- 
 day, though that wasn't as bad. . . . What d'you imagine 
 people like Grierson or Manders think? What d'you 
 imagine Mabel Elstree thinks, when you sit with your head 
 against my knee?" 
 
 She withdrew her arm and walked for some time without 
 speaking.
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 67 
 
 "I'm sorry if I'm compromising you with your friends," 
 she said at length. 
 
 "And whether you compromise yourself doesn't matter ?" 
 
 "I suppose I'm used to it," she sighed ; then, with one of 
 her April changes, the sigh turned into a provocative laugh. 
 "If you, don't mind being compromised by me, I'd make 
 you write a wonderful play. My technique's so good. All 
 you have to do is to fall in love with me " 
 
 "I shan't have the opportunity," he interrupted. "We 
 meet to-night at Mrs. Shelley's " 
 
 "And we were so positive that we weren't going!" she 
 murmured. "You don't want to see me again?" 
 
 Eric hailed a passing taxi. 
 
 "I like meeting you," he told her frankly enough. "You 
 amuse me and you interest me enormously. But I've 
 work to do ... for one thing. . . ." 
 
 She seated herself in the taxi and held out her hand 
 through the window. 
 
 "You might come and call for me to-night," she sug- 
 gested. 
 
 Eric shook his head. He was shy of entering a house 
 to which he had not been officially admitted, confronting a 
 strange butler, being pushed into a room to wait for her, 
 meeting and explaining himself to Lord Crawleigh or one 
 of the brothers, who would look superciliously at "Babs* 
 latest capture." . . . 
 
 "I'll meet you at Mrs. Shelley's," he said. 
 
 The hand was withdrawn, and he could see her biting her 
 lip. 
 
 "I'm sorry," she murmured. 
 
 "There's no need to be." 
 
 "I was apologizing to myself for giving you another 
 opportunity of refusing something I asked you to do 
 for me." 
 
 Eric walked back to his flat, puzzled and irritated. The
 
 68 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 girl was intolerably spoiled ; nothing that you did was right, 
 there was altogether too much wear and tear in trying to 
 adapt yourself to her moods. . . . 
 Even if you wanted to. ... 
 
 The rehearsal, despite Barbara, was over in good time, 
 and Eric could lie unhurriedly in his bath without fear of 
 being late for Mrs. Shelley's dinner. Two days of his holi- 
 day had already slipped away, and he had made little mark 
 on the work which he had schemed to do. To-morrow he 
 would start in earnest. . . . 
 
 Barbara. . . . He could not remember what had set 
 him thinking about her. She looked desperately ill, but 
 that was not his fault, nor could he cure her; which dis- 
 posed of Barbara. . . . What she needed was some one 
 who would pull her up, steady her, master her. . . . Un- 
 fortunately for her he could not spare the time; nor 
 was it part of his scheme of life to effect her physical and 
 moral regeneration. . . . And it was now the moment to 
 begin dressing. 
 
 Mrs. Shelley's house lay between Sloane Square and the 
 river; and Eric arrived punctually to find her insipidly 
 grateful to him for coming. A self-conscious Chelsea party 
 was assembling; there were two war-poets, whose "Trench 
 Songs" and "Emancipation," compensating want of finish 
 with violence of feeling, had made thoughtless critics won- 
 der whether the Great War would engender a new Eliza- 
 bethan splendour of genius ; there was Mrs. Manisty, who 
 claimed young poets as of right and helped them to parturi- 
 tion in the pages of the Utopia Review; there was a 
 flamboyant, short-haired young woman who had launched 
 on the world a war-emergency code of sex-morals under 
 the guise of a novel; there were three bashful aliens sus-
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 69 
 
 pected of being pianists and one self-assured journalist who 
 told Mrs. Shelley with suitable heartiness that he had not 
 met Mr. Lane, but of course he knew his work and went 
 on to ask Eric if he was engaged on a new "work." The 
 flamboyant woman, Eric observed, talked much of "crea- 
 tion" and its antecedent labour; the trench poets, with pro- 
 fessional modesty, referred to their "stuff." A fourth alien 
 entered and was greeted and introduced in halting French, 
 to which he replied in rapid and faultless English. 
 
 Eric looked round on a triumph of ill-assortment. He 
 came here partly out of old friendship for his hostess, but 
 chiefly for fear of seeming to avoid a section of society 
 which at least took itself seriously. There was no ques- 
 tion of a Byronic descent on Chelsea; these people would 
 ever cringe before the face of success and disparage be- 
 hind its back, as they had always done ; they made a suburb 
 and called it a school. For ten years Eric had listened to 
 their theories and discoveries ; after ten years he was still 
 waiting for achievement. The very house, with its "art" 
 shades of upholstery, its hammered brass fenders, its 
 wooden nooks and angles filled with ramshackle book- 
 cases, hard seats and inadequately stuffed cushions, was ar- 
 tificial; it was make-believe, pretentious, insincere. . . . 
 
 "Lady Barbara Neave." 
 
 There was a rustle of excitement, the more noticeable 
 against the conscientious effort of several not to seem 
 interested. Eric smiled to himself, as the young journal- 
 ist, interrupted in his discourse on "the aristocracy of 
 illiterates," watched Barbara's entry and posed himself for 
 being introduced. She looked round with slow assurance, 
 fully conscious of the lull in conversation and of the eyes 
 that were taking stock of her. Eric felt an artistic admira- 
 tion for her way of silently dominating a room. 
 
 "Am I late, dear Marion?" she asked, with the smile of 
 startled recognition which made men and women anxious
 
 7 o 
 
 to throw protecting arms round her thin shoulders. "Eric 
 and I have been rehearsing our play the new one, I mean, 
 that I'm taking in hand and I had such a lot to do when 
 I got home." She displayed adequate patience, while Mrs. 
 Shelley completed her introductions, and then crossed to 
 Eric's corner. "Glad to see me again?" she whispered. 
 "I've decided that you're to lunch with us on Saturday." 
 
 "And I've decided to gladden the hearts of my family 
 by going down to Winchester," he answered. 
 
 "But you must go later. I'll come with you, if you'll 
 find a practicable train ; I'm going to Crawleigh. Say you'd 
 like to travel down with me." 
 
 "I make a practice of sleeping in the train," he answered. 
 
 "You won't on Saturday. Sometimes, Eric, I find your 
 little practices and habits and rules rather tiresome ; I must 
 educate you out of them. By the way, I want to be seen 
 home to-night." 
 
 It was a disappointing dinner for Eric, as, after com- 
 ing to gratify Barbara, he was separated from her by the 
 length of the table. In conversation Mrs. Shelley always 
 gave people what was good for them rather than what 
 they liked; Barbara was accordingly set next to an art 
 editor, who tried to wheedle from her an article on "Eastern 
 Decoration in Western Houses," while Eric found himself 
 sandwiched without hope of escape between Mrs. Manisty, 
 who discussed poetry which he had not read, and the flam- 
 boyant novelist, who had lately discovered and insisted on 
 exposing a mutual-admiration ring in the novel-reviewers 
 of the London press. 
 
 If dull, the meal was at least hot so embarrassing as his 
 dinner of the night before with Lady Poynter. Barbara 
 seemed chilled by uncongenial company, though she 
 touched his hand on her way to the door and turned, with 
 patent consciousness that she was being watched, to give 
 him a parting smile. Mrs. Manisty also turned, before she
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 71 
 
 could control her curiosity, to see for whom the smile was 
 intended. And, as Eric threw away his match after light- 
 ing a cigar, he found two of the men smiling. 
 
 In the absence of a host to pull them together, six groups 
 self-consciously set themselves to discover a subject of con- 
 versation more worthy of their steel than either the even- 
 ing communique or the port. The three alien pianists had 
 reduced themselves to a Polish sculptor, an Irish novelist 
 and a Scottish portrait-painter. By sitting next to the 
 journalist, Eric saved himself the effort of talking and 
 recuperated at leisure after the exhausting boredom of 
 dinner. He had looked forward to seeing Barbara again, 
 feeling disappointment that she was not in the big shadowy 
 drawing-room when he arrived (but she would come any 
 moment) and a little proprietory thrill of pleasure when 
 she walked straight across the room to him. But her man- 
 ner, her use of his Christian name (and Mrs. Shelley 
 knew that they had first met less than twenty-four hours 
 ago) her clear-voiced, unabashed habit of flirtation, the 
 parting smile at the door. . . . 
 
 One of his neighbours interrupted the ill-humoured train 
 of thought by introducing himself in a pleasant, soft 
 brogue. 
 
 "Er, me name's Sullivan, Mr. Lane. Ye know Priestley, 
 I expect? Priestley and I have been concocting a great 
 scheme. I have a new book coming out in the spring and 
 I'm wanting a girl's head for the frontispiece. Well, since 
 I saw Lady Barbara to-night, there's only one head that 
 will do for me. And Priestley's the one man to do it. 
 Charcoal, ye know; a single sitting would be enough. Do 
 ye think she would be willing?" 
 
 Eric smiled to hide his impatience. 
 
 "Why not ask her?" he suggested. "She's fairly well- 
 known, of course; everybody'd recognize it." 
 
 "Ah, don't distress yourself! The book's symbolical,"
 
 72 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 Sullivan explained vaguely. "I was wondering now, would 
 ye sound her? Priestley and I don't know her, ye see. 
 And, as ye're a friend " 
 
 "We'll ask her, when we get upstairs," Eric answered. 
 
 Three tentative chords broke the silence overhead, and a 
 woman's voice began to sing. 
 
 "Butterfly," the journalist jerked out as though he 
 were in the last heat of a competition. "Second act, isn't 
 it? Where Madame Butterfly hears that Pinkerton's ship 
 has been sighted. 7 never think Butterfly's as bad as some 
 of the high-brows try to make out. If you like that sort 
 of thing, I mean," he added prudently. 
 
 Eric held up his hand. 
 
 "Please! I want to hear this." 
 
 "One fine day, we'll notice 
 A thread of smoke arising on the sea 
 In the far horizon, 
 And then the ship appearing: 
 Then the trim white vessel 
 
 Glides into the harbour, thunders forth her cannon. 
 See you? He is coming! 
 / do not go to meet him. Not I. I stay 
 Upon the brow of the hillock and wait, and wait 
 For a long time, but never weary 
 Of the long waiting. 
 From out the crowded city, 
 There is coming a man 
 
 A little speck in the distance, climbing the hillock. 
 Can you guess who it is? 
 And when he's reached the summit 
 Can you guess what he'll say? 
 He will call 'Butterfly from the distance. 
 I, without answering, 
 Hold myself quietly concealed, 
 A bit to tease him, and a bit so as not to die 
 At our first meeting: and then, a little troubled, 
 He will call, he will call: 
 
 'Dear baby-wife of mine, dear little orange-blossom!' 
 The names he used to call me ivhcn he came here. . . "
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 73 
 
 Eric had allowed his cigar to go out. He lighted it again 
 and turned to his neighbour with an apology, as the voice 
 ceased and then seemed to revive with a last sob of ecstasy. 
 
 "She did that very well. Shall we go upstairs ? I should 
 like some more. We can take our cigars with us." 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, he made for the door 
 and hurried ahead of the others. The drawing-room was 
 sombrely lighted by three low standard lamps which threw 
 the upper half of the room into shadow. He stood for 
 several moments with lips parted and shining eyes, trying 
 to identify three scattered couples of women before reduc- 
 ing the figure at the piano, by elimination, to Barbara. 
 
 "I say, was that you ?" he demanded. 
 
 She made way for him at her side, welcoming him with 
 a chastened smile and wondering at his sudden enthusiasm. 
 
 "Did you like it ? I'm so glad. I was beginning to think 
 you were a craftsman, but I believe you're an artist. 
 . . . I'm full of accomplishments, Eric. Pity, isn't it, that 
 in spite of it all ?" 
 
 She hesitated, wistfully provocative. 
 
 "What's a pity?" he asked. 
 
 "What vou were thinking; that I am what I am." 
 
 "I wasn't thinking that," he answered dreamily. "I was 
 wondering if you'd sing again. We couldn't hear you at 
 all downstairs " 
 
 "Enough to bring you up very quickly?" 
 
 He sighed with exasperation. 
 
 "Yes, if your vanity needs a sop. Was that why you 
 sang?" 
 
 She shook her head at him wearily, and he saw undried 
 tears on her cheeks. 
 
 "Marion just asked me to sing. It was either that or 
 talking to Yolande Manisty, and I hate her. What would 
 you like me to sing?" 
 
 Eric felt ashamed of his rasping harshness.
 
 74 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "I don't know. That particular song always makes me 
 cry. In spite of that," he looked at her and smiled to him- 
 self. "No, I'm going to be very self-sacrificing. You 
 said you wanted me to take you home, and I will if you'll 
 come at once." 
 
 "But it's not half-past nine yet." 
 
 "I don't care. My dear child, d'you think I can't see 
 that you're tired, ill, over-excited " 
 
 "It makes the night so long, Eric ! But thank you ! I 
 was beginning to think you were a prig, but I believe 
 you're a saint!" The wistfulness left her eyes, and she 
 smiled mischievously. "In moments of emotion how all 
 our habits and practices break down ! 'My dear child/ 'My 
 dear child,' 'D'you think I can't see?' 'My dear child,' 
 'Tired, ill, over-excited.' " 
 
 "I'm sorry, Lady Barbara." 
 
 He tried to rise, but she pulled him back. 
 
 "You baby ! Can't I make fun of you ever? It meant so 
 much just that little change in your voice when you for- 
 got to be inhuman. I prefer 'dear child' to 'Lady Bar- 
 bara' any day. Do you find it so hard to be affectionate, 
 Eric?" 
 
 "I haven't tried. It would be impossible with you. I I 
 don't understand you. When I was dressing for din- 
 ner " 
 
 "You thought you did ? I'm so glad you thought of me, 
 when you were dressing for dinner; I've a sort of feeling 
 that it's not your practice to think of me when you're dress- 
 ing for dinner." 
 
 "I don't imagine my affection makes any great difference 
 in your life," he interrupted stiffly. 
 
 "Dear Eric, let me laugh at you sometimes ! It's good for 
 you and it's ever so good for me. It isn't as if I'd laughed 
 so very much lately. ... I "will come home and I'll go 
 straight to bed. But don't be too hard on me, Eric."
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 75 
 
 Her voice was trembling, and her eyes had again filled 
 with tears. 
 
 "May I say that I'm 'not in the habit' of being hard on 
 people? But I don't understand you." 
 
 "Ah, now you're repeating yourself," she threw back 
 flippantly over her shoulder, as she went to bid Mrs. Shel- 
 ley good-night. "I'm telling Marion I've got a headache." 
 
 Eric felt that he was slipping into the practice of letting 
 people make a fool of him. . . . 
 
 Though it was a fine night, they sought in vain for a 
 taxi and had to walk the whole way from Chelsea to Berke- 
 ley Square, Barbara with her arm through Eric's and her 
 hand in his, leaning against him. 
 
 "I'm going away on Saturday," she reminded him, as 
 they entered Eaton Square. 
 
 "High time, too," he answered. 
 
 "Do you want to get rid of me as much as all that?" 
 she a^ked in gentle reproach. 
 
 "Well, you'll automatically stop compromising yourself 
 with me. But even that doesn't matter so much as your 
 health, which you're quite deliberately ruining." 
 
 She stopped and put her hands on his shoulders, drawing 
 his head to her until she could kiss him. Still capable of 
 being surprised, he thanked Heaven after a quick survey 
 that they had Eaton Square to themselves. 
 
 "Dear Eric, are you very delicate?" she asked. "It's 
 only when health is mentioned that you become human. 
 Last night, at the very beginning of dinner. . . . And 
 again this evening. If if I gave in and had a week in 
 bed, I could twist you round my finger. Now, don't pull 
 yourself away and look dignified! Don't you see that I'm
 
 76 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 paying you a wonderful compliment ? You're like a woman 
 not that that's a compliment. . . ." 
 
 She slipped her arm through his again, and they walked 
 on past St. Peter's. Barbara was tired enough by now 
 to be dragging on his arm, and he felt a sudden responsi- 
 bility for her as he had felt the night before when she 
 had implicitly entrusted herself to him. He glanced down 
 and found her walking with eyes closed and a faint smile 
 on a very white face. The wind was blowing her hair into 
 disorder, and he bent forward to draw her cloak more 
 warmly over her chest. 
 
 She looked up with her eyes dark and sleep-laden. 
 
 "Am I coming undressed? Eric, you're very good to 
 me ! I shall miss you. Perhaps you'll write to me, perhaps 
 I shall be coming up to London for just one night in about 
 a week's time ; we might dine together. Are you coming to 
 lunch on Saturday?" 
 
 "I'll give the matter my best consideration. Go to sleep 
 again, child." 
 
 "Dear Eric !" 
 
 She roused again as they crossed Piccadilly; and at the 
 end of Berkeley Street she again cautiously bade him good- 
 night. 
 
 "And about Saturday?" 
 
 Until that moment he had decided to be immovable about 
 the Saturday invitation. He did not want to go, he wanted 
 still less to make her think that he was going to please her. 
 But, when she stopped him before walking on alone to her 
 house, he felt that their position must be regularized. He 
 had a certain status of his own and some little pride. 
 
 "Yes, I'll come. Delighted," he said with sudden de- 
 termination. 
 
 "Good-night, dear." 
 
 "Good-night, Lady Barbara." 
 
 There was time for an unexpected hour's work; but his
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 77 
 
 broken night and jarring day had exhausted him, and he 
 was glad to hurry through his letters and get into bed. 
 Once there he found himself too tired even for the routine 
 of reading the evening paper; and, while he tried to make 
 tip his mind to stretch up a hand to the switch, he dropped 
 asleep, clutching the Westminster Gazette and with the 
 light blazing on to his face. 
 
 So he found himself five minutes later when the tele- 
 phone-ball rang. The voice of a child, eager for praise, 
 said: 
 
 "I'm in bed, Eric. And the light's out. And I'm going 
 to sleep in one moment." 
 
 "I was actually asleep," he answered. 
 
 "My dear! And I woke you up? I am sorry. Go to 
 sleep again at once! Good-night !" 
 
 But the sudden shock of the bell had made his nerves 
 restless. He had, after all, to read the evening paper and 
 two chapters of a novel before he felt sleepy enough to 
 turn out the light and compose himself. 
 
 Contrition, whim or pressure of other business kept Bar- 
 bara out of his life the next morning. He read his letters 
 unmolested, dictated to his secretary undisturbed and 
 worked until mid-day uninterrupted. Then, as it was his 
 practice to walk for half-an-hour before luncheon, he 
 abandoned his own pretence that he was away from Lon- 
 don and strolled along Piccadilly into the Green Park be- 
 fore making for the Thespian Club in Grosvenor Place. 
 At Devonshire House he caught himself pausing to glance 
 down Berkeley Street. . . . 
 
 At the club, Manders was lunching with a square-faced 
 law lord and a doctor with humorous, shrewd eyes, who 
 called upon Eric to join them. 
 
 "We never see anything of you nowadays," complained 
 Dr. Gaisford. 
 
 "I don't have time to get as far away as this for lunch
 
 78 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 every day," Eric answered, as he pulled a chair in to the 
 table. "You're cutting your vacation short, aren't you, 
 Lord Ettrick?" 
 
 "Oh, I had three weeks' fishing in Scotland," the law 
 lord answered. "Ever since I came back, I've been think- 
 ing that, if I had my life over again and could choose my 
 own career, on my soul ! I'd be a gillie. They're a great 
 breed, and it's a great life." 
 
 Manders looked reflectively at the powerful, lined face, 
 tanned yellow over a normally unwholesome white. 
 
 "I'd 'a gone into the Navy," he said. "My idea of a 
 holiday is to get into old clothes and moon about the Docks 
 or Portsmouth anywhere with salt and tar about, you 
 know." 
 
 "And what would our young friend do ?" asked Dr. Gais- 
 ford. 
 
 Eric blushed to find three pairs of eyes on him. He 
 thought resentfully over his ten years of journalism; then, 
 with a warm rush of satisfaction, he saw the elaborate lit- 
 tle flat in Ryder Street, the bathroom poster of "A Divorce 
 Has Been Arranged," the envelopes from his agent Grier- 
 son, containing cheques for what would they be for? the 
 invitations, the pleasant hum of work and stir of interest 
 as shewn in letters from country clergymen who objected 
 to his use of the word "God" in a comedy of manners, the 
 deference paid him when he was invited out to be spoiled 
 and petted, the easy triumphs. . . . 
 
 "If I had my life over again," he answered slowly, "I 
 should alter nothing." 
 
 Lord Ettrick looked at him with raised eyebrows, chew- 
 ing his under-lip reflectively. 
 
 "I wonder how long you'll say that," he murmured. 
 
 A page-boy threaded his way to the table and stood bash- 
 fully at a distance with a tarnished salver pressed against 
 his buttons.
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 79 
 
 "Wanted on the 'phone, sir," he whispered. 
 
 Eric rose resignedly and followed the page to a dark, 
 ill-ventilated box behind the porters' desk in the hall. 
 
 "Hullo!" 
 
 "Is that Eric ? Say what you like, my staff- work's extra- 
 ordinarily efficient!" Barbara's voice rippled into laugh- 
 ter. "You weren't at your flat, I just divined that you'd 
 be lunching at your club. I looked in Who's Who to see 
 which it was. . . . How are you, Eric, dear? I haven't 
 seen or heard of you since last night." 
 
 Eric's utterance hardened and became precise. 
 
 "I was asleep then ; and I'm at lunch now." 
 
 "Who are you lunching with?" she enquired with un- 
 abashed interest. 
 
 "Oh, nobody that matters! What is it, Lady Barbara? 
 What do you want, I mean ?" 
 
 "I want to talk to you. Don't you like talking to me?" 
 
 "At the proper time and in the proper place. I say, you 
 know, this is becoming a little bit tiresome." 
 
 There was a short pause; then a crestfallen voice mur- 
 mured : 
 
 "I'm sorry, Eric. I'm truly sorry. I apologize." 
 
 "Lady Barbara!" he cried. 
 
 There was only a dull click, a silence and then a brisk 
 nasal voice saying, "Number, please?" 
 
 Eric strode wrathfully back to the coffee-room. 
 
 "You can't do right with that damned girl," he muttered. 
 
 His companions were already paying their bills, so he 
 abandoned his cheese and walked upstairs with them to the 
 bright biscuit-coloured card-room overlooking the gardens 
 of Buckingham Palace. While the others drank their 
 coffee, he tried to write a very short, very simple note which 
 somehow rejected his best efforts of phrasing. He had torn 
 up four unsatisfactory drafts when Lord Ettrick threw
 
 80 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 away his cigar and asked whether any one was walking 
 towards the Privy Council. 
 
 "I'm only scribbling one note," Erie answered. 
 
 What he was always in danger of forgetting was that 
 Barbara was really only a child; she had begun to speak 
 with a delightful ripple of laughter, and he had driven it 
 from her voice. When she apologized, there was some- 
 thing hurt, something very much surprised as though he 
 had seen her smiling and slapped the smile away. 
 
 "Please forgive me," he wrote. "I didn't mean to be 
 rude." 
 
 Before deciding whether to send his letter by hand, Eric 
 ascertained that, by posting it, he could be sure of its reach- 
 ing its destination by the last delivery. Then he walked 
 through the Park with Lord Ettrick, left him at the door 
 of the Privy Council Office and returned home for an hour's 
 work before rehearsal. On leaving the Regency, he came 
 back to Ryder Street and dressed for dinner. His own 
 letters clattered into their wire cage at a quarter past eight, 
 and, before sitting down to dinner, he transferred the tele- 
 phone to his dining-room. The child was unlikely to refuse 
 so open an invitation to ring up and say that all was 
 well. . . . 
 
 There was no call during dinner, no call as he worked in 
 the smoking-room with the telephone and lamp on a table 
 at his elbow, no call when he went to bed, though he lay 
 reading for half-an-hour after his usual time, to be ready 
 for her. The morning brought a pencilled' note ("Sur- 
 prisingly tidy hand," Eric commented, "seeing what she's 
 like"), instinct with a new aloofness and restraint. "After 
 your refreshingly plain hint that I was a nuisance to you, I 
 determined that you should not have occasion to suffer 
 from my importunity. You may lunch with us on Satur-
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 8r 
 
 day, if you like. And I shall be very glad indeed to see you, 
 but you must not feel that you are doing this to please me. 
 I SAY as you THINK: that I have no claim on you. Bar- 
 bara." 
 
 Eric smiled indulgently and tossed the note into a 
 despatch-box before ringing for his secretary. He must 
 be more careful in future. . . . 
 
 When he looked at his engagement-book on Saturday 
 morning, he found that Barbara had named no hour; which 
 was characteristic of her. When he telephoned to the house, 
 there was no answer; which by no great stretch of 
 calumny was characteristic of the house in which she 
 lived. Ninety per cent, of the people that he knew lunched 
 at half-past one, excluding a Cabinet Minister, who lunched 
 punctually at a quarter past two, and three Treasury clerks 
 and one novelist who lunched at one ; accordingly, at half- 
 past one, he presented himself in Berkeley Square, to be 
 informed by a sedately combative butler that luncheon was 
 at two o'clock but that Barbara was believed to be in her 
 room. 
 
 Eric followed his guide up four short flights of marble 
 stairs and was shewn into the untidiest room that he had 
 ever seen, filled in equal measure with the priceless and the 
 worthless. The bindings of Riviere rubbed shoulders with 
 tattered paper-backs; a cabinet of Japanese porcelain was 
 outraged by foolish, intrusive china cats ; there was a shelf 
 of Waterford glass with a dynasty of blown-glass pigs, 
 descending from the ten-inch-high parent to the thumb-nail 
 baby of the litter gravely and ridiculously arranged in a 
 serpentine procession. Fifty kinds of trophy adorned the 
 mantel-piece, ranging from a West African idol at one end 
 to a pathetic, brown-eyed Teddy Bear at the other, with 
 stiff, conventional photographs and occasional miniatures 
 for punctuation. He recognized his own silver flask and 
 passed on, with a smile. Three small tables were almost
 
 82 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 buried beneath their load of pink carnations ; a box of cigar- 
 ettes, half-open and half-empty, lay tucked between the 
 cushions in each of three arm-chairs, and the white bear- 
 skin rug was littered with The Times, a round milliner's 
 box, two cheque-books and a volume of Ronsard. 
 
 The butler looked dispassionately at the confusion and 
 withdrew, giving it up as a hopeless task. A moment later 
 he returned to inform Eric that her ladyship would be with 
 him immediately. Ten minutes later Barbara came in by 
 another door to find him cautiously picking his way through 
 the disorder and examining her books and pictures. 
 
 "I didn't expect you so early," she began. "Will you give 
 me a little kiss, or am I still a nuisance?" 
 
 "You didn't say any time, so I chanced half-past one," 
 Eric answered. "If you'd told me to come at two, you'd 
 still have been ten minutes late, wouldn't you?" he added 
 with a laugh. "Lady Barbara, your conception of tidi- 
 ness " 
 
 She opened her eyes wide at him in unfeigned surprise. 
 
 "My dear, but you should see my bedroom!" she sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "The purple bedroom?" 
 
 "Did you remember that? I believe you're beginning t<j 
 like me, Eric. Come and sit down instead of fidgeting." 
 
 He paused to finish his inspection, ending up with the 
 nursery toy-cupboard on the mantel-piece. 
 
 "Hullo! I don't know this one of Jack Waring," he 
 exclaimed on reaching a cabinet photograph in a silver 
 frame. 
 
 Barbara lighted a cigarette and came beside him, resting 
 her hand on one shoulder and looking over the other at 
 the photograph, her hair brushing against his cheek. 
 
 "He Give me another match, Eric; this is burning 
 
 all down one side It's good, don't you think?"
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 83 
 
 "The best I've ever seen of him, poor chap. I must get 
 his sister to give me one." 
 
 "And don't forget that you're going to find out whether 
 they've had any news of him, will you? Johnny Carstairs 
 asked the Foreign Office to make enquiries through Copen- 
 hagen and Madrid, but he hasn't been able to find out any- 
 thing." 
 
 "I should be afraid there's nothing to find out," Eric mur- 
 mured. "He's been missing for weeks." 
 
 "But if he's been wounded or lost his identification disc 
 a hundred things. And it takes months to get news some- 
 times. D'you like my pig family, Eric?" 
 
 "Not among Waterford glass," he answered. "Except as 
 part of the general setting for you." 
 
 She replaced the photograph, laughing, and took his arm, 
 leading him round the room and giving him the history of 
 her trophies, until a footman knocked and announced that 
 luncheon was on the table. 
 
 Eric spent the next five minutes being pushed round a 
 large library, which seemed to contain twice as many voices 
 as people, and introduced to a second person before he 
 had fixed the identity of the first. Lady Crawleigh was 
 timorous and subdued, with an air of having been all her 
 life interrupted in the middle of her sentences and with a 
 compensating pair of flashing pigeon's eyes which seemed 
 to miss nothing. 
 
 "I'm so glad Babs gave us the opportunity of meeting 
 you," she said to Eric. "I enjoyed your play so much. 
 Your first, wasn't it? It must be a glorious sensation to 
 make such a success at the outset." 
 
 ("She takes in a thousand times more than she ever gives 
 out," Eric said to himself ; then he found himself being 
 spun through the rest of the family. "Wonder what she 
 does with it?") 
 
 Lord Crawleigh interrupted an indignant, staccato con-
 
 84 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 versation with Lady Maitland, who was holding her own 
 with emphatic shakes of a massive head, to touch finger- 
 tips and introduce him to his sister the whole done 
 cholerically and with the air of transacting a great deal of 
 tiresome business in a short time. 
 
 ("Bullies the life out of every one, I've always heard," 
 was Eric's private comment, as he was introduced to a pair 
 of tow-haired young officers with limp hands; "except the 
 girl. And she bullies him.") 
 
 "I knew you by sight at Oxford," said Lord Neave, with- 
 drawing his limp hand jerkily, as though he feared that it 
 would be stolen. "You were at Trinity, weren't you ? You, 
 er, know my brother Charles Mr. Lane." 
 
 Eric grasped a second limp hand, received a quick, busi- 
 ness-like nod from John Gaymer and found himself con- 
 fronted by the Duchess of Ross. 
 
 "No one will introduce us !" she cried shrilly with a 
 vermillion pout. "I've so much wanted to meet you, Mr. 
 Lane. You -wouldn't dine when I asked you ! Won't some 
 otie introduce us properly!" 
 
 The babble of high-toned voices, the quick patter of 
 speech, the sense of hurry, the hyperbolical intimacy and 
 enthusiasm were bewildering to a man who was naturally 
 shy and at that moment mentally tired. Eric commended 
 his soul to his humour and circumambulated the room, two 
 steps at a time, until a sudden lessening of noise and tension 
 told him that luncheon had dawned upon Lady Crawleigh 
 as a thing to be not only discussed but eaten. 
 
 "We've heard so much about you from Babs," she said, 
 struggling to finish one of her interrupted sentences. "So 
 good of you to bring her home the other night." 
 
 Eric poised himself on mental tip-toes, wondering, in 
 general, how far Barbara made her family a party to her 
 life and, in particular, to which night Lady Crawleigh was 
 alluding.
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 85 
 
 "Really ," he began. 
 
 "She gets these turns," Lady Crawleigh pursued. "I 
 blame myself entirely ; I allowed her to stay on working at 
 the hospital when she simply wasn't fit for it. Now she has 
 to pay for my weakness." 
 
 Eric looked from one to the other. 
 
 "I should prescribe three months in the country; bed at 
 ten and make her stay there for twelve hours." 
 
 "I should be out of my mind in a week," Barbara pro- 
 tested. 
 
 There was a pause, and Lady Crawleigh, with a rueful 
 shrug, turned away to speak to Gaymer. 
 
 "I like the way you order me into bed and out of bed !" 
 Barbara whispered. "If you cared what happened to me, 
 it would be one thing, but, when I'm becoming a bit of a 
 nuisance, you know. . . ." 
 
 Eric looked round cautiously and lowered his voice. 
 
 "Lady Barbara," he began. 
 
 "You persist in that ?" 
 
 "Babs, then " 
 
 "Yes, but you're receiving a favour, not conferring it." 
 
 He drew a deep breath. 
 
 "You are the most exasperating " 
 
 "Dear Eric! I can't help teasing you! Are you the 
 clever only child? Well, you ought to be. ... I don't be- 
 lieve any one's ever teased you before. You mustn't be 
 exasperated by me!" 
 
 Her laughter was irresistible, and Eric joined in it. 
 
 "Lady Barbara I'm sorry Babs, this is serious. You 
 say you'd be out of your mind in a week, if you adopted 
 my prescription. Let me tell you this; if you go on as 
 you're doing now, you will go out of your mind " 
 
 "I shouldn't bother you, if I were in an asylum." 
 
 Eric stiffened and turned his attention to the food before 
 him.
 
 86 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "You're not an easy person to talk to ," he began. 
 
 "Oh, you dear child!" said Barbara, with a gurgle of 
 laughter. "Two minutes ago it was, 'Ahaw, Lady Craw- 
 leigh, I should prescribe . . .' And one minute ago you 
 became earnest and loving and grand-paternal, with your 
 fond advice ! . Eric, I love you when you're like that ! Now 
 don't be self-conscious ! 'Your ideahs of tidiness, aw, Lady 
 Barbarah . . .' Whatever people may say, I believe you're 
 intelligent. In time you'll understand." Her eyes softened 
 and ceased to laugh at him. "Less than half a week! In 
 time you'll know what you've done for me, what I very 
 humbly hope and pray you're going to go on doing for 
 me. . . . You'll know why I trust you and love you more 
 than I've ever loved any one in my life before. There! 
 Is that plain enough? I don't say it excuses my being 
 'tiresome,' but it may explain it. ... Now don't say, 'Lady 
 Barbarah, I er I don't aw understand you !' " Her 
 fingers twined their way confidingly between his. "Why 
 bother? Why not go on being just what you are?" she 
 whispered. "Something that's made me think life's still 
 worth living. I don't claim it," she added with a change 
 of tone. "I ask it." 
 
 "And will you do something for me in return?" Eric 
 asked. "Will you take six months' complete rest in the 
 country, drop smoking ?" 
 
 "But I told you I should go out of my mind in a week !" 
 
 "Will you go for six weeks, six days?" 
 
 "You want to get rid of me?" 
 
 Eric felt his patience ebbing. 
 
 "I want to see you looking less of a haggard little wreck 
 than you do now," he exclaimed. 
 
 "Then I'll go. Thank you, Eric." 
 
 From the end of the table Lord Crawleigh's voice pene- 
 trated authoritatively.
 
 LADY BARBARA NEAVE 87 
 
 "Barbara! . . . Barbara! Are you coming with us by 
 the 4.10?" 
 
 She pressed Eric's hand before turning her head. 
 
 "I can't come till the 5.40," she said. 
 
 "But, my dear Barbara " 
 
 "I can't, father." 
 
 ("Bullies the life out of every one, I've always heard," 
 Eric repeated to himself, as Lord Crawleigh subsided into 
 inarticulate blustering. "Except the girl. And she bullies 
 him.") 
 
 "I did wonderful staff-work with Waterloo this morn- 
 ing," Barbara confided. "The 5.40 stops at Winchester and 
 Crawleigh." 
 
 "I could have told you that," said Eric. "So could Brad- 
 shaw, deceased." 
 
 "But fancy looking at Bradshaw, when you can per- 
 suade some one to look at it for you! . . . And you can't 
 get anywhere in Bradshaw without going through the 
 Severn Tunnel and waiting two hours at Bletchley. Besides, 
 Waterloo rather loved me. Just my voice, you know. . . . 
 We'll go down together. You can wire to your people." 
 
 "I told them I'd come by the 5.40." 
 
 "But how lucky !" 
 
 "How understanding," he amended. 
 
 "// you can be sure of your opponent, you may win by 
 throwing down your weapon. It is the victory of the weak 
 over the strong, the 'tyranny of tears! Or perhaps it is the 
 victory of the weak over the weaker. But you must be 
 sure of your opponent." From the Diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 LASH MAR MILL-HOUSE 
 
 "I've come back . . . and I was the King of Kafiristari . . . and 
 you've been setting here ever since O Lord !" 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING : "THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING." 
 
 As the crow flies, Lashmar Mill-House is but five miles 
 from Winchester. By road, however, there are six miles 
 of tolerable grey flint and rusty gravel on the Winchester 
 and Melton turnpike, followed by three Irish miles of un- 
 aided forest track. Half of it lies under water for six 
 months of the year; but in the summer a rutted ride pro- 
 jects from stony sand-pockets framed in velvet moss, with 
 tidal- waves of bracken surging up from the dells at the 
 road-side and low branches meeting to net the sun-shine. 
 
 At the end of the three miles Swanley Forest seems to 
 have paused for breath. There is a natural clearing a mile 
 long and three quarters of a mile broad cherished com- 
 mon-land, where the Lashmar villagers walk many assertive 
 miles of a Sunday to preserve their rights of way; where, 
 too, tethered goats and errant geese make good their 
 eleventh-century claim to free pasturage. At one end of 
 the down-soft clearing, a Methodist chapel, two shops and 
 five cottages constitute the village of Lashmar ; at the other 
 lies Lashmar Mill-House, slumbering half-hidden by beech 
 trees to the unchanging murmur of the Bort. The relevant 
 deeds and charters prove beyond a doubt that the lord of 
 Lashmar Mill-House has the right to make Lashmar village 
 
 88
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 89 
 
 grind its corn in his mill, paying him in kind and yielding 
 three days' labour a year to grind his. The ambitions of 
 Sir Francis Lane and of his eldest son, however, were not 
 feudal. 
 
 The autumn floods were lapping the road-side as Eric and 
 his sister left the twinkling lights behind and turned, after 
 a crackling six miles of metalled high-way, on to the 
 primaeval ride that bored faint-heartedly through the forest. 
 He was tired and uncommunicative, though his journey 
 from Waterloo had been uneventful; once inside the car- 
 riage and tucked warmly into a corner, Barbara had closed 
 her eyes, sighed and dropped asleep. Not until he stirred 
 himself to collect his hat and coat did she open her eyes 
 and look round with a tired smile ; as the train steamed out 
 of Winchester, an ungloved hand fluttered into sight for a 
 moment. 
 
 It was Eric's first visit to Lashmar since the production 
 of the "Divorce" had made his name known throughout 
 England; and he could not conceal from himself that he 
 was trying to render his return agreeably dramatic. Lady 
 Lane assisted the conspiracy by inviting their few neigh- 
 bours to meet him ; Sybil was awaiting him on the platform 
 with ill-suppressed excitement ; and it was entirely appro- 
 priate that Agnes Waring should dine at the Mill-House 
 on his first night at home. 
 
 "Geoff came home on leave yesterday," said Sybil. 
 
 "From Scapa ? Oh, good ! I haven't seen him for a long 
 time," said Eric. 
 
 But for Basil, who was in Salonica, the party would be 
 complete ; and Eric felt a moment's compunction at having 
 allowed himself to be so much caught up by the work and 
 distractions of London. When the car stopped at the door 
 of the Mill-House, he looked with affection at its squat, 
 sleepy extent, punctuated with lifeless, dark windows and 
 wrapped in age-long slumber; as the door opened, he saw
 
 9 o THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 his mother silhouetted against the golden light of the hall. 
 
 "At last, Eric!" she cried. 
 
 "It's good to be home again, mother," he answered, jump- 
 ing out of the car and embracing her. 
 
 While his sister drove round to the stables, Eric walked 
 arm-in-arm with his mother into the low, warm hall. For 
 more than thirty years Lady Lane had guarded, counselled 
 and provided for an eccentric husband and a turbulent 
 family, shouldering the cares of all, budgeting, nursing and 
 educating on an income which slipped unrewardingly away 
 until she assumed control. She had learned Greek and 
 Latin to help the boys with their home-work and had 
 trained their characters in an austere school of aggressive 
 puritanism. If she were a little intolerant, at least she 
 reared her children to a lofty sense of honour, a cold chas- 
 tity of life and speech and a fierce refusal to compromise 
 where truth or personal reputation was concerned. Thanks 
 to her, three boys and one girl were now able to fend for 
 themselves; Sybil, factotum and amanuensis to her father 
 ever since she had learned to read, could support herself 
 anywhere ; Geoff was firmly on his feet in the Navy, Basil 
 had passed into the Civil Service a few weeks before the 
 outbreak of war. Lady Lane was justly content with her 
 children ; of Eric, whom she had kept alive when the doc- 
 tors despaired of him, she was justly proud. 
 
 "Come into the drawing-room," she said, giving his arm 
 a gentle squeeze. "I've got a fire there." 
 
 "Nothing's changed," said Eric wonderingly. 
 
 Lashmar Mill-House, for all its size, contained hardly 
 more than two rooms on the ground-floor; a vast, book- 
 lined study for Sir Francis, an equally vast living-room for 
 the rest of the family and, between them, a furtive, dark 
 rectangle where they hurried through their meals. Eric had 
 begged for years to have the back wall removed from the 
 hall to make an adequate dining-room, but his mother had
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 91 
 
 grown middle-aged in a familiar compass and did not care 
 to be told by him too explicitly how the house should be 
 run and improved. In the moment of arrival Eric was too 
 much pleased with his welcome to be critical. 
 
 "You look tired," she said, holding his face to the light. 
 "Tell me what you've been doing all this while. You've 
 become a great celebrity, Eric." 
 
 "There's nothing much to tell. I've been doing a lot of 
 work, meeting a lot of people. . . . It's been rather 
 fun. . . ." 
 
 As soon as she had put away the car, Sybil joined them 
 and stood with her back to the fire and her hands in the 
 pockets of a short tweed skirt, staring idly at her own small 
 feet in their brown stockings and thick brogues and rousing 
 herself with an abrupt jerk of the head when she wanted 
 to intervene with a question. 
 
 "You were barely civil, when I rang you up the other 
 night," she interjected, in a pause, with the disconcerting 
 directness of nineteen. 
 
 "I was late already, and you were making me later," 
 Eric answered patiently. "That night ? Oh, yes." 
 
 He detailed Lady Poynter's dinner to his mother and 
 observed an expression of mixed curiosity and disapproval 
 settling upon his sister's face. 
 
 "Mrs. O'Rane? Sonia Dainton that was? H'm," said 
 Sybil. "And Lady Barbara Neave. Are you being taken 
 up by that set now, Ricky?" 
 
 "I don't quite know what you mean by 'being taken up.' 
 I met them at dinner. . . . And I lunched with the Craw- 
 leighs to-day," he added without filling in the intervening 
 encounters. "Lady Crawleigh wants me to go down there 
 next week-end, but I'm too busy; and week-ends simply 
 wear me out." 
 
 "You have made yourself popular with them all at once !" 
 Sybil commented. "What's Lady Barbara like?"
 
 92 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Interesting girl," Eric answered casually. 
 
 "Is she anything like what people make her out to be?" 
 
 Eric smiled tolerantly. 
 
 "I don't know enough of what people make her out to 
 be," he replied. Sybil was smiling mysteriously and exas- 
 peratingly to herself. . . . "Is the guv'nor working?" he 
 asked his mother. 
 
 Eric prowled through the hall to his father's big work- 
 room. Sir Francis was sitting bent over a litter of papers, 
 with a green eye-shade clamped to his lined forehead and an 
 ill-smelling corn-cob drooping from beneath his unassertive 
 grey moustache. In an arm-chair before the fire Geoff was 
 contentedly dozing with the bog-mud steaming from his 
 boots and a half-cleaned gun across his knees. By his side 
 an elderly retriever peered reflectively into the flames and 
 from time to time yawned silently. 
 
 " 'Evening, everybody," said Eric. "I've been sent to 
 hunt you off to dress, father. You asleep, Geoff? If not, 
 how are you ?" 
 
 Sir Francis pulled off the eye-shade and held out his hand 
 with a wintry smile. The boy in the arm-chair turned on 
 to his other side and dropped asleep again with a disgusted 
 grunt. 
 
 "He's got about a year to make up," explained Sir 
 Francis. "The Grand Fleet doesn't do much sleeping. 
 Well, Eric, what news?" 
 
 "Everything very much as usual," was the answer. 
 
 "Everything's always very much as usual here," said his 
 father, as he turned out the reading-lamp. 
 
 He sighed as he said it, and Eric tried to calculate the 
 number of years in which he had come down like this for 
 the week-end to be met, before the era of motor-cars, by 
 a fat pony and a governess cart, to be greeted by his mother 
 with affection which he never seemed able to repay, to drift 
 into the library and detach his lank, unaging father from
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 93 
 
 his studies. Sir Francis had accepted marriage and the 
 presence of a wife as he would have accepted a new house 
 and strange house-keeper; children had been born; after 
 the publication of his Smaller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary the 
 friend of a friend had recommended him, through a friend's 
 friend, for a knighthood, and he had bestirred himself with 
 wide-eyed, childish surprise for the investiture and a con- 
 gratulatory dinner at the Athenseum, returning to Lashmar 
 Mill-House grievously unsettled and discontented for as 
 much as a week. He had talked of running up to London 
 occasionally, of having these fellows down for the week- 
 end; he had complained that he was growing rusty and 
 losing touch with the world. Then the murmur of the 
 mill-stream had drugged his senses, and he had settled to 
 the Century Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Volume VII E-G. 
 
 After the restlessness of London, Eric could not at once 
 accommodate himself to the leisurely contentment and 
 placidity of Lashmar. 
 
 "Wake up, Geoff!" he cried. 
 
 The boy yawned and stretched himself like a cat, then 
 became suddenly active and projected himself across the 
 room, turning in the door-way to shout: "Bags I first 
 bath, Ricky!" 
 
 "Well, don't take all the hot water," Eric begged. After 
 the ingenious comfort of his flat in Ryder Street, he could 
 not at once accommodate himself to the simplicity of the 
 Mill-House. "Pity you never turned the east room into a 
 bathroom," he said to his father. "You talked about it for 
 years. We need another one." 
 
 It was an old controversy and part of Eric's persistent 
 but fruitless campaign against the studiedly Spartan atti- 
 tude of Lashmar Mill-House. 
 
 "It's rather an unnecessary expense. And we seem to 
 struggle on without it," said Sir Francis.
 
 94 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "I avoid unnecessary struggles as much as possible," Eric 
 answered shortly. 
 
 "You couldn't get the work done while the war's on," Sir 
 Francis pointed out, rooting himself firmly in the particular. 
 
 Eric walked upstairs, reflecting in moody dissatisfaction 
 on unnecessary struggles. No one ever laid out his dress 
 clothes for him at Lashmar. It never had been done when 
 he was a school-boy, carefully protected from pampering. 
 Sporadic attempts were made, whenever he launched an 
 offensive against the domestic economy of the house; but 
 the maids were always changing, Lady Lane believed that 
 all men-servants drank or stole the cigars. ... In the last 
 resort, these country-bred girls were so difficult to 
 teach. . . . 
 
 Down the passage came the sound of emptying taps and 
 a voice singing cheerfully in the bath. 
 
 "Don't stay there all night, Geoff!" Eric cried, banging 
 on the door. "It's a quarter to eight now." 
 
 It was five minutes to eight before the bathroom, sloppy 
 and filled with steam, was surrendered to him. No man 
 could have a hot bath and dress in five minutes; he was 
 particularly anxious to appear at his best for the meeting 
 with Agnes. . . . 
 
 And the water was tepid. . . . 
 
 "I have been apologizing for you," said Lady Lane point- 
 edly, as Eric hurried late and ill-humoured into the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 He had ready at hand a caustic little speech about 
 inadequate hot-water supply and insufficient bathrooms, but 
 it was intended for domestic consumption and, after one 
 scowl at Geoff, he laid it aside. Family altercations, like 
 family jokes, should be reserved for the family, though no
 
 95 
 
 one else emulated his moderation. He wondered whether 
 the servants grew as weary as he did of the story about 
 the cross-country journey from Oxford to Winchester; it 
 was dragged up at his expense whenever any one missed a 
 train and trains were missed weekly. Servants, of course, 
 could always leave; they always did. Perhaps they made 
 bets which would hear the Oxford-to-Winchester story 
 most often in three months ; perhaps they met in sullen con- 
 spiracy and pledged themselves to decamp in a body the 
 next time any one heard it. ... 
 
 That tepid bath had chilled his enjoyment of every- 
 thing. . . . 
 
 "I'm sorry to be late," he murmured, stiffly impenitent. 
 
 Agnes Waring was in the foreground, talking to his 
 father; he shook hands shyly and squeezed past her to 
 Nares, the apologetic, ineffectual vicar, and from Nares to 
 Mrs. Waring, who was talking to a young officer whom she 
 had brought over with her party. Colonel Waring stood by 
 the fire, retailing safe newspaper opinions on the war and 
 representing to Eric's theatre-trained eyes, with their pas- 
 sion for "types," almost too perfect a picture of the younger 
 brother who had passed from twenty years in a cavalry 
 regiment to half-pay retirement and a certain military pre- 
 tentiousness of daily life. There was no one else. Had 
 their lives depended on it, Lashmar could not yield another 
 man or woman. 
 
 "Entertaining here always reminds me of a musical 
 comedy," Eric murmured to Sybil. "Where one goes, all 
 go: 
 
 "Oh, we're all of us a-going back to Lon-don, 
 Over ocean; float's the notion . . . 
 
 "Song and dance. Curtain. Who's the fellow in uni- 
 form?" 
 
 "Mr. Benyon. A friend of the Warings," Sybil an-
 
 96 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 swered. "You're not going to be patronizing, are you?" 
 Eric pulled up and banished the ill-humour induced gen- 
 erally by the sleepiness of the country and, in particular, 
 by that tepid bath-water. He had looked forward to the 
 week-end, he proposed to enjoy himself ; there was no need 
 even to ask where he had been placed at dinner. Sybil, at 
 nineteen, worshipped every word and movement in Agnes 
 Waring at twenty-eight her way of laughing and speaking, 
 her phraseology, her mental outlook; every opinion was 
 
 introduced with the words, "Agnes says " Two years 
 
 before, when the infatuation was in its perfervid youth, 
 Sybil had made up her mind that her brother was to marry 
 Agnes; the determination was still so strong that she was 
 uneasy at the presence of young Benyon. 
 
 Eric had no strong view either way; Agnes was fair, 
 slight and small-featured with observant grey eyes and a 
 good deal of detached humour. Since the incubation of his 
 first unsuccessful play, he had argued out every character 
 and situation with her; when feminine psychology was in 
 dispute, her ruling was accepted without cavil. More than 
 once, as they splashed conversationally through the Lash- 
 mar woods, he had felt that she gave even a self-sufficient 
 bachelor something that he lacked and would always lack; 
 and, whenever the ubiquitous, dry celibacy of the Thespian 
 smoking-room oppressed him, his thoughts drifted to Agnes 
 Waring and a doll's house somewhere on the Eaton estate, 
 with one table, two chairs and an avalanche of green silk 
 cushions in the drawing-room. . . . He was not in love 
 with her; but, when Sybil telephoned to find whether he 
 was coming to the country for the week-end, he had re- 
 solved to retouch his conception of Agnes. For the first 
 time in his life he could not only afford to marry ; he could 
 regard marriage from the standpoint of an eligible bachelor. 
 If he was not in love with Agnes, he was in love with 
 love. .
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 97 
 
 Distant voices wakened him from his reverie, and he 
 found the long, low white-and-gold drawing-room buzzing 
 with congratulations. Benyon had been to the "Divorce" 
 three nights before; old Nares rubbed his hands, coughed 
 and described a proud moment, a very proud moment, when 
 he had been taken behind at the Lyceum and presented to 
 Sir Henry Irving. There followed an ingenuous account 
 of his make-up. . . . Eric smiled elastically, stroking his 
 chin and letting his gaze wander round the white panelled 
 walls, the gilt sofa and chairs and the gold and white over- 
 mantel the coming of Dionysus to Europe in a chariot 
 drawn by lions. He realized for the first time how much 
 he hated overmantels. 
 
 Sybil was now talking to Agnes, but she withdrew dis- 
 creetly at his approach and gave him an opportunity, as 
 they went in to dinner, for a question about Jack. 
 
 "We've heard nothing since the August report that he 
 was missing," said Agnes. "I'm keeping my mind a blank. 
 I couldn't build all sorts of wonderful hopes on his being a 
 prisoner and then, perhaps, have to go through the whole 
 thing again. . . . Mother's quite certain, of course; but 
 then mothers are like that, bless them. . . . I'll let you 
 know, if we hear any news, Eric." 
 
 "Thanks very much. By the way, can you spare me one 
 of the van Laun photographs of him ?" 
 
 Agnes thought for a moment and then wrinkled her fore- 
 head. 
 
 "He was never taken by van Laun." 
 
 "But I've seen one." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "He gave one to Lady Barbara Neave." 
 
 Her forehead wrinkled in deeper lines of perplexity. 
 
 "I didn't know he even knew her. ... He never men- 
 tioned her name; I suppose he thought I should disap- 
 prove."
 
 98 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 Eric was tempted to coax an opinion of Barbara; but 
 they had known each other for less than a week, and, if 
 he went round collecting the judgements of all who had 
 ever heard of her, no one would believe that a serene, 
 professional spirit of enquiry prompted his curiosity. 
 While native caution kept him hesitating, the opportunity 
 slipped away; Agnes surrendered to the boisterous ad- 
 vances of Geoff, and he turned to find Mrs. Nares 
 tentatively conversational on his left. 
 
 For a quarter of an hour Eric listened with one ear to 
 the parish history of Lashmar. Unknown names married 
 and begot families; unknown names sickened and died or 
 were unexpectedly revived when the copiously described 
 symptoms had rendered recovery an affront to the imagina- 
 tion; a few unknown names joined the army; one man was 
 a prisoner, another wounded; and two more lastingly dis- 
 credited Lashmar by saying that, when the army wanted 
 them, the~army could come and take them. Eric was in- 
 formed that he would hardly know the dear old village 
 now ; he felt that he could support the privation with forti- 
 tude and hoped its annals might be closed with that felici- 
 tous generalization, but Mrs. Nares had recollected her 
 husband's gallant attempt to be accepted as a chaplain and 
 the Bishop's gracefully worded inability to spare him, with 
 a postscript in his own writing to commend such spirit in a 
 man of sixty-two and to hold him up as an example to his 
 juniors. 
 
 Eric made mental notes of Mrs. Nares and memorized 
 some of her more engaging mannerisms. If he could work 
 her up, he could find room for her; but he must also find 
 some one to play her with a breathless, unpunctuated 
 patter; Kitty Walters seemed to have gone to America for 
 good, but Dorothy Martlet could take the part. . . . The 
 whole dinner, the atmosphere of the place were a satire
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 99 
 
 on life in a remote country-house. He wondered what the 
 party at Crawleigh Abbey was like. . . . 
 
 An unforeseen question rebuked his inattention. Eric 
 disposed of it skilfully; but the thread of thought was 
 snapped, and he looked round the table to see what had 
 been happening since his reverie began. Agnes had been 
 set at liberty by Geoff and was watching Eric as he watched 
 the others. Their eyes met, and both smiled. 
 
 "Conscription between your father and Benyon over 
 Sybil's body," he murmured, disentangling the conversa- 
 tions. "Needlework Guild between the guv'nor and Mrs. 
 Nares. Poor old guv'nor. ... V. A. D. training between 
 mother and the vicar. 'Naval Occasions' between your 
 mother and Geoff. D'you ever feel you'd like to stir all this 
 up with a pole, Agnes? We're too far from the coast for 
 an air-raid. . . . And, if you had one, no one would ever 
 talk about anything else for the rest of his life; it would be 
 like the Famine in Ireland or the Wesley descent on Corn- 
 wall." A maid, squeezing through the inadequate fairway 
 behind the chairs, bumped Eric's back and made him spill 
 his wine. "This place gets on my nerves!" he added 
 irritably. 
 
 Out of the corner of her eye Agnes looked at his mobile, 
 discontented face and crumbled her bread in silence for a 
 moment. 
 
 "Don't give up coming here altogether," she pleaded. 
 
 Eric sipped his wine thoughtfully and avoided her eyes. 
 Here was an opportunity, had he cared to take it, for 
 opening up a greater intimacy with Agnes; but his mind 
 was unconcentrated and he did not know what he wanted. 
 
 "I suppose I shall come down from time to time," he 
 answered vaguely. 
 
 "I've been so looking forward to hearing about all you've 
 been doing. We don't make much history in Lashmar." 
 
 It was common ground between them that the Warings
 
 ioo THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 lacked money for her to live as independently as all 
 Warings felt that every Waring had a right to live. Each 
 generation of younger brothers had been confined within 
 an ever-narrowing circle ; and, but for the war, Jack would 
 now be patiently going the North Eastern Circuit, the first 
 Waring to apply his mind to law; but for Jack and the 
 money spent on him at Oxford, Agnes would have gone to 
 Newnham and prepared a career for herself. 
 
 "You're too good for this place, you're wasted," Eric 
 broke out after a moment's silent brooding. 
 
 "There's not much choice, is there?" 
 
 Eric brooded again. 
 
 "Are you happy?" he asked. 
 
 "Happier than you are, I think," she answered with a 
 smile. 
 
 "Why on earth d'you say that ?" he asked in surprise. 
 
 "You just seem changed to-night," Agnes replied. 
 "Have you been working too hard ?" 
 
 Over his port which would not stand comparison with 
 any from the artful little cellar in Ryder Street Eric tried 
 to settle in his mind how much she had seen and how much 
 she had imagined. There was assuredly this much change 
 in him, that to-night Agnes was not even waking him to 
 dispassionate interest; he had no attention to spare her. 
 And yet it was not that Barbara had captured his mind; 
 she was nothing but an elf of mischief, dancing in the sun- 
 shine backwards and forwards across his path, pelting him 
 with flowers, vanishing and reappearing. Restlessness or 
 discontent must have peeped from behind the suave mask. 
 He had meant to be more friendly, far more friendly ; they 
 had not met for nine months ; and both were disappointed. 
 
 In the drawing-room Agnes kept her chair a few inches 
 behind the circle of the others, watching, listening and 
 reflecting. Eric seemed to think that he was still at one of 
 the tiresome long parties where he was expected to glitter
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 101 
 
 and to be shewn off; he had talked very well at times, but 
 he felt that he had been making voluble conversation in a 
 nervous dread of silence between them. His new life was 
 rather turning him into a public entertainer; he was enig- 
 matic and unapproachable. 
 
 As Eric, with caution born of experience, lit one of his 
 own cigars and made room for Geoff at his side, an idea 
 came to him so seductive, so simple and so compelling that 
 he wondered why he had never thought of it before. When 
 Geoff asked : "Are you down here for long, or are you go- 
 ing back on Monday?" Eric answered with unsought 
 inspiration : 
 
 "I shall go back on Sunday night." 
 
 It had never occurred to him before that, by this facile 
 course, he could avoid an early and cold drive into Win- 
 chester, a crowded train, a free fight for the last copy of 
 The Times, a late arrival at the department where he 
 composed propaganda for neutral consumption. And he 
 had never felt so urgent a need to escape from the Mill- 
 House. 
 
 "I haven't seen your jolly old play yet," said Geoff. "I 
 suppose I can count on you for a box? If you'll give us 
 dinner first, I might collect a few bright lads and give the 
 thing a bit of a fillip. I should think it must be rather a 
 rag, being famous." 
 
 "I suppose that depends on your definition of fame and 
 of a rag," Eric answered. 
 
 "Oh, being invited everywhere," said Geoff unhesi- 
 tatingly. "Having your photograph in all the papers. Girls 
 waiting in a queue for your autograph. A galaxy of beauty 
 prostrating itself at your feet to get an extra line."
 
 "That sounds more like musical comedy," said Eric 
 doubtfully. "I don't fly as high as that." 
 
 Geoff was too young to have outgrown the appeal of the 
 stage. He regarded Eric with as much admiration as one 
 brother accords another and with undisguised envy. 
 
 "I did enjoy your play," said Benyon, moving into a chair 
 by his side. "Agnes came up to dine with me, and I took 
 her. . . ." 
 
 Eric bowed without listening to the end of the sentence. 
 He was mildly surprised to find Agnes being discussed by 
 her Christian name and wondered why he had not heard of 
 Benyon before. Perhaps it was her fault that they had 
 established no spiritual contact at dinner; she had con- 
 ceivably lost interest in him, and he wondered whether he 
 was sufficiently interested to make sure. . . . 
 
 "The mater told me you'd another thing on the stocks," 
 Geoff went on. 
 
 "It's being produced next month," answered Eric. 
 
 He looked impatiently round the cramped dining-room, 
 listening for a moment to an altercation between Waring 
 and Nares on the Dardanelles expedition. It was surely 
 worth while to explore Agnes further and to see what part 
 in her life this young Benyon was playing. . . . 
 
 Fortified by the wise decision to return to London earlier 
 than he had first intended, Eric entered the drawing-room 
 full of toleration and good-humour. Bending over Mrs. 
 Nares' sofa, he atoned for his inattention during dinner 
 with thirty seconds' belated sparkle and a simple epigram 
 which he had already tried with effect on Mrs. Shelley. 
 They were joined by Mrs. Waring, and, as he had hardly 
 spoken to her all the evening, he consented to talk about 
 his forthcoming play which he enjoyed as little as a super- 
 stitions mother might enjoy describing her unborn child 
 until in a subsequent regrouping she confided to Sybil that
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 103 
 
 she was very much attached to Eric; he was so unspoiled, 
 so charming. . . . 
 
 "Aren't you rather proud of him ?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes. He's very clever and he's had a big success," Sybil 
 conceded critically. "But, if any one says 'Lane/ the whole 
 world thinks of Eric, while father, who's spent his life " 
 
 She was interrupted by Mr. Nares, who stationed him- 
 self at her elbow, coughing apologetically until she gave 
 him an opportunity of asking her to sing. As she went 
 to the piano, Eric moved across the room to Agnes' chair 
 and suggested that they should go out on the terrace. 
 
 "It's stifling in here," he grumbled; and, after a qwick 
 sidelong glance, Agnes followed him. 
 
 They strolled through one of the French windows to a 
 long gravel path, which ran flush with the inky, slow-moving 
 mill-stream. Overhead the trees stretched across the nar- 
 row ribbon of water, brushing the back of the house and 
 releasing brittle leaves of copper and dull gold to undulate 
 in the breeze before they settled on the surface and swept 
 gently over the creaking wheel. A crescent moon was re- 
 flected unwaveringly in the black water, and the autumn 
 breeze blew a scent of decaying, damp vegetation from the 
 dense woods all around them. 
 
 "Remember when we used to have races with paper 
 boats, Agnes?" Eric asked suddenly. 
 
 She nodded, wondering why he had reminded her. 
 
 "What years ago it seems!" 
 
 "Only about five. Though we were both old enough to 
 know better." 
 
 "It seems longer," said Agnes, looking at him thought- 
 fully and wondering whether he had only invited her out 
 there as a demonstration against Sybil for disparaging him 
 to her mother. 
 
 "I don't feel a day older." 
 
 "You're changed. We were all of us saying that before
 
 104 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 you came into the drawing-room to-night. Your mother's 
 rather worried about you, Eric." 
 
 He lighted a cigarette to shew the steadiness of hand 
 and eyes. 
 
 "She needn't bother," he answered easily. "I'm carrying 
 a good deal of sail but I'm better than I've ever been. 
 Agnes, I don't usually talk about what I'm only thinking of 
 doing, but with you it's different. . . ." 
 
 He slipped her arm through his and walked up and down 
 the gravel path describing his conception of a novel as it 
 had revealed itself to him a week before when he was at 
 an Albert Hall concert. His confidence flattered her into 
 disregarding the egotism which made him remember her 
 only when he wanted to talk about himself ; she forgot the 
 sensation that he had outgrown her as much as he had out- 
 grown the paper-boat races on the mill-stream by their side. 
 Once the night wind, blowing on to her unprotected shoul- 
 ders, sent a shiver through her; but it was Eric who 
 coughed, and she wondered whether he knew why Lady 
 Lane always looked so anxiously at his sunken cheeks and 
 starved body. She wondered, too, whether she would have 
 cared for him so much if he had been robust and tranquil 
 as Geoff. 
 
 The music had ended long before he had done talking; 
 tentative cries of "Agnes!" passed unheeded, and she was 
 only recalled to the present by the appearance of Colonel 
 Waring in overcoat and soft hat half-way through the open 
 window. 
 
 "Bed-time, Agnes," he called out, sniffing the night air. 
 "If you've been giving that girl of mine a chill, Eric " 
 
 "You're not cold, are you ?" Eric asked her. 
 
 "Not very," she answered with a tired and rather disap- 
 pointed smile. 
 
 "Oh, but why didn't you tell me ?" he protested in a con- 
 vincing voice of concern, as he led her back into the house
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 105 
 
 and helped her into her cloak. As a chorus of farewell 
 rose and isolated them, he lowered his voice. "You'll let 
 me know when you have any news of Jack, won't you?" 
 
 "If," she answered wistfully. 
 
 "You mustn't lose heart. I expect he's all right, and 
 there's been some hitch in getting the news through. He's 
 all right, Agnes." 
 
 "I hope so." 
 
 She shook hands and walked despondently into the night. 
 Eric seemed to have become artificial in the last few months 
 just when he might have helped her most. He lengthened 
 his face and lowered his voice sympathetically, but he was 
 growing into a social puppet and losing his individuality. 
 ... It had not been a very amusing dinner. 
 
 "Did you enjoy yourself?" Colonel Waring asked her, as 
 they settled into the car. 
 
 "Very much, thanks," she answered quietly. "I'm rather 
 tired, though." 
 
 Benyon told her that Eric's new play was to be produced 
 within a month and invited her to come with him. She an- 
 swered uncertainly and lapsed into silence. 
 
 As the car bumped over the springy turf of Lashmar 
 Common, Eric stood gazing at the stars and drinking in 
 the thousand mingled scents and sounds of the night. 
 Somewhere hard by, a bonfire was pungently smouldering; 
 there was a sour smell where a flock of geese had been 
 feeding all day ; flaring acridly across was a transitory reek 
 of burnt lubricating oil, and the hint of a cigar so faint that 
 it was gone before he could be sure of it. ... The lum- 
 bering creak of the mill-wheel rose assertively above the 
 drone and plash of the stream; a shiver of rain and a 
 gentle sigh of wind in the top branches of the trees behind 
 him were suddenly swallowed by the hoot of an owl. 
 
 Eric started and wondered why he was standing there 
 in the cold. Then he remembered that he had stayed to
 
 io6 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 be by himself and to think something out. There was a 
 change somewhere, and he was trying to locate it. He 
 had come to retouch his memory of Agnes, and he had seen 
 her alone and with others ; they had talked the conventional 
 jargon of the dinner-table, their fingers had brushed emo- 
 tion as they discussed her missing brother, and for half an 
 hour they had marched up and down the terrace arm-in- 
 arm, discussing and arguing on an unwritten book, recap- 
 turing an old intimacy which he had shared with no one 
 else. In the light of the drawing-room Agnes' grey eyes 
 were black and mysterious; her lips were parted, and her 
 cheeks warmly flushed ; he had never seen her look prettier, 
 he had never been more attracted by her. 
 
 The change must be in himself ; he demanded of her 
 something more volcanic and inspiring than she could five, 
 something to feed his own languid vitality instead of 
 placidly laying him to rest. . . . 
 
 Shutting the front door, he went back to the drawing- 
 room, where the family was assembled to compare notes 
 and pool information. 
 
 "The vicar's starting a class for making bandages. . . ." 
 
 "The Warings haven't heard anything of Jack yet. . . ." 
 
 "That Benyon must be one of the Herefordshire lot, I 
 fancy. An old private bank. . . ." 
 
 Eric hesitated on the threshold, looking from one to 
 another. Sybil was undisguisedly disappointed; she had 
 so desperately set her heart on his marrying her beloved 
 Agnes, and the night's meeting had brought them no nearer. 
 Lady Lane, still anxious, beckoned him into the room and 
 took his face between her hands, turning it to the light and 
 kissing his eyes again, as on his arrival. 
 
 "You look tired, Eric. You'd better go to bed, or you'll 
 never be down to breakfast." 
 
 "I wasn't thinking seriously of being down to breakfast 
 in any case," he answered with a yawn.
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 107 
 
 "Oh, don't be late. It makes so much extra work for 
 the maids, if they have to serve several breakfasts and can't 
 get in to do your room." 
 
 He smothered an impatient retort and strolled to a table 
 by the fire where Sybil and her father were sipping long 
 tumblers of hot milk, while Geoff gulped home-made lemon- 
 ade with avid enjoyment. 
 
 "Any whiskey?" he asked, raking the tray with critical 
 eye. He did not greatly want it for himself or at that 
 moment, but every night the same plea had to be preferred, 
 there was the same hesitation and hint of inward struggle, 
 the same unspoken protest, as though the shocked stalwarts 
 of temperance were saying: "You can't want whiskey after 
 claret and port." He was being made to drink for con- 
 science sake. And it was intolerable that Waring, Benyon 
 and Nares should have been sent into the night without a 
 stirrup-cup. 
 
 "It's in the dining-room," said Sybil, walking reproach- 
 fully to the door. 
 
 "Here! All right! I'll ring," Eric cried. 
 
 "The servants are all in bed," she answered. "Or, if 
 they're not, they ought to be." 
 
 He thanked her suitably on her return, but one dis- 
 cordant, trifling incident coalesced with another, the tepid 
 bath with the whiskey demonstration, to give him a sense 
 of angular discomfort. In a few hours he seemed to spend 
 a month's nervous energy in battling for things that were 
 not worth winning. The whole week-end would be a 
 failure. . . . 
 
 The milk tumblers were returned to their tray; Sir 
 Francis filled his corn-cob for the last time; Geoff ferreted 
 curiously among a pile of library novels in one corner, and 
 Lady Lane walked softly round the room, testing the fas- 
 tenings of the windows, pushing a top-heavy log into 
 security and turning off unnecessary lights. The hall clock,
 
 io8 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 striking eleven, seemed to rouse and inspire them with a 
 common impulse. 
 
 "Don't burn the mid-night oil too long," said Lady Lane, 
 brushing Eric's forehead with her lips. 
 
 "I simply couldn't sleep, if I went to bed now," he told 
 her. "Good-night, mother. Good-night, everybody." 
 
 As the house grew silent he brought in his despatch-box 
 from the hall and began to read through the skeleton of 
 a novel which he had promised himself to write as soon as 
 "The Bomb-Shell" was safely launched. In the second 
 week of the war he had spent an afternoon in a recruiting 
 office with men of all ages and physiques, pressing forward 
 for enrolment. Three over-worked doctors pounded and 
 sounded them, prodding them on to a weighing-machine, 
 measuring their height and chest expansion, testing their 
 eyes. Eric had tried to cheat by memorizing the order of 
 the descending black capitals while he lay on a sofa breath- 
 ing freely or holding his breath as he was ordered ; but the 
 chart was changed before his turn came. When he had 
 dressed, the examining doctor referred him to a row of 
 three weary clerks at a baize-covered table, who informed 
 him that he was rejected. The folio form contained a com- 
 ment cardiac something; he could not read the second 
 word. There was no appeal, and, after a moment's inde- 
 cision, he recognized that there was nothing to do but to 
 go home. 
 
 Outside the office his neighbour in the queue overtook 
 and hailed him with the words : "What luck ?" 
 
 "They've spun me," Eric answered. "There was just a 
 chance that I might slip through in the crowd. . . . What 
 did they say to you?" 
 
 "I was spun, too," his companion answered. Then he 
 laughed uneasily and his face was drawn and dazed in the 
 August sunshine. "You wouldn't think you could have 
 much the matter with you and not know anything about it.
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 109 
 
 I always thought I was a first-class life; I haven't had a 
 day's illness in ten years " 
 
 "What did they say?" Eric asked, as the other hesitated 
 in bewilderment. 
 
 "They give me anything between three and six months," 
 he answered, moistening two grey lips. "One of the fel- 
 lows . . . took me on one side, you know . . . asked me a 
 few questions . . ." He broke off and waved to a taxi 
 which was rolling lazily down Whitehall. "I must go and 
 see my own man. Good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye! Good luck!" Eric cried. 
 
 As he walked home he wondered how much composure 
 he would shew if a sentence of death were slapped at him 
 like an overdue bill. He wondered, too, what he would 
 do with those testing, supreme three months, if they were 
 all that he was allowed. Stoicism, hedonism, the faith of 
 his childhood, new-fangled mysticisms would join hands 
 and hold revel round his soul for those twelve weeks, those 
 eighty-four days, those two thousand and sixteen hours. 
 . . . The speculation fascinated him until he almost fancied 
 that the sentence had been passed on him. Gradually he 
 wove a drama round it ; line by line it took shape for a book 
 that was to be subtiler, finer and more sincere than anything 
 that he had ever written. If only he could find time for 
 six months' uninterrupted work ! London had to be not 
 only captured but held; more than ever before, his work 
 was the one thing that mattered. . . . 
 
 The clock in the library struck twelve, and he tossed the 
 manuscript skeleton back into his despatch-box. His mind 
 was vaguely disturbed with a sense of duty undone, until 
 he remembered promising to tell Barbara if he heard any 
 news of Jack Waring. For a moment he thought of writing 
 to her; but in fact there was no news, he would have only 
 himself to blame if he re-established communications with 
 her in obedience to a passing whim. She was at Crawleigh,
 
 no THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 resting and building up her strength ; he would be back in 
 full harness within thirty-six hours, and there would be no 
 room for her madcap incursions into his life. 
 
 The house was very silent when Eric at length mustered 
 resolution to go to bed. The fragrance of many wood fires 
 warmed the passages and staircase with a drowsy scent; 
 once a distant window rattled tremulously in the wind, the 
 hall clock gathered itself together and hesitated before strik- 
 ing ; all else was deep-brooding peace. 
 
 He turned out the lights and mounted to his room on 
 tip-toe. There was a fancied sound of tranquil breathing, 
 as he paused outside each door in the long, low passage. 
 He at least was awake; his highly-strung new restlessness 
 would not accord with the placidity of these contented 
 people. Twenty-five years ago, his mother had fetched him 
 from Broadstairs for his first Christmas holidays; and he 
 had been wonderfully glad to see her and to be home again. 
 So it had been every holiday; he started with an after- 
 noon's preliminary exploration, flinging open doors, sniffing 
 the familiar scent of leather bindings, lavender and pine- 
 logs, critically watchful for change. Now the change had 
 come in himself; Agnes had commented on it, his mother 
 and Sybil had noticed it. ... 
 
 His bedroom was as he had known it from childhood ; a 
 hard brass bed, white painted chest-of-drawers and wash- 
 hand-stand, threadbare green carpet, flowered and fes- 
 tooned pink-and-white wall-paper. (It must have been 
 renewed in twenty-five years, but the pattern was the same.) 
 There was an oak-framed "Light of the World" over the 
 bed, supplemented on the other walls with progressive 
 personal records eleven podgy, flannelled little boys in 
 quartered chocolate-and-gold caps, guarded and patronized
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE in 
 
 by a flannelled and whiskered master; four lean- faced, 
 stern young school prefects in gowns and white ties; two 
 hundred shivering and draggled young men and girls, press- 
 ing together for warmth in the five o'clock chill of a June 
 morning outside the Town Hall of Oxford. There were 
 two shelves of calf-bound, marbled prize books between the 
 windows, a pair of limp, battered racquets over the mantel- 
 piece and a fumed-oak shield with the university and college 
 arms contiguously inclined like the hearts of two lovers. 
 
 Eric shed his coat and waist-coat on the bed, lighted a 
 pipe and prowled ruminatively round the room. Some- 
 where in the shivering ball-group Jack Waring was to be 
 found, marked out by the blue dress-coat of the Bullingdon. 
 Philpot of B.N.C., Trevor of the House, Loring of the 
 House, Crabtree of Magdalen, Flint of Exeter Eric 
 turned from one blue-coated sign-post to another until he 
 identified Waring with a crumpled shirt front and dis- 
 ordered hair, cross-legged in the front row. It was a 
 smiling, vacuous, uncharacteristic photograph, and he aban- 
 doned it for a bulky album stamped with his initials. 
 
 He retreated to the bed and sprawled over a group of 
 the "Mystics." This was a detached and scornful club, 
 exasperating to outsiders, tiresome to its members ; Waring 
 and he had joined it at the same time and taken possession 
 of it; their vague home intimacy had ripened into an inter- 
 ested friendship as they strolled back to college from the 
 weekly meetings, once more refighting the frigidly abstract 
 battles in which they had lately engaged from the depths 
 of arm-chairs with their feet on the table and piled dessert- 
 plates in their laps. Without effort or desire Waring had 
 set a fashion and founded a school of icy fastidiousness. 
 Within the limits of college discipline, which he scrupu- 
 lously observed, Waring dissociated himself from the life 
 and conventions of the college, the abbreviations and col- 
 loquialisms of Oxford speech, the slovenly mode of dress
 
 ii2 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 and juvenility of mind. His serenity floated as smoothly 
 over the collective ideas and standards of his fellows as 
 over intercollegiate jealousies; and, as he left the college 
 distantly alone, the college sought him out, elected him to 
 clubs which he seldom attended and to banquets which he 
 overlaid with baffling and frigid aloofness. 
 
 When Waring went to the bar, he shared chambers with 
 Eric for four years in Pump Court; and, though they met 
 at most for an hour each day, there resulted an intimacy 
 which neither could replace when Waring moved to the 
 greater comfort of a bedroom at the County Club. For two 
 or three years before the war they hardly met; Eric, dis- 
 appointed and sore from want of recognition, was shutting 
 himself away from his former friends, while Waring was 
 gathering together a practice and exploring with discrim- 
 ination the social diversions of London. The war hardly 
 increased the distance between them, and it was only when 
 Jack Waring was reported to be "missing" that Eric real- 
 ized he had lost his best and oldest friend. 
 
 He replaced the album in its shelf and went on undress- 
 ing. So many friends had already been killed in these first 
 fourteen months of war that he had fallen into a "sooner- 
 or-later" frame of mind about all. Their death ceased to 
 surprise and no longer shocked him as it had once done. 
 Until the war, Jack was always at call. Now, when the war 
 ended, he would not come back. . . . Eric shrugged his 
 shoulders and clambered into bed. The Warings were 
 plucky about it, because every day the suspense must be- 
 come worse; and all the while people would rush up and 
 ask for news, as he had done with Agnes, instead of leaving 
 her to spread the news as soon as she had any. People 
 thought that they .were being sympathetic when they were 
 simply tearing the bandage away from the wound to gratify 
 their own curiosity. He would never have asked the ques- 
 tion but for his promise to Barbara. . . .
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 113 
 
 Why, then, was he not letting her know the result? He 
 reached for his despatch-box and settled himself comfort- 
 ably against the pillows. 
 
 "I promised to see if I could get any news of our friend 
 Jack Waring," he began, then hesitated to wonder whether 
 her letters reached Barbara uncensored or whether sharp- 
 eyed, subdued Lady Crawleigh would ask tonelessly, 
 "Who's your letter from, Babs?" Decorum, he decided, 
 should blossom between the lines and shed its waxen petals 
 round each word. . . . "His sister was dining with us to- 
 night, and I am sorry to say . . " "Did you know him 
 well? He was one of my greatest friends at Oxford. I 
 remember once . . ." 
 
 Eric found himself fondly stringing together anecdotes 
 of Jack until he had overshot the limits of a single sheet; 
 it seemed but a moment before he was leaning out of bed 
 to reach a third. "You must forgive me, if I have rather 
 let myself go about him," he ended. "I remember the first 
 weeks of the war, when I had a nervous breakdown. His 
 father's place is about two miles from here, and he used to 
 come round and sit with me. I've only to shut my eyes to 
 see him standing by the fireplace, with his elbow on the 
 mantel-piece and his cheek on his hand, talking to me. And 
 I'd give a great deal to have him here to-night. 
 
 "But I'm afraid I'm occupying an unfair proportion of 
 your time and strength at a season when you've faithfully 
 promised to take care of yourself and to have a proper rest. 
 I hope you didn't get carried beyond Crawleigh station; 
 it's been rather on my conscience that I got out at Win- 
 chester instead of coming on with yau the whole way. Are 
 you aware that you collapsed from sheer exhaustion almost 
 before we were out of Waterloo? I thought you'd fainted 
 and, as you have my only fiask of brandy, I had a bad fright. 
 Isn't it worth while to take a little care of yourself f You're 
 so intolerably vain that I needn't remind you that you're
 
 ii 4 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 very young, extraordinarily lovely at times, very clever and 
 utterly "wasted. However, that's your affair, and you're not 
 likely to be much impressed by any advice I give you, nor 
 am I much impressed by my right to give you advice. If 
 I hear any news of Jack, you may be sure ihat I shall let 
 you know. Now, good-night, good-bye and a speedy re- 
 covery." 
 
 In reading through his letter, Eric could not help feeling 
 that, where he had sown decorum, a certain intimacy had 
 shot up. But at three o'clock in the morning he could not 
 bother about that. 
 
 In the first drowsy moments after waking, Eric realized 
 that he was starting at a disadvantage. It was half-past 
 ten. He had therefore missed breakfast, disorganized the 
 housemaids' programme for the day and made himself too 
 late to accompany his mother to church. 
 
 "I seem to have broken all the rules of the place before 
 getting out of bed," he told himself, as he rang for hot 
 water. 
 
 Then he laughed as he recalled an old "Punch" drawing 
 of an intoxicated reveller in a Tube lift, who also contrived 
 simultaneously to break all the rules by smoking, by not 
 "standing clear of the gates" and, pre-eminently, by not 
 being beware of pickpockets. The laugh put him in good 
 humour and reminded him that good humour must be his 
 sword and shield, if he hoped to get back to London that 
 night without a struggle. He sauntered in search of his 
 brother with a razor in one hand and a shaving-brush in the 
 other to ask which night he would like to dine and have his 
 promised box at the Regency. 
 
 When he entered the dining-room, a pencilled note in a 
 distantly familiar writing was lying by his plate. 
 
 "Now you MUST admit that my intelligence department is
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 115 
 
 good'' he read in slanting, irregular strokes which hinted 
 at a recumbent position and a writing-block balanced 
 against the knees. "You. never told me your address. I 
 didn't know where to look for you in the telephone book, 
 you were utterly lost. Eric, will you believe me? I carried 
 the telephone into bed with me; I said, 'Trunks, please,' 
 and Trunks Please said 'Honk!' (Why do they always say 
 'Honk'? I believe they're Masons, or else they've always 
 fust woken up.) Well, I said 'Honk!' too, and asked for 
 your number in Ryder Street; and THEN / found out your 
 address in the country. Don't you think it was rather 
 clever of me? And, dear Eric, don't you think it was VERY 
 sweet of me? I wanted to thank you for something I ex- 
 pect you're quite unconscious of. (What a sentence to 
 throw at the head of a rising dramatist!) I mean your 
 gentleness and care for me yesterday. I always know I'm 
 so safe with you, Eric. 
 
 "I'm obeying you to the letter. We've got rather an 
 amusing party here; Gerry Deganway and Sally Farwell, 
 my cousin Johnnie Carstairs (perhaps ONE pinch too much 
 Foreign Office), Bobbie Pentyre, who's on his last leave 
 before going out, his rather tiresome mother, the immacu- 
 late George Oakleigh. . . ." Her pen strayed into mis- 
 chievous comments and absurd stories about the house- 
 party. "But this bores you," she broke off abruptly. "I 
 felt all this week as if I'd been sharing everything with you 
 so extraordinarily. But no one shall say that I don't know 
 when I'm becoming tedious! What I wanted to tell you 
 was this; and I was led astray by this mob of people. I've 
 washed my hands of them! I'm in bed bed at 7.15 POST 
 MERIDIEM (is that right?) and I'm staying here. I'm hon- 
 estly resting. But (a new sheet for this) I've GOT to be 
 London next week Thursday for a happy day with the 
 dentist. I shall be all alone, the house will be shut up and 
 everything will be as uncomfortable and depressing as it
 
 n6 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 can be. Don't you think ifs almost a duty for you to come 
 and dine? I'll have the dusting-sheets in my room lifted 
 up, and we'll crawl underneath them and eat hard-boiled 
 eggs in our fingers off the corner of the table. And I'll play 
 to you; I might even sing to you; in general terms I shall 
 be very sweet to you and, if you don't come, I shall know 
 ifs because you're afraid of falling in love with me." 
 
 Eric smiled to himself, as he pocketed the letter and pros- 
 pected for note-paper and an unoccupied table. 
 
 "Your picnic dinner sounds most attractive," he wrote. 
 "I shall be delighted to come. It is so characteristic of you 
 not to mention a time that I hesitate to point out the omis- 
 sion. I shall come at 8.0, unless you tell me to the contrary. 
 And I shall insist on your singing. Good-bye. Take care 
 of yourself." 
 
 He tossed the letter into the box in the hall, but took it 
 out again immediately. There was too much idle curiosity 
 in the house already. No one would accept his picture of 
 Babs as he saw her; assuredly no one would believe his 
 account of their relationship, if he were in a mood or state 
 to give it. He put on an overcoat and walked, with the 
 confirmed Londoner's shivering hatred of the country in 
 autumn, to the tumble-down shanty which did duty as gen- 
 eral store and post office to the hamlet of Lashmar. 
 
 Once nerved to face the wet roads and penetrating chill, 
 Eric decided to acquire merit by walking through the woods 
 and meeting the church party on its return. Lady Lane 
 had already shewn off her "sailor son" to the exiguous con- 
 gregation; it was the turn of "my eldest son, the author, 
 you know," to submit. He could hear all about Basil and 
 generally popularize himself so that he would be allowed to 
 leave that night without protest. 
 
 His mood was so radiant that he achieved his effect be- 
 fore the end of luncheon. As Geoff drove him to the sta- 
 tion, he almost seemed to have enjoyed himself and to be
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 117 
 
 leaving with regret. . . . Winchester, Basingstoke, Vaux- 
 hall, the river and the Houses of Parliament gave him suc- 
 cessive thrills of pleasure, as though he had been away 
 from England for years. Pride of possession seized him 
 when he entered Ryder Street; as he shut the front door 
 and looked at his black-framed prints and lustre bowls, he 
 felt like a miser locking himself within his treasure-house 
 to feast his eyes on the signs of his material victory over 
 fate. So many people allowed life to control them instead 
 of controlling life. And, when they had failed through 
 their own inertia, they invented an external destiny to save 
 their faces. Man created God to have somewhere to put 
 the blame. . . . 
 
 There was an average pile of letters on his library table. 
 Lady Poynter hoped to get some rather amusing people to 
 lunch on Thursday ; could he bear to come again ? So sweet 
 of him, if he would. Mrs. O'Rane wrote vaguely of a party 
 which she had in prospect, without apparently knowing 
 very much about it: "a sort of house-warming. I'm not 
 asking you to meet any one in particular, because I don't 
 know who'll be there. It'll be a mob, I warn you. I'm 
 inviting my friends, my husband's inviting his; they'll prob- 
 ably quarrel, and there's sure not to be room for all. What- 
 ever you do, have a good dinner before you come. It 
 doesn't sound attractive, does it? But these things are 
 often nothing like so bad as one fears beforehand. I pro- 
 pose to enjoy Myself." 
 
 Eric was amused by her candour and decided to look in 
 for a few minutes. 
 
 Lady Maitland, complaining that "Margaret Poynter al- 
 ways ACCAPARER-J my nice young men," invited him to shew 
 his loyalty by coming to dine on Friday. "Bobs Neave is 
 coming," she added. 
 
 As he had intended to spend Sunday evening in the coun- 
 try, he was absolved from all work and could give undi-
 
 vided attention to the dinner which his cook had improvised. 
 (But he must get an ice-safe capable of holding an adequate 
 week-end supply. Dinner with only a choice of sherry and 
 of gin and bitters, with no opportunity for a cocktail sug- 
 gested "roughing it" to his mind.) He dined with a book 
 propped against its silver reading-stand leisurely and warm 
 after his bath, comfortable in a soft shirt and wadded 
 smoking jacket. 
 
 After dinner he unlocked a branded cedar-wood cabinet, 
 the first that he had ever bought, and looked lovingly at 
 the cigars, rich, dull-brown and ineffably fragrant, bundle 
 pressed shoulder to shoulder with bundle. A new stock of 
 wine had still to be entered in the cellar-book ; and he had 
 to find places on his shelves for Hatchard's last consign- 
 ment. It was not yet easy to realize that, until the success 
 of his play six thousand pounds sterling in eight calendar 
 months a new book had been an event. . . . 
 
 For a happy hour he arranged and rearranged. At the 
 end, surveying his handiwork with undisguised pleasure, 
 he thought of the bizarre night when Babs Neave had 
 forced her way in. He could still hardly believe that it had 
 occurred. And yet, without shutting his eyes, he could 
 almost see the child, deadly pale, tired, delighted and wholly 
 unexplained, bending forward with her wonderful white 
 arms outstretched to catch poor Agnes Waring's horse-shoe 
 paper-weight, laughing one moment, crying the next, kissing 
 him the moment after. And how she seemed to be in love 
 with him. . . . 
 
 He took out a foot-rule and measured the space under 
 the windows for two possible new book-cases. He would 
 need them soon ; and they would make the room look better 
 filled. It was a beautiful room, a beautiful flat. From 
 every point of view he was leading a very beautiful 
 life. . . . 
 
 The clock struck eleven; and his parlour-maid came in
 
 LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 119 
 
 with a syphon, decanter and glasses. He did not drink 
 whiskey once a month, but the tray added a roundness and 
 finish which the Spartans at Lashmar Mill-House were in- 
 capable of appreciating. Were they Spartans or simply 
 people without his instinct for life? 
 
 He filled a tumbler with soda-water and subsided into his 
 deepest arm-chair, looking lazily round the room, drawing 
 pleasurably at his cigar and wrapping himself in the softest 
 down of contentment. His diary was within reach, and he 
 thought over his abbreviated week-end. Agnes Waring had 
 dropped out of his life; Barbara had never come into it. 
 There was nothing to record but the names of his mother's 
 guests at dinner. . . . 
 
 "There are few things so exhausting as the quiet of the 
 country." From the Diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 INTERMEZZO 
 
 What hadst thou to do being born, 
 
 Mother, when winds were at ease 
 As a flower of the spring-time of corn, 
 
 A flower of the foam of the seas? 
 For bitter thou wast from thy birth, 
 
 Aphrodite, a mother of strife; 
 For before thee some rest was on earth 
 
 A little respite from tears 
 
 A little pleasure of life ; 
 For life was not then as thou art, 
 
 But as one that waxeth in years 
 Sweet-spoken, a fruitful wife; 
 
 Earth had no thorn, and desire 
 No sting, neither death any dart ; 
 
 What hadst thou to do amongst these, 
 
 Thou, clothed with a burning fire, 
 Thou, girt with sorrow of heart, 
 
 Thou sprung of the seed of the seas 
 As an ear from a seed of corn 
 
 As a brand plucked forth of a pyre, 
 As a ray shed forth of the moon 
 
 For division of soul and disease, 
 For a dart and a sting and a thorn? 
 What ailed thee then to be born? 
 
 SWINBURNE: "ATALANTA IN CALYDON. T 
 
 MORAL delinquency in England, if of sufficiently ancient 
 lineage, grows venial with the years and, if carried out with 
 adequate ruthlessness or at least success, may quickly find 
 itself invested with grandeur. No one boasts of his own 
 illegitimacy, but most men like it to be known that an 
 ancestress, whose memory is kept green, once enjoyed royal 
 favour. No man tells his guests that they are eating stolen 
 
 I2O
 
 INTERMEZZO 121 
 
 food from stolen plate in a stolen house; but many will 
 admit, without imposing a bond of secrecy, that their great- 
 great-grandfathers went to India to seek their fortune and 
 apparently found it. "He that goes out an insignificant boy 
 in a few years returns a great Nabob," said Burke, without 
 dwelling on the intermediate stages. They will admit 
 almost as readily that their grandfather reluctantly parted 
 with land to the end that railways might be built, or that 
 their fathers ran the blockade and supplied the South and 
 the slave-owners, hazardously and romantically, with mu- 
 nitions of war. 
 
 The Neave fortunes had their origin in the character and 
 position of Lord Chancellor Crawleigh; and history has 
 dealt faithfully with him. John, first baron, acquired the 
 Abbey from a misguided supporter of the '15 and left it 
 with sufficient means for its upkeep to his grandson Wil- 
 liam, the second baron and first viscount, who built on sure 
 foundations. Common sense and a certain practical alert- 
 ness in the halcyon days of the Enclosure Acts did nothing 
 to diminish the patrimony of Charles, fourth baron, third 
 viscount and first earl, though the estate came to be tem- 
 porarily encumbered when the good fellowship of John, the 
 second earl, won him the costly regard of the Regent. At 
 a time when the House of Commons was pulling one of its 
 long faces over a periodical schedule of the Prince's debts, 
 a Garter became vacant ; and His Royal Highness, with no 
 other means of marking his affectionate gratitude, secured 
 it for his friend with a further step to the coveted rank of 
 marquess. Thereafter the public life of the family was 
 characterized by honour and integrity; and the Garter, re- 
 bestowed as soon as surrendered, became a habit. The 
 second marquess held a sinecure under Lord Aberdeen; 
 another flitted to and fro in shadowy retirement as a Lord- 
 in- Waiting; a third, exploring the United States for the 
 broadening of his mind, married an American wife.
 
 122 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 The union infused so much new blood into the declining, 
 short-lived stock that there seemed no limit to the energy 
 and success of the heir. Charles, fifth marquess, was a 
 member of parliament in his twenty-second year, an under- 
 secretary when he was twenty-six and Governor-General of 
 Canada before he was thirty-five. Thereafter, having got 
 him abroad, succeeding governments vied with one another 
 to keep him abroad. The vice-royalty of India followed 
 almost automatically ; he spent two years as Lord Lieuten- 
 ant of Ireland to oblige his party leaders and was now in 
 the full vigour of middle age with nothing to do. The 
 House of Lords offered no opportunity to an incurably bad 
 debater; and the radicals by destroying the constitution, 
 bullying the king and playing with revolution had made it 
 a place of arid pomp, whose futility took away something 
 of a man's dignity every time that he went there. Never- 
 theless, once a viceroy, always a viceroy, as his daughter 
 sometimes reminded him. Lord Crawleigh ruled Berkeley 
 Square and Crawleigh Abbey as though he were still in 
 India, as though, too, he were suppressing the Mutiny 
 single-handed. "Once a mutineer, always a mutineer," 
 Lady Barbara would occasionally say of herself. 
 
 This week-end she had irritated her parents by choosing 
 a train convenient neither to family nor guests, by arriving 
 speechless with fatigue and by retiring to her bedroom and 
 announcing that she would probably stay there. Lady 
 Crawleigh felt that prudence, after so long delay, might 
 have timed its coming more opportunely; a houseful of 
 young people could be trusted, in dealing with her sentences, 
 to complete the ruin which her husband had begun; but 
 late hours, excitement and the legacy of her illness had 
 reduced Barbara's strength until Dr. Gaisford pronounced 
 that he could not answer for the result if any pressure were 
 put upon her. 
 
 Though the windows were now thickly curtained and a
 
 INTERMEZZO 123 
 
 bright fire was burning, Barbara could never come into 
 her bedroom without a shiver. In the spring and summer 
 of 1915, when Crawleigh Abbey was a military hospital, 
 she had worked by night and lain awake by day, deliberately 
 and with the sun shining on her face, for fear of dreaming. 
 Madness or death could be no worse than the torture of 
 being pitilessly and unceasingly watched when she knew 
 that she was only dreaming but could not wake. Of late 
 the form of her dreams had changed, growing less defined ; 
 there was no longer the old accusing pair of eyes to re- 
 proach and spy on her as soon as the room was in darkness, 
 but she was conscious of vague presences which she could 
 not clearly see. After fainting in the train a month before, 
 she had heard Eric's voice in her sleep, though she could 
 not recognize a face which she had never seen ; none of her 
 dream-faces had features. There was a shadow somewhere 
 in all her visions of Eric; some day she feared that the 
 shadow would take form, the eyes would return to watch 
 her. . . . 
 
 The fire was so bright that the room grew no darker 
 when she turned off the light; and, though she placed a 
 coloured handkerchief over her eyes, it gave her no protec- 
 tion. When she pulled it impatiently away, the glare was 
 so fierce that she could not see the familiar bookcases and 
 chairs. Gradually the whole room was enveloped in a sheet 
 of flame, and in the midst she saw a gigantic figure on a 
 throne. 
 
 "God," she whispered and knew that she was dead and 
 had come to be judged. 
 
 The throne was familiar from an old picture in Siena; 
 God was the Ancient of Days, drawn by Blake for the 
 Book of Job. Strange that, after all, these stories were 
 true. . . . She wondered why He was old or, being old, 
 why He was no older. . . . The white flame beat merci-
 
 i2 4 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 lessly upon her eyes, and she could see that they were alone 
 in Space. 
 
 God was waiting for her to confess. . . . 
 
 It was idle to confess when God was omniscient, and she 
 kept her lips obstinately closed. 
 
 But God and she were alone in Time. He had sat for 
 an eternity before she came to the judgement-seat; He 
 would wait for an eternity and condemn her for an eter- 
 nity. . . . 
 
 "Vanity. ... I suppose that's what you want me to 
 say." She wondered whether her voice would carry through 
 Space ; she was no bigger than God's right hand . . . alone 
 . . . and naked. "I've always been spoiled, and that makes 
 any one vain. Some allowance . . ." 
 
 It was idle to excuse herself when God was omniscient. 
 
 "I didn't realize what I was doing." (God must know 
 that she was speaking the truth now.) "He never missed 
 an opportunity of hurting me quite unfairly; I've nothing 
 to be ashamed of before I met him. I made up my mind to 
 shew him I wasn't quite as bad as he thought. He . . . 
 fell in love with me and wanted to marry me. ... I was 
 taken by surprise . . . mad. ... I didn't know what I was 
 saying, I told him I couldn't marry any one who wasn't a 
 Catholic. . . ." 
 
 Catholic . . . 
 
 Barbara stopped short to wonder what God must think 
 of all the jarring sects which laid claim to His exclusive 
 revelation. The Ancient of Days, God the Father, Jehovah, 
 Allah. . . . She had always wondered what He would 
 make of His fratricidal followers. Catholic, Protestant, 
 Orthodox. . . . What must Christ make of the bitter fa- 
 natics who swam through blood to a world of universal 
 love? 
 
 She had lost her way in the confession ; and God brooded 
 in silence over Space and Time, ignoring her, forgetting
 
 INTERMEZZO 125 
 
 her. She sank to the ground, hiding her face in her hands 
 and wondering when she had died. Perhaps God had 
 waited until Jack Waring was killed, so that he might 
 testify against her. . . . 
 
 "I know it was a lie," she broke out suddenly, "but I 
 didn't realize what I was doing. The next thing ... Is 
 this Hell ? I always felt I was going through Hell on earth. 
 That night ... I didn't see or hear from Jack for three 
 months ; I thought he'd given me up. I was happy for the 
 first time since I'd met him. Then he followed me into 
 the country and asked me again if I'd marry him. He said 
 he uus a Catholic now. He'd believed me, he'd done this 
 for me, perjured himself. ... I remember saying to my- 
 self "If there w a God ..." I didn't know. . . . "If he 
 has a soul to lose. ..." I couldn't undo it. I did what I 
 could for him, I wrote and said I'd marry him, I swore it 
 by the sign of the Cross. . . . He went out to the war, he 
 never answered ; he's killed now. ... I don't know what 
 you're going to do with me. I've been punished. It can't 
 be any satisfaction to you to send me out of my mind. 
 For a year I've been tortured. Now I was just beginning 
 to forget and to be happy. I suppose you want to take 
 that away. ... I didn't realize. . . . Why shouldn't I be 
 happy ?" 
 
 The dim figure on the throne made no answer, and Bar- 
 bara began to crawl forward. Perhaps God had not heard. 
 . . . But she would spend years crawling through 
 Space. . . . 
 
 "I want to get it over. No punishment's as bad as this 
 suspense. You know that. . . . Won't you tell me what 
 I'm to do . . .?" 
 
 She crawled forward again, though her knees were ach- 
 ing. Above her loomed God's foot-stool; and she touched 
 it reverently, then beat upon it furiously in the hope that 
 God might rise and kill her again . . . for ever. . . . The
 
 126 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 sheet of flame marched nearer until it scorched her eyes. 
 Space and Time shrank and were consumed until she found 
 herself kneeling upright, staring wildly at the fire and 
 beating with open palms on the wooden end of the bed. 
 
 Barbara fell backwards, pulling the clothes up to her 
 chin. 
 
 "Another second . . . and I should have gone mad," she 
 whispered. 
 
 Downstairs some one had thrown open a window, some 
 one was playing a piano. She turned on the light and rang 
 for her maid. 
 
 "I shall get up for dinner after all," she said. "I mean, 
 I shan't. ... I don't know what I'm talking about. What 
 I mean is : I shall get out of bed for dinner, but I 
 shan't go down. That's clear, isn't it? What's the time?" 
 
 "Eight o'clock, my lady." 
 
 Then her dream had lasted less than five minutes. . . . 
 
 "I'm going to sleep. I shan't want any dinner. Will 
 you bring the telephone in here ?" 
 
 The maid left the room in bewilderment at the con- 
 flicting orders and sought counsel of the housekeeper. Ten 
 minutes later Lady Crawleigh came in to find Barbara in 
 bed with the telephone tucked under one arm and the re- 
 ceiver to her ear. She finished some request for an ad- 
 dress, nodded as the answer was given and lifted the in- 
 strument to a table by her side. 
 
 "Well, my dear, you seem to have given poor Merton 
 a fright," said Lady Crawleigh. "Is anything the matter?" 
 
 "I never felt better in my life," answered Barbara. 
 
 "Are you coming down to dinner?" 
 
 "I don't think I'm well enough for that. . . . You can 
 get on without me. If things seem to hang fire, get Gerry 
 Deganway to give imitations of His Excellency." 
 
 Lady Crawleigh bridled at the suggestion.
 
 INTERMEZZO 127 
 
 "That's not at all a respectful way to speak of your 
 father," she observed reprovingly. 
 
 "Well, His ex-Excellency, then. That no better ? Sorry. 
 He's very amusing Gerry, I mean. Why not get father to 
 give imitations of Gerry? In its way, that ought to be 
 just as funny." 
 
 Her mother advanced reproachfully to the bed and laid 
 her hand upon the rail. 
 
 "If you're not feeling well," she said with incontrover- 
 tible logic, "you ought to go to sleep instead of telephoning 
 to people and writing to people. If you're all right, you 
 ought to help with these tiresome creatures. They're your 
 guests." 
 
 Barbara felt her own pulse and sighed. 
 
 "I'm well enough to write one letter," she said, "and 
 perhaps to get up in time for lunch to-morrow." 
 
 Then she hunted among the pillows for a pencil and ad- 
 dressed an envelope to "Eric Lane Esq re , Lashmar Mill- 
 House, Lashmar , Near Winchester, Hants." 
 
 She was already tired ; perhaps, if she could fix her 
 thoughts on Eric until she fell asleep, she would be spared 
 a second vision of judgement. A dressing-gong sounded in 
 the distance, and she debated whether to abandon her let- 
 ter to Eric and go down. Gerald Deganway would be 
 simperingly sympathetic. "Your mother tells me you're 
 not feeling very grand" (odious phrase). "Poor you!" 
 (Damnable phrase, damnable creature with his insecure 
 eye-glass and plastered flaxen hair!) Johnny Carstairs 
 would be pontifical and pretentious "The unhappy Foreign 
 Office comes in for all the kicks. There's a body of three- 
 pound-a-week gentlemen in Fleet Street who'd enforce a 
 real blockade, 'leave it to the Navy,' don't you know, all 
 that sort of thing. I'm aware of them; I sometimes wish 
 I could have a heart-to-heart talk with them. . . ." By 
 staying in bed she was at least keeping the promise that
 
 128 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 she had given to Eric; the sense of surrender was a novel 
 experiment in emotion. 
 
 She finished the letter and switched off the light. Dark- 
 ness was not going to usher in faces to-night. Her soul felt 
 healed. 
 
 "You absurd darling child !" 
 
 She whispered the words aloud and felt warm tears over- 
 brimming her eyes. She loved him for his extraordinary 
 callow youth which had carried the chaste chivalry of 
 sixteen to the age of twice sixteen; she loved his little 
 occasional tender gleams of womanliness. . . . And he was 
 so easy to mystify and tease. She felt the warmth and the 
 taut muscles of his arm round her body as he led her home 
 across St. James' Park, her head on his shoulder, sleep- 
 ing, secure and forgetful. 
 
 "Dear Eric, I wish you were here now!" she murmured. 
 
 Lord Crawleigh, indignant that Barbara should desert 
 her own party the first night, but vaguely disquieted that 
 she was ill enough to go to bed of her own volition, peeped 
 into her room on his way down to dinner. There was no 
 answer to his jerky, sharp call of "Barbara" and he turned 
 on the light. Her eyes were closed, but she was smiling; 
 he walked to the bed to make certain that she was not try- 
 ing any of her tricks on him. 
 
 "Barbara!" 
 
 "Yes, darling?" 
 
 She opened her eyes, and their drowsy contentment faded 
 ajvay. 
 
 "I only came to see if you were asleep." 
 
 "I'm not now," she answered wistfully. 
 
 "Well, why don't you get some decent sleep ? You racket 
 about and overtax your strength and excite yourself. . . . 
 And this is the result!" 
 
 "I'll do my best, father." 
 
 As he creaked out of the room, she shut her eyes tight
 
 INTERMEZZO 129 
 
 and tried in despair to woo herself back to the moment 
 of half-consciousness when Eric drew her cloak across her 
 chest and she roused to ask him sleepily "Am I coming un- 
 dressed ?" 
 
 Barbara rang for tea at noon and came down to luncheon 
 in a house which was gratifyingly demoralized by her ab- 
 sence. Her father had spent Sunday morning in his study, 
 writing letters; her mother had carried the more devout 
 members of the party to mass and from mass to a vague, 
 bored exploration of the garden, where they could be seen 
 scattered on the lowest terrace, trying to make friends with 
 an unresponsive peacock; the men, headed by Pentyre, 
 were warmly entrenched round the smoking-room fire in a 
 blue tobacco-haze and a litter of Sunday papers. George 
 Oakleigh, in naval uniform, was unashamedly sleeping in 
 a deep window-embrasure, his mouth open and his eye- 
 glasses on his knees. Deganway and Carstairs were arguing 
 in subdued tones and seemed as vacantly uninterested as 
 Pentyre, who had exhausted the feuilleton of his paper 
 and was studying the advertisements. 
 
 She was pleased by the stir with which her entrance gal- 
 vanized them into alertness, by Oakleigh's sympathetic en- 
 quiries, even by Deganway's critical examination of her 
 dress. 
 
 "Well, make the most of me, everybody," she said. 
 "I'm going back to bed immediately after lunch. What's 
 everybody doing?" 
 
 "I've been asleep," Oakleigh answered contentedly. 
 
 Barbara looked round her and wrinkled her nose. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" she pursued. 
 
 "I should like to go on sleeping. . . ."
 
 130 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Come for a walk, Babs," interrupted Pentyre. "It's my 
 last leave " 
 
 "Then you'd better rest instead of working on my emo- 
 tions. George, on the other hand, never gets any exercise 
 at the Admiralty, and, as he's never been here before, I 
 think I shall take him round the house. Besides, he hasn't 
 asked me to do anything. Come on, George !" 
 
 Oakleigh rose with sufficient alacrity and accompanied 
 her for an hour through the ruins of the Abbey, the Eliza- 
 bethan reconstruction and the Georgian incrustation. 
 Knowing Barbara, he had secured what he wanted by pre- 
 tended indifference, though he was less interested in hall 
 and refectory, Prior's house and dormitory than in her 
 knowledge of architecture and early English furniture. 
 
 "Another of my accomplishments," she laughed. 
 "George, what sort of reputation have I got? A man was 
 so surprised the other day to find that I could play the 
 piano and sing. . . ." 
 
 "I know what 7 think of you," he answered. "Possibly 
 you know it too." 
 
 Barbara looked away abstractedly, as though she had 
 not heard him. Ever since her illness, George had shewn 
 her a tender devotion; and, when Sonia Dainton and her 
 other friends had succumbed to the war-epidemic of mar- 
 riage, she had fancied that it would be very restful to marry 
 him. The mood lasted for a week, and it was in this time 
 that she had invited him to the Abbey. Then a dream, of 
 which she could remember few details, had shattered the 
 lazy romance which she was weaving; there was a shadow 
 which she knew would take form as Jack Waring, there 
 was a hint of the wild oath which she had taken when she 
 was mad ; and she had decided that God was punishing 
 her by opening her eyes to happiness and then throwing 
 a bar of shadow across her path as she struggled to reach 
 it. Those were the days when she heard that Jack was
 
 INTERMEZZO 131 
 
 missing, the nights when she prayed to hear that he was 
 dead. Now that George was at hand, she did not want 
 him ; she might find peace by marrying him, but she would 
 find nothing more. . . . 
 
 "Dear George! You think I'm perfect, don't you?" 
 
 "Perfection is meant to be more admired than loved." 
 
 "I've nothing but my imperfections to make people 
 love me." 
 
 "That's a woman's way of marrying on her debts. . . . 
 You're better, Babs, than when I came to see you in Lon- 
 don. I hope you're happier." 
 
 "Ah, if only I could undo. . . ." 
 
 She broke off, and George looked at her cautiously to see 
 whether she was trying him with the pose of conscience- 
 stricken penitent, already a little out-moded after fourteen 
 months of war. 
 
 "You certainly had your share of scrapes, but there was 
 nothing discreditable in them. Too much vitality " 
 
 She spread out her hands, white and transparent in the 
 sun-light. 
 
 "I'd done everything else! Being with father every- 
 where. . . . And I was driven into it by opposition. I 
 must have been a mule in a previous incarnation. D'you 
 know, if father says he's coming here by the 4.10, I have 
 to come by the 5.40, however inconvenient it may be to 
 everybody just to assert myself?" 
 
 "But that wasn't the only reason," George suggested. 
 
 " What d'you mean?" 
 
 She had ceased to smile, and two faint lines of annoyance 
 were visible between her eye-brows. 
 
 "I'm sorry. It was no business of mine," said George 
 apologetically. 
 
 "I don't mind you. But it was no business of the Degan- 
 way creature. Can't you break his eye-glass or cut a piece
 
 132 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 off the end of his nose, George? Did he tell you who I 
 came down with?" 
 
 "Deganway is always thorough in his investigations. I'm 
 sorry I mentioned it ; I was only teasing you." 
 
 "I don't mind you," she repeated. "But it does make 
 things so impossible if father and mother go about fancy- 
 ing. . . . Come to lunch! I'll be in time for one meal," 
 she cried, seizing his arm and hurrying him the length of 
 the echoing refectory. 
 
 At luncheon and recurrently through the afternoon Bar- 
 bara wondered how far Deganway's gossiping tongue had 
 already prejudiced her relations with Eric. If he heard 
 that they were being discussed, he would in all probability 
 strike an attitude and declare that he could not be a party 
 to compromising her any longer. At present he was too 
 novel a distraction for her to spare him easily; already 
 he had become so important to her life that she had for- 
 gotten George Oakleigh and the thrill of gratitude and ela- 
 tion which she had felt when he began sluggishly but surely 
 to fall in love with her. 
 
 The house-party had dispersed before she came down 
 next day. Breakfast in bed was a dull meal, because she 
 had hoped to find an unsolicited letter from Eric about 
 anything. She had to wait until the second post, and that 
 only brought her the briefest possible acceptance of her 
 invitation. Not until Tuesday did she receive the long let- 
 ter which he had written on Saturday night. And the in- 
 timacy and tenderness of it were half spoiled even then, 
 for Lady Crawleigh followed her maid into the room, en- 
 quired affectionately how Barbara was feeling and settled 
 down to read instructive extracts from The Tvmes. 
 
 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Crawleigh Abbey 
 seemed suddenly very big and deserted. Barbara secured a 
 trunk call to Eric's flat on Monday night ; but, after twenty 
 minutes to wonder why she shewed so little pride and
 
 INTERMEZZO 133 
 
 whether he would be angry with her, a faint voice an- 
 swered that Mr. Lane was dining out. Something which 
 she could not analyze told her that she would be taking 
 an unfair risk with his affection, if she tried to communi- 
 cate with him again. She could hardly understand why 
 she was staying in bed and taking so great care of her- 
 self; but it was Eric's wish, and she had felt a leap at 
 the heart when he interested himself in her welfare. If 
 he only knew, it would do her much more good to be with 
 him, to tease him and laugh at him and set him attitudiniz- 
 ing and then to charm a word or gesture of affection from 
 him . . . and then to laugh at him again and see him 
 perplexed and exasperated. She was very grateful to him 
 for bringing a new interest into her life. . . . 
 
 Little Val Arden had once said, years before the war, 
 that she would find her greatest emotion on the day when 
 she lost her heart. . . . 
 
 But it were useless to fall in love with Eric if she could 
 not make him return her love. . . . 
 
 Thursday seemed as far away as the throne of God in 
 that ghastly nightmare. . . . She wrote Mrs. Shelley a let- 
 ter which she hoped would not read so transparently false 
 as it seemed to her in writing. 
 
 "Dearest Mwion, I feel so rude for never having apolo- 
 gized either for running away myself so early or for drag- 
 ging Eric Lane away from your delightful party. I was 
 feeling dreadfully tired. I'm in bed now; in fact, I've 
 hardly been out of bed since I came here on Saturday, 
 and he put a pistol to my head and insisted on taking me 
 home. I shall be in London for one or two nights next 
 week. Will you shew that you forgive us by inviting us 
 again? Your affectionate Barbara." 
 
 It semed a pity not to exploit a good idea to the full, 
 and she next wrote to her cousin Amy Loring. 
 
 "You said the other day that you had never met Eric
 
 Lane, though he was a great friend of Jim's. He was at 
 Margaret Poynter's the other day when I was there. 
 Would you like me to invite him to dine one night next 
 week (I shall be up in London for two or three days}? 
 Ring me up between tea and dinner on Thursday. . . ." 
 
 There remained Colonel Grayle, who had jerked out, as 
 she left the "Divorce" with George Oakleigh : "Clever 
 play! Rather like to meet the author. Decent feller, I 
 believe." If she met him again, she could offer to bring 
 about a meeting. . . . 
 
 It was regrettable that she and Eric knew so few people 
 in common. 
 
 Before leaving her dentist, Barbara telephoned to re- 
 mind Eric of his promise to dine with her. His answering 
 voice was almost audibly guilty, for the engagement had 
 been allowed to fade from his mind, though his watchful 
 secretary would have seen to it later that he kept his ap- 
 pointment. 
 
 When he arrived, the house was eerily dark and deserted. 
 The door was opened by a girl in a black dress, presumably 
 from the absence of cap and apron Barbara's own maid, 
 and he was conducted through a twilit hall where the great 
 chandeliers were draped in dusting-sheets, up a side stair- 
 case and over more dusting-sheets to the door of the 
 boudoir. Here the evidence of desolation ended in vast 
 bowls of autumn roses, a log fire, blazing electric lights and 
 the beginnings of inevitable untidiness ripped envelopes 
 on the floor, a silk cloak in one chair and gloves in another 
 and, on the hearth-rug, a chinchilla muff with a grey Per- 
 sian kitten asleep half inside it. 
 
 Eric knelt down and played with the kitten until the 
 bedroom door opened and Barbara hurried in.
 
 INTERMEZZO 135 
 
 "Glad to see me, Eric ?" she whispered. 
 
 "I've noticed you weren't here," he answered. "You're 
 looking better, Babs. And I like your kitten." 
 
 "I brought her up to chaperon you," she explained. 
 "Are you going to be bored, dining alone with me? I 
 warned you what it would be like." She pointed doubt- 
 fully towards a table set for two. "We put the dirty plates 
 on the floor, and my maid will take them away when she 
 brings coffee. I've only her and one kitchen-maid to keep 
 me alive. Eric, I've been looking forward to this most 
 enormously. That was a sweet letter you wrote me from 
 Lashmar I love the name! Lashmar Mill-House You 
 were very fond of Jack, I could see. Shall we begin?" 
 
 Eric looked at the photograph on the mantel-piece before 
 sitting down. 
 
 "He was the greatest friend I ever had," he answered 
 wistfully. "An unusual character. If you liked him, he 
 could make you do anything he pleased. . . . Did you see 
 much of him? His sister was surprised to find that you 
 knew him." 
 
 Barbara finished her soup without answering. Then, as 
 Eric took away her empty plate, she looked up at him with 
 a slight frown of perplexity. 
 
 "Did he never mention me to you?" she asked. "Some- 
 how I thought you understood, Eric. Didn't any one else 
 tell you ? There are so many stories about me " 
 
 "I honestly don't know what you're referring to," said 
 Eric, laying down his knife and fork in perplexity. 
 
 She looked at him closely with eyebrows raised. 
 
 "When we discussed the photograph, and I asked you 
 to find out anything you could . . . Didn't you see that 
 Jack meant a great deal to me ?" 
 
 The colour had fled from her cheeks, and she was sitting 
 with head bent forward, deeply preoccupied with the food 
 on her plate. Gazing blankly at her, Eric tried to imagine
 
 136 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 what kind of intimacy she could have formed with the 
 elusive celibate who never spoke to women or discussed 
 them. . . . 
 
 Something was expected of him. . . . 
 
 "It never occurred to me," he said lamely. "Of course, 
 Jack never mentioned a word " 
 
 "He wouldn't. . . . Jim knew, but he wouldn't either. 
 . . . There was no one else to give me away. . . . I've al- 
 ways been afraid of saying something in my sleep. ... I 
 want to forget, forget. . . ." 
 
 The words came out in jerks, with a sobbing struggle for 
 breath between. Her head was bent so low that she did 
 not see him rise and come round to her side; a startled 
 shiver passed through her, as he knelt down and put his 
 arm round her shoulders, drawing her to him until her 
 cheek rested against his. 
 
 "Babs, dear ! Darling Babs !" he whispered. "Don't " 
 
 "Ah, don't tell me not to cry, Eric! I've kept it down, 
 I have been brave, but it's sending me mad !" 
 
 She was sliding limply off the chair, as though her bones 
 had been broken in company with her pride and resistance. 
 He led her to a sofa and knelt beside her, sometimes gently 
 chafing her hands, sometimes drying the slow tears which 
 rolled down her cheeks. Once or twice she tried to speak, 
 but he hushed her to silence. 
 
 "Darling, you must stop now," he commanded as the 
 tears ceased and she began to sob drily. "When I said 
 
 'Don't ,' I was going to say 'Don't stop crying, don't 
 
 mind me; it will do you good.' But you'll make yourself 
 ill, if you go on." He caught her wrist and gripped it. 
 "Put your feet up, because I'm going to push the sofa to 
 the fire. . . . Your shoulders are frozen. . . . Now I'm 
 going to bring you the lobster. . . . And you haven't had 
 anything to drink yet." 
 
 After a single weak protest she entered into the spirit
 
 INTERMEZZO 137 
 
 of his fireside picnic and by the time that he had seated 
 himself cross-legged on the floor she was laughing at his 
 apprehensive care in keeping his trousers from losing their 
 crease. When coffee was brought in, he gave her a cig- 
 arette and raised her hand clumsily to his lips. 
 
 "I'm sorry I've been unsympathetic, Babs." There was 
 no answer, and he could see her staring into the fire with 
 eyes that were covered with a film of tears. "I didn't un- 
 derstand, I thought you were ill and over-excited, or I'd 
 have bitten out my tongue before I snubbed you and told 
 you that you were a nuisance. Will you forgive me?" 
 
 The film of tears gathered into shining drops and rolled 
 mournfully down her cheeks. 
 
 "As if / had anything to forgive. . . . You'll never speak 
 to me again, if I tell you. And if I don't tell you . . . 
 If I don't tell you, I could never look you in the eyes." 
 
 Barbara stared at the fire, and for a moment it seemed 
 as though she were again making confession at the judge- 
 ment-seat of God. 
 
 "I met Jack two years ago," she began hurriedly. 
 "He'd been saying things that hurt me, so I arranged to 
 stay with the Pentyres when he was there and I made him 
 fall in love with me. One night at Ross House he asked 
 me to marry him. I ... I don't defend myself ; I'd never 
 dreamed of marrying him. Even then it wouldn't have 
 been so bad, if I'd told him the truth, if I'd admitted that 
 I'd led him on to punish him. Instead ... I looked for 
 some excuse which would save my face; I said 'But you 
 aren't a Catholic, are you ?' I never saw him again till my 
 cousin Jim Loring's ball just before the war. . . ." 
 
 At the memory of their meeting Barbara shuddered un- 
 til she could not speak. There had been no hint of warn- 
 ing; she was in the drawing-room after dinner when Lady 
 Knightrider's car arrived from Raglan, and Jack put his
 
 138 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 head in at the door to ask if he might have supper with 
 her. 
 
 "I asked him what he'd been doing with himself all the 
 summer," Barbara went on with a spurt. "He said, Tve 
 just been received into your Church.' " 
 
 She paused and stared in terror round the room as 
 though it were changing under her eyes into the haunted 
 banqueting-hall of Loring Castle. 
 
 "I couldn't speak. . . . The music stopped, I heard peo- 
 ple clapping, it went on again. Then there were voices on 
 the stairs, and Jack asked me again to marry him. I said 
 I couldn't. He wanted to know why. Then . . . then I 
 had to tell him I wasn't in love with him. Then he saw 
 everything." 
 
 Barbara looked up quickly, with her hand to her fore- 
 head as though to ward off a blow. It was then that Jack 
 stared at her, through her, into her soul; and his eyes 
 had followed her ever since. At first she braced herself 
 to meet his attack, but it was not the occasion for con- 
 ventional recriminations. If a man's soul could be im- 
 perilled, she had handed Jack's over to damnation. God 
 . . . Hell . . . Immortal souls. . . . She had not believed 
 in them till that moment, but there was always that eerie 
 hundredth chance that they existed. 
 
 Eerie. . . . 
 
 Her attention was captured by the word and wandered 
 away in search of a missing line. 
 
 "It's like those eerie stories nurses tell, 
 Of how some actor on a stage played Death, 
 With pasteboard crown, sham orb and tinselled dart, 
 And called himself the monarch of the world; 
 Then, going in the tire-room afterward, 
 Because the play was done, to shift himself, 
 Got touched upon the sleeve familiarly, 
 The moment he had shut the closet door, 
 By Death himself."
 
 INTERMEZZO 139 
 
 Jack had sat silent and motionless, too much dazed even 
 to rise and leave her. There was a sound of more voices 
 in the hall, and Charlie Framlingham waltzed into the 
 room with Jack Summertown and subsided at a table by 
 the door. They had hardly begun supper when George 
 Oakleigh entered to say that war had changed from specu- 
 lation to probability and that officers were being mobilized. 
 Then at last Jack roused, and she had only a moment for 
 making amends. 
 
 "Jack was talking about applying for a commission," 
 she went on. "I went out on to the terrace, I wanted to 
 think. ... It was no good apologizing. . . . They got into 
 the car, one after another. I was still trying to think. 
 Jack came down the steps. . . . And then I saw that there 
 was only one reparation I could make; I had to offer my- 
 self to him, even if he hit me in the mouth. ... I didn't 
 care about my vanity now; I called out to him, but the 
 others were making such a noise. . . . The car started, I 
 was blinded by the head-lights. When I could see again, 
 there was only a little pin-point of red light. I shouted, ran. 
 . . . Then I came back. When every one else had gone 
 to bed, I told Jim. And I thought he'd have killed me. . . . 
 And then I swore solemnly that Jack should have me if he 
 wanted me. I wrote to him, and he never answered my 
 letter. I tried to see him. And now . . ." 
 
 Eric rose and stood by the fire, resting his head on his 
 hand. 
 
 "You offered the only reparation in your power," he said 
 at length. 
 
 "What am I to do?" she asked dizzily. "I want peace! 
 ... I told him that, whatever happened, however long 
 the war went on, I should always be here, always ready to 
 keep my promise, always prepared to make what amends 
 I could. . . . I've dedicated myself. If he's alive, until he 
 tells me that he rejects me . . ."
 
 140 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 With a sigh of exhaustion, she slipped forward, turning 
 as she fell and burying her arms and face. The rose in her 
 hair trembled to the heaving of her shoulders and scattered 
 a shower of petals over the cushions of the sofa. 
 
 "And I meant to be so sweet, I meant to make you en- 
 joy yourself until you thought me quite irresistible," Bar- 
 bara laughed through her tears, kneeling upright on the 
 sofa and dabbing at her eyes. "And then I was going to 
 tell you that I have to come up to my dentist once a week 
 for about two months ; and I shall be all alone and I wanted 
 you to promise to make me happy like to-night." 
 
 Her recovery was as sudden as her collapse. Still kneel- 
 ing with her hands clasped behind her head, she leaned for- 
 ward until he had to catch her in his arms. 
 
 "I don't feel I've made you particularly happy to-night," 
 said Eric, bending one arm into an angle for her head and 
 throwing the other round her waist to hold her on to the 
 sofa. 
 
 "I feel as if my spirit were almost clean again. . . . 
 Will you come and see me sometimes, Eric ?" 
 
 "If you'll go to bed instantly, after leaving a note on 
 the mat to say that you're not to be called till you ring." 
 
 There was a touch of frost in the air, as Eric walked 
 home; yet he went slowly, because he wanted to think. 
 Jack was his best friend, and Barbara had behaved. . . . 
 He could not abuse the girl even in thought, after trying 
 to comfort her and saying that she started with a clean 
 slate. But if any other girl had behaved like that . . . 
 any girl who meant nothing to him. Even with Barbara 
 he ought not to be so suavely forgiving at Jack's expense. 
 ... It was impossible to reconcile loyalty to both of 
 them.
 
 INTERMEZZO 141 
 
 Before going to bed he wrote her a note, inviting her to 
 lunch with him next day at Claridge's before she went back 
 to Crawleigh Abbey; and, as soon as she was sure of his 
 mood, Barbara released her invitations; the quietest pos- 
 sible party with Amy Loring (who was so anxious to meet 
 him because he had known Jim), two days afterwards a 
 dinner for two in Berkeley Square, followed by Mrs. 
 O'Rane's house-warming, later still a decorous and rather 
 dull dinner with Colonel Grayle. 
 
 "You might dine with me for a change," Eric suggested, 
 as he drove her home at the end of the week. "I'll get 
 my sister to come and keep you in countenance she's never 
 seen my flat and I'll think of another man." 
 
 "I'd sooner dine with you alone, Eric," pleaded Barbara. 
 
 "On first principles I discourage young girls from visit- 
 ing bachelors in their rooms. I was born in the 'eighties, 
 and I don't seem to have caught up." 
 
 "There are restaurants," Barbara suggested. "It's quite 
 fairly respectable to dine without a chaperon since the 
 war." 
 
 Eric turned and looked out of the window with a frown. 
 He had not troubled to tell her that he had lately received a 
 shock which threatened to make further meetings impos- 
 sible. During a lull in the tumult at Mrs. O'Rane's party 
 he had heard Lady Maitland's rumbling preparations for an 
 introduction. "Eric Lane ? My dear Raymond Stornaway, 
 you mean to say you haven't heard of him? But he's the 
 
 coming playwright. You've not seen that thing of his ? 
 
 My memory's like a sieve. . . . You must go." It was 
 very familiar, but, as the other voices fortuitously grew 
 hushed, he heard a new pendant. "But you know her? 
 Babs. Babs Neave. Barbara Neave. Now don't pretend 
 you don't know Lady Barbara Neave! Every one tells 
 me that they're desperately in love with each other. Of 
 course Crawleigh wouldn't hear of it, but he doesn't know
 
 i 4 2 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 what to do. You know what the girl is! If you oppose 
 her. . . . It's an absurd position. You must come along 
 and meet them. And I'll arrange a little party. I think 
 you'd be amused." 
 
 "All the restaurants are so crowded nowadays," said 
 Eric. 
 
 "But if you telephone for a table " 
 
 He was grown too fond of Barbara to provide people 
 like Lady Maitland with an excuse for saying that he was 
 compromising her; and he was not going to pave the way 
 for an unpleasant altercation with Lord Crawleigh (when 
 he would have nothing to say for himself). 
 
 "I'll dine with you, if you like," he suggested. 
 
 On the morning of the day when "The Bomb-Shell" was 
 to be produced, Eric found his diary overflowing into a 
 new volume. Before snapping the lock for the last time 
 and burying the book in the little steel safe which he had 
 had built behind one of the panels in the dining-room, he 
 turned the pages for ten months, starting with the first 
 night of his first play and ending with the dress rehearsal 
 of the second. The ten months' record was so engrossing 
 that he lay in bed, smoking and reading, instead of ringing 
 for his secretary. One day he had been an unknown 
 journalist; the next in a phrase of which he could never 
 tire he awoke to find himself famous. Half-forgotten ac- 
 quaintances who had sent him cards for dances now in- 
 vited him to dinners at which he was courted and instantly 
 handed on. At first he had written down, with more 
 pleasure than cynicism, the complimentary phrases which 
 had tickled his vanity; that had soon palled, and the com- 
 pliments were monotonously framed; after two months he 
 only recorded such triumphs as when old Farquaharson in-
 
 INTERMEZZO 143 
 
 vited him to call. "/ would give much to have 'written your 
 play; I would have given anything to write it at your age." 
 Some day, when Barbara was in a disparaging mood, he 
 would shew her that jealously guarded letter. 
 
 An idle whim sent his fingers searching for the Poynter 
 dinner where he had first met her. Since that night her in- 
 fluence, suspected but never established, had caused "Dined 
 with Lady Poynter" to be a frequent entry. Every Thurs- 
 day he went to Berkeley Square, every Friday Barbara 
 lunched with him in Ryder Street after sweeping aside his 
 scruples by appealing in his presence to her mother for 
 leave to come to his flat unchaperoned. And for an ap- 
 preciable part of each week Barbara devoted herself to ar- 
 ranging further meetings in the houses of their friends. 
 
 "Took Lady B. home late and circuit ously." 
 
 Eric was mildly surprised to find how lately their tropical 
 intimacy had begun. Two months. . . . And no one in 
 court or outside would believe the truth. . . . "Dined 
 with B. in her boudoir, the house being in curl-papers. 
 She umi'ontedly communicative, but tired and in need of 
 rest." The discreet phrasing gave him all the reminder 
 that he wanted to construct again the night when she had 
 told him about Jack Waring she had indeed been com- 
 municative ; and any one who broke down as she had 
 
 done presumably stood in need of rest. . . . 
 
 On that night she had turned herself from an adven- 
 ture into a habit; in place of sentimental tilting there had 
 been born a love without passion. . 
 
 He laid aside the diary as the telephone-bell rang. 
 
 "Hullo? Good-morning, Eric. Many happy returns of 
 the day !" 
 
 "But it isn't my birthday." 
 
 "It's our new play, stupid. Are you feeling very ner- 
 vous ?" 
 
 "Not in the least. If it's going to be a success, it'll be
 
 144 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 a success; if it's going to be a failure, my feeling nervous 
 won't help things." 
 
 "M'yes. I like you better when you're less philosophical 
 and more human. I suppose you're simply flooded with 
 telegrams and letters of good wishes. Darling, I'm so ex- 
 cited! If it doesn't go well of course, it isn't a good play; 
 I've never said that, have I?" 
 
 "I sometimes wonder whether you'll ever say that of 
 any play I write," he laughed. 
 
 "Oh, you will do good work some day. But I thought, 
 after knowing me all these weeks well, if it doesn't make 
 the most tremendous hit, I shall walk quietly out of the 
 theatre and throw myself into the river." 
 
 "I certainly shan't jump in after you." 
 
 "Not even for the advertisement? Would you miss me, 
 Eric?" 
 
 "I'm almost sure to at first," he answered with a laugh. 
 "Babs, I've got to get up now " 
 
 "Don't you dare to ring me off, Eric ! I want to know 
 about to-night." 
 
 "Scott's at seven." 
 
 "And what dress would you like me to wear ?" 
 
 He pondered over the familiar ritual. 
 
 "The one I always call the 'fairy queen,' I think." 
 
 "Well, say 'please.' " 
 
 " 'Please.' I must get up now, or I shall be late at the 
 office. Good-bye, Babs darling." 
 
 "Good-bye, sweetheart." 
 
 They dined with unnecessary haste. For all his phil- 
 osophy, Eric's nervousness shewed itself in over-frequent 
 consultation of his watch, and they entered their box be- 
 fore the stalls were half-full. Barbara sat forward, bow- 
 ing to friends in the familiar, first-night gathering; but 
 he preferred to stand at her side, hidden by a curtain, 
 while she called back the names of the new arrivals. This
 
 INTERMEZZO 145 
 
 was a greater ordeal than the evening when his first play 
 was produced, for he was known now, and the critics would 
 judge him by the success and standard of the earlier play; 
 instead of a handful of old colleagues, he was now on 
 nodding terms with a third of the audience; it was a per- 
 sonal trial, and he did not want to fail under their eyes; 
 most of all he did not want to fail before Barbara. 
 
 As the curtain went up, he sat down beside her and, after 
 a quick glance at the stage, began to inspect the house. 
 Her hand slipped into his, and he heard a whispered 
 "Cheer up ! It's going to be a tremendous success. I will 
 it to be!" Then his attention went back to the house. 
 Why the devil couldn't people take the trouble to arrive in 
 time? Pushing their way in late, blocking the view. . . . 
 Mrs. Shelley, of all people. He knew her well enough to 
 speak plainly about it. ... The house was very quiet, very 
 cold; expectant, perhaps, but they ought to be warming 
 now. ... A slip and another! It was curious that a 
 woman like Mabel Elstree could go on rehearsing and be- 
 ing pulled up over the same thing again and again with- 
 out ever learning a moderately intelligent woman too 
 working at her own job. . . . The last week had been 
 thrown away. . . . 
 
 But in all the rehearsals he had never noticed how this 
 opening dragged. Manders had never criticized it (one of 
 the few things he hadn't tried to cut about) ; and it was 
 dragging. In a moment people would be yawning and talk- 
 ing to one another; the pit would become noisy with its 
 feet; already there was a rustle; if they would only look 
 at the stage instead of trying to learn their programmes 
 by heart! They should have done that before! And still 
 the house was cold. . . . God in heaven ! small blame to it ! 
 
 Eric at back with tightly shut mouth, then grew sud- 
 denly rigid. There was a single quick laugh, the herald 
 for gusty laughter rising simultaneously from a dozen dif-
 
 146 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 ferent parts; instead of stopping, it swelled and engulfed 
 the house. Ah, thank God ! that sea of vacant, stiff faces 
 had broken! The house was alive and warm. The play- 
 ers, pausing of necessity, breathed thanksgiving before re- 
 turning to dialogue which had become suddenly imbued 
 with new strength and finish. 
 
 Eric felt Barbara's lips at his ear. 
 
 "Didn't I say I'd will it for you?" she whispered. 
 
 "It might go quite well," he answered, unsuccessfully 
 nonchalant. "Every one's in a good temper now." 
 
 "And you can let go my hand for a minute !" She winced 
 and put one knuckle into her mouth. "I stood it as long 
 as I could, but you've been driving my rings into my un- 
 happy ringer All right, darling! kiss the place to make it 
 well. I could see you weren't enjoying yourself, but you 
 wanted me to feel it, too. So sweet of you !" 
 
 In the first interval they stayed in the box and allowed 
 themselves to be seen; during the whole of the second an 
 army of their friends laid siege to the door with greetings 
 to Barbara and congratulations to Eric. He would have 
 liked to smoke a cigarette outside with some of his old 
 colleagues ; he would have liked still better to think it all 
 over in peace. This was going to be a greater success than 
 the first play! And Barbara, with tears in her eyes, was 
 saying "Come and congratulate us !" 
 
 Eric had little idea who flooded the box during that 
 tempestuous ten minutes. Lady Maitland was there with 
 an air of having written the play or at least of having 
 discovered the author. And Gerald Deganway, who never 
 missed a first night, simpering falsetto congratulations. 
 And Colonel Waring and Agnes: he remembered them, 
 because he was so much surprised to see them . . . and 
 he had wanted to introduce Agnes to Babs, and there had 
 been no opportunity. . . . And Colonel Grayle and Sonia 
 O'Rane, who invited them to come back for supper. . . .
 
 INTERMEZZO 147 
 
 There was violent reaction after his early nervousness, and 
 he found himself within an inch of giggling. When the 
 lights were lowered and he had hurried the last visitors 
 from the box, he sat down and buried his face in his 
 hands. How long it was he never knew, -before Barbara 
 leaned over him, pulling gently at his arm. 
 
 "Anything wrong?" he asked. 
 
 "Come outside," she whispered. 
 
 They walked to a flight of four steps leading through a 
 fire-proof door to the wings. 
 
 "Where are you going to ?" he asked. 
 
 "Sit down ; it's quiet here. Now listen carefully : there's 
 only about another twenty minutes, and then they'll want 
 a speech from you. Now, I won't say a word ! Just think 
 out a few sentences; don't try to be original or clever; 
 just thank them the usual thing as conventional as you 
 can make it." Her solicitous voice trembled and broke. 
 "My own darling, I am so happy to see you happy! I'm 
 so proud of you ! Our play ! Oh, Eric, thank God for you 
 and all your sweetness to me!" 
 
 He looked up with startled eyes, suddenly tired. 
 
 "You're an angel, Babs! But you always give me a 
 guilty conscience, when you're like this. I think of the 
 things I might have done and haven't; and I think of the 
 things I have said and done, which I might have spared 
 you." 
 
 "Well, go on giving me your love! Why you should 
 talk as if you owed me anything . . ." 
 
 A moment later he was alone, with the memory of her 
 lips still trembling on his. He lighted a cigarette and paced 
 up and down the passage, thinking out his speech. She 
 had left the box-door open, and, as the curtain fell, he 
 took up his position where he could see the house applaud- 
 ing. Loud and continuous, gloriously continuous, came the 
 clapping. The curtain was drawn aside, and the players
 
 148 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 came forward, one by one. A crescendo of cheers greeted 
 Manders, dying down until he could utter his smiling six 
 sentences of acknowledgement. Then there was a pause. 
 The lights were still lowered. Simultaneously in rasping 
 barks came the call of "Author ! Author !" 
 
 Barbara turned her head and blew him a kiss with the 
 finger-tips of both hands. 
 
 "I suppose I'd better put in an appearance," he drawled, 
 stamping on his cigarette-end. "Don't be offended if I 
 don't look at you, Babs; you'd make me forget all I was 
 going to say." 
 
 "Affection is the most insidious form of self-indulgence." 
 -From the Diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 MORTMAIN 
 
 "Farewell ! if ever fondest prayer 
 
 For other's weal avail'd on high, 
 Mine will not all be lost in air, 
 But waft thy name beyond the sky. 
 
 My soul nor deigns nor dares complain, 
 Though grief and passion there rebel; 
 
 I only know we loved in vain 
 
 I only feel Farewell ! Farewell !" 
 LORD BYRON : "FAREWELL ! IF EVER FONDEST PRAYER." 
 
 "I DON'T ask you to say it's a good play," Eric observed 
 to Barbara, as they rumbled slowly home from the O'Ranes' 
 supper-party, "but is it less bad than the other ?" 
 
 Any natural diffidence had evaporated before the memory 
 of the darkened theatre, the insistent calls of "Author," 
 his effort while waiting for the applause to die down to 
 distinguish faces in the stalls, the renewed clapping at 
 his speech's end, the levee in their box and the triumphant 
 supper. 
 
 "I'm too happy to be teased, Eric," she answered, nestling 
 to his side. "It isn't the great play that you're going to 
 write some day, when you've learned . . . and suffered; 
 you still get your women out of rag-books and toy-shops; 
 but it's very clever, it's a great success and it's made you 
 happy. That's what matters. Who was the man in the 
 box that you called 'sir'?" 
 
 "I call most men 'sir,' if they're older than I am." 
 
 149
 
 "He was with a girl in a grey dress and some rather 
 good pearls." 
 
 Eric thought for a moment and looked at her in some 
 surprise. 
 
 "That was Colonel Waring Jack's father. The girl 
 was Jack's sister Agnes." 
 
 Barbara did not answer for a moment. 
 
 "I thought it was him at first," she whispered. 
 
 Since the night of Barbara's confession, Jack's name had 
 never been mentioned. If he were indeed killed, her 
 memory of him would gradually wither and die; and it 
 was almost impossible to discuss him without taking sides 
 and indulging in moral judgements. The Warings had ex- 
 hausted every means of getting news and would soon be 
 forced to presume his death ^perhaps they had already done 
 so, but Eric was avoiding Red Roofs since his discovery 
 that he did not want to marry Agnes. Amid the turmoil 
 of greetings and congratulations, he had found time to 
 feel embarrassed by her presence in the box; until Bar- 
 bara took the light and colour out of all other women, 
 Agnes had satisfied every demand. He was embarrassed, 
 too, by seeing the two girls face to face, watching, measur- 
 ing and unobtrusively speculating about each other, as 
 women always did ; if there were room for moral judge- 
 ments, Barbara had no defence against Jack Waring's 
 sister. 
 
 "She gave me that glass horse-shoe for luck the night my 
 first play was produced," said Eric irrelevantly. 
 
 "And Jack gave me the counterpart," Barbara sighed. 
 "That's why I wanted yours to replace it. Instead of 
 which I only broke yours." 
 
 "Well, you haven't broken my luck, as you feared." 
 
 Her shoulder, pressing against his, communicated a shud- 
 der. Though three months had passed without news of
 
 MORTMAIN 
 
 Jack, Barbara could not feel secure even when she was 
 alone with Eric. 
 
 "Don't boast. You may yet come to curse the day when 
 we met, you may find I've spoiled your life and broken 
 your luck." 
 
 "Luck?" Eric laughed a little scornfully. The success 
 of the "Bomb-Shell' ensured that, if he never wrote another 
 line, he would at least not starve. "When are we going 
 to meet again, Babs?" 
 
 Looking out of the window, she saw that their cab was 
 opposite the Ritz and that she had three hundred yards 
 more of him. 
 
 "Does it matter?" she asked. "If you're so independent 
 of me?" 
 
 "I can live without peach-brandy, but I like it. If you'll 
 dine with me, I'll give you some and all the food you 
 most like. I owe the O'Ranes a dinner " 
 
 "Oh, we won't have any one else !" she interrupted. Her 
 use of the plural lost none of its charm by familiarity. 
 "I'll come on Friday, if you like." 
 
 "On Friday old Ettrick is giving a dinner in my honour 
 at the club. What about Monday? But I shan't let you 
 come alone; as a matter of fact, I've invited the O'Ranes 
 for that night." 
 
 "You don't like being alone with me?" 
 
 "I'm thinking solely of what would be said." 
 
 Barbara pouted and sat silent until she could launch 
 an ultimatum as the cab stopped at her door. The success 
 of his first night was making Eric masterful; and she 
 wanted to test her power. 
 
 "If I can't dine with you in the way I like . . ." she be- 
 gan fretfully. "You only want to shew me off to the 
 O'Ranes. . . ." 
 
 Eric forgave the petulance because he could see that she 
 was tired. But he was tired too. .
 
 152 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "If you don't care about the O'Ranes, I'll see if I can 
 get some one else some other time," he said. "It wouldn't 
 do for you to dine with me alone." 
 
 "I believe you're in love with Sonia," she rejoined ill- 
 humouredly. 
 
 "What nonsense! . . . Good-night, Babs. Thanks so 
 much for coming." 
 
 On reaching home, he wrote to invite Mrs. Shelley for 
 Monday. If Barbara rang him up in the morning, her 
 repentance would be too late ; he had only four arm-chairs 
 in the dining-room. 
 
 There was no call from Barbara in the morning, neither 
 note nor meeting throughout the day and no call at night. 
 Such a thing had never happened before; there might be 
 some occult cause of offence; his experience of Barbara 
 taught Eric that she would cease to sulk when she wanted 
 him; it was his experience of all women that none repaid 
 a man the trouble of trying to understand her moods. 
 Thursday was like Wednesday (and he knew that she was 
 not returning to Crawleigh until Saturday) ; Friday was 
 like Thursday until the evening, when he nervously en- 
 tered the Thespian Club as guest of honour. The hall- 
 porter projected himself through the window of his box 
 and handed Eric a note. 
 
 "All success, dear Eric," he read. "I wish I could be 
 there to hear you. I shall ring you up to-night, and you 
 must tell me all about it. Imagine I'm sitting by you, 
 darling, and don't let the speech disappoint me. B." 
 
 He thrust the note into his pocket, as Lord Ettrick came 
 forward to greet him. Congratulations and badinage broke 
 out on all sides; he shook hands until his arm ached and 
 he gave up trying to count the numbers; it was enough 
 that he could recognize one face out of three. . . . 
 
 "You seem to have mobilized half the club," Eric com-
 
 MORTMAIN 153 
 
 merited, looking with gratification at the growing half- 
 circle by the fire. 
 
 "You're between Gaisford and me," said Ettrick, detach- 
 ing him for a cocktail and cigarette at the far end of the 
 room. "I'm proposing your health, you'll have to reply; 
 and that'll be all the speeches, unless we sit late. Manders 
 has promised to come as soon as he can get away from the 
 theatre, and that may start the ball again. By the way, 
 is it official yet? I haven't seen any announcement." 
 
 "Is what official?" 
 
 "I heard that you were engaged." 
 
 Eric's composure poured out of him, and he felt his 
 mouth growing loose. 
 
 "Where did you hear that?" he asked with an effort. 
 
 "Oh, scores of people have told me. I came to your 
 box rather late the other night, but I was told that the lady 
 in question had been inviting every one to congratulate 
 you both." 
 
 For a moment Eric frowned in perplexity; then his face 
 lightened. 
 
 "That was on account of the play," he explained. "She 
 came to one or two of the rehearsals, and, on the strength 
 of that, it was always 'our play.' ... I say, have you really 
 heard that from many people ? She's a very great friend of 
 mine, and I shouldn't like to feel that our names were be- 
 ing coupled." 
 
 Lord Ettrick wrinkled his forehead in surprise and shook 
 his head with a grim smile. 
 
 "Then, my young friend, if that's your ambition, you're 
 not going the right way about it. I'm too busy by day to 
 go out much at night, but any time during the last month 
 or two . . . You know how people talk; and you're both 
 of you pretty well known." Eric's look of mortification 
 roused him to a more conciliatory tone. "It's done now, 
 and, if it doesn't blow over, you'll only have yourself to
 
 154 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 thank. I wouldn't have mentioned the subject, if I thought 
 it was going to spoil your dinner. But I very nearly coa- 
 gatulated you publicly. . . . Let's see if we're all here." 
 
 They returned to the fire, and Ettrick called the roll. 
 Throughout dinner, when Eric ought to have been thinking 
 over his speech, he sat dazed by the warning and his own 
 blindness. Six weeks before, Lady Maitland was pro- 
 claiming that he and Barbara were in love with each other ; 
 now a dry stick of a law lord, retiring and uninterested 
 in gossip, heard of their engagement from a dozen dif- 
 ferent mouths and was an inch removed from congratulat- 
 ing him before half the club. Eric might assume that other 
 eyes had observed him calling for her, shopping with her; 
 it was accepted that, when they dined in the same house, 
 he should always take her home; it was almost accepted 
 that one could not be invited to dine without the other. . . . 
 
 It hardly lay in his mouth to tell Barbara that she must 
 not compromise herself. 
 
 A waiter entered with a telegram for Lord Ettrick, which 
 he read and handed to Eric. 
 
 "Regret confined bed severe chill all success to dinner 
 and congratulations and best wishes to our distinguished 
 young friend." 
 
 It was signed by the one absentee, whose chair still stood 
 empty on the opposite side. Eric suddenly remembered 
 Barbara's note : "Imagine I'm sitting by you, darling." 
 As he read it, he wished that he could have brought her 
 there; in the morning-room he had wished no, he had 
 thought how proud he would have been to tell Lord Ettrick 
 that the story was true. If he could see her now in the 
 empty chair, a rose behind one ear, a silk shawl broidered 
 with grey birds in flight, as on the evening when they first 
 met . . . 
 
 But she would hardly come dressed as Carmen. And,
 
 MORTMAIN 155 
 
 however she arrayed herself, the Thespian Club would not 
 admit her. . . . 
 
 "Well, have you thought out your speech?" asked Lord 
 Ettrick. 
 
 "I've been thinking about what you said before dinner," 
 Eric answered. 
 
 "Don't take it too seriously. You know how people 
 talk." 
 
 "Yes, but I don't want them to talk like that about her! 
 She's the best friend I've got." 
 
 He hesitated in surprise at his own vehemence. 
 
 "Have you observed one thing?" Lord Ettrick enquired 
 after a pause. "Neither of us has mentioned the lady's 
 name." 
 
 "Well " 
 
 "Exactly. Well, if it wasn't necessary for me, who after 
 all don't go about very much But you needn't take it to 
 heart." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not," said Eric carelessly. "And, as you said, 
 I shall only have myself to blame if the story's not scotched 
 here and now." 
 
 "I'll propose the King's health now," said Lord Ettrick, 
 "and then we can have something to smoke." 
 
 By the simple standard of applause, Eric achieved a 
 success. Abandoning his prepared speech, he followed 
 Lord Ettrick's lead, picked up his cues and surrendered 
 himself to the moment. It was something of a triumph 
 to amuse others when he was so little amused himself. 
 
 "Not nearly long enough," said Dr. Gaisford, as Eric 
 looked furtively at the watch on his wrist. He was won- 
 dering how soon he could go home and telephone to Bar- 
 bara.
 
 156 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Shall we go upstairs or sit here?" asked Lord Ettrick. 
 "Manders ought to be with us in another half-hour." 
 
 Eric remembered with consternation that he would be 
 expected to stay at least until midnight. There was no 
 escaping it. Five and thirty men, his friends and enter- 
 tainers, were preparing for a long, happy session; their 
 chairs were turned at comfortable angles, they had shuf- 
 fled and sorted themselves into congenial groups, each was 
 at the earliest stage of a long cigar, and they waited on 
 him in turn like an endless series of deputations. 
 
 "I've discussed the nightly takings of a theatre with 
 Ettrick," he whispered, when Manders arrived at half-past 
 eleven as vigorous and high-spirited as if he had just got 
 out of bed ; "the Dardanelles expedition with Gaisford, the 
 plays of Synge with George Oakleigh, 'The Bomb-Shell' 
 with Vincent Grayle, memories of Jessie Farborough with 
 Deganway, 'The Bomb-Shell' with Grierson, Ibsen with 
 Harry Greenbank, and 'The Bomb-Shell' with Donald But- 
 ler. I'm worn .out!" 
 
 "Stay a bit longer, boy," Manders begged. "I've only 
 just come." 
 
 When at last he escaped, there was no taxi to be had, 
 though Eric told a waiter to keep the first that drove up. 
 He covered half of the way to Ryder Street at a run, 
 threw himself on his bed and asked for the familiar num- 
 ber in Berkeley Square. 
 
 After a long interval a sleepy voice said: "Yes? My 
 dear, you are late! I've rung you up again and again. 
 I Eric, I was afraid you were angry with me for sulking." 
 
 "I say, Babs !" He began earnestly and had no idea how 
 to go on. "Angry with you? Don't be so ridiculous! I 
 got a very sweet note from you to-night. Thank you. And 
 I think the speech went down all right. I say, Babs. . . ." 
 
 "You're out of breath, sweetheart." 
 
 "I came home in rather a hurry. Can you see me some
 
 MORTMAIN 157 
 
 time? I suppose you're going to Crawleigh to-morrow' 
 That's no good. Can you dine with me on Tuesday?" 
 
 "I wanted you to come here on Tuesday." 
 
 "You never said anything about it. Will you be alone ?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not. Eric, will you be honourable? It's my 
 half-birthday ; I always have two a year. I didn't tell you, 
 because I was afraid you'd rush out and buy me a present. 
 And I couldn't bear to receive anything more from you. 
 But will you come without a present? I've got a little 
 party." 
 
 "I should love it. Thank you, Babs. But I want to see 
 you alone." 
 
 She was silent for several moments. 
 
 "You're very mysterious, darling," she said at last. 
 
 "I heard something to-night that rather upset me " 
 
 "About Jack?" 
 
 A thrill of expectation had come into her voice. 
 
 "Oh, no! It's one of those things that wouldn't matter 
 if we weren't all congenital idiots." 
 
 "It's not something I've done?" 
 
 "My dear child, no!" 
 
 "Won't you tell me what it is?" 
 
 "I'd rather not on the telephone. I may get a moment 
 on Tuesday; if not, can you dine with me here the next 
 night?" 
 
 "Alone?" Her laugh mocked him without malice. "I 
 insist on bringing my kitten." 
 
 He joined in the laugh. 
 
 "You may bring the kitten. I know I'm asking you to 
 do something that I disapprove of, but I'm rather worried 
 and I must see you alone." 
 
 For three days he explored cautiously to discover how 
 far the Ettrick story had spread. Saturday brought him a 
 heavy bundle of news-cuttings; but they were a!4 con- 
 cerned with "The Bomb-Shell." No one wrote to him, no
 
 158 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 one confronted him with a blunt question, though Ettrick 
 had protested that the story was common property. When 
 Eric walked to Berkeley Square for the birthday party, he 
 was embarrassed for the first time in shaking hands with 
 Lord Crawleigh; sooner or later he would be summoned 
 to a very unpleasant interview. 
 
 It was obvious at a glance that no one would have private 
 conversation with Barbara that night. She stood in the 
 drawing-room at the apex of a triangle with a compact row 
 of parents behind and, supporting them, a longer row of 
 silent, embarrassed brothers; cousins in every degree de- 
 scribed a circle round the triangle, and in a wider, looser 
 circle stood people who knew Eric and needed diplomatic 
 handling to hide his forgetfulness of them. 
 
 "My aunt's parties are like a Derby Day crowd," panted 
 Amy Loring, as an unseen pianist began to play and they 
 were squeezed into the embrasure of a window. "I've not 
 had time to see who's here yet. Babs, of course, looks 
 divine." 
 
 "She looks well in anything," Eric answered. It was 
 dangerous to praise her even to her own cousin lest one 
 more voice should rise to proclaim that he was in love with 
 her. 
 
 "You're a great friend of hers, aren't you?" Amy asked. 
 "Some one told me at tea to-day " 
 
 Eric became rigid, and she stopped. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "My dear Mr. Lane, you don't even know what I was 
 going to say!" 
 
 "I think I do." 
 
 "Then you aren't very complimentary to Babs." 
 
 "I feel a certain responsibility towards her." 
 
 "You mustn't mind too much what people say. . . . You 
 know George Oakleigh? Well, in the dark ages, when I 
 came out, he and I were very great friends; we always
 
 MORTMAIN 159 
 
 have been ; I've known him all my life, and his cousin mar- 
 ried my poor brother. . . . Need I say that quite a num- 
 ber of people ... ? If they'd troubled to think for a 
 moment, they might have remembered that I was a Catho- 
 lic, but a little thing like that never occurs to them. . . . 
 D'you mind my talking to you like this ?" she asked with a 
 smile that sweetened the abruptness of her tone. "When I 
 introduced the subject, you froze up so " 
 
 "Can't you understand ?" he interrupted. "I'm very fond 
 indeed of Barbara, but if people talk like this . . ." 
 
 "Don't mind what people say, Mr. Lane. ... I feel we 
 all the family owe you such an enormous debt. No one 
 knows what was the matter with Babs, but my aunt was 
 really afraid we might lose her. Of course, she'd led 
 rather a wild and wearing life since she was a child; sud- 
 denly she collapsed. I do feel that you've saved her life, 
 you know ; she's the old, vital, irresistible Babs once more 
 except that you've taught her to take care of herself." 
 
 "The position is a little awkward. If people talk, if 
 Lord Crawleigh " 
 
 "I think he quite likes you," Amy interrupted. 
 
 Eric bowed and pretended for a moment to listen to the 
 music. It was common knowledge that Barbara's fortune 
 was forfeit on the day when she married any one but a 
 Catholic; if he had ever contemplated marrying her, the 
 fees from the "Divorce" and "The Bomb-Shell" would 
 not keep them for six months. He wondered whether Amy 
 Loring's embassage had been inspired. 
 
 "I always feel that Lord Crawleigh condemned the 
 world and then allowed it to continue existing on day-to- 
 day reprieves," he said. 
 
 "That's rather my uncle's manner. He hasn't insulted 
 you yet ? He will." 
 
 "He's only seen me once by daylight. I fancy he 
 thinks I'm one of the footmen. If I came to him in any
 
 other capacity . . . The industrious ink-slinger, you 
 know " 
 
 Amy tossed her head impatiently. 
 
 "I don't know whether you're a genius or not, because 
 I'm not clever about books and things. But you've made 
 an enormous name for yourself, you've a big career before 
 you ; and, so long as a man's a gentleman by which I don't 
 mean what most people do, I wouldn't let anything stand 
 in the way except religion, of course. And I'm afraid 
 that doesn't count very much with Babs." She lapsed into 
 silence, as though she had already said too much. "And 
 I know I'm right," she added at length. 
 
 "I daresay you are. . . . You see, I've never regarded 
 Barbara as anything but a wonderful friend. We casually 
 dropped into an extraordinary intimacy " 
 
 "It's been too easy, too casual!" she cried. "You've 
 taken it as a matter of course. Neither of you appreciate 
 what you are to the other I'm simply speaking from my 
 impression; Babs hasn't said anything, naturally, and I've 
 
 hardly had two words with you until to-night ; if it 
 
 had been less easy " 
 
 "If your uncle had forbidden me the house?" he sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "If either of you were in danger of losing the other . . . 
 I wonder what you think of me, talking like this?" 
 
 "I'm grateful." 
 
 The music came to an end, and Gerald Deganway gave 
 imitations of the various ministers whom he had served 
 as private secretary. Eric looked across the room and 
 identified Barbara leaning against the piano. She was 
 better, happier; and he had grown to be very fond of her. 
 So long as they met daily without marrying, he shirked 
 deciding whether he wanted to marry her. It would be 
 pleasant to drift ; but, when the cloud of gossip and specu- 
 lation penetrated into the heart of the Crawleighs' own
 
 MORTMAIN 161 
 
 home, a man of honour could not shirk the decision any 
 longer. He could ask Barbara to marry him; or her 
 father could inspire a paragraph in the press, admitting the 
 rumour in order to contradict it. Failing that, he would 
 have to say good-bye to her, though she had become so 
 much a habit as almost to be part of his life. . . . 
 
 The imitations were succeeded by more music, and Eric 
 threaded his way to the piano where Carstairs and Oak- 
 leigh were begging Barbara to sing. 
 
 "Honestly, I've no voice to-night," he heard her say. 
 
 As he drew near, she seemed to feel his presence and 
 turned with a quick smile. 
 
 "Can't you manage one?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, perhaps one, if you want me to. What shall 
 it be?" 
 
 "That thing out of 'Butterfly,' " Eric suggested. 
 
 "I'll sing it, if you like." 
 
 As Eric sought a chair, Oakleigh looked at him, stroked 
 his chin, sighed gently and withdrew to the bridge-room 
 as though he could not face seeing them together. 
 
 "I want you to take this seriously," said Eric, when 
 Barbara arrived for dinner. "Don't try to laugh it off 
 by saying I'm conventional; I know I am. The fact is, 
 people are beginning to talk about us. I want to discuss 
 what's to be done." 
 
 His earnestness kept Barbara from smiling, and, as he 
 was worried and ill at ease, she beckoned him to a place by 
 her side on the sofa. 
 
 "Do you find it so intolerable to have your name joined 
 with mine ?" she asked a little wearily. 
 
 He looked at her in perplexity. Instead of being em- 
 barrassed herself or feeling gratitude that he was em-
 
 i6i THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 barrassed for her reputation, she spoke as though the gos- 
 sipers had conferred a favour upon him. 
 
 "If the thing were true, it would be another matter alto- 
 gether. Subject to your parents' approval, I think the best 
 thing would be to get a paragraph into the papers, saying 
 that there's no foundation for the rumour." 
 
 "But the rumour hasn't got into the papers yet," she ob- 
 jected. 
 
 "I'm meeting it on every hand." 
 
 "But, if I don't mind, why should you?" she asked. 
 
 "Well, I do mind. I don't like you to be 'talked about.' 
 And I don't care to have people saying that I'm getting 
 you 'talked about,' " he added with heat. "You must try 
 to look at this from a man's point of view. If you were 
 my sister, and some man who had no intention of marry- 
 ing you, some man whom you had no intention of marry- 
 ing " 
 
 "You've never asked me," she interrupted. 
 
 Eric was shocked into silence. When he was fighting for 
 her reputation, she was once more the coquette as he re- 
 membered her at their first meeting. 
 
 "I've thought this over, Babs, from every point of view," 
 he went on, with an effort keeping his temper under her 
 look of slightly bored amusement. "There are three ways 
 out of the difficulty; the first is what certain people think 
 the most obvious that we should make the story true ; the 
 second is that we should contradict it publicly it's the 
 easiest thing in the world to do and the third is that we 
 should give up seeing each other." 
 
 He stood up with the pretence of warming his hands and 
 fidgeted restlessly by the fire. Barbara had lost her ex- 
 pression of amusement and was honestly puzzled that he 
 should make so great a pother about a piece of idle gossip. 
 
 They remained without speaking until a maid entered to 
 announce dinner.
 
 MORTMAIN 163 
 
 "I'm sorry you've been worried," she said gently. "For 
 once it really wasn't my fault. ... I suppose I'm hardened 
 to this sort of thing. Why don't you just not worry? And 
 give me dinner, because I'm very hungry." 
 
 "I can't leave it like that," said Eric, as he accompanied 
 her to the dining-room. "A plain statement in the 
 press " 
 
 "It would simply draw attention to it." 
 
 "Well, that's one of the solutions ruled out." 
 
 "And I'm left with the choice of marrying you you 
 haven't asked me yet! or saying good-bye? There is 
 another alternative, Eric: and that is to shew you're too 
 sensible to mind what silly people say about you." 
 
 Eric shook his head obstinately. 
 
 "No good, I'm afraid." 
 
 "Well, try to think of something else," she sighed. 
 "Don't spoil our evening, sweetheart." 
 
 The intermittent presence of the maid, rather than any 
 state of mental satisfaction in Eric, kept the conversation 
 peaceful. He almost forgot the annoyances of the last 
 week in watching Barbara's delighted enjoyment of a new 
 experience so trivial as dining with him for the first time 
 in his own flat. Nothing escaped her curious notice a 
 wine that he gave her to try with the scallops, the Lash- 
 mar chrysanthemums in a flat, blue-glass bowl, the unaging 
 pleasure of an invisibly lighted room, Australian passion- 
 fruit at dessert, a new artist's proof. . . . 
 
 "You're really like a child at a pantomime, Babs," he 
 laughed, when they were alone. 
 
 She rose slowly and bent over him, touching his fore- 
 head with her lips and then kneeling beside his chair. 
 
 "I'm interested in everything!" she cried. "I love new 
 experiences ! At least, I did. I loved meeting new people, 
 hearing new things the world was so wonderful. And 
 then I never understood why I went on living. . . . You
 
 1 64 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 made life wonderful for me again. The first night we met, 
 when I came here. . . . You were quite right, Eric, I was 
 a fool. . . . But somehow I wasn't afraid. I knew you'd 
 put your hand in the fire for me." 
 
 He stroked her head and gave a sudden shiver. No one 
 would ever know what path he might have chosen that night 
 out of the maze of his disordered emotions. 
 
 "In those days you were nothing to me," he murmured. 
 
 "But you put all women on pedestals. . . . Eric, will you 
 believe me if I say that I've tried to live up to your concep- 
 tion of me?" 
 
 "But do you know what my conception of you is?" 
 
 "Something a thousand miles higher than I can ever 
 climb ! When I'm restless, lonely, I think of our love, your 
 wonderful devotion like a mother's to her child . . . and 
 my love for you. Give me your cigarette, Eric." 
 
 Before he could see what she was doing, the glowing end 
 had been pressed against her hand until it blackened and 
 died. He saw her eyes shut and her lip whitening as she 
 bit it. Her body swayed and fell forward before the 
 crumpled cigarette dropped on to the carpet. 
 
 "You little Babs, what's the matter with you ?" 
 
 She opened her eyes, breathing quickly and-holding out her 
 hand to shew a vermilion ring with a leprous-white centre. 
 
 "I'd put my hand in the fire for you!" she panted. 
 
 "You little fool !" He was filled with a desire to hurt her 
 for having hurt herself. "Look here, Barbara. . . ." 
 
 But she had risen to her feet and was pressing the 
 wounded hand to her lips. 
 
 "You don't know how it hurt !" she cried with a tremble 
 in her voice. 
 
 "What good, precisely, d'you think you've done?" he 
 asked. 
 
 She snatched a spill from the mantel-piece and thrust it 
 between the bars of the fire.
 
 MORTMAIN 165 
 
 "If you want it again !" 
 
 Eric dragged her upright with one arm and rang the 
 bell. 
 
 "We'll have coffee in the smoking-room," he said. "Bar- 
 bara, what's the matter with you ?" 
 
 She laughed almost hysterically. 
 
 "I feel I'm fighting for my life! That was to shew you 
 I'd do anything in the world you asked me to! And you 
 talk about our giving up meeting . . . like giving up smok- 
 ing!" 
 
 Eric drew a chair to the fire and lighted her cigarette 
 in silence. Only a fool would break that silence for twenty- 
 four hours. . . . 
 
 "A bit rash that, isn't it ?" he asked, as he cut his cigar. 
 
 "You won't ask me anything that I don't want you to," 
 she answered. "And you know there are some things I 
 can't give you." 
 
 Coffee was brought in, and he offered her sugar, knowing 
 well if he had been able to collect himself that she never 
 took it. Her cigarette went out and required another match. 
 A pile of five books, still in their wrappers, absorbed 
 her. 
 
 It was only half -past ten when she forced a yawn and 
 asked him to get her a taxi. He collected a coat and hat 
 from the hall and arranged his muffler elaborately with his 
 back to her. 
 
 "Returning to the other thing," he began slowly. "We've 
 not exactly disposed of it, have we ?" 
 
 "I thought we were going to leave it alone," she answered 
 timidly. 
 
 "That's out of the question." He banged open his opera 
 hat and squeezed it shut again. "Why won't you have a 
 simple contradiction in the press ?" he pleaded. 
 
 "I don't want it. Isn't that enough ?"
 
 1 66 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Certainly. But ... I don't want to say good-bye, if I 
 can help it." 
 
 Barbara looked at him slowly and carefully; she was 
 utterly at fault. 
 
 "It's for you to decide," she said. 
 
 "There doesn't seem to be any alternative." 
 
 She stood up and wrapped a lace scarf round her throat. 
 As he helped her into her cloak, she looked reflectively 
 round the room. Save that the windows were closed to 
 shut out the December fog, save that there were chrysan- 
 themums in place of roses, nothing had changed since the 
 night when she forced her way in and sipped soda-water 
 from a heavy goblet and broke the glass horseshoe and 
 laughed and talked and suddenly cried. . . . 
 
 As he watched, her bones seemed to bend like soft wax, 
 and she sank on to the sofa, burying her face in her arms 
 and sobbing convulsively. Eric stood motionless by the fire, 
 because he could not trust himself to move. Her shoulders, 
 which he had always admired for their line and wonderful 
 whiteness, rose in quick jerks and subsided with a quiver; 
 she shook with the abandonment of a bird in its death- 
 spasm. 
 
 "Barbara!" 
 
 "Oh, can't I even cry?" she moaned. 
 
 "Darling, you break my heart when you go on like this !" 
 He found himself kneeling on the floor with his arm round 
 her shoulder and drawing her head back until he could kiss 
 her wet cheek. "If you'll shew me any other way out of 
 it " 
 
 "Why can't you let it go on ?" she wailed. 
 
 "I can't ; I suppose I love you too much." 
 
 "Too much to give me the one thing Eric, you're not 
 going to turn me away?" 
 
 "I'm not going to take risks with your reputation." 
 
 "But it would be just the same ! If you put your denial
 
 MORTMAIN 167 
 
 into the paper, people would still go on talking as long as 
 we went on meeting! Does it matter? Do you mind it so 
 much, Eric? Oh, my dear, I can't afford to lose you!" 
 
 She fell away from him, and he walked back to the fire. 
 This, then, was the moment that came to every man once 
 the moment that he forced into the lives of his puppets once 
 a play. 
 
 "Barbara!" 
 
 She was still shaken with sobs. 
 
 "Barbara, are you listening? You said you'd put your 
 hand in the fire for me. Well, did you mean that ?" 
 
 He snapped the question at her, and she was galvanized 
 to drag herself upright on the sofa. 
 
 "Yes, I said that." 
 
 "You'll do anything I ask?" 
 
 "Yes." From the slow-drawn answer he knew that more 
 was coming. "I've told you everything. I don't belong to 
 myself. . . . There's one thing that that I don't think 
 you're going to ask me." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because you know I trust you. I always have. I always 
 shall. Oh, God forgive me for the way I've treated you ! 
 But it's your fault. Whatever I did, I should know that I 
 could always trust you and that in time you'd understand !" 
 A single sob escaped her, and she steadied herself like a 
 man stopping short at the edge of a precipice. "You've 
 quite made up your mind ? . . . I must go now. Will you 
 do something for me?" 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Won't you trust me? I don't want you to see me home, 
 that's all. It'll remind me of too much. Good-bye, Eric. 
 I used to think I didn't believe in God, but somebody's got 
 to reward you, and I can't. Kiss me quickly, or I shall 
 start crying again. Good-bye, Eric ! Oh, oh my God !" 
 
 She stumbled to the door and twisted blindly at the
 
 1 68 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 handle. It was open before he could help her. A grey 
 wedge of fog thrust itself past her as she hurried out of 
 the hall. 
 
 "You're not .going home alone !" he cried. 
 
 Half-way down the first flight of stairs she turned with 
 arms outstretched like a figure nailed to a cross. 
 
 "My darling ; it's the last thing I shall ever ask you !" 
 
 Eric slept little that night. From eleven till two he 
 walked up and down his smoking-room, occasionally throw- 
 ing himself into a chair for very exhaustion, only to jump 
 up restlessly and resume his aimless pacing. The fingers of 
 his right hand were yellow from the cigarettes that he was 
 always lighting and throwing away ; the rest of him became 
 stiff and chilled as the fire died down. "As if I'd murdered 
 her. . . ." The phrase, self-coined, repeated itself in his 
 brain even when he was not thinking of the shaken, nerve- 
 less body which he had tried to revive. 
 
 His eyes turned again and again to the telephone. It 
 would take Barbara ten minutes to walk home, perhaps 
 twenty in the fog; (he was frightened by the thought of 
 her being alone). By then she might have found something 
 to suggest. . . . The telephone could not be more silent 
 if she were in very truth dead. He sat down at his writing- 
 table and addressed an envelope to her, but he had nothing 
 to put inside it. 
 
 "As if I'd murdered her." It made it no easier that Bar- 
 bara had begged him not to cast her off; wives sometimes 
 begged men to run away with them. Until she drove the 
 burning cigarette-end into her hand, crying out that she was 
 fighting for her life, he had not understood her passionate 
 need of him ; yet, when her need was most passionate, there
 
 MORTMAIN 169 
 
 was something in her life to which she would subordinate 
 him. . . . The proposal had been checked on his lips. 
 
 The telephone was poignantly silent. She would never 
 ring him up again to tell him her plans for the day, never 
 ramble again through shops and exhibitions, never again 
 ring him up to bid him good-night. The Thursday dinner, 
 the Friday luncheon, their notes at the week-end, the sweet 
 pride of possession, her glorious companionship in his clois- 
 tered life were over. For no one else had he ever taken 
 trouble; now he was thrown back on an insufficient self. 
 To-morrow or the next day she might have a headache; 
 never again would she give him a -tired smile and say, 
 "Won't you charm the pain away?" 
 
 "As if I'd murdered her." Eric crossed the hall to his 
 bedroom. The front door was still open, and on the mat 
 lay Barbara's scarf. He was glad of an excuse to postpone 
 undressing and spent five minutes lovingly packing it in 
 tissue paper for his secretary to carry round. It would be 
 savagery not to write a note. . . . 
 
 "Dearest, you left this behind. I hope you didn't take 
 cold without it. It seems ironical for me to say I'll do any- 
 thing I can for you. But it's true. Eric." 
 
 He rose after four hours' sleepless tossing and distracted 
 himself by drawing cheques until the post was delivered. 
 There were many letters, but none from Barbara. He read 
 the Times, dictated to his secretary, handed her the 
 parcel for Berkeley Square and climbed uneasily out of bed. 
 Though he dawdled over his dressing, there was no tele- 
 phone call to reward him; and, as the Crawleighs were 
 spending Christmas in London, he would not meet her in 
 the train. 
 
 Half-way to Winchester he grew drowsy and fancied 
 himself in his dreams once more kneeling on the floor be-
 
 i yo THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 side the sofa, with his arms round Barbara's shoulders. 
 "As if I'd murdered her." His lips were moving, as he 
 awoke, and he wondered whether the haunting refrain had 
 escaped him. 
 
 His sister was waiting for him at Winchester, and he 
 greeted her with a confused affection that struggled to com- 
 pensate for the pain which he had brought to Barbara. 
 
 "We were afraid you might be too much in request to 
 come down here," said Sybil. "Eric, I've been invited to 
 go to a dance in London next week ; I suppose you wouldn't 
 like to chaperon me? Mother does so hate leaving the 
 country even for one night." 
 
 "Will it be very late? I can't do any work next day, if 
 I don't get a little sleep. As a matter of fact, haven't chap- 
 erons ceased to exist?" 
 
 "I don't know. I was invited by a man I met at the 
 Warings. He's quite a nice creature, but I can't dine and 
 go even to a charity ball and dance with him all night abso- 
 lutely on my own. Mother wouldn't let me, even if I 
 wanted to." 
 
 Eric shrank from the prospect of sleepless hours in an 
 overheated room. 
 
 "It's surprising what things are done nowadays," he said 
 without committing himself. 
 
 "Surprising, yes. But we're rather behind the times in 
 Lashmar. You wouldn't like me to go alone, would you?" 
 
 "Certainly not!" If people began gossiping about Sybil 
 and her nameless admirer as they gossiped about Barbara 
 and himself, he would very soon drop the young man a 
 plain hint. And he could never make Barbara see that 
 she wanted him to behave as he would allow no one to 
 behave to his own sister. . . . "I'll come if I'm not already 
 booked up." 
 
 As he entered the Mill-House, Eric tried to lose himself 
 in the atmosphere of a place where he had spent Christmas
 
 MORTMAIN 171 
 
 for a quarter of a century. His last night in London 
 haunted him, and it was only by trying to console his mother 
 for the absence of her two younger boys that he could avoid 
 thinking of Barbara. There was a busy exchange of pres- 
 ents after dinner, and next day he accompanied his parents 
 to church, as he had done for five and twenty years, finding 
 peace and a welcome in the worm-eaten pew, the cob- 
 webbed window, the top-heavy decorations and the familiar 
 musty books. The state prayers were invoked therein on 
 behalf of "Victoria, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the 
 Princess of Wales and all the Royal Family." And there 
 was an old hymnal with a loose binding; for years Eric 
 had slipped one of the Waverley Novels into its cover to 
 read during the sermon. . . . To-day he listened no more 
 to the sermon than in other years ; he wondered what Bar- 
 bara was doing. . . . 
 
 After the carols they lingered in the churchyard to greet 
 their friends. If only she would make up her mind that 
 Jack was dead, there would be no need for this anguished 
 parting; then, though he had never contemplated it until 
 a week before, he could ask Barbara to marry him. As yet, 
 though he wanted her, he had still to find whether he could 
 be content without her; before marrying, she must subor- 
 dinate obligation, memory and conscience to her need of 
 him. . . . The Warings were waiting at the lych-gate, and 
 he asked Agnes whether she had any news of Jack. 
 
 "I'll let you know when we have," she answered, shaking 
 her head. "It's nearly six months now. . . . I'm just keep- 
 ing my mind a blank." 
 
 They turned out of the churchyard and walked in silence 
 towards Lashmar village. For ten years they had always 
 hurried ahead of their parents for a moment together ; and, 
 before anything else, Agnes always thanked him for her 
 present. This year Eric had given her nothing; it was un- 
 fair to pretend that there was no change of feeling. , . .
 
 172 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "I suppose you're as busy as ever?" she asked abruptly. 
 "The new play seems to be a great success." 
 
 "I think it's doing quite well," he assented. "I wish I'd 
 seen more of you that night, Agnes." 
 
 "There was such a crowd of people; we only put our 
 heads into the box to congratulate you. Eric, I'd never 
 seen your friend Lady Barbara at close quarters before; 
 she's bewitching." 
 
 Without daring to look at her face, Eric tried to discover 
 from Agnes' tone whether she had chosen or blundered on 
 such a word. 
 
 "She varies," he said judicially. "That night yes, she 
 was looking her best then. Sometimes . . . she's not very 
 strong, you know. . . ." 
 
 He broke off, thinking of their last night together. They 
 walked as far as Lashmar Common without speaking, 
 though he knew that his silence betrayed him. 
 
 At luncheon Sir Francis proposed the health of his absent 
 sons, and the afternoon passed in lazy talk round the library 
 fire. The smell of the pine logs filled Eric with old memo- 
 ries; he slipped on to a foot-stool and sat with his head 
 resting against his mother's knees, drowsy and a little wist- 
 ful. He wished that he could go back to a time when life 
 was less complicated and he could still confide in her. 
 
 "Tired, old boy?" asked Lady Lane, as she stroked his 
 head. 
 
 "No. Only thinking. I can just remember our first 
 Christmas here; there was a party and a Christmas tree, 
 and I retired to the terrace and had a stand-up fight with 
 some young friend, and our nurses came and separated us. 
 A long time ago, mother ! Before Sybil was born." 
 
 The girl roused at sound of her name. 
 
 "You're getting frightfully old, Ricky. It's time you 
 married and settled down."
 
 MORTMAIN 173 
 
 "I've settled down without marrying. You can't do both, 
 you know." 
 
 The drawl in his voice unconsciously irritated the girl. 
 
 "Marrying and shaking up is more in your line," she re- 
 torted. "You're too successful, too rich, too selfish, Ricky." 
 
 "My dear, I lead my life, and you lead yours. Why 
 should either try to disturb the other?" 
 
 "Because you lead such a rotten life. Honestly, Ricky, 
 don't you get sick of gadding about night and day with 
 people who only condescend to know you because you're a 
 fashion?" 
 
 He smiled lazily at the uncompromising vigour of her 
 criticism. 
 
 "To begin with, I don't do it night and day " 
 
 "Ricky, you simply live in your Lady Barbara's pocket. 
 Lots of people have told me. If I were you, I wouldn't let 
 her make a fool of me. After all, you are somebody. Is 
 she going to marry you ?" 
 
 "I haven't asked her. She's a great friend of mine " 
 
 "H'm. Everybody asks me when you're going to be mar- 
 ried. Honestly, they do, Ricky. Three people this week. 
 That's why I say she's making a fool of you. I don't think 
 you know how people are talking." 
 
 "Perhaps I do, but I didn't know it had spread as far as 
 here," he sighed. 
 
 "Well, you oughtn't to do it; and she oughtn't either," 
 Sybil declared. 
 
 Eric gazed long into the fire without answering. How on 
 earth had they come to discuss Babs ? He had been dream- 
 ing with wistful contentment of simpler, less embarrassed 
 times when at this hour a red-faced nurse would enter and 
 carry him, sleepily protesting, to bed. Sybil had somehow 
 forced the conversation, they had argued and his father 
 and mother had listened without taking part, thereby rang- 
 ing themselves on Sybil's side or at least admitting that she
 
 174 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 was telling them nothing new. . . . Sybil was a tigress for 
 loyalty! Ever since she had decided that he was to marry 
 Agnes, she would have mauled and clawed any other 
 woman who got in the way. And when that woman trifled 
 with the devotion of a Lane and made a fool of one of the 
 sacred family . . . No sister ever imagined that a man 
 could take care of himself. After all, who had suffered by 
 his tragic intimacy with Barbara? 
 
 "As if I'd murdered her" What was Babs doing now ? 
 
 He looked at his watch and pulled himself, stretching and 
 yawning, to his feet. 
 
 "I shall go to sleep if I stay here," he said. "Is any one 
 going to dress ?" 
 
 Twenty minutes later, when he came out of his bath, 
 Lady Lane was sitting in his bedroom. 
 
 "I didn't shew you Geoff's last letter," she said. "You'll 
 see he says something about 'The Bomb-Shell'; one of his 
 friends lias been to see it and liked it very much." 
 
 Eric propped the letter against his looking-glass, as he 
 began to dress. 
 
 "I say, have people down here really been marrying me 
 off?" he asked. 
 
 Lady Lane's face, reflected in the mirror, was passive and 
 incurious. 
 
 "There was some report in one of the papers, I believe," 
 she explained. "I didn't see it myself." 
 
 He volunteered nothing, and his mother looked indiffer- 
 ently round the room, now exploring with her foot a shabby 
 place in the carpet, now rising to hook a sagging length of 
 curtain to its ring. She had come into his room to receive 
 confidences and to help him; his moodiness did not invite 
 congratulations and was troubling her. 
 
 "I wonder if I shall ever remember to bring some more 
 shirts down here," he mused. "I've three, four, five that 
 I'll give you for your bandage-class."
 
 MORTMAIN 175 
 
 "I'll take them gratefully," she answered. There was a 
 pause in which he pushed a drawer home, selected a hand- 
 kerchief and turned off the light over his dressing-table; 
 in another minute they would be downstairs, and the oppor- 
 tunity would be gone. She slipped her arm through his 
 and walked to the door. "There's nothing worrying you, is 
 there, Eric?" 
 
 "I'm afraid I've rather a faculty for letting things worry 
 me," he laughed. "If one didn't always have to work 
 against time, at high pressure " 
 
 His mother was not deceived into thinking that work had 
 anything to do with his mood. 
 
 "No new worries?" she suggested. "The last month or 
 two . . . You're not looking well; that's why I asked. If 
 you ever feel there's anything I can do . . ." 
 
 The subject was dismissed as she opened the door. She 
 was glad that she had given him no opportunity of a denial, 
 for Eric had always told her the truth, hitherto. 
 
 He went to bed early and fell asleep at once after the 
 restlessness of the last two nights. When he felt his way 
 back to wakefulness in the morning, there was a subcon- 
 scious sense that something important had happened; a 
 moment later he remembered with a pang that he and Bar- 
 bara had said good-bye. 
 
 He jumped up and rang for his shaving-water, though it 
 was not yet seven. He must find work to do, he must keep 
 himself continuously occupied; otherwise his brain would 
 go on grinding out that phrase "As if I'd murdered 
 her." . 
 
 Half-way through the morning a belated postman 
 splashed with expectant Christmas cheerfulness to the Mill- 
 House and unburdened himself of a crushed and tattered
 
 176 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 load. Eric's share included an envelope addressed in an 
 unknown writing and marked "Urgent," "By hand." His 
 fingers trembled when he found a pencilled note from Bar- 
 bara. 
 
 "Christmas Eve. 
 
 "My scarf has just arrived. Thank you for sending it; 
 I'm sorry to have been so careless. And I'm afraid I DID 
 catch cold without it. At least I'm in bed, and the doctor 
 says he's going to keep me here. I want you, in spite of 
 everything, to come and see me. Come this afternoon, Eric, 
 before you go down to your people. Just for a moment. 
 I do want to see you so badly. You won't disappoint me, 
 will you? I'm ill, Eric, and so very lonely. Please, please 
 come. Barbara." 
 
 He pocketed the letter and went on with the others, read- 
 ing them mechanically. As her note had reached his flat 
 after he had left, no one could blame him for disregarding 
 her summons ; for two days he had been spared the neces- 
 sity of deciding whether it had to be disregarded; he had 
 another twenty-four hours at Lashmar, no telegrams were 
 delivered on Boxing Day, and she had in fact not tele- 
 phoned. If the servants had not stamped and forwarded 
 the letter, he would have had no knowledge of it until his 
 return to Ryder Street the following day. 
 
 And then? 
 
 The family was still opening parcels and comparing cards 
 and almanacks in the hall. He filled a pipe and tramped up 
 and down his father's library, trying to decide this question 
 without losing his head. She was ill, he had promised to 
 help her, he wanted to help her, he was glad of any excuse 
 that would spare him a repetition of that waking sense of 
 loss. So far from having murdered her, he was urged to 
 return ; and he asked nothing better than to go back. 
 
 And then?
 
 MORTMAIN 177 
 
 Sybil was right; they ought neither of them to permit 
 such an intimacy, if nothing were to come of it. Sooner 
 or later there would be unpleasantness ; and, instead of the 
 one painful parting which still haunted him, there would be 
 two. The position was unchanged from the time when he 
 invited her to dinner and delivered his ultimatum. He must 
 leave the letter unanswered ; if she appealed again, he must 
 be deaf to the appeal. There was no need to pretend that 
 he liked his choice. She might have a chill or pneumonia ; 
 and henceforth he must depend on the newspapers and on 
 chance-met friends to find how she was and what she was 
 doing. The friends, too, accepting him as her guardian, 
 would be more likely to come to him for news; he would 
 have to say that he had not seen her for a week, a month, 
 six months. . . . And they would wonder and gossip about 
 the mysterious estrangement as zealously as about their 
 "engagement"; and the kinder sort, like Lady Poynter, in- 
 stead of scheming to bring them together, would arrange 
 their parties with a tactful eye to secure that they did not 
 meet. . . . 
 
 Eric paused to knock out his pipe and to reflect that, 
 as he had made up his mind, there was nothing to gain by 
 pitying himself or by growing angry with imaginary dis- 
 putants. Sir Francis and Sybil came into the library to 
 begin the day's work; his mother rustled to and fro, giving 
 her orders. All that he had to do was to find an unoccupied 
 table and settle down to work. The intimacy was over. In 
 time he might care to think about it, he might even be able 
 to meet Barbara, but at present he had to keep his mind 
 absorbed with other thoughts. 
 
 He had schooled himself to a semblance of stoicism when 
 he reached his office. It was temporarily undermined by a 
 letter, also marked "Urgent," "By hand," whick he found 
 awaiting him.
 
 178 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Christmas Day. 
 
 "I suppose you left London "before my note arrived. I 
 sent another and one to Lashmar, but the posts are so bad 
 nowadays that I'm writing to your office as well. I don't 
 think you told me how long you were going to be away, but 
 please, I beg you, come and see me just for a moment when 
 you're back in London. I must see you again, Eric. If 
 you're not back to-morrow, you will be next day, I'm sure. 
 Please ring me up the moment you get this. Barbara." 
 
 So she had lain waiting for him all Christmas Day, all 
 Boxing Day ; she was waiting now, and he had no idea how 
 to tell her that he could not come. 
 
 The telephone rang, and he was surprised to hear Amy 
 Loring's voice instead of Barbara's. 
 
 "Is that Mr. Lane? Oh, forgive me for disturbing you 
 at your work. I expect you've heard that poor Babs is 
 ill. Can you get to see her? She'd like it so much." 
 
 Eric caught himself resolutely shaking his head at the 
 telephone. 
 
 "I'm afraid it's impossible. I've been away for Christ- 
 mas, and the work here " 
 
 "But can't you manage a moment? Look in on your 
 way home." 
 
 "I'm very sorry; it's out of the question." He paused 
 and repeated lamely, "I'm very sorry." 
 
 Amy sighed and made a last unsuccessful attempt to 
 move him, only succeeding in reducing him to a state of 
 suppressed irritation which spoiled his work for the morn- 
 ing. He had meant to call in Ryder Street before luncheon 
 to collect his letters, but he could not trust himself to face 
 the appeal which he knew he would find there. It was hard 
 enough to do the right thing without being incited on all 
 hands not to do it and in the name of affection and 
 charity !
 
 MORTMAIN 179 
 
 In the afternoon an unfamiliar voice enquired for him by 
 telephone. 
 
 "Lady Crawleigh speaking. Mr. Lane, I want you to do 
 something for me, if you'll be so kind. Are you engaged 
 this evening?" 
 
 Eric could hardly believe that Barbara had gone the 
 length of appealing to him through her mother. 
 
 "Well, I have a man dining with me," he improvised ten- 
 tatively. 
 
 "Oh, can you possibly put him off? I'll tell you why. 
 My husband and I have to dine out, and that means leaving 
 Babs alone. I'm afraid she's not a good patient, and, if 
 you could keep her amused, she'd be less likely to get up 
 or do anything foolish. That's what she's threatening at 
 present. I feel it's very unfair to ask you to change all 
 your plans. . . ." 
 
 However unfair, she asked him with an assurance which 
 shewed that she would not take a refusal lightly. Eric 
 smiled grimly to himself. As if London was not full of 
 people who would gladly spend half an hour with Barbara ! 
 As if the Crawleighs could not have cancelled their own 
 engagement! It was transparent, but he smiled less at the 
 artifice than at the irony of his being dragged to the house 
 against his will and better judgement. . . . 
 
 "I'd come, if I could," he answered hesitatingly. "The 
 trouble is that I've invited this man for eight and I shan't 
 be able to get away from here till half-past seven at earliest. 
 I'll do my best " 
 
 "I'm depending on you, Mr. Lane." 
 
 Dinner, but no one to share it with him, had been ordered 
 for a quarter past eight. He telephoned at seven to say 
 that he might be a little late and set out for Berkeley 
 Square. Barbara was alone when he arrived, and he en- 
 tered her room in some embarrassment. He could not 
 imagine Sybil's receiving male visitors in her bedroom, and
 
 i8o THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 he was shy to find himself alone with Barbara and to see 
 her lying in a blue silk kimono with the Persian kitten asleep 
 on a chair by her side and two tables submerged by 
 Madonna lilies. As he hesitated on the threshold, she 
 smiled wistfully and at the same time with a certain tri- 
 umphant confidence in her setting. 
 
 "I was very sorry to hear you were ill, Babs," he said. 
 
 "I've waited for you so long ! Won't you kiss me, Eric ?" 
 
 He picked up the kitten, affecting not to have heard her. 
 
 "What is it? A chill? Your mother said No, I 
 
 don't think she told me what it was." 
 
 Restraint faltered with every hesitating word, and Bar- 
 bara pushed the kitten's cushion on to the floor. 
 
 "Sit down, darling," she begged. 
 
 "I must go in a minute," said Eric, gravely consulting his 
 watch. 
 
 "Who have you got dining with you?" He hesitated. 
 "Any one?" 
 
 "As a matter of fact, I've not. I lied to your mother. 
 You see I didn't want to meet you, Babs. I didn't want to 
 go through that other night again." 
 
 He was still standing; but, without noticing, he had 
 drawn nearer to the bed, and she pulled him gently into the 
 chair. 
 
 "Haven't you missed me, Eric?" she whispered. 
 
 "Damnably!" His laugh was bitter. "I don't see how 
 it's to be avoided, though. And we only make things worse 
 by prolonging the agony. The infernal story's spread to 
 Lashmar now." 
 
 Barbara's lips curled assertively. 
 
 "I'm sorry you should suffer so much by association with 
 me. ... If you aren't expecting any one, will you dine 
 with me, Eric?" 
 
 He tried to review his position in the moment allowed 
 him before his answer would begin to seem hesitating.
 
 MORTMAIN 181 
 
 Once in the house, it mattered little whether he stayed one 
 hour or three; but they were fools, both of them, to con- 
 trive or assent to his being there. Firmly, if indistinctly, he 
 felt that she was trying to slip behind the decision of their 
 last meeting. 
 
 "I'll stay if you like," he said and watched her ring the 
 bell for her maid. "Babs, are you well enough to talk 
 seriously? I don't want to say good-bye, but nothing's 
 changed. We've the choice between a public contradic- 
 tion " 
 
 "Or a public engagement? Is that what you're afraid 
 of?" 
 
 "I'm net afraid of it." 
 
 She sank lower in the bed, covering her eyes with her 
 hand. 
 
 "You've never asked me to marry you," she said quietly, 
 this time without a taunt. 
 
 "You expressly asked me not to." 
 
 "You always boasted that you weren't in love with me." 
 
 A hint of triumph in her voice made him wonder in fear 
 and disgust whether this was the way in which she had 
 played with Jack Waring. She was sweeping him faster 
 than he wanted to go; but, for all his misgivings, he could 
 not stop. 
 
 "D'you think either of us knew what we meant to the 
 other until these last three days ?" he asked gently. "Every- 
 thing was too easy before," he added, remembering Amy's 
 warning. 
 
 Barbara uncovered her eyes and held her arms open to 
 him. 
 
 "I've always loved you, Eric." 
 
 "I've been very fond of you." 
 
 "And now you want to marry me?" she whispered, and 
 her eyes shone with expectation. 
 
 "D'you want me to ask you to?"
 
 1 82 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 For a moment she had seemed to speak with passion, but, 
 before he could notice the transition, he found her only 
 trying on passion's garments. 
 
 "No, I don't," she answered slowly. "I couldn't bear it. 
 You know I'm not free! But do you want to give me up? 
 You've had a good deal of me since August and now you've 
 had three days without me. D'you want to marry me?" 
 
 Eric felt indistinctly that he was no longer the man who 
 had come reluctantly to the house to do her a favour ; yet 
 he had always been able to bring her to her knees by re- 
 fusing to meet or write to her ; if he put her need of him 
 to the test, with separation as an alternative, she must sur- 
 render. 
 
 "Yes, I do," he answered. 
 
 Her hand went up and covered her eyes again. While he 
 waited for her to speak, his memory flung up, one after 
 another, the moods of loss and loneliness that he had under- 
 gone since the telephone grew silent and no letter came 
 from her. A warm wave of tenderness swept over him, as 
 he imagined the glory of having her youth and wit and 
 beauty entrusted to him. 
 
 "For God's sake, don't ask me that, Eric!" she whispered. 
 
 He looked at her in astonishment, wondering dully what 
 she aimed to achieve. If he insisted on asking her, she 
 would certainly consent; but he could not ask her against 
 her will. Suddenly he realized that he knew nothing of 
 women; some, he had been told, liked to be bullied and 
 compelled, others were only to be won by yielding and 
 deference. 
 
 "You don't want me to ask you that ?" 
 
 "Xo! For God's sake, no! If anything happens, Eric 
 you know what I mean if I can, then ask me, please ask 
 me! But not now! I should be miserable and I should 
 make you miserable ! Eric, be generous !"
 
 MORTMAIN 183 
 
 Her fingers were pressed deep into her cheeks, and he 
 could see her bosom rising and falling. 
 
 "I oughtn't to have started this subject, Babs," he said, 
 coming back to her side. "If it makes things easier in any 
 way, I'll promise you solemnly never to ask you that ques- 
 tion until you give me leave." 
 
 She opened her arms a second time. This time he leaned 
 forward and kissed her. 
 
 "Thank you, darling !" 
 
 "And now I'm going to give you your beef-tea. What 
 made you talk like this, Babs?" 
 
 "I wanted to know that you really loved me." 
 
 "You knew that before." 
 
 "I didn't! No, Eric, when you said good-bye that 
 night " 
 
 Something in his expression stopped her. He had wholly 
 lost sight of their earlier contention, and it was coming 
 back to him unsettled. 
 
 "I'm afraid things are very much where they were that 
 night," he said. 
 
 "If I don't promise to marry you, you'll leave me? I 
 can't promise, Eric yet." 
 
 There seemed a dim, treacherous comfort in the adverb, 
 and he stayed with her. 
 
 "Wine and love bring a similar intoxication. You can 
 refuse to begin drinking, you can refuse to begin falling in 
 love; (and love at first sight of a woman is as absurd as a 
 morbid craving for drink at first sight of a bottle). You 
 can trust that you will be able to say in time, C I can no 
 more.' And then you will find that you only see the turn- 
 ing-point when you are past it. The world then says 
 without pity or understanding: 'The man's drunk.' " 
 From the Diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 
 
 "ANN: I can neither take you nor let you go. . . . You must be 
 a sentimental old bachelor for my sake. . . . You won't have a bad 
 time. ... A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man 
 in London if he has a comfortable income." 
 
 BERNARD SHAW: "MAN AND SUPERMAN." 
 
 "I DON'T know how lately you've seen Eric," said Lady 
 Lane, "but I'm frightened at the way he's losing weight." 
 
 Dr. Gaisford smiled reassuringly and rang for tea. 
 
 "I've ordered him a complete rest and change for three 
 months." 
 
 "But he won't take it ! The head of his department wants 
 him to give a course of lectures in America, but he won't 
 leave London. If you're more in his confidence than I 
 am " 
 
 "Eric pays us both the compliment of thinking us too 
 old to have eyes, ears or brains a common delusion among 
 boys in love. No, he's told me nothing, but he's visibly 
 wearing himself out in adoration of a very fascinating 
 young woman ; so, as he won't go away, she shall. There's 
 no present cause for alarm." 
 
 "I wish I could think that. ... Of course, you must 
 never tell him that I've been talking to you behind his back." 
 
 The warning was an anticlimax after Lady Lane's des- 
 perate remedy of coming to Wimpole Street and presenting 
 all her fears and suspicions for the doctor's diagnosis. In 
 
 184
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 185 
 
 a life-time of anxiety and effort she was hardly more com- 
 municative or self-pitying than her son; and Gaisford 
 divined that more than ordinary compulsion had sent her 
 to him. 
 
 "Speaking as a friend of both parties," he said, "I don't 
 know what the hitch is. I haven't heard that the parents 
 are making any trouble ; and, if they did, I'm afraid naughty 
 little Barbara would just snap her fingers at them." 
 
 "You think she's in earnest?" asked Lady Lane doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 "I do indeed knowing something of her; and for the 
 first time in her life. ... I hope it will all come right. In 
 the meantime, she's been ill and her father doesn't like the 
 way the Government's conducting the war, so they're shak- 
 ing off the dust of England for the Riviera. Eric will have 
 his rest, whether he likes it or not." 
 
 For the first fifteen months of the war Lord Crawleigh 
 had carried out a campaign, unsparing to his readers, his 
 hearers and himself, to wake England to a more lively 
 realization of her perils. His position and long record of 
 public service secured him an undisturbed hearing as he 
 floundered through the potentialities of Mittel-Europa with 
 the aid of a lantern and pointer; and his audience was 
 usually rewarded for its patience when he forsook high 
 politics and set its flesh agreeably creeping with a perora- 
 tion compounded equally of German spies and pro-German 
 ministers. The campaign throve in the south, but slackened 
 in the midlands and stopped short in the north. At the same 
 time Lord Crawleigh's prescriptive right to the "leader" 
 page of all daily papers met with a challenge from certain 
 disrespectful sub-editors who first mislaid him among for- 
 eign telegrams and later buried him ignominiously in small 
 type. It was when a thoughtful exegesis on "The War and 
 Indian Home Rule," extending over two columns, had been 
 held up for three days without acknowledgement, apology
 
 i86 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 or explanation, that Lord Crawleigh decided to teach his 
 countrymen a sharp lesson by withdrawing to the south of 
 France until the spring. 
 
 Any inducement to leniency was overruled when Barbara 
 succumbed to an attack of pleurisy. As soon as she was 
 fit to move, he ordered his villa to be made ready, set the 
 dismantling of his London house in hand, closed Crawleigh 
 Abbey and carried his wife and daughter to Charing Cross 
 with a relentlessness and speed which gave their departure 
 the appearance of an abduction. The pleurisy developed 
 four days after Christmas, and Eric had not seen Barbara 
 since the night of their sick-room dinner. A week after 
 they reached the Riviera, he heard a story, traced without 
 difficulty to Gerald Deganway, that Lord Crawleigh had 
 spirited Barbara away from the danger of a mesalliance. 
 But, in wrestling with the necessary evils of life, Eric was 
 finding, as others had done before him, that Gerald Degan- 
 way was the irreducible minimum ; it was of greater impor- 
 tance that for three months no one would have cause to 
 gossip about them; and by that time even the Warings 
 could not reasonably hope for tidings of Jack. 
 
 Her departure cleared Eric's mind of its last misgivings 
 and convinced him that Barbara was no longer a casually 
 pleasant companion but an urgently needed wife. In her 
 absence, he was thrown back on the bachelor society of the 
 Thespian Club, though with every meal that he ate there 
 came a growing dread that he would be absorbed into it 
 until younger generations, watching him as he pored over 
 the day's bill of fare with his cronies or grew petulant with 
 the servants, came to regard him as part of the club's fur- 
 niture as part of every club's furniture wifeless, child- 
 less, friendless and uninterested, a bore who had outstayed 
 the welcome and even the toleration of a community 
 founded to keep his like from utter loneliness. Sometimes, 
 as he looked at the men who would never marry, he won-
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 187 
 
 dered what would become of him if Jack Waring appeared 
 suddenly, if Barbara fell in love with some one else, if she 
 fell out of love as quickly as she had fallen in love. . . . 
 
 At the end of March a telegram from Folkestone an- 
 nounced her return and invited him to dine with her. 
 
 Eric walked up the familiar stairs, with the august butler, 
 at whose nod or frown he had once trembled, turning at 
 intervals to impart confidences from the advantageous 
 height of an advance stair. ("We" had only come back the 
 day before and were, on the whole, better for the change. 
 He was afraid her ladyship would hardly be dressed 
 yet. ... If Mr. Lane did not mind waiting a moment. . . . 
 There was the evening paper. . . .) Eric settled himself 
 with a comfortable sense of home-coming, his eyes on Bar- 
 bara's bedroom door, wondering how she would greet him. 
 Their last dinner together demanded recognition and a 
 subtile modification of manner. 
 
 "Darling, how are you after all this time ?" Barbara was 
 on her knees by his chair before he realized that she was 
 in the room. "When do you start ? You never said a word 
 about it in your letters." 
 
 He stood up and pulled her gently to her feet. Invitingly 
 she craned her head forward, offering him her lips. 
 
 "About what ?" 
 
 "Your American tour. The Vieux boulevardier said you 
 were going to deliver a course of lectures in America." 
 
 Common-form invitations had reached him from time to 
 time through his agent, but, after the first, he had relegated 
 them unread to the waste-paper basket. And his depart- 
 ment was still urging him abroad. 
 
 "I've no intention of going yet awhile," he told her. "It 
 was only a newspaper rumour; perhaps some day I shall 
 make it true. You remember that there was another 
 rumour which my mother told me had in fact got into 
 some provincial rag? Some day that also may be true."
 
 i88 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 He lighted a cigarette and looked at her with a faint, 
 enquiring smile. 
 
 "Eric!" she cried with reproachful warning, though 
 he felt that she was enjoying the thin ice on to which 
 they had glided. 
 
 As a smile dimpled its way into her cheeks, he tired 
 of the badinage. 
 
 "Well, did you have a good time, Babs?" he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Good? M'well. ... I travelled the whole way with 
 all the clothes in the world wrapped round my throat and 
 chest. When I woke up just beyond Marseilles, it was 
 so hot that I threw off one thing after another, until I'd 
 got down to a blouse and skirt. Next morning, there was 
 a glorious hot sun. ... I jumped out of bed and ran 
 bare-foot into the verandah and stood there don't be 
 shocked, darling! in my night-gown, stretching out my 
 arms to gather all the heavenly warmth. I couldn't have 
 coughed if you'd paid me to. It was divine, but I sud- 
 denly discovered there was one thing wanting. Can you 
 guess what it was?" 
 
 "From your description, most things were wanting." 
 
 "Darling, if you're prosaic, I just shan't talk to you. I 
 discovered that I wanted some one to share it with. If 
 you knew the glorious feeling of standing bare-foot on 
 hot marble! I wanted you, Eric! I always want you 
 when I'm happy, because I must share my happiness with 
 some one; and I want you when I'm unhappy, because 
 I'm too proud to shew my unhappiness to any one who 
 doesn't love me. I hate the second-best and I'm so glad 
 to see you again !" 
 
 Eric considered her with his head on one side and his 
 hands in his pockets, cautiously and without committing 
 himself.
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 189 
 
 "Well, Babs, if you don't always have me at hand for 
 all your moods and all your needs " 
 
 "Yes ?" 
 
 He turned away to knock the ash from his cigarette 
 and to avoid a possible change of expression in her eyes. 
 
 "My dear, you'll have only yourself to blame." 
 
 "I know. Bless you, dear Eric. Somehow, I was afraid 
 you might have changed. Thinking of you all those miles 
 away, I felt you were too good to be true. Let's go down 
 to dinner. You've only got me, I'm afraid. Will you be 
 bored?" 
 
 "I don't suppose so," he answered, smiling; but, in- 
 definably, he was disappointed. 
 
 The Crawleighs spent a month in London before re- 
 pairing to Hampshire for the summer. 
 
 "Make the most of me," said Barbara, when her father's 
 decision was made known. "You may never see me 
 again." 
 
 "I wonder whether you'd mind," Eric mused. "Don't 
 you sometimes feel that I've served my turn?" 
 
 "That's a horrid thing to say! If anything took you 
 out of my life . . . Say you're sorry this very moment!" 
 
 Eric laughingly complied, but he could not easily shake 
 off his disappointment that Barbara had come back after 
 three months without nerving herself to make a decision. 
 Though Jack Waring's name was still never mentioned, he 
 felt that she was increasingly unreasonable in honouring 
 any superstitious obligation to his memory. A vague, 
 resentful impatience ruffled the serenity of their meet- 
 ings; and, though they plotted to lunch or dine together 
 daily and counted the remaining hours with jealous con-
 
 I 9 o THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 cern, Eric was shocked to find himself secretly relieved 
 when Barbara said "Only another week." 
 
 "I've not seen very much of you," he grumbled in- 
 consistently. "Why don't you dine with me to-morrow?" 
 
 Barbara had undergone some transformation in the last 
 six months until she seemed hardly to need him. In the 
 old days she was a slave to be summoned by a clap of 
 the hands; but, since he had healed her spirit, she was 
 a queen to be courted. 
 
 "I'll come, if you like," she said. "It means throwing 
 over George Oakleigh. And I haven't seen him since I 
 came back." 
 
 "I shouldn't dream of asking you to do that. I've 
 chosen an unfortunate day. I've chosen rather a lot of 
 unfortunate days lately," he added. 
 
 "Is that very gracious, Eric? I've said I'll come." 
 
 The desire to get his own way and the growing need of 
 her struggled confusedly with the resolve to be patient 
 and the politic determination to court her as a queen. 
 
 "No, you keep to your original plan," he advised her; 
 and then, with thinly-veiled taunt, "It's funny to look 
 back on the old days, when you were miserable if twelve 
 hours passed without our meeting. D'you remember when 
 you used to say how much you needed me?" 
 
 "I need you still," she answered, wondering at his new 
 irritability. 
 
 "You got on very comfortably without me at the Cap 
 Martin " 
 
 "I should have been very uncomfortable if I hadn't 
 known that you were thinking of me, waiting for me, lov- 
 ing me, even " 
 
 "And you'll get on very comfortably when you're at 
 Crawleigh Abbey," he persisted. "And to-morrow " 
 
 "I've said I'll come to-morrow. Eric, you're not jealous 
 of my dining with other people? You're talking as if
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 191 
 
 you were trying to pick a quarrel. You were always so 
 sweet. . . ." 
 
 "I'm not conscious of having changed," he answered 
 stiffly. 
 
 But he was conscious of a change in her. While he was 
 still indifferent, she had prostrated herself before him; 
 when he confessed his love, she gathered up his own cast 
 robes of indifference. It was feminine nature, and her 
 "education" of him was at least illustrating the sex-gen- 
 eralizations which a man ought to have learned before 
 leaving his dame's-school. 
 
 "Don't let's quarrel, darling!" she begged. "Whatever 
 you ask, I'll do! But, when I give, I want to give every- 
 thing. Won't you be patient with me?" 
 
 Ever since her return to England, Eric's nerves had 
 been strained until he found it first difficult and then im- 
 possible to work or sleep. When he met her, there was 
 always some trifling cause of annoyance; when he stayed 
 away, there was hunger and loneliness. 
 
 "I wonder how long you'd like me to be patient," he 
 murmured. 
 
 "Before I marry you? Is that what you mean? Eric, 
 I promise in the sight of God that I'll marry you as soon 
 as I can do it with a good conscience. You don't want 
 me to be haunted all my life. And now, when we even 
 speak of it ... It's my punishment." 
 
 "I'm sorry, Barbara. I've made you look quite miser- 
 able." 
 
 She bent his head forward and kissed him. 
 
 "I've never been really miserable since I knew that you 
 loved me," she whispered. 
 
 Though the quarrel was composed, the taut nerves were 
 still unrelaxed; and, after two more nights of insomnia, 
 Eric was driven to consult his doctor. The examination, 
 with its attendant annoyances of sounding and questioning,
 
 192 
 
 weighing and measuring, was tiresomely thorough; but 
 at the end Gaisford could only suggest change of scene 
 and occupation. 
 
 "I'm not a good subject for rest," Eric objected. 
 
 "I'm not sending you into a home," said Gaisford. 
 "Why not go out to California for six months? You can 
 scribble there as well as anywhere." 
 
 "If I work at all, it ought to be this propaganda job," 
 Eric suggested. 
 
 "Then do your propaganda job elsewhere. I want to 
 get you out of London. Do you want me to speak 
 frankly? You're seeing much too much of an exceedingly 
 attractive young woman. If you're going to marry her, 
 marry her; if not, break away. Flesh and blood can't 
 stand your present life." 
 
 Eric left him without giving a pledge, because he felt 
 too tired for the effort of going away from Barbara for 
 six months. Since he had reduced his hours of work, 
 there was no excuse for this everlasting sense of limp 
 fatigue; granted the fatigue, there was no excuse for his 
 not sleeping. The doctor had paid curiously little atten- 
 tion to the insomnia and was childishly interested in mak- 
 ing him blow down a tube and register the cubic capacity 
 of his lungs. There had never been a hint of phthisis in 
 the family, but the medical profession could be trusted to 
 recommend six months in California when a man needed 
 only one injection of morphia to secure a night's sleep. 
 
 He had forgotten Gaisford and his advice when Bar- 
 bara came to say good-bye on her last day in London. 
 
 "My dear, have you been ill?" she asked with concern. 
 "I've been told to use my influence to get you away for 
 a holiday. What's been the matter?" 
 
 "I don't know. And Gaisford shouldn't discuss one 
 patient with another. He wants me to go to California for 
 six months."
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 193 
 
 "Then you'll go? You must go!" Barbara's eyes were 
 wide with distress. "I insist!" 
 
 "I'm thinking it over," he answered, a little startled. 
 "I'm not a bit keen to leave you, Babs." 
 
 "D'you think I'm keen to lose you? Darling Eric, if 
 you know what you mean to me ... But you've got to 
 get well!" 
 
 . "I don't know why California should make the wait- 
 ing any easier." 
 
 "Ah, don't say I've made you ill! I'll say *y es >' 
 Eric. . . . Now. . . . But I should only be able to give 
 you a little piece of myself, I should always be divided. 
 ... I don't think you really want that, and you'd be 
 simply wretched if you found you'd spoiled my life after 
 saving it. ... Eric, don't hurry me? It's only April. 
 Wait till twelve months have gone by since the news. If 
 there's no further news . . . Wait till my birthday!" 
 
 Next morning, Barbara departed to Crawleigh Abbey, 
 and for a month they did not meet. As spring budded and 
 blossomed into summer, Eric counted the days that sep- 
 arated him from the fulfilment of her promise. There 
 was no reason for him to be anxious; but his mind was 
 filled with nervous images, and imagination suggested a 
 thousand fantastic ways in which Barbara might be 
 snatched from him. As her birthday drew near, he 
 forced a meeting with Agnes Waring and once more asked 
 if there was any news of Jack. 
 
 "Nothing yet," she answered. "A long time, isn't it?" 
 
 "Very long. . . ." He hated himself for the hypocrisy of 
 this conventional solicitude, when he was only impatient 
 for authentic news that his best friend was dead. "You'll 
 let me know . . . ?" 
 
 "Of course I will, Eric," Agnes answered. "I don't 
 know when " 
 
 Her undramatic courage, reinforced by his own sense of
 
 i 9 4 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 make-believe sympathy, restored him to sincerity. Though 
 he had never been in love with Agnes as Barbara had 
 taught him to understand the term he was still fond of 
 her. 
 
 "I wish you came to London sometimes," he said, beat- 
 ing his stick against the side of his boot. "It would 
 make a little bit of a break for you. Will you let me give 
 you dinner and take you to a play?" 
 
 It was the first time in eight months that he had made 
 her any sign of affection, and she looked at him curiously. 
 Eric wondered whether she imagined that he had failed 
 elsewhere and was drifting back to her. 
 
 "Somehow I hardly feel " she began. "Dick Ben- 
 yon you remember we brought him over to dine with 
 you? wanted me to come. . . ." 
 
 "It can't do any harm." 
 
 "It can't do any harm, certainly. I'll talk to mother 
 about it." 
 
 Two days later she wrote to suggest a night, and Eric 
 felt that he had involuntarily succeeded where young 
 Benyon had failed ; a week later he was waiting for her 
 in the lounge of the Carlton. Though she had stipulated 
 for a seven o'clock dinner so that they should be in their 
 places before the curtain went up, half-past seven had 
 struck before she hurried in with breathless apologies. 
 
 "It's all right, but I'm afraid your cocktail will be 
 tepid," he said. "I ordered it beforehand to save time. 
 I suppose you couldn't get a taxi." 
 
 "Yes." She laid her hand on his arm for support and 
 walked with the same breathlessness into the restaurant. 
 "My head's in a whirl. ... I nearly telephoned to say 
 I couldn't come but I didn't see w r hat good that would do. 
 Eric, I want you to straighten this out for me; Jack was 
 reported missing on the 27th " 
 
 "Of August. Last year. Yes."
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 195 
 
 "Well, father had a letter from Cranborne's the army 
 bankers, just before I left this morning, to say that a 
 cheque had come in through Holland, I think dated 
 October the 9th. Apparently a lot of people are traced 
 in that way, and Cranborne's wanted father to know as 
 soon as possible. They sent the cheque and asked father 
 to look at it very carefully and say if he was satisfied 
 that it was Jack's signature; then they'd know what to do 
 about it or something. . . ." 
 
 Eric looked at her unwaveringly and bade her finish her 
 story. He tried to tell himself that he had always ex- 
 pected and discounted this. 
 
 "I brought the cheque with me and had a long talk with 
 one of the partners. That's why I'm so late. There's no 
 doubt about it, Eric! Mr. Cranborne told me as a 
 banker that he was prepared to honour the cheque is 
 that the phrase? as being signed by Jack on that day. 
 What does it mean, Eric? I want you to explain it all." 
 
 A voluble waiter was gesticulating and seeking instruc- 
 tions about the wine. 
 
 "Oh, open it now!" Eric exclaimed without turning 
 round. A moment later the champagne was creaming 
 slowly up his glass. He drained it, coughed once and col- 
 lected himself. 
 
 "Let's first hear what Cranborne said," he suggested. 
 
 "Oh, he had all sorts of theories! That Jack had lost 
 his memory he remembered his name all right ; that 
 some one had found the cheque on his body after the 
 push and altered the date a cheque for ten pounds ; 
 that he'd tried to escape, and those brutes had punished 
 him by not letting us know he was a prisoner. ... It 
 doesn't matter, does it, Eric? He's alive! That's what I 
 want you to say to me ! He's alive!" 
 
 "He was alive on the ninth of October," he amended. 
 
 "Weeks after the push? Then he's alive now! Isn't
 
 196 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 he, Eric? He must be! I was right in believing. . . . 
 Eric, will you think me an awful pig, if we waste the 
 tickets to-night? I'd so much, much sooner sit and talk 
 to you. It's so wonderful! It's like a man rising from 
 the dead! It's " 
 
 "You must get some food inside you," he ordered 
 prosaically. "Take your time. Don't try to tell me all 
 about it in one breath." 
 
 She gulped a mouthful of fish and looked up with brim- 
 ming eyes. 
 
 "Oh, Eric, if you only understood what it meant. . . ." 
 Her expression changed to blank fear. "You do believe 
 he's still alive?" 
 
 "I do." He bent down and fumbled for the wine with 
 a needless clatter in the ice-pail. "Agnes, for your sake, 
 for all your sakes, I'm very, very glad!" 
 
 The next morning Eric called on Dr. Gaisford in Wim- 
 pole Street before going to his office. His brain felt 
 numbed, and he had to speak with artful choice of words 
 to prevent being tripped up by a stammer. The doctor 
 looked once at his drawn face and pink eye-lids, then 
 pushed a chair opposite his own and tidied away his 
 papers. 
 
 "I suppose you have breakfasted, by the way ?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, I'm not much of a breakfast-eater," Eric an- 
 swered. "You must forgive a very early call, Gaisford; 
 it's so hard for me to get away during the day. Well, it's 
 the old trouble; I'm sleeping abominably. I took your 
 wretched medicine, but it didn't have any effect." 
 
 "H'm. You did not take my advice to go right away." 
 
 "It hasn't been practicable so far. I may go quite 
 soon. But I've a certain number of things to finish off
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 197 
 
 and I want to be absolutely at my best for them." He 
 moistened his lips and repeated "I want to be absolutely at 
 my best for them. I've been rather worried and I've lost 
 confidence in myself." 
 
 Gaisford listened to his symptoms, asked a few ques- 
 tions and set about his examination. At the end he made 
 a note in his card-index and wrote out a prescription. 
 
 "If you're not careful," he said deliberately, as he 
 blotted it, "you'll have a bad break-down. Now, I never 
 tell people to do things, when I know they're going to dis- 
 obey me ; I shan't order you to California to-day, I shan't 
 knock you off all work. But how soon can you go?" 
 
 "Oh a week, if I have to," Eric answered carelessly. 
 
 "Then go in a week. Your own work, your writing 
 can you drop that absolutely? It's far more exhausting 
 anything creative than your office-work. And what's 
 your minimum for your office? Don't do a stroke more 
 than the minimum. As regards your general mode of 
 life . . ." 
 
 He ordained a rigid, but familiar, rule of diet, exercise 
 and rest; and Eric's attention began to wander. As well 
 bid him add a cubit to his stature! He wondered how 
 much Gaisford suspected. . . . 
 
 He became aware, in mid-reverie, that the doctor had 
 finished speaking. 
 
 "And I'm to take this stuff?" Eric tried to read the 
 prescription. "Strychnine Is that right? Iron? Bro- 
 mide? I can't make a guess at the other things. I say, 
 Gaisford, will this make me sleep?" 
 
 A hint of despair in his voice was not lost on the doc- 
 tor. 
 
 "I hope so. It will tone up your nervous system. But 
 it's only for a week, mind! That's the limit of your 
 reprieve before you go away. Don't imagine that stimulants 
 and sedatives take the place of natural food or rest. What-
 
 198 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 ever odds and ends you have to clear up must be cleared 
 up within the next week." 
 
 Eric nodded and held out his hand. Gaisford had un- 
 derstood, then. . . . He wondered how long the medicine 
 would take to "tone up" his nerves, for he had written a 
 telegram to Barbara the night before, as soon as Agnes 
 left him. 
 
 He walked to his office, trying to face the position more 
 clearly than he had been able to do in the night. Why 
 fret and worry? Barbara's "solemn promise" had already 
 been broken in spirit ; if she kept it in form, she would 
 be haunted by a new memory, the intrusive shadow would 
 take on a more terrific outline. There was no proof that 
 Jack was alive . . . but Eric believed without proof; no 
 certainty that he would present his claim . . . but Bar- 
 bara would see nothing but certainty. Two allegiances, 
 two promises . . . and no one could tell which she would 
 choose. 
 
 Eric was walking blindly through streets which only 
 his feet recognized. Regency Theatre. . . . And he had 
 been heading for Whitehall. He would never go to the 
 Regency again without seeing her either a head leaning 
 against his knee at rehearsal as they sat on a platform 
 over the orchestra, or in their box, hand in hand, as on 
 the first night of "The Bomb-Shell," when his nerves were 
 jangling like the broken wires of a harp; he could never 
 go to Mrs. Shelley's house without hearing her singing 
 Madame Butterfly's song and without some fool's ask- 
 ing if he had seen anything of Lady Barbara lately. . . . 
 
 A telegram was waiting for him, when at last he reached 
 his office: Barbara would come up that day and dine 
 with him ; she hoped that he had received no bad news. . . . 
 Eleven o'clock; and he would not see her until eight. He 
 was too restless to work and at one o'clock he handed his 
 papers to a colleague and slunk into the street. His foot-
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 199 
 
 steps were turned towards the Thespian Club; but he 
 could not pass the hall-porter without looking for a note, 
 as on the night when he dined in his triumph with Lord 
 Ettrick; he could not see a page-boy without expecting to 
 find that Barbara had telephoned to him. . . . 
 
 Half-way across the Horse Guards' Parade, he encoun- 
 tered George Oakleigh. 
 
 "Hallo ! Come and have some lunch with me, if you've 
 nothing better to do," he said. "I haven't seen you for a 
 long time." 
 
 "Not since we met at Barbara Neave's," answered Oak- 
 leigh. "Where is she? I've quite lost sight of her." 
 
 "They're all down at Crawleigh," said Eric. Every one 
 would come to him as the leading authority on Barbara's 
 movements. "What about the Carlton? I can usually 
 get hold of a table." 
 
 As they entered the lounge, Eric wondered why he had 
 chosen this of all places. Last night's ordeal should have 
 kept him away for ever; and the band was playing a waltz 
 which he had heard when Barbara dined with him on her 
 return from the Cap Martin. Music, especially the seduc- 
 tiveness of the waltz rhythm, was bad enough at any time 
 when one needed to keep one's nerves unstimulated. . . . 
 
 When Oakleigh returned to the Admiralty, Eric stood 
 aimlessly in Trafalgar Square, wondering what to do. It 
 was too late for a matinee; and theatres were all becom- 
 ing reminiscent of Barbara. He had long meant to order 
 a new dessert-service and was only waiting until Barbara 
 was in London again. Perhaps, that night, they would 
 be saying good-bye for ever; he could no longer tell him- 
 self stories of the life that he wanted her to share with 
 him. Perhaps, when she came to choose a dessert-service, 
 it would be with some one else ; she would give to some 
 one else all that she had given him, all that she had been 
 unable to give him. . . .
 
 200 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 He was home before he knew that he was even walking 
 homewards and thankful when his housekeeper came to 
 discuss dinner. He chose a cigar and at once put it back 
 in the box. His hand was shaking; and, if he once began 
 to smoke, he would never stop. Stimulants and sedatives, 
 he must remember, were not the same as natural food and 
 rest; therefore he had drunk nothing at luncheon, there- 
 fore he would not smoke now. There was nothing that 
 he could do; and Barbara's train did not reach Waterloo 
 for another hour. ; . . 
 
 His sense of time became dulled: Barbara was stand- 
 ing in the doorway before he had even thought of dress- 
 ing. 
 
 "My dear! I expected to find you in bed! How dare 
 you give me such a fright? When I got your telegram 
 this morning oh, I'm out of breath! I ran all the way 
 upstairs! you'd been saying that you felt so ill! Tell 
 me what it's all about. I had the most awful difficulty 
 with father about getting away; he couldn't make out why 
 I always wanted to rush up to London just when he'd got 
 people staying down there " 
 
 "I didn't mean to work on your emotions," said Eric, 
 as he helped her out of her cloak. 
 
 "Sweetheart, wliatever I was doing, you know I'd come 
 from the ends of the earth, if you were ill. But I'm 
 afraid father'll think me a fraud. It'll be your fault if 
 I can't get away next week." 
 
 Eric had to think for a moment before he recalled that 
 her birthday fell in the following week. It was the first 
 time that she had referred even indirectly to it on her 
 own initiative. He looked at her closely, but her face 
 revealed only high spirits and a radiant pleasure in being 
 with him again. 
 
 "I wanted to talk over one or two things with you," he
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 201 
 
 explained. "We shall start fairer if you don't feel you're 
 under any obligation to me " 
 
 She caught hold of his hand and kissed it. 
 
 "I shall always feel that, Eric." 
 
 "Well, for to-night I want you to feel quite unem- 
 barrassed. I want to talk to you about Jack Waring. He 
 was reported missing last August." 
 
 Barbara's face grew suddenly grave; and, in a whisper, 
 she supplied the date. 
 
 "Well, his sister dined with me last n-night " 
 
 Eric stopped as he caught himself stammering, but Bar- 
 bara laid her hand imploringly on his arm. 
 
 "Go on !" she cried. "I can stand it !" 
 
 "They don't know whether he's alive or dead." Her 
 hands were slowly withdrawn from her cheeks, her face 
 regained its composure, and she resettled herself, still 
 breathing a little quickly, on the sofa. "They know 
 nothing," he went on slowly. "But there's reason to sup- 
 pose that he wasn't killed at the time when he was re- 
 ported missing. There's reason to suppose that he was 
 alive at the beginning of October." 
 
 Still standing with his shoulders leaning against the 
 mantel-piece, Eric told her slowly and colourlessly of the 
 belated cheque. At the end she sat watching him in si- 
 lence. She too, surely, was trying to convince herself that 
 this was what she had always expected. . . . 
 
 "That's all I know. That's all his people know," he 
 added. 
 
 "But October. . . . June. . . . Why hasn't he written?" 
 
 "You're assuming he's alive. We don't know. He may 
 have been badly wounded, he may have died of 
 wounds " 
 
 "But if he was well enough to write a cheque?" 
 
 "I don't pretend to explain it. His sister threshed it 
 all out at the bank yesterday ; she and I threshed it all out
 
 202 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 again last night. And we're none the wiser except that 
 on the ninth of October he drew, dated and signed a cheque. 
 I think that's certain. There's no doubt about the signa- 
 ture, and no one would trouble to forge a cheque for ten 
 pounds. ... I always promised to let you know as soon 
 as I had any news, Babs." 
 
 She nodded and pressed her knuckles into her eyes. 
 
 "October to June . . . instead of August to June," she 
 murmured at length. "And not a word of any kind. What 
 do his people . . . ?" 
 
 "He'll now be published as 'Previously reported miss- 
 ing, now reported to be missing and a prisoner.' They 
 don't know what to think any more than we do." 
 
 She sighed and then looked up to him with a grateful 
 smile. 
 
 "Thank you for telling me, Eric." 
 
 He turned away and moistened his lips. 
 
 "You mustn't forget that it affects my own position," 
 he warned her. 
 
 The smile faded from her face, and she looked at him 
 with startled eyes. 
 
 It was a silent dinner, for Eric was exhausted and Bar- 
 bara was thinking deeply. Nearly a year ago, when Jack 
 was first missing, she seemed to have lived through all 
 these emotions, to have been tossed backwards and for- 
 wards in her dreams like a plaything of the gods at sport. 
 For twelve months she had been sick with longing to know 
 whether he still wanted her; and, when the gods had 
 tortured her to madness, they let her think that the cruel 
 game was over. She dreamed again of happiness, seeing 
 herself as a child; another child, the very symbol of love 
 and forgiveness, came to bring her peace, and they played
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 203 
 
 together in the sun-drenched loveliness of a dream. Then 
 the gods flung a shadow before her feet. In dream after 
 dream her child-lover begged her to stay, but the shadow 
 parted them and urged her forward. In time she realized 
 that it was Jack's shadow. . . . 
 
 Never were dreams more vivid. She knew each note 
 of her lover's voice as he begged her to stay and let him 
 make her happy; and night after night she awoke to find 
 herself stifling in the embrace of the shadow. Every one 
 thought that she was dying; she herself knew that she was 
 being driven mad; and, when the gods saw that she could 
 bear no more, they filled the world with a blaze of light 
 which banished dream and shadow. 
 
 "I hoped God had forgotten me," she whispered. "I've 
 been happy too long. What am I to do, Eric?" 
 
 "You must follow your inclination." 
 
 She sighed and looked away into the shadows beyond 
 the table. 
 
 "My inclination's always to do what you want. . . . 
 I'm glad for both our sakes that this came when it did. 
 I couldn't have made you happy while I was uncer- 
 tain. . . ." 
 
 "And, if the war ended to-morrow and Jack came back 
 safe and sound next week, what then?" 
 
 "It depends on him. I gave him my solemn promise, 
 when I was trying to make reparation." 
 
 "And I don't count at all. After all our love, you could 
 forget me " 
 
 "I could never forget you, sweetheart." 
 
 "But you're willing to try?" 
 
 "What else can I do? Oh, what a muddle I've made of 
 our lives !" 
 
 Eric had determined to be patient and restrained; but 
 his voice, uncontrolled and scornful, seemed to come from 
 a distance.
 
 204 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Will you make it any better by keeping faith with Jack 
 and breaking it with me? You'll be unhappy all your 
 life, you'll never forgive yourself, you'll never forget the 
 wrong you've done me, if you marry any one else!" 
 
 Barbara's eyes rilled with fear. 
 
 "You speak as if you were putting a curse on me!" 
 
 "I don't believe in curses or blessings or luck or your 
 other superstitions. I'm warning you and I'll add this. 
 You once undertook my education, but I think I can 
 teach you one thing, one thing about love : it has to be 
 whole-hearted. . . ." 
 
 He flung away and stood with his arm on the mantel- 
 piece, fumbling the lock of a cigar-cabinet with clumsy 
 fingers. Barbara made no sound, and after some moments 
 he stole a look at her. 
 
 "I know," she answered quietly. 
 
 "Well " He hesitated and then took his plunge. 
 
 "You've got to decide, Babs." 
 
 "You must wait till we've heard something definite." 
 
 "No! If we heard to-morrow, to-night, in five minutes' 
 time, it would make no difference. I want the whole of 
 your love, I want to stand first." He waited, but she said 
 nothing. "You've very often told me how much you 
 loved me," he went on, ironical at her silence. "You've 
 told me how you need me, how grateful you are to me, 
 how much you want to make me happy " 
 
 He had dropped into unconscious parody, and its tech- 
 nical excellence set her writhing. 
 
 "Don't, Eric! Please!" 
 
 "You must decide, Babs." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 She buried her face in her hands and sobbed so wildly 
 that he expected at any moment to see his maid's head at 
 the door. For a while he was stoically unmoved; then 
 the crying gave him a pain at the heart, and he stepped
 
 205 
 
 forward, only to pull up before he threw away his vic- 
 tory. 
 
 "Eric, don't," she cried, as soon as she had mastery of 
 her voice. 
 
 "You must decide," he repeated. 
 
 "And if I say 'no'?" 
 
 "I've said you were under no obligation to me." 
 
 "But you'll turn me away? If I came to you to- 
 morrow and said I'd changed my mind " 
 
 "It would be too late." 
 
 She steadied herself and turned round, bending for 
 her gloves and then drawing herself upright to face him. 
 
 "I . ., . can't . . . now, Eric. ... Is it still raining? 
 If it is, I'd better have a taxi." 
 
 "I'll see if I can get you one." 
 
 He had seen this gesture before; and Barbara had fol- 
 lowed it with a stream of notes and messages; begging 
 him to come back. Eric walked slowly into the street, 
 giving her generous time for consideration. A taxi stood 
 idle at the top of St. James' Street ; and, when he re- 
 turned with it, she was in the hall, white-faced but col- 
 lected, turning over the pages of a review. 
 
 "Good-bye, Eric," she said quietly. "I'm afraid I've 
 only brought you unhappiness. And my love doesn't seem 
 much use to any one. . . . Don't bother to come down 
 with me." 
 
 He went into the smoking-room and dropped limply on- 
 to a sofa, waiting for the telephone to ring, waiting for her 
 to confess defeat. A hideous evening almost as bad as 
 that night before Christmas. His cheeks were burning, 
 and his head ached savagely. Suddenly his theatrical com- 
 posure and stoicism left him; his body trembled, and he 
 was amazed to feel tears coursing down his cheeks. This, 
 then he was quite detached about it was the nervous 
 break-down which Gaisford had prophesied. He had not
 
 206 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 cried for twenty years . . . and now he could not stop. 
 His heart seemed to have broken loose and to be ham- 
 mering in space, like the engine of a disabled clock-work 
 toy. 
 
 It was still absurdly early, for their scene had taken 
 place among the nut-shells and coffee-cups of dinner. 
 There was time for her to come back, to telephone ; she 
 knew by harrowing experience what a parting like this 
 meant. And, while he waited, he must do something! 
 Perhaps she would not break silence till the morning. He 
 would see that she did not wait longer than that. . . . 
 
 "Darling Babs," he began. A hot tear splashed on to 
 the paper, and he reached for a fresh sheet. "Darling 
 Babs, It whs your choice. I pray God that you will find 
 greater happiness elsewhere. . . /' 
 
 He strung sentence to sentence, not knowing what he 
 wrote. Was it not weakness that he should be writing the 
 first letter? But Barbara was probably writing to him at 
 this moment, writing or asking for his number. . . . The 
 night lift -man was bribed to post the letter, because Eric 
 dared not leave the telephone. He sat by it trembling as 
 though with fever, while eleven o'clock struck . . . and 
 midnight . . . and one . . . and three . . . and five. . . . 
 
 In the morning he was called at his usual time to sink 
 back on to the bed almost before he had risen from it. 
 While he waited for his secretary, he telephoned to ask a 
 colleague to shoulder double work for the day and began 
 to think wearily what other engagements he must break. 
 In. an interlude of their over-night discussion Barbara had 
 asked him to lunch with her. . . . 
 
 With a strangely uncontrolled hand he wrote "I'm 
 afraid I can't remember what I said in my letter last 
 night. I was feeling too much upset. Didn't you ask me 
 to lunch with you to-day? I'm afraid I'm feeling so ill 
 that I've had to stay in bed. . . ."
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 207 
 
 When his secretary arrived, he sent her to Berkeley 
 Square with the note. While she was gone, his parlour- 
 maid came in with a swaying mass of White Enchantress 
 carnations and a pencilled note. "May God make you hap- 
 pier than I've been able to do!" 
 
 Eric tried to divert his thoughts from the note by giv- 
 ing elaborate instructions about the flowers and his meals 
 for the day. Before he had done, his secretary returned, 
 and he was still dictating when a sound in the hall froze 
 his voice and set his heart thumping. 
 
 "I hear Mr. Lane's not well. Do you think he could see 
 me for a moment ?" 
 
 "I'll enquire, my lady." 
 
 As Barbara came into the room, Eric saw that her face 
 was grey with suffering and that she seemed hardly able 
 to keep her heavy lids open. 
 
 "Eric, what's the matter ?" she asked, coming to his bed- 
 side. 
 
 In trying to speak softly her voice, already hoarse, dis- 
 appeared altogether and she rubbed her throat wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 "What's the matter with us both?" he asked weakly. 
 "Babs . . ." His voice broke. "You look like death!" 
 
 Before she turned her face, he could see that she was 
 biting her lip. 
 
 "Hush, darling child! I'm only tired; I didn't sleep 
 very well. I kept on remembering that I'd lost some one I 
 loved better than any one in the world," she cried tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 He raised himself on his pillows, stretching out hands 
 that twitched. 
 
 "You haven't, Babs! If you want me " 
 
 "Not at that price, darling. If my love for you were 
 everything there's something else. I don't know what 
 it is. ... But I've not come to upset you again. Last
 
 208 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 night I told you that I'd come to you from the ends of 
 the world, if you were ill. Tell me what's the matter, 
 Eric." 
 
 She pulled a chair to the bed and gave him her hand, 
 which he covered with kisses. 
 
 "I'm broken up! I'm sorry; you can despise me, if you 
 like," he cried. "I can't afford to lose you, Babs : I love 
 you too much." 
 
 The tears were standing in his eyes, and the sight 
 steadied her. Pillowing his head on her breast, she ran 
 her fingers through his hair, caressing and soothing him 
 like a child. 
 
 "I've done this. . . . You must forgive me, Eric," she 
 whispered. "I didn't see what I was doing; until quite 
 lately I didn't see that you cared for me at all not to 
 matter, I mean you were always sweet to me, of course. 
 If I'd known how I was hurting you . . . Won't you 
 wait, Eric? I must let you go now, if you insist; I'm 
 nerved up to it. ... But is it worth it?" 
 
 Eric thought over the' change that had come upon them 
 since Christmas. 
 
 "No. I can't afford it," he answered wearily. 
 
 She bent down and kissed his forehead. Was the kiss 
 rather mechanical? Eric lay with his eyes shut, trying to 
 analyze the double change. Was a nervous break-down al- 
 ways like this ? Barbara was stroking his head gently ; she 
 had kissed him compassionately, lovingly, but he had 
 fancied a change in her, as though she, too, realized the 
 completeness of his subjugation. 
 
 "See if you can't sleep, Eric," she whispered, as he 
 opened twitching lids to take stock of her. 
 
 Pity, or some kind of maternal love, then, survived his 
 defeat.
 
 DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 209 
 
 "Average man is a> match for average woman, eighteen 
 chances to eighteen, but zero always turns up in woman's 
 favour. Man, being a philosopher and far less interested 
 in womm, (who is an incident} than woman is interested 
 in him (who is her life}, would cheerfully go on playing 
 with the odds always slightly against him, if he had a clear 
 idea of the value and significance of zero. But zero is 
 woman inexplicable something fantastically loyal or shiv- 
 eringly perfidious, savagely cruel or quixotically self-sac- 
 rificing, something that is primitive, non-moral and re- 
 solved to win at all costs. In the sex-gamble, zero is more 
 than a thirty-six to one chance; it is Poushkin's DAME DE 
 PIQUE and turns up thirty-six times to one. And man 
 shews his indifference or his greatness of soul by con- 
 tinuing to play, by rising imperturbably triumphant over 
 zero. ... Or perhaps he shews that he is an eternal sex- 
 amateur. . . ." From the Diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 EDUCATION FOR THOSE OF RIPER YEARS 
 
 "Verily when an author can approve his wife she was deserving 
 of a better fate." 
 
 LEONARD MERRICK : "WHEN LOVE FLIES OUT o' THE WINDOW." 
 
 "After diagnosis," said Dr. Gaisford, "the prudent physi- 
 cian bases treatment on self-interest. You're not fit to 
 travel by yourself yet, Eric; when I've patched you up, I 
 shall send you away. If you don't go, you'll never do 
 any decent work again." 
 
 Having persuaded his patient to stay in bed for a week, 
 the doctor looked in nightly "for five minutes" and stayed 
 sixty-five, smoking three disreputable pipes instead of one 
 and generalizing on life and health. 
 
 "It gives me a headache even to think of work," said 
 Eric, his brain half-paralyzed with bromide. 
 
 Perhaps it was the bromide, perhaps it was his nervous 
 and bodily exhaustion; the most frightening part of this 
 latest illness was the attendant utter incapacity to make up 
 his mind. When Barbara left him for Crawleigh Abbey, 
 he had resigned from his department and withdrawn the 
 resignation, accepted an invitation to lecture in America 
 and cancelled the acceptance; every night he led Gaisford 
 through the same argumentative maze; complete rest, 
 partial rest in London or the country, flight from England 
 and all association with Barbara, full work as soon as 
 he could resume it to keep him from brooding about her ; 
 
 2IO
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 211 
 
 he could not decide. And from time to time a mocking 
 refrain told him that as an undergraduate and again in 
 the first flush of fame he had aspired to be the new young 
 Byron, dominating London. . . . 
 
 "Poisoned rat in a hole," he whispered to himself. . . . 
 
 Gaisford would sit with his arms crossed over the back 
 of a chair and his feet twisted round its legs, puffing 
 thoughtfully at his pipe and frowning at his boots. In a 
 long experience of practice among rich and self-conscious 
 patients who would always rather be "interesting" than 
 normal, it was not the first time that he had watched the 
 bloom being rubbed off love; nine broken engagements 
 and balked romances were born of doltish delay;. but a 
 mass of sensibility like Eric Lane had not the stamina to 
 wait nor the placidity to go away and forget. 
 
 "You told me you had a novel on the stocks," said Gais- 
 ford. "I suppose you wouldn't let me see it?" 
 
 The first draft of the book was already in type, and, 
 though Eric hated his work to be seen before he had set 
 the last polish on it, the new indecision and weakness of 
 will allowed him to be overpersuaded. Gaisford brought 
 back the manuscript at the end of three days and talked 
 of neurotic impressionism and the methods of literary 
 jerry-builders. 
 
 "I hope you're not writing yourself out," he added. 
 
 Eric was frightened for the first time since the "Divorce" 
 placed him beyond the reach of want. So many men 
 seemed capable of one play or novel and then no more. 
 
 "One can't always be at concert-pitch," he sighed. 
 
 "Then you mustn't go on to the platform till you are." 
 
 "It's easy to see you've never been a journalist ! The 
 agony, the violence to soul, when you have to come up to 
 scratch, when your copy has 9 to be delivered by a certain 
 hour ! Writing without time to revise or even to read what 
 you've already written the compositors setting up the be-
 
 212 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 ginning of an article while you're still writing the mid- 
 dle. . . . And the public pays its twopence and expects us 
 to be always at our best !" 
 
 "Well, the public pays me its two guineas and expects 
 me to be always at my best," grunted the doctor. "If I'm 
 off colour, I take things quietly. Otherwise I should de- 
 fraud the public and ruin my practice at the same time. 
 You must take things quietly until you're fit to work 
 again." 
 
 After he had gone, Eric tried to make up his mind what 
 to do. His thoughts ran uncontrolled to painters whose 
 sight had become impaired and composers who had lost 
 their hearing. If he had done violence to the indefinable 
 blend of gift and acquisition which separated the man who 
 could write from those who could not . . . This was a 
 thing to be tested. The scenario of "The Singing-Bird" 
 was ready; he had only been waiting because there was 
 no hurry for another play. There was now every hurry 
 to establish whether he could write a play. If Manders 
 turned up his nose, it would be time indeed for a holi- 
 day. 
 
 For three months Eric buried himself in his flat, only 
 emerging at the week-end. Lashmar Mill-House gave him 
 proximity to Agnes Waring; and every week he made an 
 excuse to walk over to Red Roofs and ask for tidings of 
 Jack. The news that he was alive seemed better than the 
 suspense of no news; but the tyranny of love was strange 
 when a man could pray for the death of a friend. The 
 Warings' atmosphere of dignified expectancy rebuked him ; 
 they made no more pother than if a single letter had gone 
 astray. The colonel motored daily into Winchester and sat 
 on his tribunal ; Mrs. Waring presided over her bandaging 
 classes, and Agnes looked after the house. There w r as no 
 fretting at Red Roofs; the errant letter would come to 
 hand or it would not; the Warings were a military fam-
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 213 
 
 ily. Sharing their suspense for the first time, Eric mar- 
 velled at their composure. His own heart quickened its 
 beat whenever he asked with false solicitude whether 
 Agnes had tried to get news through the American or 
 Spanish Embassy, the Prisoners-of-War Clearing-House in 
 Copenhagen or the Vatican. Peace of mind returned a 
 step nearer each time that she shook her head and mur- 
 mured, "Yes, we tried that. It was no good, though." 
 Then his growing security was checked by a gripe of con- 
 science; he felt like a murderer who stole furtively into 
 the woods by night to see whether prowling animal or 
 pursuing man had disturbed the grave. Well, at least 
 another week had passed. . . . But in a week's time he 
 must undergo the suspense again. Agnes might come to 
 him, radiant as on that night when she dined with him, 
 crying "Eric! You remember that cheque? Well, we 
 heard to-day. . . ." 
 
 Extravagant tension and violent relief destroyed the 
 serenity required for good work; but Eric was not dis- 
 satisfied with the progress of his play. Ease and com- 
 mand had grown reassuringly; his psychology was surer, 
 perhaps because his own psychological experience had 
 been so much enriched; and his dialogue, losing nothing 
 of its neatness and economy, had taken on an added veri- 
 similitude. It was too early to judge dispassionately; but, 
 as Eric made his last corrections and sent a copy of the 
 script to Manders, he felt a warmer glow of confidence 
 than either of his first plays had inspired. 
 
 It was the end of October before he had finished. The 
 strain of work had buoyed him up, but it was succeeded by 
 a debilitating reaction, which impelled him with guilty 
 reluctance to Wimpole Street. 
 
 "I'm glad you don't even pretend that you've been fol- 
 lowing my advice/' said the doctor with a hint of im- 
 patience, as he brought his examination to an end.
 
 "You know, Gaisford, it's not the least use telling me to 
 do nothing," Eric answered jauntily. "I'm not built that 
 way." 
 
 "So I've heard before from others as well. And the 
 others have found themselves packed off to nursing-homes, 
 which, my dear Eric, are very tedious institutions. Are 
 you going abroad now ?" 
 
 "Not at the moment." 
 
 "What are you going to do?" 
 
 "I'm going back to my office, if I'm still wanted." 
 
 Gaisford shrugged his shoulders ruefully. 
 
 "You know, Eric, it's a waste of my time and of your 
 money for you to come to me for advice. You've definitely 
 gone back since I saw you in the summer." 
 
 "I've been working very hard; but I'm rather pleased 
 with the results." 
 
 "I hope it's nothing like that novel you shewed me," said 
 the doctor gloomily. 
 
 "I'll send you the script when I get it back from Man- 
 ders," Eric promised with a laugh. 
 
 On his return to official work, Eric found that he could 
 not concentrate his attention on anything until he knew 
 what Manders thought of "The Singing-Bird"; sometimes 
 he wondered whether he could ever concentrate until Bar- 
 bara had brought his suspense to an end. For three months 
 they had not met or corresponded. 
 
 "Dr. Gaisford says I simply make you worse," she told 
 him. "I mustn't add that to my other sins. If you want 
 me, I'm there; but I shan't write to you, and you mustn't 
 write to me. I shall miss you horribly, but your health's 
 more important than my happiness. We're coming back 
 to London in the autumn."
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 215 
 
 A week before her return, the whole Mill-House party 
 motored over to Red Roofs to dine with the Warings. It 
 was an old promise, and Eric was glad to avail himself of 
 it to break the continuity of his stilted Sunday calls. As 
 he dressed, a note was brought him from Colonel War- 
 ing, and he read with some surprise: 
 
 "I trust you are not going to fail us to-night. There is 
 a matter on which- I want your advice and, perhaps, your 
 help." 
 
 Eric tore the note into small pieces and went on with 
 his dressing, only frowning at his own want of control 
 when he found his hand shaking until he could hardly part 
 his hair. There was only one subject on which anybody 
 at Red Roofs could want to consult him; from the fact 
 that Colonel Waring wrote and wrote to him some of- 
 ficial action was pending; otherwise Agnes would have 
 whispered a word to him before dinner. They had re- 
 ceived news that Jack was alive ... or dead ... or they 
 had thought of a new means of getting in touch with 
 him. . . . 
 
 Eric kept his surprise to himself and drove silently 
 through two miles of thicket and clearing to the south end 
 of Lashmar Wood. Beyond a cordial hand-shake and the 
 smiling statement that he was glad to see him, Colonel 
 Waring vouchsafed no explanation of his letter. Eric 
 looked keenly at Agnes and her mother, but their faces and 
 manner betrayed neither elation nor . . . What else could 
 they betray? he wondered sinkingly. If Jack were dead, 
 the dinner-party would have been postponed. They still 
 hoped for him, but their hopes were not hardy enough to 
 be exposed. 
 
 When the men were alone after dinner, Eric's heart 
 missed a beat and he gripped the arms of his chair. The
 
 2i6 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 colonel, after fidgeting with a decanter and tidying away 
 the remains of two different conversations, carried his 
 glass to Eric's end of the table and sat beside him, ask- 
 ing with a smile whether his note had been delivered in 
 time. 
 
 "This is between ourselves," he began, leaning back 
 with his legs stretched out and frowning at the blue flame 
 of a grenade-shaped cigar-lighter. "We've had news of 
 a kind about Jack." He raised his hand as Eric tried to 
 speak. "No, my dear boy, that's just what we want to 
 avoid! Don't congratulate us yet. You see, we've been 
 through the racket once. . . ." 
 
 "You don't know for certain, then?" Eric asked and 
 wondered whether he was imagining a tremor in his voice. 
 
 "No. Let me see, Agnes told you all about the cheque, 
 didn't she? He was missing in August last year, and the 
 cheque was drawn in October. We now know that he was 
 alive in December. It appears . . ." 
 
 Eric did not hear the next few sentences. Stoically, yet 
 with an underlying measured jubilance, the old colonel was 
 dragging Jack to security from the presumption of death 
 two months at a time. Alive in October, alive in Decem- 
 ber! Thirteen months ago, eleven months ago. Some one 
 would have heard of him in February or seen him in April ! 
 He was catching up hand over fist. And one day he would 
 land in England, you would meet him in the street with- 
 out warning; as you dawdled through Berkeley Square, 
 you might see him standing on the door-step of Lord 
 Crawleigh's house. 
 
 "I don't for one moment suppose that this is the only 
 case." Colonel Waring was commenting. 
 
 Eric looked up with an intelligent nod, wondering what 
 he had been told. Waring, always soldierly and dapper, 
 with a neat care of person which he had handed on to his 
 children, seemed years fresher and younger to-night; the
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 217 
 
 liverish tinge of yellow which settled on his face in cold 
 weather had wholly departed. 
 
 "Would you mind giving 1 me the dates again?" said 
 Eric. 
 
 "Missing in August; the cheque in October; the row in 
 December. This fellow Britwell" (Eric wished that he 
 had listened to find out who was Britwell) "was taken 
 prisoner at the same time, and they were in the same 
 prisoners' camp. Britwell couldn't say how badly Jack 
 was wounded, because he'd been in hospital himself until 
 the day before the row came. Jack, according to the story, 
 was hauled up for calling" one of the guards a 'Schwein- 
 hund.' (You know Jack well enough to say if he'd be likely 
 to fling about abuse of that kind without provocation). 
 His only defence was that the guard had told him in 
 German to do something, and almost the only German 
 he knew was that word, because they'd shouted it at him 
 when they found him half-unconscious in his trench and 
 kicked him back behind the lines, and the women and 
 children had screamed it at him, in the intervals of spitting 
 in his face at all the stations. And it was the one word 
 that all the camp guards used to every British prisoner. 
 Well, he may have been given the opportunity of apologiz- 
 ing or he may not; if so, he refused it, and the last thing 
 Britwell heard was that he'd been packed off to solitary 
 confinement in a fortress for nine months. December 
 '15 ... to September or October this year. That ex- 
 plains the cheque, but it doesn't explain why he hasn't 
 written. ... Of course, he hasn't had much time. . . /' 
 
 The stoicism in Waring's composed face became eclipsed 
 for a moment. The boy might have died of his wounds 
 or of ill-treatment; he might have offended a second time 
 and been a second time imprisoned without power to com- 
 municate with his friends ; he might have been transferred 
 to another camp with an unrelaxing ban on all his letters
 
 218 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 lest he tried to describe the barbarism of which he had 
 been made a victim. . . . 
 
 "I've got that straight so far," said Eric slowly. "Now 
 tell me what I can do." 
 
 If the worst came to the worst, he would at least try to 
 surrender his claim on Barbara with a good grace. 
 
 "Well, it's the old business: we want news," said War- 
 ing. "I tried the War Office as soon as I heard from Brit- 
 well, which was a week ago; he's been transferred to 
 Switzerland as one of the badly wounded cases. You 
 know what the War Office is; I may be fed with printed 
 forms for months. . . . Do you know anybody there who 
 can take up the thing personally?" 
 
 "If I don't know any one, I can soon get to know the 
 right man." 
 
 "We shall be very grateful. Meanwhile don't talk about 
 it to anybody." 
 
 Eric refrained from giving a promise, for he knew that 
 he would have to tell Barbara the following week. Within 
 three hours of his return to London he had set half-a-dozen 
 telephone wires humming, and, before leaving his depart- 
 ment, the newly-found freemasonry of the public service 
 had supplied him with all available information. Officially, 
 Captain Waring was "missing ;" but his name had not been 
 reported from any German source; unofficially, the War 
 Office had a copy of Major Britwell's letter to Colonel 
 Waring. Nothing more was known. On the other hand, 
 a great deal of new information was pouring in since the 
 convention for the exchange of wounded prisoners: If 
 Captain Waring were incapacitated and if the official Ger- 
 man conscience were not too uneasy, he might have the 
 luck to be transferred to Switzerland at any moment. 
 
 Eric sent a report to Colonel Waring and wrote to Bar- 
 bara that night for the first time in three months. "I want 
 you to know as soon as possible that Jack was alive last
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 219 
 
 December. That's eleven months ago, and he may be alive 
 still; the family simply doesn't know. I'll tell you tJie full 
 story when we meet." 
 
 In thanking him, she suggested a night for dining to- 
 gether on her return; and Eric spent three days that were 
 as restless and insupportable as the three hours before a 
 first night. It would hurt intolerably if she behaved as a 
 stranger, when they met; almost as intolerably if she 
 threw herself into his arms and forced him to remember 
 what he was threatened with losing. 
 
 On the evening before they were to meet, the telephone 
 rang, and Manders' voice, brisk and cheerful, enquired if 
 Eric was likely to be at the Thespian Club that night. 
 
 "I wanted to talk about this play of yours," he ex- 
 plained. "Well, can you lunch to-morrow, say, half-past 
 one?" 
 
 "Yes. I should like to. What do you think of it, Man- 
 ders?" 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 "It's too long to discuss now." 
 
 "You can just say whether 'you like it or not." 
 
 "I'll tell you all about it to-morrow. Cheerio, boy." 
 
 Eric was irritated by Manders' uncommunicativeness. 
 The fellow could at least have said, "First rate!" or "The 
 best thing you've done." "Too long to discuss now" meant 
 hours of captiousness and months of heroic surgery. And 
 with his late loss of assurance Eric could not say with 
 confidence that it was the best thing he had done. . . . 
 
 When he reached the club next day, Eric found that 
 Manders had arrived before him and was ordering 
 luncheon for both.
 
 "D'you like the '06 Ruinart, or is it too dry for you?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Nothing's too dry for me," Eric answered, "but I de- 
 cline to drink champagne at lunch. I've work to do this 
 afternoon." 
 
 His host smiled persuasively and continued to write his 
 bill. 
 
 "It'll do you good, boy. Buck you up. Well, how are 
 you? The last time I was here, some old buffer told me 
 you'd been seedy, but that was right away back in the 
 summer. What was the matter?" 
 
 "I was only a bit run down," Eric answered. "What did 
 you think of the play ?" 
 
 Manders gave his bill to a waiter and planted his elbows 
 on the table, pressing his finger-tips together. 
 
 "Well, I read it very carefully," he began. "By the way, 
 before I forget it, 'The Bomb-Shell's' doing very well on 
 tour." 
 
 Eric chewed his lips impatiently. He would gladly hear 
 about "The Bomb-Shell" later, but he now wanted to pin 
 Manders to a criticism of "The Singing Bird." 
 
 "Well, let's keep the wolf from the door as long as we 
 can." 
 
 The subject dismissed, he looked up expectantly and 
 found Manders wholly absorbed with his oysters, rejecting 
 red pepper for black, shaking a cautious drop of tabasco 
 vinegar on each, adding a dash of lemon-juice and, when 
 all else was ready, sipping his champagne with preliminary 
 caution. The play would have to be cut about, then; per- 
 haps the actor-manager was disappointed with his own 
 part. . . . 
 
 "Well, let's hear all about it," Manders began heartily. 
 "When did you find time to write it? After you'd got 
 The Bomb-Shell' out of the way?" 
 
 "Not immediately. I knocked off all my other work and
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 221 
 
 concentrated on this thing day and night for three months." 
 
 "Three months? You're a quick worker. You know, 
 boy, that would have been a better play if you'd given 
 more time to it." 
 
 Manders slipped three oysters into his mouth in rapid 
 succession, and Eric smiled with indulgent patience. One 
 hard-dying school of critics always made quick work a 
 synonym for hasty work. 
 
 "I managed to crowd about three years into the three 
 months." 
 
 "Ah, that means you're writing with your nerves ! Now, 
 if I were you, I'd put the thing aside for six months, clear 
 it out of your head; then, when you come to it with a 
 fresh mind " 
 
 "You don't like it?" Eric interrupted. "Why not?" 
 
 "I don't like it in its present form. I don't suppose you 
 want a line-by-line criticism. ... If you look at it in six 
 months' time, you'll see my objection for yourself." 
 
 Eric raised his glass mechanically and was vaguely sur- 
 prised to find himself drinking champagne. Then he re- 
 membered that champagne had been ordered to "buck" him 
 "up"; he remembered, too, Manders' solicitude for his 
 health, the enquiries when the play had been written and 
 how long he had taken to write it, the evasion and silence 
 the night before on the telephone and again at the begin- 
 ning of luncheon, when he tried to extract a frank 
 opinion. . . . Manders, then, was rejecting the play . . . 
 and trying to be considerate. . . . 
 
 "We don't mince matters at rehearsal," he said with a 
 breathless laugh. "You think the play's hopeless?" 
 
 Manders looked relieved, but he had known so many dis- 
 appointments himself and seen others so often crushed by 
 them that his brown, monkey eyes were full of pity. 
 
 "It no use at all. In its present form or any other. If 
 it had been any one but you, I wouldn't have read two
 
 pages of it. You may as well take the whole of your 
 physic, boy; you've got to stop writing for the present, 
 you've lost your sense of the theatre, you're forgetting all 
 the tricks you ever learned. D'you know, when I read that 
 thing, I thought for a moment that you were trying to 
 palm off some old thing that you'd written when you were 
 an undergrad?" 
 
 For a moment Eric lost his sense of distance; the long 
 coffee-room was full of shouting and discordant laughter; 
 a waiter, who seemed quite near, asked in a remote voice 
 whether he might take the black pepper. . . . Eric gripped 
 the edge of the table, praying that he might not disgrace 
 himself. 
 
 "I wonder why," he murmured faintly. 
 
 Manders shrugged his shoulders and filled both glasses 
 encouragingly. 
 
 "It often happens. Graham Lever had three plays run- 
 ning in London at the same time; then he chucked roman- 
 tic comedy and tried to write a revolt-of-the-younger-gen- 
 eration problem play. . . ." Manders omitted to add that 
 Lever had never had another play staged, but Eric's ten 
 years of dramatic criticism enabled him to fill the gap. 
 "George Sharpe failed again and again for eight years ; 
 he had one success and then failed for three. It would be 
 hard to think of a man who never loses his touch. Partly 
 it's the author and partly it's the audience; they get tired 
 . . . and, when one kind of play succeeds, all the other 
 men unconsciously imitate, and the managers can only see 
 money in that one kind, so that the public gets sated. With 
 you . . ." He paused to tear his bread into lumps and 
 throw it into his soup. "You probably want some fresh 
 air. You've been living in the theatre too much, you've 
 forgotten what real people are like. If you brought that 
 play down and read it to the company "
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 223 
 
 His aposiopesis suggested that there would be uproar 
 and danger to life. 
 
 "What had I better do?" Eric asked weakly. 
 
 "Frankly? Well, scrap your 'Singing Bird' and throw 
 your pen behind the fire. Don't try to write for six months. 
 After that, anything you like to send me ... I hope you 
 can eat this, by the way?" 
 
 Eric found that a sole, half-hidden by mussels, had been 
 placed before him. Manders had taken trouble about the 
 luncheon ; he was a good fellow and had tried to soften 
 the blow; throughout the time that they had worked to- 
 gether he had been patient and very human; he was try- 
 ing to part now on a pleasant note. "Anything you like 
 to send me . . ." It would certainly be read ; for a time 
 he would read it himself the next three failures, say. 
 And then . . . Eric wondered whether he would be able 
 to go back to journalism. The two successful plays would 
 keep him from starving, but he must make a livelihood 
 again . . . and count every shilling before he spent it. 
 The flat must go. ... 
 
 The long triumphal progress which he had enjoyed and 
 disdained rose up in accusing mockery. Here, then, was 
 the end of that life-long dream of domination. For a 
 time Lady Poynter would invite him to her house and 
 ask when the next play was coming out, but her nature and 
 the requirements of her sham-intellectual life demanded 
 that she should drop him when he no longer had any tricks 
 to display. Young Forbes Standish or Carlton Haig 
 "most promising young playwrights" would take his 
 place. Perhaps some one like George Oakleigh, who liked 
 him personally, would ask what had become of him; and 
 Lady Poynter would answer easily : "I haven't seen him 
 for a long time. I must find out whether he's in London 
 and get him to lunch one day." And then young Forbes 
 Standish would begin to criticize "The Bomb-Shell" or the
 
 224 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Divorce" with bland patronage. And every one at the 
 Thespian would be tactful and considerate. 
 
 "I feel as if I should never be able to write anything 
 again," Eric sighed. "This is the second facer I've had. 
 There was a novel I started. . . . I'm used up, Manders." 
 
 "Take a holiday and don't talk rot !" 
 
 Conversation languished through the rest of the meal, 
 and Eric hurried back to his office, pretending that he 
 could not spare time for coffee or a liqueur. It was an 
 office which he had once hated, because it absorbed time 
 and strength which he needed for his own work; he had 
 treated it cavalierly, from time to time writing letters of 
 resignation and throwing them into a drawer. As he set- 
 tled to the familiar table in the crowded, ill-lit room, he 
 wondered whether he would be of the lucky number for 
 whom the Government service would find openings at the 
 end of the war. He had yet to prove that he could earn a 
 living again as a journalist; and efficiency mattered little 
 in a civil servant, for, if his work were good, some one 
 else would get the credit, and, if it were bad, it would be 
 undiscovered. . . . 
 
 A drawling voice from the War Office broke in upon 
 his musings. Had not Mr. Lane been making enquiries 
 about a Captain Waring? His name was on the next list 
 of prisoners to be transferred to Switzerland ; his relations 
 would be informed officially. 
 
 Eric telephoned at once to Colonel Waring and Barbara. 
 As he dressed for dinner, Agnes arrived in a laden car 
 with both her parents, clamorous for help in securing pass- 
 ports. They were staying at the Charing Cross Hotel with 
 their boxes packed, waiting for further news, and the 
 radiance in their eyes scorched him. Barbara had re- 
 ceived the news almost without comment ; he wondered 
 what manner she would shew him; perhaps this was the 
 last time that they would ever meet. . . .
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 225 
 
 "I'm not sure that her ladyship's dressed" yet. ... If 
 you wouldn't mind waiting, sir. ... I have taken the 
 paper into her ladyship's room. ... I hope you've been 
 keeping well, sir. . . .?" 
 
 Eric started in physical pain at the familiar friendliness 
 of the old butler. The little confidences, introduced with 
 a deprecatory cough, floated down from a height one stair 
 above him. Barbara's room, as ever, was in chaos; her 
 kitten, roused by his entrance, stretched herself and arched 
 her back. Then the other door opened, and Barbara hur- 
 ried in. Her arms were soft and cool as ever against his 
 cheeks, and he caught a well-remembered breath of carna- 
 tions as her head bent low on to his breast. He held her 
 dose; but his pressure suddenly relaxed, and he stepped 
 back. 
 
 "Don't you like kissing me any more?" she asked. "I've 
 been hungry for you all these months !" 
 
 "I was thinking what it would be like if you suddenly 
 took yourself out of my life," said Eric. 
 
 "Darling, why must you spoil the present by dragging 
 in the future?" 
 
 "I can't think of anything else." 
 
 Barbara took his arm and led him to a chair. 
 
 "I wish you didn't look so frightfully ill," she whispered. 
 "Have you been missing me? My dear, what a mess I 
 seem to have made of our lives ! Sit down ! Let me take 
 care of you ! Let me do what I can for you, darling ! It 
 isn't much !" 
 
 "I don't think I'd better stay, Babs," said Eric with 
 nervous indecision. "I'm bad company; I shall only get 
 on your nerves and upset you." 
 
 The girl shook her head sadly. 
 
 "I'm not so happy that there's much to spoil. Eric, I 
 sometimes think you don't quite understand. I'm not mis- 
 erable because I want Jack and can't get him. I don't
 
 226 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 know whether I want him or not; that's what makes the 
 suspense such a hell. . . . There was a time when I wasn't 
 sure whether I was in love with him or not. . . . He was 
 stronger that I was, he could have done anything with me. 
 If I hadn't felt his power, I should have paid no attention 
 to him, he couldn't have hurt me, I shouldn't have wanted 
 to punish him. Is that love ? I suppose it's one form. . . . 
 When I see him ... if he says he wants me ... I don't 
 know what I shall feel like. Love . . . ordinary love. . . . 
 There's never been anything to equal my love for you. . . . 
 So it hasn't been easy for me, has it? Ever since I met 
 you, I've pined to know what was going to happen to me." 
 
 Eric looked away and was silent for several moments. 
 She had made a romance of her oath to Jack and had 
 played dramatically with alternate ecstasy and despair, see- 
 ing herself as a woman cursed by God. She made a 
 romance of her twin Joves and dual obligations, seeing 
 herself as a woman fated to blight all who loved her. She 
 lived for "situations" and conflicts, experimenting in emo- 
 tion ; already a garment of romance had been woven round 
 Jack. 
 
 "I came to tell you that I'd seen the Warings to-day," 
 Eric said at length. "They're off to Switzerland as soon 
 as they can get their passports. If you'd care ... I 
 mean, I can write a letter from my office and enclose any- 
 thing; it wouldn't be censored then." 
 
 Barbara bent her head until her trembling lips were 
 hidden from him. 
 
 "It's like you to think of that ! Nobody's ever loved any 
 one as you love me! But I won't, Eric. If he wants 
 me . . ." 
 
 Eric stared at the fire, kicking one heel against the other 
 toe. If she was in agony of spirit, he could have sworn 
 that she was enjoying the agony. 
 
 "Yes, I love you more than any one else ever has. . . .
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 227 
 
 It gives you enormous gratification. . . . But I wonder if 
 you think it's anything more than your own cleverness. I 
 suppose you have some love for me. . . . But, if he wants 
 you, I shall drop out of your life. ... I was happy, I 
 didn't need you ! You wrapped yourself round my life 
 until you saw that I couldn't do without you, and then 
 if he infants you! What have you left for me?" 
 
 "Is it nothing to have brought me happiness ?" she asked ; 
 but his deep-toned reproach, unrehearsed, unstudied and 
 faltering, had broken through her surface emotions and 
 shattered her self-absorption. "Eric, I'm not every one! 
 Your work " 
 
 "D'you think I can ever write again? You never did 
 think much of anything I wrote " 
 
 "You know that I was only teasing you! That first 
 night, when you were so dreadfully pleased with yourself. 
 . . . But I found you were human, after all, when I came 
 home with you " 
 
 "And broke 'the child's toy.' " 
 
 "Ah, why did you remind me of that?" 
 
 "I was reminded of it myself to-day. I'm not super- 
 stitious, but my luck has gone. I can't write any more." 
 
 "Eric, that's not true!" 
 
 He compressed his lips and shrugged his shoulders, re- 
 signedly. 
 
 "You know best, no doubt. Since we met, I've written 
 the first draft of a novel, which is unreadable, and a play. 
 ... I sent the play to Manders about a fortnight ago." 
 
 "Without telling me ? Don't you like sharing things with 
 me any longer?" 
 
 The soft reproach in her voice maddened him. She 
 seemed incapable of seeing that she wanted the whole of 
 him at a time when she was herself momentarily drawing 
 away. 
 
 "You choose a curious time to ask that question ! There's
 
 228 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 nothing to share. It's turned down, rejected. Nothing I 
 can do to it will make it even possible. I can't write any 
 more, I'm used up. . . . Yes, we may fairly say that my 
 luck has gone. And that night, you may remember, you 
 recommended me to fall in love, because it would be so 
 good for me. . . ." 
 
 Since the exchange of incapacitated prisoners began, 
 there had been so many delays and disappointments that 
 the Warings remained in London, with what patience they 
 could muster, until they received news that Jack's party 
 was proceeding to Chateau d'Oex. 
 
 For reasons which he was at a loss to define Eric saw 
 them off at Charing Cross. They found time amid their 
 jubilation to be grateful to him for his trouble in making 
 enquiries at the War Office and in expediting the issue of 
 their passports. As chairman of his local military tribunal, 
 the colonel could not be absent from England for any long 
 time on end, but they were proposing tentatively and sub- 
 ject to Jack's condition of health to take a villa and to stay 
 with him by turns. Agnes and her father expected to 
 come back after a week or ten days, leaving Mrs. Waring 
 in charge until Christmas. 
 
 As they chatted artificially by the carriage door, there 
 was radiance in the faces of all three; the colonel seemed 
 more upright, Mrs. Waring had shed her set, stoical calm 
 and, with it, about ten years. 
 
 "You won't forget to write, Agnes," said Eric, as the 
 guard bustled along the platform, breaking up the little 
 groups like a sheep-dog. 
 
 "It may be only a line, but I'll tell you everything when 
 we get back," she promised. 
 
 A week passed before her letter reached him.
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 229 
 
 "We got here after the most impossible journey," Agnes 
 wrote from Chateau d'Oex, "and Jack came to us yester~ 
 day. You can't imagine what it was like, seeing him again 
 when we'd NEARLY given up hope! He's very bad but I 
 suppose I'd better start at the beginning. When he was 
 taken prisoner, he'd been wounded in the head and slightly 
 gassed. The gassing doesn't matter, except that he will 
 always have to take care of his lungs; the head wound has 
 left a scar and a bald place, but he can cover that up. At 
 present he gets the most awful head-aches if he tries to do 
 any work. The Germans let him go because he was sim- 
 ply wasting away on the horrible food they gave him to 
 eat, and he's like a skeleton now. But we're going to feed 
 him up and put tliat right, and then it'll just be a question 
 hozv much work and what kind of work he'll be able to do 
 when he's well. 
 
 "He's alive, Eric, and that's the great thing. And he's 
 well and strong compared with some of the ghastly wrecks 
 that you see here. I must wait till we meet before I give 
 you a ftill account of ail he's been through, but Major 
 Britwell's story was quite true so far as it went. He DID 
 insult the guard and he WAS carried off to solitary confine- 
 ment for nine months. He won't talk much about that, 
 though, but he had a most awful time; I honestly wonder 
 that he came through it alive and in his right mind. 1 
 could cry when I look at the men here and think what 
 they've suffered. But they CAN'T go through it again, Eric; 
 that's one of the terms of their release, of course. They're 
 out of the war for good; and it may be very unpatriotic, 
 but I for one say 'Thank God!' 
 
 "Well, I must come to business. Father and I are stay- 
 ing here for another week, and I want you to do a lot of 
 jobs for us. On a separate sheet you'll find a number of 
 things that I want you to order and have sent out here. 
 And on the back of this you'll find a list of names and
 
 2 3 o THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 addresses. There's so much to do, getting this house 
 straight, that I've very little time for writing. I want you 
 to be an angel and ring up all these people and just tell 
 them (you know them all, I think) what I've told you. 
 
 "Jack sends love to you, and we are all deeply grateful 
 for what you have done and what I know you will do for 
 us. I don't think there are any other messages." 
 
 The list of names did not contain Barbara's. Eric tele- 
 phoned to her as soon as he had received the letter, though 
 he knew that she would be in bed and that a tiresome 
 footman would say: "I don't think her ladyship's been 
 called yet, sir. Perhaps you would ring up later." With 
 patience he got into communication with her and read out 
 the first pages of the letter. When she had thanked him, 
 he asked with trepidation whether she had heard from Jack. 
 An hour seemed to pass while she rang for her letters and 
 looked at the postmarks. 
 
 "There's nothing from Switzerland," she announced at 
 length. 
 
 Eric's heart leapt with relief. Agnes had written ; surely 
 Jack could have written, too, had he wished? In the en- 
 suing silence Barbara's voice, suddenly toneless, came back 
 to him. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Babs, for your sake." 
 
 "Thank you, darling." 
 
 "I'll make a point of seeing Agnes as soon as she gets 
 back to England," he went on. 
 
 "Thank you, darling." 
 
 "And, of course, I'll let you know anything there is to 
 know. Very likely you'll get a letter before I see her." 
 
 "Perhaps I shall." Her voice trembled; and Eric, ceas- 
 ing to weight justice or consider provocation, wished that 
 he had Jack Waring's throat between his hands. "Well, 
 I mustn't keep you from your work. Thank you for tell- 
 ing me, Eric."
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 231 
 
 "Good-bye, Babs. I suppose it wouldn't amuse you to 
 lunch or dine with me anywhere?" 
 
 "Not to-day, I think. But I love you for asking me. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 For a week he wrote to her twice daily, trying to forget 
 himself in the effort to keep her amused. They met once 
 at dinner with Lady Maitland; and it hurt him absurdly 
 when as a matter of rituaf he was detailed to see Barbara 
 home. On the day named, Colonel Waring and Agnes 
 arrived in London and telephoned, asking him to dine with 
 them at their hotel. 
 
 Trepidation had become his normal mood, and Eric 
 walked into the lounge with his teeth set and the muscles of 
 his cheeks hard. The burgeoning happiness of Agnes was 
 harder to bear than ever, but he achieved a tolerable effect 
 as the undemonstrative, phlegmatic Englishman and min- 
 gled suitable congratulations with his many questions. 
 
 "I handed on the good news to every one you mentioned," 
 he said at the end of dinner. "And to one or two others 
 who I thought would be interested to hear it. Did he 
 send me any jobs or messages?" 
 
 "He wants a pipe, but father can get that. I don't think 
 he sent any messages." 
 
 Eric looked at his watch and begged to be excused. It 
 was half-past ten, and he had telephoned to say that he 
 would call for Barbara at eleven and bring her home from 
 a party in Portman Square. 
 
 When he reached the house, Eric was disconcerted to 
 learn that Barbara had already left. He was slightly less 
 surprised, on reaching home, to find the hall ablaze with 
 light and Barbara lying at full length on a sofa with her 
 cloak trailing on the carpet and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne 
 clutched in one hand. 
 
 She started and opened her eyes as he came into the 
 room.
 
 232 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Eric, did you go ... ? I'm sorry! I couldn't wait, I 
 couldn't bear being with people. I've been asleep. I've got 
 such a racking headache, darling." 
 
 Eric took a bottle of aspirin from the drawer of his 
 writing-table. 
 
 "Have you had any of this to-day?" he asked. "Then I 
 can give you fifteen grains. Wait till I've got some water." 
 He returned with a tumbler and two cushions and seated 
 himself at her feet. "Have you heard anything fresh from 
 Switzerland?" he asked. "Well, I'm afraid I haven't, 
 either. I dined with Colonel Waring and Agnes to-night, 
 as you know." 
 
 Barbara had uncovered her eyes to hold the tumbler ; but 
 she set it on the floor, as he began to speak, and shielded 
 her face. 
 
 "H-how is he?" she asked. 
 
 "He gets tired rather quickly, but otherwise he's all right. 
 Leading quite a normal life, I mean." 
 
 His words were deliberately chosen to shew that Jack 
 was in a state to have written, had he wished. His choice 
 was not wasted on her. 
 
 "And what now, Eric?" she asked. 
 
 "Isn't that for you to say?" 
 
 Barbara uncovered her eyes again and looked slowly 
 round the room. It had become so familiar that she no 
 longer noticed its shape or colouring. Instinctively she 
 knew that the sofa demanded a cushion at her back and 
 that the arm-chair between the fire and window did not. 
 But she had never, until now, consciously observed the 
 carpet and curtains, the breast-high white book-cases and 
 Chippendale writing-table, since the first night when she 
 came there and stood tossing a glass horse-shoe idly into 
 the air and stealing curious glances at the furniture. 
 
 She recognized it all now and remembered her earliest
 
 233 
 
 emotions, remembered even telling him that the first burn- 
 ing cigarette would spoil his grey carpet. But her vision 
 was blurred; she fancied herself seeing through the walls, 
 penetrating a belt of darkness and piercing other walls be- 
 yond which she sat at supper with an undemonstrative, 
 quietly determined young man. The jig and stamp of rag- 
 time echoed overhead "Dixie! All abo-o-oard for Dixie! 
 Dixie! Tak your tickuts heere for Dixie!"; she heard her 
 own voice "I love that one-step. Why did you drag me 
 away in the middle?" and Jack Waring's in answer 
 "Well, you ought to be grateful to me for getting you a 
 table before the rush starts." That was a few hours before 
 war was declared, though the long banqueting-hall of Lor- 
 ing Castle had resounded with rumours and expositions of 
 war throughout dinner. Almost at once Jack asked her to 
 marry him ; she once *rtore heard his tranquil explanation 
 "I've just been received into your church." 
 
 A blaze of light. ... A thunder of voices. . . . Out of 
 the distance she heard him saying, "In fact, you've been 
 lying to me all along ? You never intended to marry me ?" 
 
 A blaze of light; and silence that made her head sing. 
 Jack's face seemed to grow thinner and the gleam in his 
 eyes more brightly cold. The supper-room was emptying, 
 but neither could decide to stand up and say good-bye. 
 Lord Summertown and a brother-officer waltzed in and 
 became noisily cheerful in one corner. Later they heard 
 a car driving past the open windows ; George Oakleigh 
 appeared in the doorway; Summer-town's companion fin- 
 ished the champagne and rose to his feet protesting 
 fretfully : "To declare war in the middle of supper is not 
 the act of a gentleman. . . ." Then at last she had seen 
 that she had tempted Jack to imperil his soul. . . . 
 
 War had seemed a small thing then, though Jack Sum- 
 mertown was to be killed within six weeks and her cousin
 
 234 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 Jim within a year. It was a thing remote and only impor- 
 tant as postponing her punishment from Jack. 
 
 "I must get back to London," he said suddenly. "I'm 
 going to ask Summertown for a seat in his car." 
 
 For dragging minutes she felt her soul being crucified. 
 While Jack stood talking in the hall or on the steps, she 
 tried to conceal from herself what she had done and, when 
 that was impossible, to nerve herself to make reparation. 
 Then she was blinded by the glare of the head-lights and 
 opened her eyes to find that the car had swept beyond reach 
 of her voice. . . . 
 
 Once again everything was warm and dark in the sum- 
 mer night. . . . Slowly the distant wail of the orchestra 
 died from her ears. She had a vague memory of going 
 upstairs with Oakleigh and of seeing him draw Jim aside 
 and whisper to him, but between them lingered a white face 
 with incredulous eyes, and above the music hammered the 
 sound of a broken sentence: "So this was your revenge?" 
 And then, calling Jim to witness, she made the sign of the 
 Cross and swore that she would offer herself, body and 
 soul, to Jack, if he wanted her. . . . 
 
 The noise faded out of hearing, and she was once more 
 in a room of blazing light; a man was looking at her, 
 silent, white- faced and reproachful; and a new phrase was 
 beating on her brain. 
 
 "I want to know what you're going to do now?" 
 
 She stretched out her hand; but Eric did not take it, 
 and her eyes wandered once more idly round the room. 
 The forgotten curtains and grey carpet, the writing-table 
 and neat pile of manuscript flung back to her memory the 
 summer night when she had first come to disturb his peace 
 of mind. 
 
 "I make every one miserable!" she cried, and both 
 started at the violation of their long silence. 
 
 Eric's head sank lower; but his eyes never left her face.
 
 EDUCATION FOR RIPER YEARS 235 
 
 That night she had been like an animal tortured to mad- 
 ness ; since that night she had taken all that his love could 
 give her and had repaid it by torturing him to madness in 
 his turn, by destroying his health and ruining his work. 
 
 "Eric, I want to give you everything, but I've sworn to 
 God! Until I've seen Jack. . . ." 
 
 "You've broken your oath in everything but form. 
 From the first night we met you've belonged to me in all 
 but name." 
 
 "But won't you wait? Oh, why will you drive me?" 
 
 "I'm not driving you, Babs. I've not asked for any- 
 thing." 
 
 She stood up and drew her cloak round her, glancing 
 once at him and turning quickly away as she saw his 
 hunched body and haggard face. One after the other she 
 slowly drew on her gloves, looking with misty eyes for 
 her bag. As she moved to the door, Eric rose and opened 
 it, gathering up his overcoat with the other hand. They 
 had parted like this so often that he no longer seemed to 
 care. ... A four-wheeler was ambling along Ryder 
 Street, and he hailed it.- Neither spoke until it drew up 
 opposite her house and she saw him fumbling with the 
 handle. Then she laid her fingers on his wrist and chok- 
 ingly bade him stop. 
 
 "I'll marry you, Eric," she said. 
 
 "Thank you, Barbara." 
 
 She hurried out before he could kiss her and stood with 
 face upturned and eyes tightly shut. God, who had heard 
 the oath taken and broken, was free to strike her now; if 
 He held His hand, it was because He had more subtle 
 punishment in store. . . . 
 
 Barbara pulled her cloak over her chest and ran de- 
 spairingly into the house.
 
 236 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "Loneliness may be so intolerable that I believe God 
 would forgive us our blindest groping after alleviation. 
 But would God forgive me, if, in my groping, I brought 
 such misery of loneliness to another, knozving now what 
 manner of thing it is?" From the Diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 
 
 "Tarn saepe nostrum decipi Fabullinum 
 Miraris, Aule? Semper homo bonus tiro est." 
 
 MARTIAL. 
 
 "// you care for a six-months' lecturing tour in Amer- 
 ica," wrote Grierson, "I have an unrivalled offer. You 
 would start in the New Year. . . ." 
 
 His agent's letter was the first that Eric opened on the 
 morning after Barbara promised to marry him. As he 
 lay half-awake, waiting to be called, he realized that some- 
 thing had changed the foundations of his life; he was at 
 peace, well and strong, with a heart tuned for adventure 
 and a new tireless energy. 
 
 Six o'clock. . . . Seven. . . . Eight. . . . He carried 
 the telephone into the smoking-room, lest he should be 
 tempted to disturb Barbara, and paced bare-foot up and 
 down, wondering how to inaugurate the new life. In 
 marrying a Protestant, she would forfeit the money which 
 she had received under her god-father's will ; henceforward 
 he must work and earn for two. In his safe lay a brown- 
 paper parcel containing the manuscript of a novel, un- 
 opened since the day when Gaisford so contumeliously 
 flung it back at him. Eric carried the despised book into 
 his bedroom and began to skim the pages. With his new 
 sense of power, he would so re-write it that the doctor 
 should eat humble-pie; and there would be a slice for 
 
 237
 
 238 
 
 Manders too. It was no good trying him with another 
 version of the "Singing-Bird"; but "Mother's Son," which 
 had lain neglected ever since it was sent back three years 
 before, needed only a word of change and a touch of pol- 
 ish. October, November, December. . . . Eric would be 
 ready for America in the New Year. 
 
 The next letter was from Agnes, begging him to write 
 occasionally to Jack; the next from Lady Lane, wonder- 
 ing when he was coming to Lashmar. A firm of topical 
 photographers respectfully begged leave to send a repre- 
 sentative by appointment to interview Mr. Lane and to en- 
 rich their gallery with a few camera-studies of the house 
 and of the author at work. The other letters were in- 
 vitations and charitable appeals. 
 
 At ten o'clock he telephoned to ask when he could see 
 Barbara, but was told that she had not yet been called. 
 After two more unsuccessful attempts, he sent a note by 
 hand, inviting himself to tea, and spent the rest of the 
 morning at work on the manuscript of his novel. Shortly 
 before luncheon his interviewer arrived with an assistant 
 bearing a camera, and for half an hour the flat was filled 
 with the smoke and powder of the magnesium flares. 
 Eric submitted sheepishly to being "discovered" looking 
 (in profile) out of his dining-room window, to being "in- 
 terrupted" at his desk (three-quarter face), to being found 
 taking a moment's respite for thought and a cigarette 
 (full face, with his back to the smoking-room fire) ; finally 
 he was dressed up in hat and coat and shewn to be saying 
 good-bye in the hall. While the assistant packed up his 
 camera and tripod, Eric allowed himself to be interrogated 
 on his past and future work, his plans and views of art. 
 
 "Have you anything new?" asked the interviewer. "I've 
 got all the old stuff out of 'Who's Who' " 
 
 Eric spoke vaguely of the novel, the play and the course 
 of lectures in America, remembering the threadbare com-
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 239 
 
 monplaces of such illustrated interviews as he had read; it 
 were fruitless to fancy that he could vary the form or 
 fact of what was being so industriously scribbled down. 
 
 "Nothing expected for some months? I must work up 
 the back stock. I shall want you to tell me in a minute 
 what started you writing plays. . . . Now, about your en- 
 gagement ?" 
 
 "My engagement?" Eric echoed. 
 
 The man nodded and moistened the end of his pencil 
 in anticipation. 
 
 "Why, that's what I'm here for ! I don't say," he added 
 apologetically, "that this stuff wouldn't stand by itself 
 or come in useful, anyway." 
 
 "I'm afraid I don't quite follow." 
 
 The man looked at him in patient surprise. 
 
 "We supply all the pictures for 'The World and His 
 Wife,' " he explained. "They 'phoned through to know 
 if we could let them have up-to-date photographs of you 
 and Lady Barbara Neave " 
 
 "But you spoke of an engagement." 
 
 "Isn't it true, then?" 
 
 "This sort of thing is really intolerable !" Eric cried. "I 
 don't want to tell other people how to run their business, 
 but in common decency your firm might wait for an of- 
 ficial announcement in 'The Times' instead of circulating 
 these rumours " 
 
 "It's only a rumour, then ?" said the interviewer blankly, 
 pocketing his note-book. 
 
 As he walked to Berkeley Square, Eric decided that, by 
 telling Barbara of his encounter, he would annoy her with- 
 out bringing relief to himself. The announcement, when 
 it came, would be made with imposing ceremony after a 
 meeting between his father and Lord Crawleigh, an ad- 
 justment of religious differences and a distressingly ma- 
 terial discussion of settlements. There would be ponderous
 
 240 
 
 debates and irritating disagreements; Barbara and he both 
 needed a respite for recuperation. . . . 
 
 "I telephoned three times this morning," said Eric, as he 
 was shewn into the drawing-room. "I did so want to talk 
 to you ! I was so happy I couldn't sleep." 
 
 "I couldn't sleep, either," said Barbara huskily, holding 
 out one hand and covering her eyes with the other. 
 
 "Aren't you going to kiss me?" 
 
 "If you like. It's your right now." 
 
 Eric let fall her hand and drew back, biting his lip. 
 
 "That's not a very pretty thing to say, darling," he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "I'm sorry. . . . I've been haunted all night. It seemed 
 as if God must strike me down. . . . And, whenever I fell 
 asleep, Jack was there, reproaching me, mocking me " 
 
 "He's had his chance," Eric interrupted sharply. "You 
 start absolutely free." 
 
 "You mean he's rejected me?" 
 
 After the tragic talk of God's striking her down for tak- 
 ing His name in vain, Eric could not attune himself 
 readily to a whimper of wounded vanity. Barbara's dra- 
 matic intensity had hitherto been convincing, and he had 
 never imagined that she was unhappy because she had 
 offered herself to a man and he had repelled her. 
 
 "I mean it's all over. You've no reason to reproach 
 yourself, Babs. ... I want to talk to you about seeing 
 your father " 
 
 She stopped him with a shudder, and Eric found a dif- 
 ficulty in curbing his impatience. Trying a fresh cast, he 
 described his latest invitation to lecture in America. Bar- 
 bara listened with half her attention, mechanically agreeing 
 that it would be an experience and a change, mechanically 
 accepting his figures and wounding him with an indif- 
 ference which was made greater by her early love of shar- 
 ing his triumphs with him. He hunted through a pile
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 241 
 
 of letters and gave her one in which the previous occupant 
 of his flat offered generous terms for the remainder of 
 the lease. 
 
 "We must decide some time when we're going to be 
 married," he said, "and where we're going to live." 
 
 "Please, Eric!" 
 
 He looked at her in amazement and drew slowly away 
 from her side, walking to the fire-place and resting his 
 forehead on his arm. 
 
 "I don't ... I don't understand what's the matter," 
 he murmured at length. "Last night . . . You did it of 
 your own free will, Babs. . . . And unless you wanted to 
 hurt me more completely and ingeniously than you've ever 
 succeeded in doing before " 
 
 The girl winced and covered her face with her hands. 
 
 "I wouldn't hurt you for the world!" she whispered. 
 "Ah! God! I wish I'd never met you, I wish I'd never 
 been born! Don't you see that I couldn't go on taking, 
 taking, taking with both hands all your sweetness and 
 gentleness, everything and giving you nothing in return? 
 When you said that I'd spoiled your work . . . Didn't I 
 see that I'd already ruined your health and made you misei>- 
 able ? I tried to make amends, but it wasn't in my power. 
 I ought never to have given you that promise!" 
 
 "Don't you love me any more, Babs ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Well, what have I done since last night?" 
 
 "You haven't done anything. ... It was a letter. . . . 
 You remember about Jim Loring's ball just before the 
 war " 
 
 Eric drew her head on to his shoulder and kissed her. 
 
 "My darling, that's all so long ago ! Why distress your- 
 self with it now?" 
 
 "Jack was staying with the Knightriders," she persisted. 
 "Kathleen Knightrider's the only soul who's ever sus-
 
 242 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 pected. . . . / never told her. She's heard that Jack has 
 been sent to Switzerland and she wrote this morning to 
 to congratulate me! I tried to make amends to Jack too. 
 . . . Oh, the mockery of it! All last night I saw the two 
 of you pulling, pulling . . ." 
 
 "He's had his chance," Eric told her again. 
 
 "I wish God had struck me down," she whispered. 
 
 Eric invented an excuse to leave early, for, when Bar- 
 bara was not reproaching herself for the engagement, she 
 affected the abject humility of a slave whom he had 
 bought for his pleasure. Perhaps she was amusing her- 
 self with a new emotion, perhaps she wanted to keep him 
 alert and suspended, perhaps she enjoyed the vision of 
 herself torn between the two men who wanted her more 
 than anything in the world. . . . 
 
 For the second morning in succession Barbara did not 
 telephone. Eric waited until noon and then asked her to 
 dine with him. 
 
 "I will, if you want me to," she answered with the new 
 servile listlessness ; and he wondered again whether she 
 was trying to exact some novel abandonment of adoration 
 or to exhaust him by passive resistance. "I believe we 
 have people dining," she added. 
 
 "Well, choose some other night," he suggested. 
 
 "Oh, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. And I'm go- 
 ing to the country to-morrow." 
 
 "But I thought you were going to be in London till 
 Christmas." 
 
 "I'm supposed to be ill," she answered and hung up the 
 receiver before he could say anything more. 
 
 Eric returned to his work, affecting unconsciousness of 
 her alternating indifference and hostility. In the afternoon
 
 243 
 
 Agnes Waring telephoned to say that she was unexpectedly 
 in London and would like to have tea with him. He wel- 
 comed her cordially, only hoping that she would not stay 
 long enough to clash with Babs, and, guiltily reminded of 
 her letter, put aside his work and began writing to Jack. 
 Once or twice, as he paused to fill his pipe, the old feeling 
 of duplicity came back, as on the Sundays when he walked 
 home from Red Roofs in jubilation after Agnes had told 
 him with her unchanging composure that there was still 
 no news of her brother. And now he was writing a 
 gossipy, facetious letter. . . . Eric tore the envelope in two 
 and then hesitated. Jack had been given his opportu- 
 nity, and he had not taken it. 
 
 Agnes did not arrive until nearly six o'clock and then 
 came attended by a young officer. 
 
 "You remember Mr. Benyon," she said. "We brought 
 him to dine at the Mill-House last year. He hadn't seen 
 'The Bomb-Shell,' so we went to the matinee to-day." 
 
 "Jolly good, if I may say so," murmured Benyon. 
 "Hope you don't mind my buttin' in like this? Agnes 
 said " 
 
 "I obviously couldn't come here alone, Dick," she in- 
 terrupted; and Eric wondered whether they would have 
 left before Barbara came alone to dine with him. 
 
 He wondered too what intimacy Agnes had reached with 
 this young man who was beginning to recur in her life and 
 conversation. They had attained the Christian name mile- 
 stone without passing it ; and she seemed to have brought 
 him as a challenge. Whenever Eric flagged in attention, 
 Agnes brought Benyon up like an army of reserve; when- 
 ever Benyon fancied that he had won a position, she 
 rounded on her own reinforcements and admitted Eric to 
 a private intimacy of conversation about Jack. It was a 
 new part for her to play, but no woman seemed able to re- 
 sist the intoxication of having two men interested in her
 
 244 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 at the same time. If only she knew that his interest had 
 died more than a year ago, on the night when Barbara sat 
 in that room, on that sofa. . . . Perhaps she did know. 
 He caught her looking at him with an expression which 
 changed almost before their eyes met. Was it desperation, 
 defiance, an indifferent resolve to give him one last chance 
 or his own hypercritical fancy? 
 
 They were still talking when Barbara was announced. 
 
 "Gracious ! Is it eight?" Agnes cried, looking at her 
 watch. "I thought it was only seven. We must fly. 
 Dick's taking me to a revue." 
 
 "Won't you wait for a cocktail?" Eric asked. "By the 
 way, I don't think you know Lady Barbara Neave. Miss 
 Waring, Babs. Mr. Benyon." 
 
 The two girls shook hands, and Agnes began searching 
 for her gloves and purse, hurriedly declining Eric's invita- 
 tion. 
 
 "I used to know your brother quite well before the 
 war," said Barbara. "I was so thankful to hear your 
 good news." 
 
 Agnes looked up with a quick smile. 
 
 "We never quite lost hope," she said. 
 
 "Eric told me that you and your people had been out 
 to see him in Switzerland. How did you find him?" 
 
 The smile died away in wistfulness. 
 
 "Well, he's alive, and that's the great thing," Agnes an- 
 swered. "The doctors out there don't seem to think that 
 he'll ever be able to do much work with his head again; 
 he'll probably have to give up the bar and live out of doors. 
 You can understand that, when a man's just begun to get 
 a practice together " 
 
 "But is that quite certain ?" Barbara interrupted. 
 
 "N-no. But it seems probable. There's a report that 
 some of the bad cases are going to be sent home. Then 
 we shall see."
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 245 
 
 Eric watched the faces of the two girls. Barbara's ex- 
 pressed nothing more than the conventional sympathy of 
 one stranger hearing of another's misfortune; a few 
 months earlier Agnes had not known that Jack and Bar- 
 bara were even acquainted. 
 
 "How soon do you expect him ?" asked Barbara. 
 
 "Oh, I don't think anything's been decided yet. And you 
 know how long these things take. . . . Eric, if I'd had 
 any idea how late it was ... !" 
 
 He accompanied her to the door and returned to find 
 Barbara still standing, still in her cloak. The flicker of 
 animation which she had presented on meeting Agnes had 
 died down, and she was again the sport of man and the 
 plaything of fate. 
 
 "I like her, Eric," she remarked thoughtfully. "Why 
 don't you marry her? Any one can see she's in love with 
 you." 
 
 "You're the only person in the world I want to marry," 
 he answered. 
 
 Barbara's face twisted in a spasm of pain. 
 
 "God! How it hurts when you say that! Eric, I shall 
 make you miserable and be miserable myself ! I love you ; 
 you know I love you! But I don't want to marry you. 
 Why don't you forget me ? Go away " 
 
 "Forget you!" Eric gripped her by the shoulders. 
 "What d'you think would be left, if I lost you?" 
 
 Her eyes opened wide with wonder. 
 
 "You can't love me as much as that, Eric !" 
 
 "I love you so much that I'd sooner have an air-raid 
 to-night and a bomb on my head here, now, than lose you ! 
 You're the whole world to me !" 
 
 She shook her head miserably and without hope of flat- 
 tering reassurance. 
 
 "I could have killed myself when you told me that I'd 
 destroyed your power of work," she whispered. "And to-
 
 246 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 night, when that girl said that Jack might never be able 
 to work again . . . It's what I should feel, if we mar- 
 ried and I couldn't bear children! I should be incom- 
 plete, useless!" 
 
 "But you're not responsible." 
 
 "I might make things easier. . . ." 
 
 So compassion was coming to reinforce or supplant 
 vanity. . . . Eric felt that he knew Barbara's moods in 
 advance. Lady Knightrider a curse on her name had 
 started by setting every nerve on edge; the sight of Agnes 
 Waring with Jack's eyes, hair and voice had completed 
 her discomfiture; and Barbara had been morbidly drawing 
 one unhappy picture after another. Jack was incapaci- 
 tated; and, with his pride, he would never win through 
 pity what he had failed to win on merit. Incapacitated or 
 not, Jack was a pauper ; and, with his fantastic honour, he 
 would regard himself as an outcast from Barbara's society. 
 
 "Even if he can't go back to the bar," said Eric at 
 length, "his father will have no difficulty in getting him a 
 job. Lord Waring could take him on as his agent." 
 
 "Oh, I never thought he'd starve! But it must be such 
 a disappointment." 
 
 "Well, the war's been such a mix-up that seven men out 
 of ten will change their careers, when they come back. 
 . . . Babs ... do you care for Jack as much as that?" 
 
 She looked up quickly with a gleam of hope in her eyes. 
 
 "Are you going to forget my promise?" 
 
 "No! I asked whether you cared for Jack as much as 
 all that." 
 
 Barbara shook her head in bewilderment. 
 
 "I've given you my heart, Eric. But I owe Jack my 
 soul." 
 
 Behind the neat phrasing of the professional trafficker in 
 emotions, Eric felt that she was trying to weary him of 
 their forty-eight hours' engagement. . . .
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 247 
 
 At the beginning of November Eric went to Lashmar for 
 a long week-end. After the first days of his engagement 
 he had hardly seen or heard anything of Barbara. She 
 was presumably at Crawleigh Abbey, but for a week she 
 answered no more than one letter out of three; after that, 
 with a sense that he could do nothing right and that they 
 were fretting each other's nerves, he ceased to correspond 
 and was trying to absorb and exhaust himself with work. 
 Now his novel was in the agent's hand, and "Mother's 
 Son" had been sent to Manders. 
 
 As he dawdled before a book-stall at Waterloo, Eric's 
 eye was caught by "The World and His Wife" contents' 
 bill, which announced, with other attractions, an "Illus- 
 trated Interview with Mr. Eric Lane." There had not 
 been time for him to receive the article from his news- 
 cutting agency, and he bought a copy to read in the train. 
 The pictures were well reproduced, and he was by now 
 so hardened to the perverse inaccuracy and genial blatancy 
 of the letter-press that he hardly blushed at the aspirations 
 which were attributed to him, until his attention was ar- 
 rested in mid-paragraph by Barbara's name. Collecting 
 himself and glancing almost guiltily round the somnolent 
 carriage, he turned back to the beginning. 
 
 "Rumour has been busy with the names of Mr. Lane 
 and of Lady Barbara Neave, only daughter of the Mar- 
 quess of Crawleigh. No official announcement has been 
 made, but the young people have been going about together 
 a good deal lately; some of our readers may have seen 
 them at the PREMIERE of 'The Bomb-Shell.' The Stage 
 has of recent years surrendered so much of its beauty and 
 talent to the Peerage that it is high time for the Peerage 
 to make this romantic return to the Stage. . . . Mr. Lane's 
 advice to budding playwrights is reminiscent of Mr.
 
 Punch's famous advice to those about to marry 'Don't.' 
 Though the 'Divorce' was his first play to be produced, 
 it was not the first that he had written; like most authors, 
 he had to buy experience. . . /' 
 
 There was nothing in the rest of the article to incrimi- 
 nate him, but the offending paragraph was enough in it- 
 self. Guiltily Eric looked round a second time. Two of 
 his fellow-passengers, slumbering with mouths agape, were 
 clutching "The World and His Wife'' to their stomachs; 
 it was the one periodical of later date than "Punch" 
 and the monthly reviews which his parents took in at 
 the Mill-House. Saturday was made eventful by its 
 appearance; even Sir Francis interested himself in the 
 full-page studies of actresses and debutantes, the 
 house-party groups and snapshots of celebrities in the 
 Park. . . . 
 
 As he climbed into the car Eric was careful to let Sybil 
 see that he was carrying the paper in his hand. She had 
 scarcely wormed her way out of the traffic and shot free 
 along the Melton road before she nodded towards the 
 bulging strap of his despatch-box. 
 
 "Is that true, Ricky?" 
 
 "Is what true?" 
 
 "That you're engaged to that woman?" 
 
 "Does the paper say so?" Eric enquired loftily. "By 
 the way, Barbara Neave is a great friend of mine, and I 
 don't very much care about hearing her described as 'that 
 woman. . . .' I think the paper only said that 'rumour' 
 had 'been busy with' our 'names.' Rumour's been dam- 
 nably busy ; it won't leave us alone !" 
 
 His sister was silent for some moments. 
 
 "I hope to Heaven you're not going to make a fool of 
 yourself with her," she exclaimed at length. "She'll wear 
 you out, spoil your work, make you bankrupt in a 
 month "
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 249 
 
 "Isn't this rather sweeping about some one you've never 
 even met ?" Eric interposed gently. 
 
 "You take such jolly good care that we shouldn't meet 
 her," Sybil answered at a tangent. 
 
 While he dressed for dinner Lady Lane came into his 
 bedroom, more diplomatic but no whit less insistent. As 
 his mother, she was prepared to make the best of every- 
 thing and to suppress her own feelings; but, if Eric had 
 committed a crime, he could not have felt greater distaste 
 in putting her off with half-truths. 
 
 "You'll tell us when there's anything to tell?" begged 
 his mother, as they went down to dinner; and Eric felt 
 that he might have saved his elaborate prevarications for 
 a more gullible audience. Sir Francis made no direct 
 allusion throughout the week-end, but, as they sat over 
 their wine on the first night, he enquired spasmodically 
 how old Eric was, how much money he had made during 
 the last year and what literary ventures he had in con- 
 templation. 
 
 It was a relief to walk over to Red Roofs next day and 
 have tea with Agnes Waring and her father. For an hour 
 he was spared even indirect references to the unhappy in- 
 terview, though in his over-sensitive condition he fancied 
 that Agnes was unwontedly frigid in manner, as though 
 a new barrier had been placed between them. Conversation 
 centred about her brother. Humanly speaking, he would 
 be released from Switzerland within a few weeks and 
 would come either to Paris or London ; he was, of course, 
 debarred from active service, but the War Office would 
 no doubt test his capabilities of health and brain either 
 in Whitehall or at the Ministere de la Guerre. Eric could 
 count on seeing him almost any day in England, or, if 
 he could invent a mission, in Paris. 
 
 Only when she had walked through the garden to send 
 him on his way across the fields did Agnes touch on the
 
 250 
 
 offending article. They were standing on opposite sides of 
 a sun-dial at the end of a fruit-walk ; and both were recall- 
 ing the earlier Sundays when Eric had asked with sympa- 
 thetically lowered voice: "No news of Jack, I suppose?" 
 
 "You're looking as if you wanted a holiday," Agnes 
 volunteered. 
 
 "I've been rather worried lately," Eric answered vaguely. 
 
 "Not about that " She looked at him and moved 
 
 round, slipping her hand through his arm. "/ shouldn't 
 worry about a thing like that! She's so well-known that 
 the papers are on to her like cats on a mouse. ... I liked 
 her that night I met her, Eric." 
 
 "It makes my relations with her rather difficult," he 
 laughed. 
 
 "But all you've got to do is not to meet her !" Agnes ex- 
 plained in a tone of convincing reason. 
 
 "She's one of the greatest friends I've got," he said. 
 
 Agnes rubbed gently at the tarnished motto on the dial. 
 
 "That makes it rather difficult, of course," she said at 
 length. 
 
 And then it seemed easiest for him to shake hands and 
 walk away without adding anything. 
 
 His family by itself on one side, Agnes by herself on 
 the other would not have spurred Eric to action. He was 
 precipitated by the felicitations of an almost complete 
 stranger in the train on Monday morning and held to his 
 course by a succession of congratulatory notes and tele- 
 phone messages. 
 
 "/ don't know" he wrote to Barbara on reaching home, 
 "whether you have seen this week's 'World and His Wife.' 
 There's a rather broad hint at our engagement, and I'm re- 
 ceiving congratulations. Isn't this a golden opportunity 
 for publishing the news?" 
 
 Barbara's reply was tuned to an uncompromising note 
 which Eric had met but once before at the beginning of his
 
 251 
 
 last illness, when he had threatened to -go away from her 
 and the threat had misfired; when, too, he "one of our 
 conquerors" had broken down and cringed to her; and 
 she, with drawn cheeks and leaden eyes, had laid his head 
 on her bosom and caressed him, not as a conqueror or a 
 lover, but as a tired, sick child. 
 
 "I am so very miserable" she wrote. "Sometimes I 
 could almost wish to die just to get us all out of this 
 terrible tangle. You'd be happier after a time, when you'd 
 got over the first feeling of loss and loneliness; and, how- 
 ever lonely and unhappy you'd be without me, it would 
 be nothing to the misery I should bring you, if we were 
 foolish enough to marry. Let me be your devoted, your 
 very loving, very grateful friend! If you try to marry me, 
 you'll be marrying my name, my voice, my clothes, my 
 body; you won't be marrying me; you'll waste your divine 
 love on a woman whose soul is at the other end of the 
 world. Wliatever happens, I must do you a hideous 
 wrong" 
 
 Eric read the letter three times and left it unanswered. 
 
 A very little more of this erotic battledore-and-shuttle- 
 cock would send them both out of their minds. It was a 
 mistake to write, when both needed a holiday. He tele- 
 phoned to his agent and walked to Covent Garden for a 
 consultation about the lecturing-tour in America. 
 
 "I'm worn out, I must have a complete change," said 
 Eric. "And I want to start at once." 
 
 Grierson was surprised out of his habitual placidity by 
 the nervous vehemence of Eric's manner. 
 
 "You'll need a month or two to prepare your lectures," 
 he pointed out. 
 
 "You can begin making the arrangements immediately. 
 London's getting on my nerves rather. Three months in 
 the country, three months out there oh, the war may be 
 over by then. . . . I'm sick of England. ... If the war's
 
 252 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 still going on, I shall stay away and go on to Japan. You'll 
 fix that, Grierson?" 
 
 He jumped up restlessly and was starting for the door 
 when his agent recalled him. 
 
 "Are you in a hurry?" he asked. "There are one or 
 two things I want to talk to you about. Rather good 
 news," he added. "Staines have accepted your novel on 
 our terms. I had a fight over the advance, but your name 
 carried you through." 
 
 Eric was not interested in the figures. He was recall- 
 ing the mood in which he had sent the manuscript to Grier- 
 son, when he was working under inspiration. He had 
 grudged the hours wasted on sleep and food when he might 
 have been working for Barbara. 
 
 "I seem to have more money than I know what to do 
 with," he answered shortly. "By the way, has Manders 
 given tongue yet about the play?" 
 
 " 'Mother's Son' ? Yes, I wrote you last night. Didn't 
 you get my letter? Oh, he's quite enthusiastic about it. 
 He suggests a few small changes " 
 
 "Manders would," Eric rejoined from habit rather than 
 resentment. He did not care if he never wrote another 
 play ; he did not care if they returned to him battered and 
 dog's-eared after months of delay and desultory travel 
 as in the old days. Manders might cut the thing about to 
 the top of his vulgar Philistine bent. 
 
 "He wants to begin rehearsing at once," Grierson went 
 on slowly. "And the 'Divorce' is being revived at the 
 Emperor's. You'll have three plays running in London 
 at the same time." 
 
 "I'm not going to stay in England to please Manders," 
 Eric interrupted. 
 
 "He'd like to have a talk with you about it before you 
 leave London," said Grierson.
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 253 
 
 Eric caught himself yawning. It was such futility to 
 discuss a play in which he had lost all interest. 
 
 On his return, he yawned again over his letters. It was 
 futile to hear from people in whom he had lost all interest, 
 though a Swiss stamp and a hand-writing which he had 
 almost forgotten quickened the beating of his heart. 
 
 "My dear Eric," he read. 
 
 "Your letter was a joy to me! Please go on writing. 
 You cannot imagine how home-sick I feel. I want the 
 smell of London again, I want to hear people talking my 
 own language and I want to see 'em in bulk, drifting slowly 
 down the Strand from the Temple. Do you remember the 
 old days when we lived together in Pump Court? I want 
 to go and lunch at the club again and have a little dinner at 
 the Berkeley, say, and go on to a theatre, decently dressed 
 with other people decently dressed too. There's a chance 
 one lives on hope from day to day that I may be sent 
 home; I don't seem to be getting any better here: all goes 
 well for a time, and then I get such a head-ache as I 
 would not sell for the minted wealth of the world. Of 
 course, that makes work of any kind rather a problem, and 
 I see myself looking out for a job which I can do at my 
 own convenience, when I feel up to it. The bar doesn't 
 look particularly hopeful, if I'm unable to last out a long 
 case or if I can't appear at all; I'm afraid my standing's 
 hardly good enough to convince any one if I say I've got a 
 case in another court. I think you'll have to expound to 
 me the whole art of writing plays; that's the sort of thing 
 for my one-hour-on-and-six-hours-off condition. 
 
 "You're such a celebrity nowadays that I suppose you 
 simply won't look at your humble friends! I saw your 
 first thing the last time I was home it seems like the 
 Dark Ages now, before my little sojourn in Mittel-Europa. 
 I imagine you're sick of hearing it praised, especially by 
 people who don't know anything about it, but I thought it
 
 254 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 was an amazingly good play. The moment I was within 
 range of English papers this was before I got your let- 
 ter I went through the advertisements to see if you were 
 still 'drawing all London' (I believe thafs the phrase) and 
 found that yet another was going very strong. You seem 
 to have struck oil. The best of good luck to you. 
 
 "There's really nothing to tell you about this place. I 
 believe you know Chateau d'Qex; "well, there's a little 
 colony of British prisoners of war here, some more 
 knocked about than others, but all pretty glad to be out 
 of Hunland. The Swiss gave us a great reception, and 
 we're allowed pretty fair liberty, though we can't wander 
 at large over the whole of Switzerland. The War Office 
 is very busy trying to start industries out here to keep the 
 men employed and to give training to the unskilled so that 
 they'll have something to do when they're discharged. 
 You may remember that before I was called, I spent a 
 year with a firm of chartered accountants, so I'm supposed 
 to know something of book-keeping. I don't put a very 
 high price on my service, however, because my attendance 
 is rather erratic. 
 
 "I suppose ifs out of the question for you to come here? 
 Yet at holiday would do you good, I'm sure. If you can't 
 manage it, we must wait till the end of the war or till I'm 
 sent back. And then I dine with you sumptuously and 
 make y&u take me to the latest of your popular successes. 
 
 "Write again, old man. Your letter did me no end of 
 good. 
 
 "Ever yours 
 
 "Jack Waring." 
 
 Eric read the letter twice and then locked it in a drawer. 
 It was characteristic of the writer in that he said hardly 
 anything of himself. That might have been expected, and 
 there was no need to be frightened by the hand-writing. 
 A moment later he unlocked the drawer and enclosed the
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 255 
 
 letter in a note to Barbara, reminding her that he had long 
 ago promised to let her have any news that came to him. 
 The promise was before their engagement; but the letter 
 would shew her that Jack was capable of writing. 
 
 A week later Jack wrote again. 
 
 "I've been shifted to Paris, no longer a prisoner of war, 
 but a more or less free man. I could probably get dis- 
 charged to-morrow, if I liked, but the army does pay me 
 SOMETHING, and I haven't yet found anything else that will. 
 
 "For the last fortnight I've been doing a turn of French- 
 Without-Tears as an interpreter at the MINISTERS DE LA 
 GUERRE. There was so little work to do that the job suited 
 me rather well. Alas! it suited equally well certain others 
 who had a better claim to it, and I'm being transferred to 
 England next week with a vague promise of some light 
 duty at the War Office. The best thing about the new ar- 
 rangement is that I shall be at home and shall have a 
 chance of seeing you. 'Mr. Eric Lane, the well-known 
 dramatist and author, in his charming Ryder Street resi- 
 dence.' As you probably know, the papers have been full 
 of you; the gaping world now knows to the last inch of 
 your benevolent smile exactly how you work and smoke 
 a cigarette and dress and have your pyjamas laid out. If 
 the photographs are at all good, you seem to Jiave got 
 rather a comfortable billet. Talking of which, if you hear 
 of any cheap and handy rooms within a hundred miles of 
 Whitehall, you might keep me in mind. People out here 
 tell me that London's rather congested. . . ." 
 
 There was a chance, Eric reflected, that Jack might have 
 glanced at the pictures in "The World and His Wife" 
 without troubling to read the letter-press. It was so un- 
 likely as not to be worth entertaining. That he had read 
 of the rumoured engagement was as certain as that he 
 made no comment upon it. 
 
 .Whether he had seen it or not was trivial. All this
 
 256 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 pernickety analysis was flooded by the overwhelming fact 
 that Jack was coming home. Germany, Switzerland, Paris, 
 London; nearer and nearer. Within seven days he might 
 be taking train for Crawleigh to shew what was left of 
 him and to ask whether Barbara wished to withdraw her 
 promise. Within six days she might be begging to be set 
 free, appealing to Eric's love and magnanimity. . . . 
 
 He determined that, if they were to play battledore-and- 
 shuttlecock with their capability for self-sacrifice, he 
 would strike the first blow and stand ready to see what 
 return she would make. 
 
 "Darling Bobs, it's essential that I should see you for 
 a moment/' he wrote. "And that as soon as possible. Are 
 you going to be in London next week? // so, please fix 
 your own time. If not, what about this? I'm going down 
 to Lashmar for the week-end and, if you can meet me for 
 thirty seconds at Crawleigh station, I'll come straight on to 
 you on Saturday and then get a train back to Winchester. 
 I can't come to the Abbey, obviously, or every one would 
 want to know what was up. The business in hand won't 
 take a moment to discuss, but ifs ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE 
 that we should discuss it at once." 
 
 As he posted the letter, Eric was conscious that he could 
 have said all that was necessary without a meeting, but 
 he knew well that it was far easier for her to be collected 
 and valiant on paper and at a distance. If Barbara chose 
 to accept his sacrifice, she should do it in his presence, 
 looking into his eyes. 
 
 "Has something awful happened?" she wrote in reply. 
 "You do FRIGHTEN me so, when you write like that! I have 
 to come up on Sunday for a charity concert at the Olympic, 
 where I'm a patroness or something. If you really want 
 to see me for only a moment, is it possible for you to meet 
 me at Winchester? The train gets in at 12.29 an d leaves 
 at 12.33 (aren't I getting clever with the time-table? As a
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 257 
 
 matter of fact I made father's secretary work it all out for 
 me). If you'd like to wait on the platform, I'll put my 
 head out of the window and we can be together for a 
 moment. Dear Eric, I do hope you're not in any kind of 
 trouble! When you become telegraphic in manner, I al- 
 ways grow nervous. Barbara." 
 
 There was suppressed excitement at the Mill-House on 
 Saturday night, when he put in a claim for the car, an- 
 nounced his intention of driving himself and instructed the 
 maids with unusual particularity to see that he did not 
 oversleep himself. 
 
 "We're being very mysterious," murmured Sybil. 
 
 Eric smiled and said nothing. 
 
 He went to bed early in hope that a long night's rest 
 would steady his nerves for an interview which would not 
 be the less trying for its brevity and which, he now saw, 
 had been made inevitably dramatic. It was a perfect au- 
 tumn morning, as he climbed into the car, with a scented 
 mist rising before his eyes, under the mild warmth of a 
 November sun; Lashmar Woods flaunted their last dwin- 
 dling recklessness of colour, from ivy-green through fad- 
 ing red to russet and lemon-yellow. He had a rare feel- 
 ing of peace, as he surrendered to the voiceless magic of 
 the still countryside and to whimsical memories of his own 
 childhood. Life was so much simpler then! Life would 
 again be so much simpler when he had Babs driving by his 
 side. ... (If he could only drag her from the train and 
 take her home to astonish and subjugate his parents! It 
 would be worth a little mystery to effect that!) 
 
 If she dropped like a stone out of his life, he would 
 raise both hands to Heaven and pray God to take away 
 his reason and draw a sponge across his memory. . . . 
 
 Barbara was leaning out of the window, as the train 
 drew into the station. Eric ran to her compartment; but 
 for a time they were victimized by the nervous antics of an
 
 258 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 old lady with cumbrous luggage, who stood in the door- 
 way calling with shrill helplessness for a porter. 
 
 "I see your play's going to be produced at the end of 
 the month," said Barbara, waving her hand towards a 
 paper on the opposite seat. 
 
 "Are you coming with me to the first night?" he asked. 
 
 "Of course!" She watched the departure of the old 
 lady with ill-suppressed eagerness. "Thank goodness, she's 
 gone! What is it, Eric? Why did you want to see me 
 like this?" 
 
 "I always want to see you !" he laughed uneasily. Ever 
 since he received her letter, he had been rehearsing an ef- 
 fective little speech; but it was gone from his mind now, 
 and he found himself nervously clearing his throat. "Babs, 
 I'm in rather a hole and I want to do the right thing. For 
 some reason you always talk about my generosity. I've 
 been thinking it over. . . . You're absolutely free, Babs." 
 
 "But why ?" she asked blankly. 
 
 "Before writing to you, I'd heard from Jack. He'll 
 probably be in England within a week. I don't want you 
 to feel . . ." He had to leave the sentence unfinished. 
 
 Barbara had become very pale and for a moment she 
 said nothing. 
 
 "This doesn't mean that you're saying good-bye?" she 
 faltered. 
 
 "It's a present, not an ultimatum," Eric answered 
 sharply. 
 
 So she could still try to make the best of both worlds. 
 
 "You've always been wonderfully generous !" she whis- 
 pered. "I can never repay you." 
 
 From her tone and phrasing Eric knew that he had 
 failed. His own sacrifice neither stirred nor shamed her 
 into equal generosity ; the volley was over, and the shuttle- 
 cock had dropped to the ground. 
 
 "Have you tried?" he asked sharply.
 
 THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 259 
 
 There was a whistle and a jolt, as the train began to 
 move. Eric stepped off the foot-board, raised his hat 
 slightly and turned on his heel. Mechanically he set his 
 watch by the station clock. The train had come in late, 
 but it was leaving on time. 
 
 "Rather less than two minutes, if anything," he mur- 
 mured, as he started the engine. "Five weeks since we 
 became engaged. . . ." 
 
 Half-way home he steered for a government lorry which 
 was standing unattended by the side of the road. Some- 
 thing older and stronger than himself paralyzed the ma- 
 levolent muscles of his arm, and the car swerved into 
 safety. . . . 
 
 " The slavery of centuries and her own short-lived bloom- 
 ing have robbed woman of open initiative in sex-warfare: 
 she forces man to make the attack, pretending indifference 
 or ignorance. Instead of striking a bargain, she then in- 
 sists on nominal surrender, which never deceives her. But 
 she is deceived by her own false valuation; she can only 
 see herself in the image that she makes for the beguilement 
 of man. Vanity is the strongest thing of all." From the 
 Diary of Eric Lane.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 
 
 "The mob decrees such feat no crown, perchance, 
 But why call crowning the reward of quest?" 
 
 RORERT BROWNING: "Aristophanes' Apology." 
 
 IN the second week of November Manders began to re- 
 hearse "Mother's Son," and, after two attendances, Eric 
 retired to Lashmar for uninterrupted work on his Ameri- 
 can lectures. Jack might reach London any day, and he 
 could not face a meeting nor wait to be told of an en- 
 counter between Jack and Barbara. His own rash mag- 
 nanimity had set her free and kept him in chains ; he had 
 always been so indulgent that he more than half suspected 
 a strain of kindly contempt in her; she had once told him 
 that they would be miserable together because he would 
 always be too gentle to keep her in order. . . . Any day 
 now might see him dismissed like an outworn servant. 
 
 With native caution he did not pledge himself to stay 
 at Lashmar for a specified time; that would depend on 
 Jack, on Barbara, on his own work and a dozen other 
 things. It was essential that he should keep himself posted 
 regularly in Jack's movements, and he walked over to Red 
 Roofs on the morrow of his arrival. Agnes gave him all 
 the information that she possessed, but gave it with re- 
 servation, as though she were conferring a favour; and, 
 when he left, she walked with him to the gate of the woods 
 and blurted out that she was engaged to Dick Benyon. As 
 
 260
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 261 
 
 he congratulated her, Eric remembered their last parting 
 by the sun-dial, when she had told him not to worry even 
 if gossiping papers coupled his name with Barbara's, when 
 she had pointed out, too, that they could end the gossip in 
 a day by ceasing to meet. She did not seem extravagantly 
 happy; each had lost the other without finding the perfect 
 substitute; but Agnes, with greater wisdom than he had 
 ever shewn towards Barbara, had resolved that a sec- 
 ondary place was not enough. 
 
 After that he avoided the Warings, but Sybil returned 
 one night from Red Roofs with a report that Jack was ex- 
 pected there within three days. He had seen a specialist 
 in London and was forbidden to attempt any brain-work 
 for three months; even the easy experiment in Paris had 
 been a mistake. Eric's mind was busy with excuses to 
 get back to London, for with Jack as his neighbour, in- 
 valided and bored, it would be necessary to see him daily. 
 The Lanes were, fortunately, too much absorbed in their 
 own life to be suspicious of sudden changes in Eric's plans; 
 affectionate regret greeted his announcement that he was 
 returning to London after the week-end, and his sense of 
 the dramatic was grimly amused by the thought that his 
 train would pass Jack's somewhere between Basingstoke 
 and Brooklands. . . . He might almost be a criminal flee- 
 ing from justice. 
 
 A note from Jack lay on his hall table, regretting that 
 they had not met, but promising to walk over to the Mill- 
 House the moment that he arrived. It was followed by 
 another, full of mock-indignation. 
 
 "If you don't want to see we, you needn't," he wrote. 
 "But for Heaven's sake don't bolt to the country the minute 
 you hear I'm coming to London and then bolt back to Lon- 
 don the minute you hear I'm going to the country." 
 
 Of course it was all badinage; and yet, if Jack knew
 
 262 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 everything, the badinage might cover an atrocious hint of 
 his knowledge. . .'. 
 
 "I'm losing my sense of reality !" Eric muttered. 
 
 The same post brought him a long letter from his 
 mother. Jack had come to tea on the day of his arrival, 
 looking very well, on the whole, though the wound on his 
 head was still visible. 
 
 "He wants to see you," wrote Lady Lane, "and he partic- 
 ularly asked when you would be down here again. I'm 
 afraid poor Jack is in for rather a dull time. He was hop- 
 ing so much to be well enough to work, and the sentence' 
 of three months' complete rest is a great disappointment; 
 but, if hell feed up and rest, there's no reason why he 
 shouldn't be as well as he ever was; I'm glad to say that 
 his uncle has behaved quite well. After doing NOTHING all 
 these years for him or Agnes or his own brother, he Jias 
 at last shewn some decent feeling. If Jack has to be a 
 partial invalid all his life, Lord Waring will give him what- 
 ever money's necessary to let him live anywhere he likes 
 and take up any hobby he likes; if he wants to marry (I 
 can't imagine that of Jack), there'll be a proper settle- 
 ment. . . ." 
 
 If Jack, who was certainly not going to be a pauper, 
 probably not even an invalid, had passed through London 
 without coming to see Barbara, that meant that he did not 
 want to see Barbara. Perhaps he had seen her. . . . 
 
 Eric telephoned to Berkeley Square and found his voice 
 greeted with surprise and apprehensive pleasure. 
 
 "I thought you were in the country! You are getting 
 restless, Eric ! When did you come up ?" 
 
 "Only two days ago. Babs . . . Jack's in England; he 
 called here during the week-end, but of course I was away. 
 I ... I thought you'd like to know." 
 
 "Thank you, Eric," she answered quietly.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 263 
 
 There was a pause which neither liked to break. At 
 last Eric said : 
 
 "He didn't come to see you? Why don't you recognize 
 that it's all over, Babs ? You say that your soul isn't yours 
 and that you owe it to Jack; well, he's had the chance to 
 come and claim it." 
 
 There was a second pause followed by a sigh. 
 
 "It's hard to explain, Eric. You see, only he and I 
 know how much he was in love with me before. I was 
 the only person he'd ever cared for. . . . Even I didn't un- 
 derstand how much he loved me until that night." She 
 sighed again. "I don't believe that, after loving me, he 
 could suddenly cease to love me." 
 
 "You gave him pretty good provocation," Eric suggested. 
 
 "But you don't cease loving people because they behave 
 badly to you. I've behaved abominably to you. You've 
 given me everything, and all I've done in return is to 
 make you ill and miserable. I've ruined your work, your 
 life you've told me so, Eric. I've been utterly selfish and 
 heartless. You know I'm vain, you know I'm spoiled, you 
 admit I've behaved atrociously. But you want to marry 
 me in spite of it all." 
 
 "I love you in spite of it all." 
 
 Barbara said nothing, and her silence was a confession 
 and answer. There were a hundred reasons why Jack 
 had not come to see her yet; his future was uncertain, he 
 must wait for a final verdict from his doctor, he was per- 
 haps still chewing the cud of his resentment. And, when 
 the first reasons were exhausted, her vanity wove a hun- 
 dred more in stout, impenetrable protection against the 
 fantastic thought that any man could tire of her. 
 
 "Oh, I wish you didn't!" Barbara cried at last. "Why 
 don't you go away and forget all about me?" 
 
 She had trapped him neatly, as he had no doubt she 
 well knew.
 
 264 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "I can't forget you," he answered, savagely conscious that 
 he was presenting her with new weapons. "Whatever you 
 did, you'd be the biggest thing in my life; I should always 
 need you." 
 
 This time she put her triumph into words. 
 
 "Don't you think that Jack may need me as badly?" 
 
 "He's had his chance. . . ." 
 
 Eric discovered suddenly that the wire had ceased to 
 throb. Evidently she had quietly hung up the receiver. In 
 another moment she could only have offered to say good- 
 bye ; and that she would not do. He was beginning to know 
 her moods and her nature very well. . . . 
 
 Lighting a cigarette, he was trying to think what he had 
 been doing before their conversation started, when the tele- 
 phone-bell rang. 
 
 "Eric? It's me, darling. We were cut off. Eric, don't 
 be bitter with me. I've never done anything to deserve 
 your love, but it's been so wonderful that I won't allow you 
 to say anything which will spoil it. Some day I think you'll 
 look back on it as the biggest thing in your life." 
 
 As soon as Manders announced the opening night of 
 "Mother's Son," Eric booked his passage to New York for 
 the following week. For the first time he informed his 
 parents that he was leaving England and gave them to un- 
 derstand that he was very fully occupied. There were a 
 hundred and one arrangements to conclude, fare-wells to 
 take; and, when he applied to Gaisford for a medical certif- 
 icate, he found himself packed off to bed with orders to 
 stay there till the day of sailing. 
 
 "If you'll do what I tell you, I'll do my best for you," 
 said the doctor sternly. "If you won't, Eric, on my honour 
 I'll wash my hands of you. Now, which is it to be?"
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 265 
 
 "I shall get up for my own first night," said Eric. 
 
 "You'll do what I tell you. If you're fit to go, you shall 
 go. But I don't think you'll be in a condition to stand the 
 excitement of it." 
 
 Two days later Eric sent a message to Barbara, remind- 
 ing her that she had promised to come with him to the first 
 night and warning her that in all probability he would not 
 be able to go. The doctor, he explained, insisted on absolute 
 quiet and absence of excitement. It would have been more 
 honest to add that the doctor had forbidden him to see any 
 visitors; but Eric hoped that Barbara would hurry round 
 as soon as she heard that he was ill and before he could 
 tell her that he was not allowed to have her there. It was 
 a bitter disappointment when his secretary brought back a 
 message of sympathy. Later in the day he received a pres- 
 ent of carnations and grapes. It was only when Gaisford 
 commented on them next morning that his disappointment 
 was mitigated. 
 
 "I saw her the other day," explained the doctor. "She 
 was sorry to hear you were ill. I told her that I wasn't 
 letting you see any one." 
 
 "Where did you see her?" Eric asked, trying to keep his 
 voice unconcerned. 
 
 "At her house. The moment I'd left you. I've attended 
 her since she was a baby, so I felt I knew her well enough 
 to tell her once again to leave you alone." 
 
 Not until the afternoon of the production did Gaisford 
 relax discipline; then he admitted rather grudgingly that 
 Eric might go to the theatre if he refused all invitations to 
 supper and came straight back to bed. He was to dine at 
 home and he would be wise to leave the house before any 
 one could call on him for a speech. 
 
 Eric tried to find out whether a box had been reserved 
 for him, but by the time that he had received a reply from 
 the theatre and telephoned to Barbara, she was not to be
 
 266 
 
 found. Dinner was an agony which he strove to make as 
 short as possible. Ordinary nervousness was reinforced by 
 bitter contrasts of this evening with the night when "The 
 Bomb-Shell" was produced. Then Barbara had dined with 
 him and sat in his box, comforting him in the torturing first 
 moments before the play had come into its own; (and he 
 had driven a ring into her poor finger). It had been a 
 night of triumph for them both. Never, before or since, 
 had they been nearer. . . . 
 
 He arrived at the Regency early enough to find the house 
 almost empty. Hiding himself behind the curtains of his 
 box, he watched the familiar audience settling in place, rec- 
 ognizing friends, waving and calling out whispered greet- 
 ings. Mrs. O'Rane and Colonel Grayle ; Lady Poynter and 
 Gerry Deganway ; Lady Maitland and one of her boys. . . . 
 He started and drew farther back, though he was already 
 concealed by the curtains. Barbara had come in with 
 George Oakleigh. They were standing in the gangway, 
 waiting to be shewn their seats. While George disposed of 
 his hat and coat, she threw open her cloak and pinned a 
 bunch of carnations into her dress. They talked for a 
 moment, studied their programmes and began talking again. 
 After a few minutes George produced a pair of opera- 
 glasses and took a leisurely survey of the house. Barbara 
 looked with careless deliberation at the box from which she 
 had watched "The Bomb-Shell"; seeing no one in it, she 
 looked away as deliberately and glanced at the watch on her 
 wrist. 
 
 Eric began to open a pile of telegrams. "Good wishes." 
 "All possible success"; such a tribute had meant much to 
 him when his first play was produced. . . . Two thirds of 
 the stalls were full, though no doubt there would still be 
 enough constitutional late-comers to spoil the first five 
 minutes of the play. Why people could not take the trouble 
 t . . He pulled himself up and went back to the telegrams ;
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 267 
 
 he would not live through the evening if he began to excite 
 himself like this. But what he wanted was to have Barbara 
 by his side, to feel her lips at his ear and to catch her 
 whisper of love and encouragement "It's going to be a 
 tremendous success ! I will it to be !" 
 
 He would like to catch her eye. ... If the first act went 
 even tolerably, he could allow himself to be seen ; perhaps 
 she would come and sit with him for the other two. . . . 
 
 The lights were lowered, there was a moment's silence, 
 and the curtain rolled noiselessly up. Eric sat forward with 
 his eyes fixed on the stage. Then, as the first line was 
 spoken, he threw himself back in his chair with a smothered 
 oath. A trim programme-seller was tripping down the 
 gangway with mincing daintiness down and down to the 
 very front row of the stalls. A party of four stumbled af- 
 ter her, whispering and groping in the darkness, while she 
 gave them programmes and herded them into their seats. 
 There were whispered apologies, as they squeezed in front 
 of their neighbours ; whispered thanks as one man stood up, 
 crushing himself back, and another stepped into the gang- 
 way to let them pass. At last they were in place ! And 
 then it was time for the two women of the party to whisper 
 again, gesticulating for a redistribution of seats. The men 
 fussed and fidgeted, untying their mufflers and rolling up 
 their overcoats. And then it was time for all four to 
 rustle their programmes. Every one was looking at them 
 instead of at the stage ; there was nothing else to look at ! 
 For three minutes they had blocked the view for everybody 
 behind them! 
 
 Eric was looking at them himself, first indignant, then 
 startled. . . . He could guess the identity of the first 
 woman, though he could not see her face; of the others 
 there was no doubt. The refraction of the foot-lights 
 shewed him Agnes Waring, with her father in the next seat ; 
 on the other side sat Jack. There was no mistaking him ; a
 
 white circle, the size of a florin, revealed the mark of his 
 scalp wound. . . . 
 
 After drawing back instinctively behind his curtain, Eric 
 leaned an inch forward to steal a glance at Barbara. She 
 was in the third row, six feet behind Jack in a direct line ; 
 like every one else she had seen the late-comers, she could 
 not have failed to identify Jack. . . . But there was no sign 
 of embarrassment ; she did not lower her eyes or affect 
 absorption in her programme; she was looking at the stage. 
 ... As in "The Bomb-Shell," there came a sudden laugh, 
 sharp as a dog's bark; it was followed by other single 
 laughs, by a boom of throaty, good-tempered chuckling ; and 
 the whole house was warmer. Barbara did not laugh, but 
 her white-gloved hands clapped like a child's. She stopped 
 suddenly and touched George Oakleigh's arm, pointing rue- 
 fully to a split thumb. Jack Waring sent up a belated rocket 
 of laughter, which started the general laughter again; Eric 
 saw him burying his head, shamefaced, in his hands ; Bar- 
 bara was peeling off the injured glove. 
 
 It was conceivable that she had not seen Jack, for she 
 gave no sign of emotion ; and, if she had seen him for the 
 first time in more than two years, this would be the strong- 
 est emotion of her life. Yet she was watching eagerly, ap- 
 plauding eagerly, wholly engrossed in the play. Once, when 
 the house was silent and concentrated on the stage, she 
 looked round with her earlier deliberation and let her eyes 
 rest on Eric's box. He started guiltily before remembering 
 that she could not see him. Next she borrowed George's 
 glasses and, after a single glance at the stage, raked the four 
 boxes on either side. 
 
 "I propose to give the thing a trial. Every one must ad- 
 mit that the present position is intolerable/' 
 
 The line told Eric that in twenty seconds the curtain 
 would fall. He had hardly any idea how the play -was be- 
 ing received, but, obviously, he must not allow any one to
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 269 
 
 see him; he could not stand mouthing inanities to a box 
 full of people when Jack and Barbara were meeting down- 
 stairs or when they met unexpectedly in his presence. 
 They were within six feet of each other. . . . 
 
 And they would meet within six seconds. . . . 
 
 There was a burst of sustained applause as the curtain 
 fell. It rose again on the full company, fell and rose again 
 on McGrath and Helen Graye, Constable and Lillian Hart- 
 ley, Joan Castle and Manders; fell and rose again on Joan 
 Castle and Manders alone. Evidently this play, too, was a 
 success. The lights remained lowered, and the company 
 came forward to take the calls with the usual pause be- 
 fore Manders made his appearance, the usual extra half- 
 minute's smiling and bowing. With practised unconcern he 
 looked for a moment toward Eric's box and then looked 
 away again, as though he had never expected to see any one 
 there. With a final low bow he backed up-stage, and the 
 heavy blue curtains tumbled into place at a half-seen move- 
 ment of his hand. 
 
 As the lights went up, Eric watched the customary re- 
 crudescence of restlessness. Eager and lazy discussions be- 
 gan ; surprised, shrill recognitions volleyed across the stalls ; 
 the men looked at their programmes to see how many acts 
 remained and tentatively felt for their cigarette-cases. He 
 saw George Oakleigh lean towards Barbara, glance at his 
 watch and draw himself slowly to his feet. The movement 
 was a signal and spur for a dozen others. Barbara moved 
 into his place and called a greeting to Deganway who was 
 on the opposite side ; he stood up and bent over her, swing- 
 ing his eye-glass. 
 
 Suddenly Eric found himself trembling. After the usual 
 uncertainty, which he had been watching with one eye, he 
 saw Colonel Waring and Jack squeezing past their neigh- 
 bours. As they turned into the gangway, Jack stared slowly 
 round him and raised his eye-brows in faint surprise when
 
 2 7 o THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 he caught sight of Barbara. They exchanged bows, she held 
 out her hand ; Colonel Waring was introduced, and Degan- 
 way excused himself. A moment later the colonel bowed a 
 second time and withdrew. Barbara pointed to the empty 
 seat by her side, and Jack stepped across her into it. 
 
 The whole meeting was incredibly suave and unemotional. 
 They were talking as any other two people in the theatre 
 were talking without any great interest. After a few 
 minutes Oakleigh returned and shook hands with noticeable 
 warmth ; there was a short triangular conversation before 
 the lights were lowered; then Jack hurried back to his 
 place. 
 
 When the curtain went up on the second act, Eric scrib- 
 bled a note of congratulation and apology and sent it to 
 Manders by the hand of a programme seller. Then he put 
 on his hat and coat and stole out of the theatre. 
 
 The next morning Eric summoned his solicitor and di- 
 vested himself of all domestic ties and obligations as com- 
 pletely as if he were leaving for the Front. A power of 
 attorney was to be prepared; the books were to be stored, 
 the wine sold and the flat let if he had not returned from 
 America within a stated period. . . . 
 
 "You see, I've more money than I can spend," Eric ex- 
 plained. "It's well invested, so that, if I never do another 
 stroke of work, I shall have something to live on. Well, my 
 health's gone to pieces, and I want a long rest and change. 
 This is my opportunity. I'm thirty-three; and I've seen 
 nothing of the world outside Europe. If I start by touring 
 from end to end of America . . ." 
 
 He was almost carried away by his own enthusiasm in 
 sketching out the years of wandering which lay ahead. 
 Central America, South America, the Pacific Islands, New
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 271 
 
 Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, the Dutch East Indies, 
 Burmah, India. . . . 
 
 "This is all in confidence, of course," he interrupted him- 
 self to say. "I haven't breathed a word to my people." 
 
 He lacked courage to tell them that he was never com- 
 ing back. It would be easier if the advertised three months 
 were dragged out to six, the six to twelve. The shock 
 would be mitigated ; and he would escape a scene. 
 
 When the solicitor was gone, Eric stumbled out of bed 
 and unlocked the safe in his dining-room. There was an 
 infinity of papers to be destroyed and letters to be written. 
 Lady Maitland attacked him at the ill-disguised prompting 
 of her own conscience : 
 
 "Why have you neglected ws for so long? I hoped to 
 see you at the theatre last night, but Colonel Grayle told 
 tne that he thought you were ill. I'm so sorry; and I hope 
 ifs not serious. When you're able to get about again, will 
 you telephone and suggest yourself for dinner? I want 
 to talk to you about your play, which I liked quite enor- 
 mously. . . " 
 
 So he was to be lionized again with no one to share his 
 triumphs. . . . The next letter was from Mrs. Shelley ; the 
 next from Lady Poynter, proposing a date in the following 
 week and asking him to telephone. 
 
 "You can accept all these for me," he told his secretary, 
 "or as many as don't clash with anything else. I I've got 
 to say good-bye to a lot of people before I start," he added 
 unnecessarily. "Keep next Wednesday free for me ; I want 
 to get my people up for that." 
 
 If Barbara's engagement was going to be published at 
 once, he felt that he could not meet Jack after all ; at one 
 time it had seemed as though nothing mattered, but his self- 
 control would break down at such a test. And Jack's head- 
 quarters were presumably still in Hampshire. . . . 
 
 There was no letter from Barbara next day; and he
 
 272 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 searched "The Times" vainly for her name. Lunching with 
 George Oakleigh, he met Deganway who had neither news 
 to impart nor questions to ask; at dinner Mrs. Shelley ob- 
 served with sublime innocence: "You must have been dis- 
 appointed not to be able to come the other night. Barbara 
 was there, and it was she who told me you were ill." The 
 next day brought no tidings, and Eric had to exert all his 
 strength to keep from writing. It was inhuman of the girl 
 not to tell him unless she thought that it would be easier 
 to bear a month later, when he was three thousand miles 
 away. 
 
 Four days of silence dulled his capacity for suffering; he 
 felt that he would not disgrace himself even if some one 
 appealed to him as the leading authority on Barbara's move- 
 ments and asked for news of this most romantic engage- 
 ment. In a week he would be shivering in the danger-zone, 
 zig-zagging round the north coast of Ireland. The power 
 of attorney only awaited his signature, the papers were 
 busily announcing his departure, farewell letters and invita- 
 tions were pouring in upon him. 
 
 There was so much to discuss that he found his family 
 easy to handle. They dined in Ryder Street; and, what 
 with inspecting the flat (which seemed now to belong to 
 some other life) and raining down questions of no impor- 
 tance, they contrived not to ask anything that mattered. 
 Yes, he was going for at least three months perhaps more, 
 because it would be a pity to get as far as San Francisco 
 without going on to Japan. Yes, he would certainly be 
 grateful for any letters of introduction that his father could 
 give him. Yes, he had bought himself an outfit that would 
 last him for years in all climates. . . . 
 
 Amid the primitive interrogation Eric looked up suddenly 
 at his parents and sister. They and the two boys in Salonica 
 and the North Sea were all that he had; he was fond of 
 them, and they were devoted to him. His mother was talk-
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 273 
 
 ing as she had done twenty years ago, when she searched 
 for holes in his underclothes and socks before sending him 
 back to school; but he once caught her looking at him as 
 though she understood. . . . His father had roused from an 
 age-long scholar's dream to remember a friend who was 
 now a professor at Columbia University. Sybil was as 
 much excited as if she had been going in his place. . . . He 
 would never see any of them again, after they had been 
 everything to him all these years ! And he was sneaking 
 away without telling them that he would never come back. 
 
 "You'll send us a cable to say that you've arrived safely," 
 Lady Lane was saying. 
 
 Eric promised quickly and harked back to the letters of 
 introduction. After trying for so long not to think of Bar- 
 bara, he found that he must not think of his own family. 
 They were still expecting him back in April, "when the 
 weather's a bit more settled." 
 
 "I only wish you weren't going so soon," said his mother 
 regretfully. "Geoff's due for leave next month." 
 
 "Tell him I was sorry to miss him," Eric answered. "I'm 
 afraid the boat won't wait for me." 
 
 He walked back with them to their hotel and said good- 
 bye in the hall, explaining that he was unlikely to see them 
 next day. He had promised to lunch with Manders and to 
 dine with the Poynters; and, though either engagement 
 might have been cancelled, he could not screw himself up 
 to a second parting. 
 
 It was curious to feel, as he walked home, that he was 
 beginning the last day of his life in London. Only once 
 more would he unlock the street door and enter the dimly- 
 lit hall which Barbara had invaded fifteen months before. . . . 
 In the morning he bade awkward farewell to his secretary. 
 On his way to luncheon he paused on the steps of the Thes- 
 pian, trying to see it as a club and not as one of many places 
 where Barbara had telephoned to him. . . . Manders, of
 
 274 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 course, insisted on a champagne luncheon to wish him God- 
 speed; at intervals he asked how long the tour was to be; 
 and Eric wondered whether a suicide or a condemned man 
 went through this recurrent sense of parting, recurrently 
 spiced with surprise. He would never sit in the oak- 
 panelled dining-room again, never see Manders again. . . . 
 
 Throughout the ritual of the day he could not grow ac- 
 customed to saying good-bye. It was all so familiar; he 
 never persuaded himself that everything was over. By an 
 error of judgement he was several minutes late in reaching 
 Belgrave Square, as when first he dined there. Lady Poyn- 
 ter protested that she had given up hope of him. Her hus- 
 band took him aside to enquire whether he found Gabarnac 
 too sweet, because he had a bottle on which he would value 
 expert opinion. It was all so like the night of fifteen 
 months ago that Eric could not believe his passage was 
 booked and his trunks packed. Lady Poynter began count- 
 ing her guests with jerks of a fat, slow forefinger. "Two, 
 three, five, seven, nine, eleven. . . . Then there's one 
 more. Ah!" 
 
 She looked over Eric's shoulder as the door opened and 
 the butler announced : 
 
 "Lady Barbara Neave." 
 
 Under the blaze of the chandelier and amid a chorus of 
 "Babs darling!" "Hullo, Babs," Eric found no difficulty in 
 remaining composed. She was the more surprised of the 
 two, for, as soon as she caught sight of him, she turned to 
 Lady Poynter, crying: 
 
 "Margaret, you must send him home at once ! He's been 
 very ill and he's no business to be out of bed!" 
 
 "But he's going to America to-morrow, he was telling 
 us." 
 
 For a moment Barbara's face was blank. She recovered 
 quickly and repeated: "To-morrow? I've simply lost all 
 count of time."
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 275 
 
 "Including dinner, darling," said Lady Poynter, with a 
 meaning glance at the clock. 
 
 It was all so familiar that Eric's sense of probability 
 would have been outraged, if he had not been put next to 
 Barbara. 
 
 "I'm very glad to see you again, Eric," she whispered. 
 "Dr. Gaisford was so gloomy about you. . . . How long 
 have you been allowed out?" 
 
 "Oh, a week." 
 
 "And you never told me? You never wrote or tele- 
 phoned " 
 
 Eric felt his face stiffening into unamiable lines as he 
 remembered the agony of the first four days' silence. 
 
 "You never wrote or telephoned to me," he interrupted. 
 
 "The doctor told me I mustn't. He put me on my honour. 
 I'm not sure that I didn't really break my word when I sent 
 you those flowers." Her hand stole out and sought his un- 
 der the table. "Don't you think it would have been kind 
 to let me know? Don't you think it's possible I may have 
 been worrying about you ?" 
 
 Eric dropped his napkin and picked it up again for an ex- 
 cuse to escape her hand. 
 
 "Isn't it rather late in the day to begin worrying?" he 
 asked. The girl winced and bit her lip. "I was only a bit 
 overwrought," he added. "Now I'm rather less over- 
 wrought. There was nothing else to tell you." 
 
 "About America? I saw it in some paper, but I didn't 
 bother about the date. I didn't think it necessary. Eric 
 Eric, you weren't going away without saying good-bye?" 
 
 He turned upon her so suddenly that she was frozen into 
 silence. 
 
 "Would you have had anything to say, if you hadn't 
 promised Gaisford not to communicate with me?" 
 
 "The usual tilings, Eric. I'd have told you what I was
 
 276 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 doing, I'd have sent you my love. If you're tired of that, 
 darling " 
 
 "Not that, Barbara !" 
 
 Her eyes opened wide with distress. 
 
 "Eric, what's the matter? What have I done? Mayn't 
 I even call you 'darling' now ?" 
 
 "Are you being quite honest, Barbara?" 
 
 "Thank you, Eric !" 
 
 "Have you nothing to tell me since last time?" 
 
 She looked at him imperiously and considered her words 
 before speaking. 
 
 "The last time we met? Or the last time we corre- 
 sponded? Which d'you mean? The last time we corre- 
 sponded was when your secretary telephoned to thank me 
 for the flowers. Before that, you sent me a message by 
 her that you probably wouldn't be well enough to take me to 
 your first night. ... I'd have come round the evening be- 
 fore if Dr. Gaisford hadn't made me promise not to. I've 
 always said that I'd come to you from the ends of the earth 
 if you were ill. When I heard that you weren't allowed to 
 see any one " 
 
 "It wasn't as bad as that," Eric interrupted. "Gaisford 
 let me get up for the first night. I caught sight of you 
 in the distance. But I left after the first interval." 
 
 From the end of the table Lady Poynter was making des- 
 perate attempts to attract Eric's attention. 
 
 "Mr. Lane, you're the only person who can tell us 
 this " 
 
 Barbara touched his wrist and nodded past him. 
 
 "Margaret's trying to speak to you," she said. 
 
 Eric galvanized his attention and turned with a murmur 
 of apology.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 277 
 
 "Mr. Lane, is it true that 'Mother's Son' was refused 
 three times?" Lady Poynter asked. She could not have 
 been more righteously indignant if she had been judging the 
 three denials of Saint Peter. "I've never heard of such a 
 thing!" 
 
 "It wasn't quite in its present form," Eric explained. 
 "The theme's the same, but I've rewritten almost every 
 word." 
 
 Lady Poynter nodded triumphantly. 
 
 "Ah! Then I was right!" she informed her neighbour, 
 and Eric was free to turn again to Barbara. 
 
 "Where had we got to?" he asked, after a moment's em- 
 barrassed silence. 
 
 "You came to the theatre after all. You saw me. You 
 left after the first interval," she reminded him fearlessly. 
 "As you seem to be drawing an indictment, is that the 
 phrase ? don't you think you'd better go on ?" 
 
 "There's nothing more to say. Once or twice I wondered 
 whether I should get home alive ; and, on my soul, I prayed 
 the whole time that I shouldn't. . . . I'm not drawing an 
 indictment. I rather expected to hear from you. ... It 
 wasn't easy waiting. ... As for America, I didn't see how 
 it could possibly interest you. . . ." He broke off and 
 whispered to himself, "God! what those days of waiting 
 were like ! I should have thought that, after what you'd 
 been through ... in common humanity " 
 
 "And if I had nothing to tell you?" she interrupted. 
 
 For a moment Eric did not understand her. For all her 
 self-possession, there were shadows under her eyes, and she 
 was haggard as on the night when they first met. Jack's ap- 
 pearance, then, and their conversation together had made 
 no difference ... no difference one way or the other ; she 
 had not telephoned because there was nothing to tell him. 
 
 "I don't think I've anything more to say, Babs." 
 
 An arm interposed itself between them, and he looked
 
 278 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 down to see what was being put before him. To his sur- 
 prise they had only reached the fish. He seemed to have 
 been dining for an eternity ! 
 
 "D'you care to hear what happened ?" she asked. 
 
 "What d'you think I'm made of ?" he muttered. 
 
 Barbara began eating her fish and telling her story at the 
 same time. It was short, and she gave it in jerky little 
 sentences. George Oakleigh had telephoned to say that he 
 had two stalls for "Mother's Son" and would be delighted 
 if she would dine and go with him. . . . They arrived and 
 saw a certain number of friends. ... At the end of the 
 first act George went out to smoke a cigarette. . . . She had 
 just begun talking to Gerry Deganway when she looked up 
 and caught Jack's eye. . . . They were both so much sur- 
 prised that they became praeternaturally natural. . . . 
 
 "I said : 'I've not seen you for a long time. I heard you 
 were home.' He said : 'I got back a fortnight ago.' I asked 
 him how he was and whether he'd had a very awful time 
 in Germany. . . . And he laughed and said he was glad, on 
 the whole, that it was all over, but that he was a fair Ger- 
 man scholar now or something of that kind and he'd 
 never have taken the trouble to learn another language if 
 it hadn't been for the war. ... I think he didn't find it easy 
 to slip away; and I hate people leaning over me, when 
 they're talking, so I asked him to sit down till George came 
 back. Then the only thing we talked about was his being 
 wounded and taken prisoner. I'd heard it all before, of 
 course, but I felt I couldn't bear it if we both stopped talk- 
 ing. . . . Then George came along and shook hands. . . . 
 And a moment later Jack went back to his place. You 
 see, there wasn't very much to tell you." 
 
 "But is that all?" 
 
 "Absolutely all," she sighed. 
 
 Eric lapsed into silence, wishing that his brain were not
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 279 
 
 half paralyzed. Then he glanced round the table, counting 
 their numbers. 
 
 "Say you're too tired to play bridge, Babs," he begged. 
 "Or say you want to talk to me before I go away; we're 
 such common property here that no one will be surprised. 
 It's our last chance; we may never meet again " 
 
 "But, Eric ?" 
 
 "Yes! ... I haven't told even my own people. This is 
 not blackmail, because I arranged it all before I saw you; 
 I never expected to see you again after that night at the 
 theatre. I was just trying to save something out of the 
 wreckage. . . . I'm going away nominally for three months, 
 but I'm not coming back. I could have got on happily 
 enough, if you'd never come into my life; but, once you 
 were there, I couldn't get rid of you. I couldn't go on liv- 
 ing in England with you half a mile away, carved out of my 
 life . . . meeting you, seeing you and knowing that it was 
 all over. I've looked on you as my wife; if you ran away 
 from me and lived with another man, I couldn't keep on a 
 flat next to yours. ... I felt it at the theatre ; I felt I must 
 clear out ; I couldn't sink back to any passionless friendship. 
 So I arranged to go away and stay away. After three 
 months I shall say that I'm going for a holiday in South 
 America or Japan. I've been moving quickly the last few 
 days. This morning and this afternoon I knew that 
 everything I was doing was for the last time. And since 
 I've seen you " 
 
 He looked round apprehensively, fearful that he was be- 
 ing overheard. 
 
 "You're going away like this from your people? But 
 they love you, Eric! They're so proud of you! You'll 
 break their hearts !" 
 
 "I shouldn't have done it eighteen months ago before 
 you took my education in hand," he answered bitterly. 
 "I've given myself heart and soul to you."
 
 280 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 He hardly cared now whether the servants or his neigh- 
 bours heard him, and Barbara had to press his knee to re- 
 strain him. 
 
 "Then will you do something for me?" she asked. 
 
 "What is it ?" 
 
 "I want you to come back. Come back in three months, 
 when they expect you." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "I'm not asking for myself ! I'm asking for them. You 
 can't be so wicked! It's not like you; I don't know you 
 when you talk like this. You'd break their hearts !" 
 
 "I don't know that this comes well from you, Babs." 
 
 "Nothing comes well from me. But, if I can't undo the 
 harm I've done, I may at least stop adding to it. If you 
 don't come back . . . When it's too late, you'll never for- 
 give yourself." 
 
 He shook his head and looked at her defiantly. 
 
 "You should have thought of that when we first met in 
 this room. Only one thing will bring me back or keep me 
 from going." 
 
 "Dear Eric, don't start that again !" 
 
 "Thanks ! It doesn't amuse me to be strung up and cut 
 down and strung up again. ... I was facing things till 
 Lady Poynter shewed the devilish irony to arrange this 
 meeting." 
 
 "Won't you come back for ray sake ?" she whispered. 
 
 "To be told that you're going to marry some one else ?" 
 
 "You may not be told that. I don't know." 
 
 Eric was filled with a blaze of anger; he had to pause 
 long before he could be sure of his voice. 
 
 "You still don't want to let me go ? The pathetic invoca- 
 tion of my mother " 
 
 Barbara tried to speak and then turned away with a help- 
 less shrug. Eric woke from a trance to a thunder of op- 
 posing voices. Lady Poynter was retailing the secret his-
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 281 
 
 tory of the latest political crisis and the fall of the Coalition 
 Government. His wheezing, well-fed host was attacking the 
 Board of Trade with ill-disguised venom. "They've cut 
 down imports to such an extent," he was saying, "that in six 
 months' time you won't be able to get a cigar fit to smoke. 
 I went to my man this morning he's a fellow I've dealt 
 with all my life, and my father before me he promised me 
 half a cabinet and then made a favour of it!" Another 
 voice enquired in a drawl : "What is it exactly that you're 
 lecturing on, Mr. Lane ?" 
 
 Barbara's head was still turned from him, and he resigned 
 himself to the reshuffle, noticing with surprise that a finger- 
 bowl had been placed in front of him. He could not re- 
 member having eaten anything since the fish. And he had 
 been drinking the rather sickly Gabarnac without tasting it. 
 
 "You asked my opinion of this wine, sir," he said to Lord 
 Poynter, belatedly attentive ; in a moment he was swallowed 
 up in a discussion which dragged its way through dessert 
 until Lady Poynter pushed back her chair and rustled ma- 
 jestically to the door. 
 
 She was hardly outside the room before his host sidled 
 conspiratorially into the empty chair next him. 
 
 "Do you know anything of still champagne?" he enquired 
 darkly, as though he were giving a pass-word. 
 
 "I've drunk it, of course," answered Eric. 
 
 "Of course?" Lord Poynter echoed. "My dear friend, 
 not one man in twenty thousand of your generation has 
 even heard of still champagne. . . ." 
 
 It was all wonderfully like that first night fifteen months 
 before. Lord Poynter explained for the tenth time that he 
 never allowed coffee to be brought in until the port wine 
 had circulated for twenty minutes. Not for the first time 
 he apologized for his brandy, retailed the tragedy of the 
 last bottle of Waterloo and, like a sluggard dragging him- 
 self from bed, reluctantly moved the adjournment.
 
 282 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 They arrived in the drawing-room to find three tables set 
 for bridge. Though he had asked her to talk to him, Eric 
 was relieved to find Barbara already playing ; he had nothing 
 more to say. There was nothing, indeed, to keep a man 
 whose train left Euston before noon next day. He waited 
 till Lady Poynter was dummy and then asked her to ex- 
 cuse him. 
 
 "Well, I expect you've a great deal to do," she said, shak- 
 ing hands reluctantly. 
 
 "Oh, Eric, aren't you going to take me home ?" 
 
 Barbara threw out the question casually, but she found 
 time to look up and beseech him with her eyes. 
 
 "Are you going to be long?" he asked in the same tone. 
 
 "They're a game and sixteen. If you'll smoke one cig- 
 arette . . ." 
 
 In the next hand Barbara was dummy. After spreading 
 out her cards, she looked round the room, picked up a re- 
 view and two library novels from a side table and, after a 
 cursory glance, walked to the piano. The bridge-players 
 looked up, as she began to sing; an impatient, "It's you to 
 play, Lady Poynter," passed unheeded; and, one after an- 
 other, they laid down their hands. 
 
 "One fine day, we'll notice 
 A thread of smoke arising on the sea 
 In the far horizon, 
 And then the ship appearing; 
 Then the trim white vessel 
 
 Glides into the harbour, thunders forth her cannon. 
 See you? He is coming! 
 I do not go to meet him. Not I. I stay 
 Upon the brow of the hillock and wait, and wait 
 For a long time, but never weary 
 Of the long waiting. 
 From out the crowded city, 
 There is coming a man 
 
 A little speck in the distance, climbing the hillock. 
 Can you guess who it is?
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 283 
 
 And when he's reached the summit 
 
 Can you guess what he'll say? 
 
 He will call 'Butterfiy' from the distance. 
 
 I, without answering, 
 
 Hold myself quietly concealed, 
 
 A bit to tease him, and a bit so as not to die 
 
 At our first meeting: and then, a little troubled, 
 
 He will call, he will call: 
 
 'Dear baby-ivife of mine, dear little orange-blossom!' 
 
 The names he used to call me when he came here. . . " 
 
 "My dear, why don't you use that beautiful voice of 
 yours more ?" asked Lady Poynter, as she ended. 
 
 Barbara's face was in shadow, but Eric could see that she 
 was looking across the room at him. 
 
 "Oh, not one person in ten million ever wants me to 
 sing," she laughed, as she came back to the table. 
 
 Five minutes later she opened her purse, pushed a note 
 across to Lady Poynter and came up to Eric with a smile 
 of gratitude. 
 
 "I hope I haven't been long," she said. "Shall we see if 
 we can find a taxi ?" 
 
 They crossed Belgrave Square and reached Hyde Park 
 Corner in silence. Then Eric felt a drag at his arm, and 
 Barbara whispered : "I'm so tired !" 
 
 "I'm afraid there's not a taxi in sight," he said. "Shall 
 we go by tube to Dover Street ?" 
 
 "We may meet a taxi. Eric, d'you remember the first 
 time ?" 
 
 He shook free of her arm, as though it were eating into 
 his flesh. 
 
 "You felt the evening wouldn't be complete without that 
 after 'Butterfly' ?" he asked. 
 
 Barbara stood still, swaying slightly until he caught her 
 wrist.
 
 284 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 "I'm shutting my eyes and thinking of the past, the time 
 when we were happy," she gasped. "I can't face the pres- 
 ent." 
 
 "You can face it as philosophically as I can," he an- 
 swered. "If love were stronger than vanity ... I don't 
 blame you. I only blame myself because I was fool enough 
 to believe a woman's word, fool enough to think that, if I 
 gave her everything, she might give me something in re- 
 turn; that, if I shewed her enough magnanimity, I might 
 shame her into being magnanimous. I was hopelessly un- 
 educated in those days." 
 
 Barbara held up her hands as though each word struck 
 her in the face. 
 
 "D'you want to part like this ?" she whispered. "Wouldn't 
 you rather remember the times when I came to you and 
 cried and you made me happy? I came to you when I 
 was ill; and you just kissed me or stroked my forehead, 
 and I was better. And once or twice, when you were ill, I 
 came to you and laid your head on my breast. . . . 
 Wouldn't you rather remember that, darling?" 
 
 "If I could only forget it, I shouldn't regret so bitterly the 
 day when we first met." 
 
 She swayed again and caught hold of the wooden stand- 
 ard of a porter's rest. There was still no taxi in sight ; 
 Eric felt her pulse and dived into his pocket for a flask. He 
 had never before noticed the rest or its inscription in honour 
 of R. A. Slaney, for twenty-six years Member of Parlia- 
 ment for Shrewsbury. . . . 
 
 "Take a sip of this," he ordered. 
 
 She drank obediently and thanked him with her eyes. 
 
 "I'm better. The first time we met I was fainting in the 
 train. Before I knew you. . . . And I loved you and 
 dreamed of your love for me. I used to hear your voice. 
 . . . No one will ever look after me as you've done ; no one
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 285 
 
 will ever understand or love or make allowances for 
 me " 
 
 As he restored the flask to his pocket, Eric saw that the 
 time was within a few minutes of midnight; in less than 
 twenty- four hours he would be at Liverpool ; in less than 
 twenty-four minutes he would have lost the thing that was 
 dearest to him in life. 
 
 "Barbara, you've seen Jack," he said. "He had his 
 chance; he neglected it. There's the answer we've been 
 waiting for all these weary months. I don't want to worry 
 you when you're ill, but I can't charge my own conscience 
 with the knowledge that I've left undone anything which 
 will stop the present tragedy." 
 
 Though she opened her eyes slowly, there was now no 
 trace of faintness or exhaustion. 
 
 "He never had a chance! Eric, if you'll think for one 
 moment in a crowded theatre, with people listening all 
 round " 
 
 "He could have written the moment he left Germany. He 
 could have written or seen you any time since that night. 
 On the night itself he could have asked you to let him 
 come and see you. He didn't raise a finger ! And you still 
 hypnotize yourself with one excuse after another How 
 much longer are you going on ?" 
 
 "I don't know, Eric." She covered her eyes, for a mo- 
 ment and then rose to her feet. "I'm bound in honour, 
 as I've told you a hundred times. When I know defi- 
 nitely " 
 
 "Anything you know will have to be known to-night." 
 
 "But if you found a cable waiting for you in New 
 York " 
 
 "It would tell me what I know already plus the fact 
 that your vanity had been convinced in spite of itself." 
 
 "I prefer 'honour' to 'vanity.' " 
 
 "Hadn't we better leave 'honour' out of the discussion ?"
 
 286 THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE 
 
 She looked at him for a moment, her mouth tightly shut; 
 then, declining his arm, she began walking slowly eastward. 
 Opposite Bath House Eric hailed an empty taxi and told 
 the driver to take them to Berkeley Square. 
 
 "You wouldn't like me to drop you in Ryder Street?" 
 Barbara asked. 
 
 "Not even to gratify your love of artistic finish." 
 
 "How you hate me !" she whispered with a catch in her 
 breath. 
 
 "No, I love you as much as ever ; I need you more than 
 ever. Whatever happens to you, I wish you all happiness. 
 You once undertook my education, but I can tell you that 
 you'll never find the happiness I'm wishing you till you learn 
 to sink yourself and think of other people." 
 
 Barbara looked at him like a startled animal, then looked 
 away. 
 
 "Haven't I sunk myself, haven't I thought of Jack before 
 any one else for two and a half years?" she whispered. 
 
 "No, you've thought solely of yourself with Jack as a 
 limelight. At this moment you're thinking less of Jack or 
 me than of your amour propre." 
 
 "You must be thankful to be rid of me after the way I've 
 sacrificed you to my vanity." 
 
 "You'll outgrow your vanity." 
 
 "Perhaps Jack still wants me in spite of the way I've be- 
 haved to him." 
 
 "Perhaps so. I shan't be here to see." 
 
 The taxi turned into Berkeley Street, and Eric held out 
 his hand. 
 
 "Good-bye, Barbara," he said. 
 
 "Won't you come in for a moment?" 
 
 "No, thank you." 
 
 "Eric, you must! There's something I want to say to 
 you ! Eric, I beg you to come in." 
 
 He opened the door without answering and stood on the
 
 THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 287 
 
 kerb, ready to help her out. She delayed so long that the 
 driver turned curiously round. 
 
 "Eric, please !" she entreated. 
 
 "Have you your latch-key?" 
 
 She gave a choking sob, as she mounted the steps, and 
 Eric set his teeth ; suddenly losing control, she gripped him 
 by the arm. 
 
 "Eric, you're not going to-morrow !" 
 
 "Indeed I am." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "That's immaterial. Good-bye." 
 
 He returned to the taxi and pressed himself into the cor- 
 ner, staring ahead so that he should not see the familiar 
 ermine coat on the door-step. Barbara fumbled blindly with 
 the lock and spun round, as the taxi began slowly to turn. 
 As the driver changed speed, she dropped her key and ran 
 twenty yards down the square, crying "Eric!"; but the 
 grinding of the gears drowned her voice. 
 
 The tail-light dwindled to a ruby pin-point and van- 
 ished. . . . 
 
 The telephone-bell was ringing, as Eric entered his flat. 
 He unhooked the receiver and tossed it on to his bed; but 
 after a moment's silence there broke out a persistent metal- 
 lic buzzing, while the bells in the other rooms rang with all 
 their accustomed clarity. He began to undress; but the 
 merciless noise racked his nerves. There was nothing for 
 it but to tie a handkerchief round the clapper of the 
 bell. . . . 
 
 Then he threw himself in shirt and trousers on the bed 
 and buried his face in his hands. 
 
 "A wan does not continue drinking corked champagne. 
 With women, his palate is less critical." From the Diary 
 of Eric Lane. 
 
 THE END
 
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