And while these bitter thoughts poured through his mind, he entered
Charing Cross station, and there in front of the bookstall was Eleanor
Moore. The bitter thoughts poured out of his mind in a rapid flood. He
felt so certain that his novel would be published that he could almost
see it stacked on the bookstall behind Eleanor. He would finish the
tragedy that week and in a short while England would be acclaiming him
as a great dramatist!... He hurried towards her and held out his hand,
and she shyly took it.
"Have you been here long?" he anxiously asked.
"No," she answered, "I've only just come!"
"Let's go and have some tea," he went on.
"I've had mine, thanks!..."
"Well, have some more. I've not had any!..."
"I don't think I can, thanks. I've really come to say that I can't!..."
"There's a little place near here," he interrupted hurriedly, "where
they give you lovely home-made bread. I found it one day when I was
wandering about. We'll just go there and talk about whatever you want
to say. Give me that umbrella of yours!" He took it from her hand as he
spoke. "This is the way," he said, leading her from the station. As
they crossed the road, he took hold of her arm. "These streets are
terribly dangerous," he said. "You never know what minute you're going
to be run over!"
He still held her arm when they were safely on the pavement, but
she contrived to free herself without making a point of doing so.
He tried to bring her back to the mood in which they were when she
leaned out of the window to listen to him ... "like Romeo and Juliet,"
he told himself ... but the congestion of the streets made such
intimacies impossible. They were constantly being separated by the
hurrying foot-passengers, and so they could only speak in short,
dull sentences. He brought her at last to the quiet tea-shop where
he ordered tea and home-made bread and honey!...
"Eleanor," he said, when the waitress had taken his order and had
departed to fulfil it, "it's no good, you telling me that you can't go
out with me. You must, my dear. I want to marry you!..."
"But it's absurd," she expostulated. "How can you possibly talk like
that when we're such strangers to each other!"
"You're no stranger to me. I've loved you for two months now. I've
hardly ever had you out of my mind. I was nearly demented mad when I
lost you. I used to go and hang about that office of yours day after
day in the hope that you'd come out!... And if ever I get the chance,
I'll break that liftman's neck for him. He insulted me the day I asked
him what office you were in. He called me a Nosey Parker!"
She laughed at him. "But that was right, wasn't it?" she said. "You
wouldn't have him give information about me to any man who chooses to
ask for it?"
"He should have known that I was all right. A child could have seen
that I wasn't just playing the fool. But you're mebbe right. I'll think
no more about him. Do you know what happened last night?"
"No."
He told her of his relationship with the _Daily Sensation_.
"Then you've lost your work?" she said.
He nodded his head, and they did not speak again for a few moments. The
waitress had brought the tea and bread and honey, and they waited until
she had gone.
"I'm so sorry," she said.
"It doesn't bother me," he replied. "I only told you to show you how
much I love you. I'm not codding you, Eleanor. You matter so much to me
that I'd sacrifice any job in the world for you. I told Clotworthy that
... he's the editor of the paper ... I told him I'd rather be your
husband than have his job a hundred times over. And so I would. Will
you marry me, Eleanor?"
"I've never met anyone like you before!..."
"I daresay you haven't but I'm not asking you about that. Will you
marry me? We can fix the whole thing up in no time at all. I looked it
up in a book this morning, and it says you can get married after three
weeks' notice. If I give notice the morrow, we can be married in a
month from to-day!"
"Oh, stop, stop," she said. "Your mind is running away with you. I
spoke to you for the first time last night!..."
"Beg your pardon," he said, "you spoke to me the first day we met. I
handed you your letter!..."
"Oh, but that doesn't count. That was nothing. I really only spoke to
you last night, and I don't know you. I'm not in love with you ... no,
please be sensible. How can I possibly love you when I don't know
you!..."
"I love you, don't I?" he demanded.
"You say so!"
"Well, if I love you, you can love me, can't you. That's simple
enough!"
She passed a cup of tea to him. "Do all Irishmen behave like this?" she
said.
"I don't know and I don't care. It's the way I behave. I know my mind
queer and quick, Eleanor, and when I want a thing, I don't need to go
humming and hahhing to see whether I'm sure about it. I want you. I
know that for a fact, and there's no need for me to argue about it.
I'll not want you any more this day twelvemonth than I want you now,
and I won't want you any less. Will you marry me?"
"No!"
"How long will it be before you will marry me, then?"
She threw her hands with a gesture of comical despair. "Really," she
said, "you're unbelievable. You seem to think that I must want to marry
you merely because you want to marry me. I take no interest whatever in
you!..."
"No, but you will!"
She shrugged her shoulders. "It isn't any use talking," she said. "Your
mind is made up!..."
"It is. I want to marry you, Eleanor, and I'm going to marry you. I
have a lot to do in the world yet, but that's the first thing I've got
to do, and I can't do anything else till I have done it. So you might
as well make up your mind to it, and save a lot of time arguing about
it when it's going to happen in the end!"
She pushed her cup away, and rose from her seat. "I'm going home," she
said. "This conversation makes me feel dizzy!"
"There's no hurry," he exclaimed.
She spoke coldly and deliberately, "It's not a question of hurry," she
replied. "It's a question of desire, I _wish_ to go home. Your
conversation bores and annoys me!"
"Why?"
"Because you treat me as if I were not human, and had no desires of my
own. I'm to marry you, of whom I know absolutely nothing, merely
because you want me to marry you. I don't know whether you are a
gentleman or not. You have a very funny accent!..."
"What's wrong with my accent?" he demanded.
"I don't know. It's just funny. I've never heard an accent like that
before, and so I can't tell whether you're a gentleman or not. If you
were an Englishman, I should know at once, but it's different with
Irish people. Your very queer manners may be quite the thing in
Ireland!"
He put out his hand to her, but she drew back. "Sit down," he said.
"Just for a minute or two till I talk to you. I'll let you go then!"
She hesitated. Then she did as he asked her. "Very well!" she said
primly.
"Listen to me, Eleanor, I know very well that my behaviour is strange
to you. It's strange to me. Till last night we'd never exchanged a
dozen words. I know that. But I tell you this, if you live to be a
hundred and have boys by the score, you'll never have a man that'll
love you as I love you. I'm in earnest, Eleanor. I'm not codding you.
I'm not trying to humbug you. I love you. I'm desperate in love with
you!..."
She leant forward a little, moved by his sincerity. "But," she said,
and then stopped as if unable to find words, adequate to her meaning.
"There's no buts about it," he replied. "I love you. I don't know why I
love you, and I don't care whether I know or not. All I know is that
the minute I saw you, I loved you. I wanted to see you again, and I
schemed to make you talk to me!..."
"Yes, and very silly your schemes were. Asking me if I wanted the
_Graphic_ back again!..."
"You remember that, do you?" he asked.
"Well, it was so obvious and so stupid," she answered.
"Listen. Tell me this. Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?
It's no use me telling you if you don't believe me!"
"It's so difficult to say!..."
"Do you believe me," he insisted. "Do I look like a man that would tell
lies to a girl like you. Answer me that, now?"
She raised her eyes, and gazed very straightly at him. "No," she said;
"I don't think you would. I ... I think you mean what you say!..."
"I do, Eleanor. As true as God's in heaven, I do. Will you not believe
me?"
"But I don't love you," she burst out.
"Well, mebbe you don't. That's understandable!" he admitted.
"And the whole thing's so unusual," she protested.
"What does that matter? If I love you and you get to love me, does it
matter about anything else? Have wit, woman, have wit!"
"Don't speak to me like that. You're very abrupt, Mr. MacDermott!..."
"My name's John to you! Now, don't flare up again. You were nice and
amenable a minute ago. You can stop like that. You and me are going to
marry some time. The sooner the better. All I want you to do now, as
you say you don't love me, is to give me a chance to make you love me.
Come out with me for a walk ... or we'll go to a theatre, if you like!
Anyway, let's be friends. I don't know anybody in this town except one
man, and him and me's had a row over the head of the _Daily
Sensation!_..." "Yes," she interrupted, "you've lost your work
through your foolishness. What are you going to do now? It isn't very
easy to get work." "I'll get it all right if I want it, I've enough
money to keep me easy for a year without doing a hand's turn, and I
daresay my mother and my Uncle William 'ud let me have more if I wanted
it. I don't want to be on a paper much. I want to write books!" Her
interest was restored. "Tell me about the book you've written. Is it
printed yet?" she said. He told her of his work, and of the Creams and
of Hinde. He told her, too, of his life in Ballyards. "Where do you
come from?" he said. "Devonshire," she answered. "My father was rector
of a village there until he died. Then mother and I lived in Exeter
until she died!..." "You're alone then?" he asked. "Yes. My mother
had an annuity. That stopped when she died. My cousin ... he's a doctor
in Exeter ... settled up her affairs for me, and when everything was
arranged, there was just enough money to pay for my secretarial
training and keep me for a year. I trained for six months and then I
went as a stop-gap to that office where you saw me. I'm in an office in
Long Acre now--a motor place!" "And have you no friends here--relations,
I mean?" "Some cousins. I don't often see them. And one or
two people who knew father and mother!" "You're really alone then ...
like me?" he said. "Yes," she answered. "Yes, I suppose I am!" He
leant back in his chair. "It seems like the hand of God," he said,
"bringing the two of us together!" "I wish," she said, "you wouldn't
talk about God so much!"