"Yes, the lady disconnected by marriage with Jupiter who tubbed her in
gold--gold ink, I suppose. But as I am not a composer I shall put you
between the sheets--of a novel I mean. Fiction has its consolations."
But now, leaving the canon, they entered a cavern which a tunnel fluted.
There Cassy looked up at the inkbeast. "How is Mr. Lennox? Do you see
him?"
"I find it very difficult not to. Unattached people are sticky as
flies. When Lennox was engaged, he was invisible. Now he is all over the
place."
From the tunnel a train erupted. It came with the belch of a monstrous
beetle, red-eyed and menacing, hastening terribly to some horrible task.
Jones, shoving the girl into its bowels, added: "I was happier when he
was jugged."
A corner beckoned. There, as the beetle resumed its flight, the novelist
spread his wings.
"I would have wagered a red pippin that you couldn't say Jack Robinson
before he and that young woman were convoluting joyously. I even planned
to be best man. Saw my tailor about it. Whether it were on that account
or not the Lords of Karma only know, but he told Miss Austen to go to
hell."
Cassy started. From before her everything was receding.
Jones noting the movement, interpreted it naturally and therefore
stupidly. He apologised.
"Forgive me. I picture you as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conversation.
Forgive me, then. Besides, what Lennox did say, he said with less
elegance. He said: 'I'm through.' Yes and asked me to repeat it to her.
I studiously omitted to, but as Proteus--Mr. Blount in private
life--somewhere expressed it, 'Hell has no more fixed or absolute
decree.'"
Because of the crashing beetle Jones had to shout it. He shouted it in
Cassy's ear. It was a lovely ear and Jones was aware of it. But only
professionally. Since that night in Naples when, by way of keepsake, he
got a dagger in his back, he had entertained the belief that a novelist
should have everything, even to sex, in his brain. Such theories are
very safe. Jones' admirations were not therefore carnal. To Balzac, a
pretty woman was a plot. Cassy was a plot to Jones, who continued to
shout.
"If Lennox and Margaret Austen moved and had their being in a novel of
mine, the wedding-bells would now be ringing at a cradle in the last
chapter. Commercially it would be my duty to supply that happy and
always unexpected touch. I even made a bet about it, which shows how
iniquitous gambling is. What's more, it shows that I must have an
unsuspected talent for picture-plays. As it was in heaven, so it is now
in the movies. It is there that marriages are made. But forgive me
again. I am talking shop."
The renewed apology was needless. Though Jones shouted, Cassy did not
hear. It was not the clattering beetle that interfered. To that also
Cassy was deaf. She heard nothing. The echo of noisy millions had gone.
The slamming doors were silent. But her face was pale as running water
when, the beetle at last abandoned, she thanked Jones for seeing her all
the way.
All the way to where? God, if she only knew!