Then Alfred's wandering eye rested on him, hailed him with relief.
'Oh, hallo. Hen;' he said. Then, after a long silence, 'Like you to meet
Miss Hamlin. Mr Henry Calverly.'
Al Knight never could remember whether you said the girl's name first or
the man's.
But he hadn't heard yet. Evidently. Henry sighed. Since it had to come,
it would be almost better...
Miss Cicely Hamlin moved a hesitant step forward; murmured his name.
He had to step forward too.
In sheer miserable embarrassment he raised his hand a little way.
In responsive confusion she raised hers.
But his had dropped.
Hers moved downward as his came up again.
She smiled at this and extended her hand again frankly.
He took it. He didn't know that he was gripping it in a strong nervous
clasp.
'I've heard of you,' she said. He liked her voice. 'You write, don't
you?'
'Oh yes,' said he huskily, 'I write some.'
She didn't know.
He wondered dully who could have told her of him. It sounded like the
old days. It was almost, for a moment, encouraging.
Al Knight drifted away to speak to one of the new-comers.
'Do you write stories?' she asked politely.
'I try to, sometimes. It's awfully hard.'
'Oh yes, I know.'
'Do _you_ write?'
'Why--oh no! But I've wished I could. I've tried a little.'
So far as words went they might as well have been mentioning the
weather. It was not an occasion in which words had any real part.
He saw, felt, the presence of a girl unlike any he had known--slimly
pretty, alive with a quick eager interest, and subtly friendly. She saw,
and felt, a white tragic face out of which peered eyes with a gloomy
fire in them.
Before Alfred Knight drifted back she asked him to call. Then, at the
sight of them, Alfred drifted away again.
'Perhaps,' she added shyly, 'you'd bring some of your stories.'
'I haven't anything I could bring,' he replied, still with that burning
look. 'Nothing 'that's any good. If I had...' Then this blazed from him
in a low shaky voice: 'You haven't heard what they're saying about me. I
can see that. If you had you wouldn't ask me to call.'
'Oh, I'm sure I would,' she murmured, greatly confused.
'You wouldn't. You really couldn't. But I want to say this--quick,
before they come!'--for he saw Mary Ames in the doorway--'I've _got_
to say it! They'll tell you something about me. Something dreadful. It
isn't true. It--is--not true!'
'She isn't in there,' said Mary, joining them. Then 'Oh!' She looked
at Henry with a hint of alarm in her face; said, 'How do you do!' in a
voice that chilled him, brought the despair back; then said to Cicely,
ignoring him: 'We'd better tell them.' And moved a step toward the group
under the lanterns.
Cicely hesitated.
It was happening, right there; and in the cruellest manner. Henry
couldn't speak. He felt as if a fire were burning in his brain.
Al Knight, seeing Mary, drifted back.
The group, over yonder, was breaking up. Or coming this way.
Another moment and Elberforce Jenkins--tall, really good-looking in his
perfect-fitting evening clothes--stood before them.
He glanced at Henry. Gave him the cut direct.
'All right,' said Elbow Jenkins, addressing Cicely now, 'we'll go
without her. She won't mind.'
Still Cicely hesitated. For a moment, standing there, lips parted a
little, looking from one to another. Then, with an air of shyness,
apparently still confused, she gave Henry her hand.
'Do come,' she said, with a quick little smile. 'And bring the stories.
I'm sure I'd like them.'
She went with them, then.
Henry stared after her with wet eyes. Then for a while he wandered
alone among the trees. His thoughts, like his pulse, were racing
uncontrollably.
It is to be noted that he returned a while later, faced Mrs Jenkins,
wrote down the names of all the guests he recognised, and walked,
very fast, with a stiff dignity, lips compressed, eyes and brain still
burning, down to the _Gleaner_ office.
5
The story had to be written. Not at the rooms, though; Mildred might be
there with Humphrey. Sometimes he worked at the Y.M.C.A.
But there was a light in the windows of the _Gleaner_ office, over
Hemple's.
McGibbon was up there, bent over his desk in his shirtsleeves, a hand
sprawling through his straight ragged hair.
Henry acknowledged his partner's greeting with a grunt; dropped down at
his own desk; plunged at the story.
McGibbon looked up once or twice, saw that Henry was unaware of him;
continued his own work. His thin face looked worn. He bit his lip a good
deal.
'There,' said Henry, finally, with a grim look--'there's the reception
story.'
'Oh, all right.' McGibbon came over; took the pencilled script; then sat
on the edge of the table beside Henry's desk.
'Haven't got some good filler stuff?' he queried wearily, brushing a
hand across his forehead. 'We're going to have a lot of extra space this
week.'
He watched Henry, to see if this remark had an effect. It had none. He
nibbed his hand slowly back and forth across his forehead.
'The fact is,' he remarked, 'they've landed on us. Pretty hard. The
advertisers. Just about all Simpson Street. It's a sort of boycott,
apparently. Takes out two-thirds of our advertising. And Weston called
my note--that two hundred and forty-eight--for paper. Simply charged it
up against our account. Pretty dam' high-handed, I call it!'
His voice was rising. He sprang up, paced the floor.
'They're showing fight,' he ran on. 'We've got to lick 'em. That's my
way--start at the drop of the hat. What's a little advertising! Get
readers--that's the real trick of it. We'll lick 'em with circulation,
that's what we'll do!'
He stood over Henry's desk; even pounded it. The boy didn't seem to get
it, even now. He was hardly listening. With his own money at stake. But
McGibbon was finding him like that; queer gaps on the practical side. No
money sense whatever!
'Henry,' he was crying now, 'it's up to you. You're a genius. It's sheer
waste to use you on fool receptions. _Write_, man! WRITE! Let yourself
go. Anything--sketches, verse, stories! Let's give 'em what they don't
look for in a country paper. Like the old Burlington _Hawkeye_ and that
fellow Brann. And the paper in Lahore that nobody would ever have heard
of if Kipling hadn't written prose and verse to fill in, here and there.
He was a kid, too. There's always, somewhere, a little paper that's
famous because a man can _write_. Why shouldn't it be us! Us! Right up
here over the meat-market. Why, we can make the little old _Gleaner_
known from coast to coast. We can put Sunbury on the map. Just with your
pen, my boy! With your pen! And then where'll old Weston be! Where'll
these little two-bit advertisers be!'
He spread his thin hands in a gesture of triumph. Henry looked up now;
slowly pushed back his chair; said, in a weak voice, 'I'm tired. Guess
I'd better get along;' and walked out.
McGibbon stared after him, his mouth literally open.
6
Back of the old Parmenter place the barn was dark. Henry felt relief.
He was tingling with excitement. He couldn't move slowly. His fists were
clenched. Every nerve in his body was strung tight.