"Why not?" her husband inquired.
"He's an Octopus man, with his tentacles waving in every direction. And
his mind is like a big room handsomely furnished, but without a
fireplace in it. Certainly--he's been sweet as Hybla honey to me, and I
ought to like him, but I don't."
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
*A SUNDAY IN CADOGAN PLACE*
In late October, when pages fall as thickly from printing-presses as
leaves do from trees, _Shall the Strong retain the Spoil?_ appeared.
During the preceding Spring many of the best publishers had withheld
books which were now offered to the public. Conquest predicted a glutted
market, and no sales for wares bearing obscure brands. Mark, he said,
might compass a _succes d'estime_--nothing more. He added that the time
had come to pull strings, if strings were to be pulled.
"I don't quite understand," said Mark.
"Get so-and-so," he named a popular author, "to enlighten you. Look
here, Samphire, you're a man of good family, your people know numbers of
swells, that brother of yours is hand in glove with some bigwigs. Stir
'em up with a long pole. I don't suppose you care to fork out for such
advertising as our friend I mentioned uses. Paragraphs and all that."
"He pays for paragraphs?"
"Directly and indirectly--you innocent! I see you are disgusted.
That's all right. I mentioned the matter, because I could steer you a
bit, if you wished to spend say--fifty pounds. We shall advertise the
book, of course, in the regular way. It's the irregular way, my boy,
which brings in the dollars."
"The book must sell on its merits," said Mark.
"As you please," said Conquest.
Shortly afterwards, the first notices were sent to him by the Press
Clipping Agency to which he had become a subscriber. Mark was told that
his work showed extraordinary promise, that he would take high rank,
when he had found himself, that he was a master of dialogue and dialect,
the author of a powerful and convincing study of conditions which
challenged the attention of every thinking man and woman, and so on and
so forth. He rushed up to town, showed the clippings to Betty, who
seemed to be more excited and pleased than he was himself, went on to
Wisden and Evercreech, and thence to his club, where he found Tommy
Greatorex, whiter and more nervous than usual, sitting alone by the fire
in the library. To him the clippings were presently submitted with an
apology. Tommy took them with an ironical smile.
"They're always kind to a new man if he shows any ability." He glanced
at the clippings, flipping them with his lean delicately shaped fingers.
"You are subtle, I see, and daring, and brilliant--and strong! By Jove,
Samphire, I'll bet a new umbrella, which I want badly, that you didn't
know you were such a ring-tailed squealer--hey? Don't blush, my dear
fellow. Wait till your stuff sells, and then read what they'll say
about it. Ha--ha! Listen to this! One of 'em says: 'Mr. Samphire is
evidently at home in some of the sordid scenes which he describes with
such power and pathos; we take it that he has spent many years in the
slums.' So far--so good. It's more than likely that the fellow who
wrote that is a member of this club and in the know. Here's another,
next to it, egad! 'This story reveals imaginative powers of a high
order, for it is plain that the author has never set foot in
Stepney....' Ha--ha--ha! Now sit down, stand me a drink, and tell me
how many copies have been sold."
"A hundred copies were sold the day before yesterday," said Mark.
"Now, that's a little bit of all right, and no mistake. I'm delighted
to hear it. I congratulate you--_con fuoco_! That means business.
One--hundred--copies in _one_ day! Whew-w-w! Hang it, why don't you
rejoice?"
"Because," said Mark, "I found out that the hundred copies were bought
by one man for one man. A friend of mine on the Stock Exchange took the
lot. The book is not selling."
"Sorry," said Tommy quietly. "I've read it. I've reviewed it. This,"
he tapped one of the clippings which he still held in his hand, "is
mine. I got for it a few shillings, already spent, and the book which I
shall keep, because it is written by a good fellow. It's not what's in
the book which appeals to me, but what's in the writer, and which will
come out--some day."
"Thank you," said Mark.
He returned to luncheon at Cadogan Place, humbled, and therefore, in a
woman's eyes, meet for sympathy and encouragement.
"In any case," said Betty, "you have had the delight of writing the
book. And it _is_ strong and subtle; but, Mark, few people are
interested in slums. Your book made me cry, and I want to laugh. Life
is so sad, why make it sadder?"
Mark had listened to interminable arguments upon this vexed question.
But in Betty's tone and manner he caught a glimpse of a spectre.
"Your life is not sad," he said.
"I'm one of the lucky ones," she replied hastily "We were speaking of
your book."
"Hang the book," said Mark impatiently "What is that to me in comparison
with----" He stopped abruptly, got up from his chair, paced the length
of the room, and came back.
"You are happy--are you not?" he asked. They were alone in the
drawing-room, filled with the pictures and china which had come out of
the saloon at The Whim. Archibald was presiding over one of his
innumerable committees. Looking at Betty as she sat amongst things
familiar to Mark from childhood, it was difficult to believe that she
was a married woman. She still retained a bloom of maidenhood, a
daintiness and freshness. Her face suggested the nymph rather than the
matron.
"Of course I am happy," she replied; then she added in a whisper: "Mark,
I ought to be happy, but I am a rebel."
"All women are rebels, Betty. Against what in particular do you rebel?"
"I oughtn't to tell you, but--but I must. I suppose I am the many-sided
woman, who ought to have half a dozen husbands. I am interested in so
many things. I like to browse here and there. But Archie doesn't care
about anything or anybody outside his own vineyard. He is going up and
up and I am--falling! Oh, I'm disloyal, but I must speak. It comes to
this: Archie loves me and of course I love him, but we--we have nothing
to say to each other when we're alone."
She sat, twisting her fingers, staring forlornly at the carpet. Mark
burst into speech. At the sound of his voice, still so youthful in
quality, she raised her head, smiling, eager, intent.
"Why, Betty, we all get blue at times, and sigh for what we've not got.
There are women, no doubt, who are fatly content with their lives, but I
don't suppose they go up or down. One pictures them in one spot, doing
the same stupid thing, saying the same stupid thing for ever and ever.
I think you're in a healthy state. When we feel that we are going down,
we begin to beat our wings and flap upwards. Some saints, possibly,
might be justified in taking a rest-cure; they are the ones who never do
it."
He rose to go, not daring to stay.
"When are you coming again, Mark? You always do me good. Can't you
spend next Sunday with us? By the way, have you ever been to our
church?"
"Yes; the first Sunday Archibald preached."
"Oh! The sermon about Balaam."
"Yes."
"You know, he says that he's uneven. But the women in this parish think
him wonderful. Some of them, who sit near the pulpit, make a point of
crying whenever he gives them a chance. One told me that when he
pronounced the Benediction she felt purged of all sin! I could have
bitten her."
Mark promised to spend the following Sunday in Cadogan Place, and duly
accompanied Betty to morning service. For nearly thirty minutes
Archibald preached to a crowded congregation, who listened intently to a
conventional theme, treated conventionally. Coming out Mark heard a
tall, thin man, with a striking face, whisper to the woman beside him:
"I came for bread; he gave us pap--in a golden spoon."
"Did you hear that?" said Betty, a moment later.
"Yes."
Some friends greeted Betty, and no more was said till luncheon, to which
the Chrysostom of Sloane Street applied himself, as usual, seriously and
silently. He looked slightly puffy and his eyes were losing their
clearness and sparkle. Mark asked abruptly if he were overworked.
"Every minute is filled," said Archibald heavily. "Overworked? I can
stand a lot of work."
"He would be miserable without it--and bored," said Betty. "He won't
even come to concerts with me now."
"It's the work that tells, nowadays, my dear. Preaching gives a man a
start, but it's the steady strain of parochial organisation which brings
one to the top of the hill."
"You are neglecting your sermons," said Betty. "For several Sundays they
have struck me as being--how shall I put it--uninspired. They hold
one's attention, yes, but they do not grip; they touch, but they do not
penetrate."
Archibald nodded, frowning and crumbling the bread beside his plate.
"The Duchess," he said, "stopped me this morning after church to tell me
that she liked the treatment of my text immensely."
"Oh--the Duchess!" exclaimed Betty.
"I've so much on my mind," said Archibald, turning to Mark. He rose,
looking at his watch. "I must go now to hear a man sing in Upper
Tooting. The cigars are in my room."
He went out. As the door shut behind him, Betty turned a contrite face
to Mark's.
"I hit him when he was down. What a beast I am!"
At that moment it became a conviction to Mark that Betty loved an ideal
husband, who would fall from the pinnacle on which she had perched him.
A feeling of pleasure at this impending catastrophe almost turned him
sick. Then, very slowly, he resolved that the powers within him should
be devoted to the preservation of an ideal, so vital to the welfare of
the woman he loved. Betty began to speak of his literary work.
"When I read your book," she said, "I had an intuition that one day you
would write a play."