He hurried on across the lawn, entered the house, and ran upstairs to his room. There was not a second to lose; he must begin at once. He would write something—something that would last, solid, hard, shining. . . .
“Damn them all! I will do it, I can . . .”
There were writing materials and a table in his room. He selected a pen—with a Relief nib he would be able to go on for hours without getting tired—and a large square sheet of writing-paper.
“HATCH HOUSE,
BLAYBURY,
WILTS.
Station: Cogham, 3 miles; Nobes Monacorum, 4½ miles.”
Stupid of people to have their stationery printed in red, when black or blue is so much nicer! He inked over the letters.
He held up the paper to the light; there was a watermark, “Pimlico Bond.” What an admirable name for the hero of a novel! Pimlico Bond. . . .
“There’s be-eef in the la-arder
And du-ucks in the pond;
Crying dilly dilly, dilly dilly . . .”
He bit the end of his pen. “What I want to get,” he said to himself, “is something very hard, very external. Intense emotion, but one will somehow have got outside it.” He made a movement of hands, arms, and shoulders, tightening his muscles in an effort to express to himself physically that hardness and tightness and firmness of style after which he was struggling!
He began to draw on his virgin paper. A woman, naked, one arm lifted over her head, so that it pulled up her breast by that wonderful curving muscle that comes down from the shoulder. The inner surface of the thighs, remember, is slightly concave. The feet, seen from the front, are always a difficulty.