"I don't know yet—we haven't decided. Do you think we can live on three pounds a week?"
"Is that all you get, old man—you're worth more: it's a bit of a tight fit." Humphrey wondered what Wratten's salary was. Perhaps Wratten guessed his thoughts, for he said: "I don't like telling people what I get—there's a sort of secrecy about it—but, if you don't let it go any further, I'll tell you—I get ten pounds a week."
Humphrey felt himself shrink into insignificance before that mighty sum. Ten pounds seemed a tremendous salary to earn—no wonder Wratten had married. It was too much for one man's needs.
"I say, that's pretty good," he said, admiringly.
"Oh! you'll be worth more than that, some day," Wratten said. "You're the kind of chap that gets on, I can see.... That's why I shouldn't be in a hurry to marry if I were you," he added; "I've seen lots of fellows stick in the mud by marrying too early. It doesn't give them a chance. Marriage helps in some ways, and holds back in others ... a man is not so independent when he marries. He has to think of others besides himself. Unless, of course, his wife has a little means of her own."
He has to think of others besides himself!
That point of view had never come to Humphrey before. Why, he was marrying solely to please himself. Marriage seemed to him, then, necessary to the fulfilment of his dreams. Lilian was a mere excuse. He told her that he wanted to make her happy, blinding himself to the fact that he wanted to make himself happy. He was going to use her as a motive for his life, that was all. She would urge him on to success, encourage him, look after him, comfort him when he was in need of it—he had never thought of her at all, except as an accessory to his life. Of course, if anybody had told Humphrey this, at the time, he would have denied it, vehemently; protested his eternal love; sworn that she was always uppermost in his mind; and that it was his most ardent desire to work for her happiness. Love not only blinds us to the imperfections of others, but twists the vision we have always held of ourselves.
Wratten had taken a flat at Hampstead—a little box of a flat—at a ridiculously high rent, but to Humphrey, as he came into the sitting-room, it appeared as an ideal home. There was an air of repose and rest about it, the walls papered in a soft green, chintz curtains drawn over the windows, a carpet of a shade of green deeper than the walls, and old furniture about the room.
The artistic nature is always hidden below the practical journalist, and it comes to light in different ways. With some men it shows itself in a love of old books; with others, it bursts out in the form of writing other things than ephemeral newspaper "copy"; and with nearly all, the artist in them shakes itself free from its hiding-place and shines clear and strong in the home. There is no time for art during the day; no need for it, indeed. The standard of what is good is not made by the reporter, but by the paper for which he writes.
And here, in Wratten's home, Humphrey found the vein of the artist in him, in his perception and appreciation of old furniture. He fondled his pieces. "Here's a nice little rocking-chair," he said. "Don't see many of these now."