Aubrey smiled, recovering a superiority toward her. But his heart grew heavy almost simultaneously. She had thrown her arms about him and was exclaiming, "Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're writing again, Aubrey darling. I've wanted you to so much."
He pushed her away slowly. She stood pouting.
"Now I can see where I take a back seat," she sighed. "Yes sir, you won't have time for me at all. But I don't care. As long as you're happy, darling, I'm delighted. I want you to be happy and I know it makes you happy to write."
When she left the room Aubrey remained frowning after her. He would surprise her. He would surprise them all. He would publish the manuscript under his own name. It would create a sensation. It would bring him back in the public eye more glorified than he had been in his literary heyday.
In a few days the idea had grown to obliterating proportions. For a time he abandoned the contemplation of the inner Aubrey—the gleaming-eyed Thunderer. This other was nearer reality—an Aubrey hymned as a rejuvenated literary figure. But he hesitated. His indecision resulted in a predicament. He had been boasting cautiously of his new work, letting out hints as to its character. There was Cressy, a literary critic and a member of the club where he lunched. He had talked to him about it.
"I'm surprised myself," he explained. "I was rather uncertain whether I could come back. But the rest was evidently just what I needed. The book isn't at all in my old style. More direct, sincere and entirely simple. You'll like it."
Cressy became important in Aubrey's predicament. Cressy was a man whom Aubrey identified as "the more discriminating public." He yearned for the approval of this public. And as his decision to have his father's manuscript printed under his own name grew, Aubrey sought the critic out. It was pleasant to boast to Cressy, to feel oneself part of the superior literary world Cressy inhabited.
Cressy had left the university with the determination to write. He had, however, developed into a scholar, using a knowledge of Greek and Latin to acquire a baggage of classical erudition. For ten years he had been contributing literary essays to magazines and newspapers. In these he wagged his head sorrowfully over the decline of letters. He presented an impregnable front to all new writers. The names of new novelists in the book lists irritated him precisely as the names of new celebrities in the society columns had once irritated Mrs. Basine. He resented them as intruders and focused a pedantic wrath on them.
In his own mind he pictured himself as being in a continual state of revolt against the inferiority of modern literature. His attacks, however, were entirely a defensive gesture. His literary point of view was inspired by a heroic desire to annihilate contemporary literature. Contemporary books were an insult and a barrier to his egoism. He battled against them. His struggle was the quixotic effort to assert the superiority of his erudition. New novels, new poetries, new philosophies were a conspiracy to minimize him and he went after them with the zeal of one engaged in tracking criminals to their lair.
At forty-five he was a stern-faced man with a greying mustache, heavy glasses behind which gleamed indignant eyes. He was impressive looking. People who never read his fulminations still felt a high regard for his scholarship. He was fearless in the pronunciation of French, Latin and Greek names and invariably functioned as arbiter in all disputes concerning classical quotations and allusions.