On the way back to Hampstead John tried to assure himself that the conversation he had just overheard did not represent anything more important than the vaporings of an exceptionally idiotic pair of men about town; but the more he meditated upon the tales about himself evidently now in general circulation, the more he was appalled at the recklessness of calumny.
"One has joked about it. One has laughed at Sheridan's School for Scandal. One has admitted that human beings are capable of almost incredible exaggeration. But—no, really this is too much. I've gossiped sometimes myself about my friends, but never like that about a stranger—a man in the public eye."
John nearly stopped the taxi to ask the driver if he had heard any stories about John Touchwood; but he decided it would not be wise to run risk of discovery that he enjoyed less publicity than he was beginning to imagine, and he kept his indignation to himself.
"After all, it is a sign of—well, yes, I think it might fairly be called fame—a sign of fame to be talked about like that by a couple of ignorant chatterboxes. It is, I suppose, a tribute to my position. But Laurence! That's what annoyed me most. Laurence to be the author of my plays! I begin to understand this ridiculous Bacon and Shakespeare legend now. The rest of the gossip was malicious, but that was—really, I think it was actionable. I shall take it up with the committee. The idea of that pompous nincompoop writing Lucretia's soliloquy before she poisons her lips! Laurence! Good heavens! And fancy Laurence writing Nebuchadnezzar's meditation upon grass! By Jove, an audience would have some cause to titter then! And Laurence writing Joan's defense to the Bishop of Beauvais! Why, the bombastic pedant couldn't even write a satisfactory letter to the Bishop of Silchester to keep himself from being ignominiously chucked out of his living."
The infuriated author bounced up and down on the cushions of the taxi in his rage.
"Shall I give you an arm up the steps, sir?" the driver offered, genially, when John, having alighted at his front door, had excessively overpaid him under the impression from which he was still smarting of being called a skinflint.
"No, thank you."
"Beg pardon, sir. I thought you was a little bit tiddly. You seemed a bit lively inside on the way up."
"I suppose the next thing is that I shall get the reputation of being a dipsomaniac," said John to himself, as he flung open his door and marched immediately, with a slightly accentuated rigidity of bearing, upstairs to bed.
But he could not sleep. The legend of his behavior that was obviously common gossip in London oppressed him with its injustice. Every accusation took on a new and fantastic form, while he turned over and over in an attempt to reach oblivion. He began to worry now more about what had been implied in his association with Miss Hamilton than about the other stories. He felt that it would only be a very short time before she would hear of the tale in some monstrous shape and leave him forever in righteous disgust. Ought he, indeed, to make her aware to-morrow morning of what was being suggested? And even if he did not say anything about the past, ought he to compromise her more deeply in the future?