There. I have set out the miracle. As Sarah Roach said, so it has fallen out. I have met the person I was on the eve of meeting. By him my life is to be influenced to an amazing extent. My existence is to be changed. Instead of being a partner in a shipping firm, I shall go back to my own old job. My outlook has been switched from bills of lading to that exhilarating game of blind man’s buff. Instead of lunching in the City and arranging about freights, I shall be studying men and the ways of men, peering into their brain-pans, searching their hearts, watching and waiting and coping with sudden issues, stalking the truth under strange heavens, trying to beat Delusion at her own game. . . . More. Sir George is doing it indirectly—through somebody else: and I shall hardly see him at all.
It remains to be seen how I am to influence him . . . even more strongly . . . directly . . . physically.
Sufficient unto the day is the perfection thereof.
And now we are going out to look at a car fit for a queen to drive . . . my queen . . . my darling Jo. . . .
II
November 22nd, 1926
The contrast is so ridiculous that I must set it down.
It is half-past nine, now, of a streaming night.
At this hour a week ago I was in Madrid.
Why I was there does not matter, but I was leaning back in a chair, just as I am leaning now, regarding the ugliest man I have ever seen. And he was regarding me with beady eyes. The room was filthy and bare and frightfully cold. And I was soaked to the skin. One naked electric lamp hung from the ceiling, shedding a harsh light. I was smoking a filthy cigar and from time to time I spat upon the boards. When I spoke, I spoke in vile Spanish, helping myself out with Russian words. I tried to speak the Russian very well. To be frank, I was very uneasy. I was keeping a certain appointment—an appointment with the ugly man. I had arrived early, an hour too soon. The appointment had been arranged for a quarter to ten. My early arrival hadn’t mattered at all. In fact, he was quite nice about it—as nice as he was capable of being, this ugly man. And everything had gone very well. I gave him my news, and he gave me his. His, I may say, was the more valuable. I was extremely glad of it. I did not say so, of course. But I was—extremely glad. And now, having stayed with him nearly an hour, I was inclined to be gone. It was really rather important that I should bid him good-bye, because the appointment I had kept had been made for somebody else. And, as I had kept it without advising them, in the ordinary course of events they would keep it, too. Indeed, unless they were late, they would knock twice on the door at a quarter to ten. Possibly they might be early. . . . But one thing was certain. That was that, whenever they did arrive and they and the ugly man found out that a total stranger had been receiving his valuable news, they would both be most annoyed. . . . The trouble was that my host didn’t mean me to go. . . .
I owe my life to the fact that my hearing is good—at any rate, better than that of my ugly friend.