Then to my astonishment Derrick sprang to his feet in hot indignation. I never saw him look so handsome, before or since; for his anger was not the distorting, devilish anger that the Major gave way to, but real downright wrath.
“You speak contemptuously of mere novels,” he said in a low voice, yet more clearly than usual, and as if the words were wrung out of him. “What right have you to look down on one of the greatest weapons of the day? and why is a writer to submit to scoffs and insults and tamely to hear his profession reviled? I have chosen to write the message that has been given me, and I don’t regret the choice. Should I have shown greater spirit if I had sold my freedom and right of judgment to be one of the national killing machines?”
With that he threw down his cards and strode out of the room in a white heat of anger. It was a pity he made that last remark, for it put him in the wrong and needlessly annoyed Lawrence and the Major. But an angry man has no time to weigh his words, and, as I said, poor old Derrick was very human, and when wounded too intolerably could on occasion retaliate.
The Major uttered an oath and looked in astonishment at the retreating figure. Derrick was such an extraordinarily quiet, respectful, long-suffering son as a rule, that this outburst was startling in the extreme. Moreover, it spoilt the game, and the old man, chafed by the result of his own ill-nature, and helpless to bring back his partner, was forced to betake himself to chess. I left him grumbling away to Lawrence about the vanity of authors, and went out in the hope of finding Derrick. As I left the house I saw someone turn the corner into the Circus, and starting in pursuit, overtook the tall, dark figure where Bennett Street opens on to the Lansdowne Hill.
“I’m glad you spoke up, old fellow,” I said, taking his arm.
He modified his pace a little. “Why is it,” he exclaimed, “that every other profession can be taken seriously, but that a novelist’s work is supposed to be mere play? Good God! don’t we suffer enough? Have we not hard brain work and drudgery of desk work and tedious gathering of statistics and troublesome search into details? Have we not an appalling weight of responsibility on us?—and are we not at the mercy of a thousand capricious chances?”
“Come now,” I exclaimed, “you know that you are never so happy as when you are writing.”
“Of course,” he replied; “but that doesn’t make me resent such an attack the less. Besides, you don’t know what it is to have to write in such an atmosphere as ours; it’s like a weight on one’s pen. This life here is not life at all—it’s a daily death, and it’s killing the book too; the last chapters are wretched—I’m utterly dissatisfied with them.”
“As for that,” I said calmly, “you are no judge at all. You can never tell the worth of your own work; the last bit is splendid.”
“I could have done it better,” he groaned. “But there is always a ghastly depression dragging one back here—and then the time is so short; just as one gets into the swing of it the breakfast bell rings, and then comes—” He broke off.