But how had this boy, this Pat O'Neill, earned the idea he exploited so brilliantly? Was it from what he had himself done? Or, as in Gareth's case, had failed to do?
For the first time, since sixteen years ago he had seen the profession of reader bathed in a glow of romance, Gareth began to muse on the personality at the other end.... Who was he? What was he? Strange how these books drifted in from complete darkness.
Pat O'Neill. Young, certainly; for since in no passage did he dwell on the marvel of youth, he must obviously be in that one state when the marvel would not strike him. Young—and a genius—how well he would have taken his place as One of Them, if.... But that could never be, while Gareth was holding back the book till his own should be published, and render stale the other.
Sudden memory of Graham Carr, in unwonted confidential mood:
"I used to pace up and down outside here, before you decided on my fate. What a period that was of ghastly thrills, imagining all the accidents of fire and water which were destroying my precious manuscript. Yet, d'you know, if the ordeal of waiting had lasted a decade longer, I should never have screwed myself to the point of asking for a decision. One is possessed by the spirit of fatalism where one's first book is concerned...."
Was that what it meant to Pat O'Neill? Was he even now chafing, in cramped circumstances, starved and shabby, fierily impatient of this delay to ambition? And if the delay were removed.... Gareth's imagination was imprinted with a very clear picture of something dark and eager and divinely insolent, seated high among "Campbell's Young Men" as their very latest and most successful acquisition. Nobody standing between him and his throne but Gareth ... who suddenly felt very weak and futile, pushing stubbornly against the vigorous onslaught of the unseen unknown personality at the other end.
"He shan't get in—with my idea; he shan't—!" Just because Pat O'Neill would have fitted there so marvellously; would, certainly, have looked down on the mere reader of other people's books.
"Can I see Mr. Campbell?"
"What name, please?" asked Gareth, standing up at his desk, and looking at the girl in the heavy dark green cloth, tailor-made, who had just entered through the swing-doors. He was alone in the office. Alexander was lunching an important client; and Guy Burnett was at Watford, interviewing the printers. Even Jimmy had just staggered off to the post, with an accumulation of rejected manuscripts.