“But,” protested Ervine, pale with vexation, the next time he met me, “but you have entirely misunderstood my play. You can’t have stayed till the end.”
“It was very painful for me, Ervine,” said I, “but I really did stick it out to the finish. Why do you young fellows write so depressingly? You look happy enough, Ervine——”
“The close of my play is the part that matters. Bernard Shaw said so....”
We parted: he, with a look of successful hauteur; I, broken and crushed.
A week or so later I met him at one of Herbert Hughes’s jolly Sunday evenings in Chelsea.
“You know Gerald Cumberland, of course,” said someone who was introducing him to people.
He drew himself up with great dignity and stared at me through his pince-nez.
“I think,” said he, “yes, I believe we have met before somewhere. Where was it, Mr ... er ... Cumberland?”
Shortly after, he left The Daily Citizen, and I was given the position which he had occupied with so much conscious distinction. I somehow think that when the war is over and we meet, he will not know me. Ervine is very much like that.
. . . . . . . .