"All the same," she said, "Amos is right in a way. Why the devil don't we write better? I wish—I wish——" But nobody knew what she wished because the great Mr. Winch arrived at that moment and demanded attention.
Peter walked home to his Marylebone rooms in a fine confusion of thought and feeling. Campbell was a bit of a fool, too fat, too prosperous, too anxious to be popular, but he was a happy man and a man who was living his life at its very fullest. He was not a great artist, of course—great artists are never happy—but he had a narrative gift that it amused him to play every morning of his life from ten to twelve, and he made money from that gift and could buy books and pictures and occasionally do a friend a good turn. Monteith and Grace Talbot and the others were more serious artists and were more seriously considered, but their gifts came to mighty little in the end—thin, little streams. As to Peter his gift came simply to nothing at all. And yet he did not wish to be Campbell. Too much prosperity was bad and Campbell in the "slippered and pantaloon" age, when it came to him, would be unpleasant to behold. His enchantment was very different from Millie's and Henry's, bless them. At the thought of them there came such a longing for them, for their physical presence, their cheery voices, their laughter and noise, that he could scarcely endure his loneliness. Theirs was the Age. Theirs the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory.
And why should he not long for Millie? For the second time that evening he abandoned himself to the thought of her. As he walked down Oxford Street, pearl-grey under sheeted stars, he conjured her to his side, put his arm about her, bent down and raised her face to his, kissed her. . . . Why should he not? He was married. But that was such years ago. Was he to be cursed for ever because of that early mistake?
Maybe Clare was dead. He would go off to France to-morrow and make another search. Now when real love had come to him at last he would not be cheated any more. Life was passing. In a few years it would be too late. His agonized longing for Millie seized him so that he stood for a moment outside the shuttered windows of Selfridge's, frozen into immobility by the power of his desire.
At least he could be her friend—her friend who would run to the world's end for her if she wished it; to be her friend and to write as Campbell had said simply for his own fun—after all, he was getting something out of life in that; to go on and see this new world developing in her eyes, to help her to get the best out of it, to live for the young generation through her. . . . So strong was his desire that he really believed for a moment that she was by his side. . . .
"Millie," he whispered. When in his rooms he switched on the light he found on his table two letters; he saw at once that one was in Millie's handwriting. Eagerly he tore it open. He read it:
Metropolitan Hotel, Cladgate.
My Dear Peter—I feel that you must be the next human being after Henry to hear a piece of news that has made me very happy. I am engaged—to a man called Baxter. I met him first at Miss Platt's and fell in love with him at first sight. I do hope you'll like him. I'm sure you will. I've told him about you and he says he's afraid of you because you sound so clever. He's clever too in his own way, but it isn't books. I'm so happy and it does seem so selfish when the world is in such a mess and so many people are hard up. But this only happens once!
I do want you to meet Bunny (that's Baxter) as soon as ever you can.—Your affectionate friend,
Millicent Trenchard.
When Peter had finished the letter he switched off the light and sat on, staring at the blue-faced window-pane.