Under the splendour of it he felt the blood rush to his head, his eyes were dimmed, he stumbled down the stairs, the happiest creature in London.
The smile accompanied him for the rest of that day, through the night, and into the Duncombe library next morning. That morning was not an easy one for Henry. He arrived with the stern determination to work his very hardest and before the luncheon bell sounded to reduce at least some of the letters to discipline and sobriety. Extraordinary the personal life that those letters seemed to possess! You would suppose that they did not wish to be made into a book, or at any rate, if that had to be, that they did not wish the compiler of the work to be Henry. They slipped from under his fingers, hid themselves, deprived him of dates just when he most urgently needed them, gave him Christian names when he must have surnames, and were sometimes so old and faded and yellow that it was impossible to make anything out of them at all.
Sir Charles had as yet shown no sign. Of what he was thinking it was impossible to guess. He had not yet given Henry any private letters to write, and the first experiment on the typewriter was still to be made. One day soon he would spring, and with his long nose hanging over the little tattered, disordered piles on Henry's table would peer and finger and examine: Henry knew that that moment was approaching and that he must have something ready, but this morning he could not concentrate. The plunge into life had been too sudden. The girl was with him in the room, standing just a little way from him smiling at him. . . .
And behind her again there were Millie and the Platts, and Peter and the three Graces, and the Romantic Novel and even Mr. King—and behind these again all London with its banging, clattering, booming excitement, the omnibuses running, the flags flying, the Bolshevists with their plots, and the shops with their jewels and flowers, the actors and actresses rehearsing in the theatres, the messenger boys running with messages, the policemen standing with hands outstretched, the newspapers announcing the births and the deaths and the marriages, D'Annunzio in Fiume, the Poles in Warsaw fighting for their lives, the Americans in New York drinking secretly in little back bedrooms and the sun rising and setting all over the place at an incredible speed.
It was of no use to say that Henry had nothing to do with any of these things. He might have something to do with any one of them at any moment. Stop for an instant to see whether the ground is going to open in Piccadilly Circus and you are lost!—or found!—at any rate, you are taken, neck and crop, and flung into life whether you wish it or no. And Henry did wish it! He loved this nearness and closeness, this sense of being both one of the audience and the actors at one and the same time! Meanwhile the letters, with their gentle slightly scornful evocation of another world, only a little behind this one, and in its own opinion at any rate, infinitely superior to it, were waiting for his concentration.
Then the Duncombe family itself was beginning to absorb him, with its own dramatic possibilities. At luncheon that day he was made forcibly aware of that drama.
Lady Bell-Hall had from the first stirred his eager sympathies. He was so very sorry for the poor little woman. He did so eagerly wish that he could persuade her to be a little less frightened at the changes that were going on around her. After all, if Duncombe Hall had to be sold and if she were forced to live in a little flat and have only one servant, did it matter so terribly? Even though Soviets were set up in London and strange men with red handkerchiefs and long black beards did sit at Westminster there would still be many delightful things left to enjoy! Her health was good, her appetite quite admirable and the Young Women's Christian Association and Society for the Comfort of Domestic Servants and the League of Pity for Aged Widowers (some among many of Lady Bell-Hall's interests) would in all probability survive many Revolutions or, at least, even though they changed their names, would turn into something equally useful and desirous of help. He longed to say some of these things to her.
His opportunity suddenly and rather uncomfortably arrived.
Lady Bell-Hall in appearance resembled a pretty little pig—that is, she had the features of a pig, a very young pig before time has enveloped it in fat. And so soft and pink were her cheeks, so round her little arms, of so delicate a white her little nose, so beseechingly grey her eyes that you realised very forcibly how charming and attractive sucklings might easily be. She sat at the end of the round mahogany table in the long dark dining-room, talked to her unresponsive brother and sometimes to Henry in a soft gentle voice with a little plaint in it, infinitely touching and pathetic, hoping against hope for the best.