When a Man's Single: A Tale of Literary Life

by J. M. Barrie

The porter shook his head doubtfully, like one who knew the ways of literary hands. He probably wrote himself.

'Mr. Angus only came in from his office at three o'clock,' he said, 'and you would think he would have had enough of writing by that time. You can see his arm going on the blind though yet, and it won't be out of his common if he has another long walk before he goes to bed.'

'Does he walk so late as this?' asked Dick, to whom six in the morning was an hour of the night.

'I never knew such a gentleman for walking,' replied the porter, 'and when I open the gate to him he is off at six miles an hour. I can hear the echo of his feet two or three streets off. He doesn't look as if he did it for pleasure either.'

'What else would he do it for?'

'I can't say. He looks as if he wanted to run away from himself.'

Dick passed out, with a forced laugh. He knew that since saying good-bye to Mary at Sunbury Station, Rob had hardly dared to stop working and face the future. The only rest Rob got was when he was striding along the great thoroughfares, where every one's life seemed to have a purpose except his own. But it was only when he asked himself for what end he worked that he stopped working. There were moments when he could not believe that it was all over. He saw himself dead, and the world going on as usual. When he read what he had written the night before, he wondered how people could be interested in such matters. The editor of the Wire began to think of this stolid Scotsman every time there was a hitch in the office, but Rob scarcely noticed that he was making progress. It could only mean ten or twenty pounds more a month; and what was that to a man who had only himself to think of, and had gathered a library on twenty shillings a week? He bought some good cigars, however.

Dick, who was longing for his father's return from the Continent, so that the responsibility for this miserable business might be transferred to the colonel's shoulders, frequently went into Rob's rooms to comfort him, but did not know how to do it. They sat silently on opposite sides of the very hearthrug which Mary had once made a remark about—Rob had looked interestedly at the rug after she went away—and each thought that, but for the other's sake, he would rather be alone.

What Dick felt most keenly was Rob's increased regard for him. Rob never spoke of the Tawny Owl without an effort, but he showed that he appreciated Dick's unspoken sympathy. If affairs could have righted themselves in that way, Mary's brother would have preferred to be turned with contumely out of Rob's rooms, where, as it was, and despite his friendship for Rob, he seemed now to be only present on false pretences. Dick was formally engaged to Nell now, but he tried at times to have no patience with Rob. Perhaps he thought a little sadly in his own rooms that to be engaged is not all the world.

Dick had hoped that the misunderstanding which parted Rob and Mary at Sunbury would keep them apart without further intervention from him. That was not to be. The next time he went to Molesey he was asked why he had not brought Mr. Angus with him, and though it was not Mary who asked the question, she stopped short on her way out of the saloon to hear his answer.