I smoke less.
I am the happiest man on earth.
(End of Julian Eversleigh’s narrative.)
Narrative Resumed
by James Orlebar Cloyster
CHAPTER 24
A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS
O perfidy of woman! O feminine inconstancy! That is the only allusion I shall permit to escape me on the subject of Eva Eversleigh’s engagement to that scoundrel Julian.
I had the news by telegraph, and the heavens darkened above me, whilst the solid earth rocked below.
I had been trapped into dishonour, and even the bait had been withheld from me.
But it was not the loss of Eva that troubled me most. It should have outweighed all my other misfortunes and made them seem of no account, but it did not. Man is essentially a materialist. The prospect of an empty stomach is more serious to him than a broken heart. A broken heart is the luxury of the well-to-do. What troubled me more than all other things at this juncture was the thought that I was face to face with starvation, and that only the grimmest of fights could enable me to avoid it. I quaked at the prospect. The early struggles of the writer to keep his head above water form an experience which does not bear repetition. The hopeless feeling of chipping a little niche for oneself out of the solid rock with a nib is a nightmare even in times of prosperity. I remembered the grey days of my literary apprenticeship, and I shivered at the thought that I must go through them again.