He had tried hard to see Eleanor Moore again, but without success. Every day for a fortnight he went to lunch in the tea-shop where he had first seen her, and in the evening he would hang about the entrance to the offices where she was employed; but he did not see her either there or in the tea-shop, and when a fortnight of disappointment had gone by, he concluded that he would never see her again. He imagined that she was ill, that she had left London, that she had obtained work elsewhere, that he had frightened her ... for he remembered her startled look when she hurried from him into the Tube lift ... and finally and crushingly that she had married someone else. In the mood of bitterness that followed this devastating thought, he planned a tragedy, and in the evenings, when Hinde was engaged for his paper, he worked at it. But the bitterness which he put into it failed to relieve him of any of the bitterness that was in his own mind. He felt doubly betrayed by Eleanor Moore because he had had so little encouragement from her. It hurt him to think that he had only succeeded in alarming her. Maggie Carmichael had responded instantly when he spoke to her and had accepted his embraces and his kisses as amiably as she had accepted his chocolates he had bought for her; but this girl with the tender blue eyes that changed their expression so frequently, had made no response to his offer of affection, had run away from it. If only she had listened to him! He was certain that he could have persuaded her to "go out" with him. He had only to tell her that he loved her, and she would realise that a man who could fall in love with her so immediately as he had done must be acceptable!... The affair with Maggie Carmichael had considerably dashed his belief in romantic love, but he told himself now that it would be ridiculous to condemn his Uncle Matthew's ideals because one girl had fallen short of them. If Maggie Carmichael had behaved badly, that was not a sign that Eleanor Moore would also behave badly. Besides, Eleanor was different from Maggie. There was no comparison between the two girls. After all, he had not really cared for Maggie: he had only fancied that he cared for her. But there was no fancying or imagination about his love for Eleanor, and if he had the good fortune to meet her again, he would not let anything prevent him from telling her plump and plain that he wanted to marry her. Whenever he left the house, he looked about, no matter where he went, in the hope that he might see her.
III
Hinde urged him to do journalism and advised him to make a study of the London newspapers so that he might discover which of them he could most happily work for. "You could do a few articles, perhaps, and then it wouldn't matter whether you agreed with the paper or not, but I'd advise you to try and get a job on one paper for a while. You'll learn a lot from journalism if you don't stay at it too long. It'll be a good while yet before you can make a living at writing books, and you'll want something to keep you going until you can. Journalism's as good as anything, and in some ways, it's a lot better than most things, and let me tell you, Mac, anybody can make a decent living out of newspapers if he only takes the trouble to earn it. Half the fellows in Fleet Street treat journalism as if it were a religious vocation, and they lie about in pubs all day waiting for the Holy Ghost to come down and inspire them with a scoop!"
John studied the London newspapers, as Hinde advised him, but he did not feel drawn towards them. He considered that the morning papers were very inferior to the Northern Whig, and he was certain that the North Down Herald was far more interesting than the Times. The London evening papers, he said to Hinde, gave less value for a half-penny than the Belfast Evening Telegraph, and he complained that there was nothing to read in them.
"You'll have to start a paper yourself, Mac," said Hinde. "All the best papers were started by men who couldn't find anything to read in other papers. It would be a grand notion now to set up a paper for Ulstermen who can't find anything in London that's fit to read. By the Hokey O, that would be a grand notion. We could call the paper To Hell With the Pope or No Surrender!..."
"Ah, quit your codding," John interrupted. "You know rightly what's wrong with these London papers. They're not telling the truth!"
"And do you think the Whig and the Telegraph are?" Hinde demanded.
"Well, it's what we call the truth anyway," John stoutly retorted.
Hinde slapped him on the back. "That's right," he said. "Ulster against the whole civilised world!"
"If I was to take a job on one of these papers," John continued, "I'd insist on telling the truth to the people!"