"Thank goodness," he said, "I shall be at home tomorrow."
He got into bed and lay quietly in the darkness, but he could not sleep, and so he turned on the light again and tried to read; but his head was thumping, thumping and the words had no meaning for him. He put the book down. How extraordinary is the common delusion, he thought, that actors and actresses lead gay lives! Could anything be more dull than the life of an actor in a repertory theatre? Daily rehearsals in a dingy and draughty theatre and nightly performances in half-rehearsed plays!... "Give me the life of a bank clerk for real gaiety," he murmured. "An actor's just a drudge ... and a dull drudge, too! Very uninteresting people, actors!... Why the devil did I leave Eleanor behind?"
IX
He returned to London on the following morning, carrying copies of the Cottenham Daily Post and the Cottenham Mercury with him. The notices of his play were mildly appreciative ... that of the Post being so mild as to be almost denunciatory. The critic asserted that John's play, while interesting, showed that its author had no real understanding of the meaning of tragedy. He found no evidence in Milchu and St. Patrick that John appreciated the importance of the pressure of the Significant Event. The Significant Event decided the development of a tragedy, but in Mr. MacDermott's play there was no Significant Event. The play just happened, so to speak, and it ought not to "just happen." It was an excellent discursus on the drama from the time of the morality plays to the time of the Irish Players, and it included references to Euripides, Ibsen, the Noh plays of Japan, Mr. Bernard Shaw (in a patronising manner), Synge and Mr. Masefield; but John felt, when he had read it, that most of it had been written before its author had seen his play. The other notice was less learned, but it left no doubt in the mind of the readers that although Milchu and St. Patrick was an interesting piece ... the word "interesting," after he had read these notices, seemed to John to be equivalent to the word "poor" ... it was not likely to mark any epochs.
"I don't think much of Cottenham anyhow!" said John, putting, the papers in his pocket.
Eleanor met him at Euston. The fatigue which settles on a traveller in the last hour of a long railway journey had raised the devil of depression in John. He had reread the notices in the Cottenham papers, and as he considered their very restrained praises of his play, he remembered that Hinde had said The Enchanted Lover was an ordinary novel.
"I wonder am I any good," he said to himself as the train hauled itself into Euston.
He looked out of the window and saw Eleanor standing on the platform, scanning the carriage as she sought for him.
"Well, she thinks I am," he thought, as he alighted from the train. "Eleanor!" he called to her, and she turned and when she saw him, her eyes lit and she hurried to him.