But the sudden shock of the bell had made his nerves restless. He had, after all, to read the evening paper and two chapters of a novel before he felt sleepy enough to turn out the light and compose himself.
Contrition, whim or pressure of other business kept Barbara out of his life the next morning. He read his letters unmolested, dictated to his secretary undisturbed and worked until mid-day uninterrupted. Then, as it was his practice to walk for half-an-hour before luncheon, he abandoned his own pretence that he was away from London and strolled along Piccadilly into the Green Park before making for the Thespian Club in Grosvenor Place. At Devonshire House he caught himself pausing to glance down Berkeley Street.…
At the club, Manders was lunching with a square-faced law lord and a doctor with humorous, shrewd eyes, who called upon Eric to join them.
"We never see anything of you nowadays," complained Dr. Gaisford.
"I don't have time to get as far away as this for lunch every day," Eric answered, as he pulled a chair in to the table. "You're cutting your vacation short, aren't you, Lord Ettrick?"
"Oh, I had three weeks' fishing in Scotland," the law lord answered. "Ever since I came back, I've been thinking that, if I had my life over again and could choose my own career, on my soul! I'd be a gillie. They're a great breed, and it's a great life."
Manders looked reflectively at the powerful, lined face, tanned yellow over a normally unwholesome white.
"I'd 'a gone into the Navy," he said. "My idea of a holiday is to get into old clothes and moon about the Docks or Portsmouth—anywhere with salt and tar about, you know."
"And what would our young friend do?" asked Dr. Gaisford.
Eric blushed to find three pairs of eyes on him. He thought resentfully over his ten years of journalism; then, with a warm rush of satisfaction, he saw the elaborate little flat in Ryder Street, the bathroom poster of "A Divorce Has Been Arranged," the envelopes from his agent Grierson, containing cheques for—what would they be for?—the invitations, the pleasant hum of work and stir of interest as shewn in letters from country clergymen who objected to his use of the word "God" in a comedy of manners, the deference paid him when he was invited out to be spoiled and petted, the easy triumphs.…