“One gets moments like that. It’s all due to our literary conception of beginnings and ends. How long have we known each other? Fifteen years? D’you remember your last Phoenix Club dinner with Sinclair as president? Jim Loring was there; and George Oakleigh; and Jack Waring. In those days I’d made up my mind to a great career; I was going to make pots of money and I was going to be the great democratic leader... Then the war came, just when I’d made the money and lost it; one was incapacitated to a certain extent... But, even when I was lying in hospital, I never said ‘This is the end’... You’re a bit incapacitated, but this isn’t the end; you’ve just been pulled up by a big obstacle and you’ve overdone it. I said I’d give you something in place of all you were losing. Well, haven’t I? You could have kept that girl, but you’ve done everything—at the heaviest possible cost—to serve her interests. You’ve that to be proud of. What are the things one has to overcome before one can attain greatness of spirit? Greed, fear, selfishness? You’ve done that. Weakness?... I keep on thinking of Sinclair’s dinner-party. You know that my wife was engaged to Jim Loring before she married me; and you and Jack Waring were both in love with Barbara Neave before she married George. ’Curious what havoc one or two women can make in half a dozen men’s lives! It came near to beating Jim; I believe it did beat Waring. But are you going to be beaten and to let your life be spoiled for a woman? You’re bigger than either of those two; you’ve had ill-health to contend with all your life and you’ve made a world-wide reputation for yourself in spite of it. And in those days Woman for us was a girl of eighteen that we flirted with on the stairs at a dance... We underestimate them at first, then we exaggerate them enormously, then we get them into perspective; but Woman is not a man’s chief business in his prime. Did you plan a wonderful career for yourself at that dinner? I told you even then that you were the genius among us all.”
Eric looked back with a shudder over the devastation of fifteen years to his last night as an undergraduate at Oxford.
“I suppose I did... Yes, it was a solemn moment, just when we were going down. I dreamed that one day I should have the whole world at my feet. People would whisper who I was when I came into a room... I suppose I’ve got that. But it’s so small. I’m genuinely surprised when I find that any one’s heard of me. I’m terrified when people come up and congratulate me on my plays... If that’s fame... I think it was when I found how unsatisfying it was that I began to yearn for something more... You haven’t told me how I’m going to keep myself amused for the next two years, Raney. I shall be allowed to do very little work.”
“You won’t be amused. But you may be consoled to think that your soul’s been in danger and that you’ve saved it by sacrifice. It was touch-and-go whether you spoiled that girl’s life.”
“And I’ve given her life to Gaymer to spoil.”
“If he must. But you’ve set him an example that he won’t easily forget. I still believe in sudden conversions; and I expect to find him a different man from to-night. You must give time for the lesson to sink in; he’s dazed at present—like you.”
Loathing of Gaymer was a feeling which Eric could not yet repress; he brought his stick with a crash on to the pavement.
“Not he! You talked about a ‘gesture,’ and he knows it’s that and nothing more. I’ve given her up because I couldn’t keep her... I don’t complain. She had her choice of us, and the better man won.”
“It was the better man who made the gesture,” said O’Rane quietly. “Is this the house? I don’t think I can do any good by coming in. Make her see that you’re still her devoted friend and that love has no necessary connection with marriage. You told me you were going to your people to-morrow? You’ll find that devilish hard, but you mustn’t stand any sympathy from them, or you’ll begin to pity yourself. Come and see me, as soon as you’re back in London. I’ll organize a farewell dinner for you. A bit ironical after your send-off in New York? I thought I’d discount it by saying it first... Remember you have to go through this with your head up. Good-night.”
He held out his hand, and Eric gripped it.