Chapter I

He oscillated between an almost uncontrollable desire to return to Eleanor and a cold rage against her. Women, he told himself, always stepped between men and their work. Women drew men away from great labours and made creatures of comfort of them. They took an aspiring angel and made a domestic animal of him. He was prepared to endure hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake, but Eleanor demanded that first of all he should provide comfort and security for her and her child. She would gladly turn a creative artist into a small tradesman for the sake of the greater profit that was made by the small tradesman. He would not be seduced from his proper work ... and yet, when he went back to Miss Squibb's after the _Sensation_ had gone to bed, walking sometimes all the way from Fleet Street, over Blackfriars Bridge, he would spend the time of the journey in dreaming of Eleanor as he first saw her or as he saw her in the box at the Albert Hall when Tetrazzini sang. He would conjure up pictures of her standing at the bookstall at Charing Cross, waiting for him, or saying goodbye to him at the steps of the Women's Club in Bayswater or kneeling beside him in St. Chad's Church as the priest blessed their marriage or sitting before the fire in Ballyards holding her baby in her arms. And when these visions of her went through his mind, he felt an intense longing to go away from London at once and stay contentedly with her wherever she chose to be. Sometimes his mind was full of thoughts about his child. He had not felt much emotion about it when he was at Ballyards ... he had thought of it mostly with amazement and with some dislike of its shapeless face ... but now there were stirrings in his heart when he thought of it, and he wished that he could be with Eleanor and watch the gradual growth of the baby into a recognising being. His work at the _Sensation_ office had become mechanical, and he worked at the table in the sub-editors' room without any consciousness of it; but he consoled himself for the fatigue and the dullness by promising himself a swift and brilliant release from Fleet Street when his second book was published. Even if his book were not to make money, it would establish his reputation, and when that was done, he could surely persuade Eleanor to believe that his life must be lived elsewhere than behind the counter of the shop. He had written to her several times since his return to London, and she had written to him, but there were signs of restraint in his letters and in hers. He told her that he had made arrangements for the sub-tenants to remain in the flat for the present. He wrote "for the present" deliberately. The phrase that shaped itself in his mind as he wrote the letter was "until you come back to London," but he changed it before he put his thoughts into written words. She gave long accounts of the baby to him, and described her life in Ballyards. She was helping Uncle William who said that her help was very useful to him. They were going to fight Pippin's multiple shops and beat them. She had suggested some alterations in the shop to Uncle William, and he, agreeing that one must move with the times, had consented to make the alterations. She did not ask John to come back, but when he read her letters, he felt that she was preventing herself, with difficulty, from doing so.