Chapter II

A month after his return to London, _Hearts of Controversy_ was published. He took the complimentary copies out of their parcel and fingered them, turning the leaves backward and forward, and looking for a long while at the dedication "To the Memory of my Uncle Matthew." How pleased and proud Uncle Matthew would have been of this book, but how little pleasure John was deriving from it. He hardly cared now whether it failed or succeeded. If only something would happen that would enable him to return to Ballyards and Eleanor with some sort of pride left! ... Uncle Matthew's romantic dreams had remained romantic dreams because he had never left Ballyards; but John had gone out into the world to seek adventures, and all of them had ended dismally ... except his adventure with Eleanor. He had pursued her and won her and made her his wife and the mother of his son, and she was still his, even although he had left her and was living angrily away from her. He remembered how he had wandered into Hanging Sword Alley when he first came to London, and had been bitterly disappointed to find that this romantically-named lane was a dirty, grimy gutter of a street....

"I've been living a fool's life," he said to himself. "I had one great adventure, finding Eleanor, and I did not realise that that was the only romance I could hope for!"

He put the book down. "I'm not a writer," he said mournfully, "I'm a grocer. I'm not even a grocer. I'm ... a hack journalist!"

He had written a tragedy that was dead. He had written a novel that was dead. This second novel ... in a little while it, too, would be dead. Perhaps it was dead already. Perhaps it had never been alive. And he had written a music-hall sketch ... that lived. He had done no other work than his sub-editing on the _Sensation_ since his return to London, and he realised that he would never do any more while he remained in Fleet Street....

Hinde entered the room while these thoughts were in his mind. "When's Eleanor coming back?" he asked, throwing himself into a chair in front of the fire.

"She's not coming back," John answered.

Hinde looked up sharply. "Oh?" he said in a questioning manner.

"I'm going to her ... as soon as I can. I've had my fill of this life. Do you remember asking me why I didn't sell happorths of tea and sugar?" Hinde nodded his head. "Well, I'm going back to sell them. The author of _The Enchanted Lover_ and _Hearts of Controversy_ has retired from the trade of writing and will now ... now devote himself to ... selling happorths of tea and sugar!" He laughed nervously as he spoke.

Hinde did not make any reply.

"I shall go and see the man who has the flat to-morrow. He wants to buy our furniture. It's a piece of luck, isn't it? The only piece of luck I've had.... By God, Hinde, this serves me right. Eleanor always said I was selfish, and I am. I'm terribly self-satisfied and thick-skinned. I had no qualification for this work ... nothing but my conceit ... and I've been let down. I'm a failure!..."

"We're all failures," said Hinde. "The only thing we can do, all of us, is to lull ourselves to sleep and hope for forgetfulness. Compared with you, I suppose I'm a success ... as a journalist anyhow ... but this is the end of my work ... this room, with Lizzie and Miss Squibb and sometimes the Creams. You've got Eleanor and a son ... what more do you want? Isn't it enough luck for a man to have a wife that he loves and who loves him, and to have a child? What's a book anyway? Paper with words on it. All over the world, there are thousands and thousands of books ... with millions and millions of words in them. What's the good of them? We make a little stir and then we die ... we poor scribblers. And that's all. It's much better to marry and breed healthy babies than to live in an attic making songs about the stars. The stars don't care, but the babies may!"

"You're a cheerful fellow, Hinde," said John, rallying a little.

"Don't pay any heed to me. I was always a dismal devil at the best of times. You see, Mac, I've got ink in my veins. I'm not a man ... I'm part of a printing press. That's what you'd become if you were to stay in Fleet Street. Go home, my lad, and get more babies!..."