Chapter I

At the end of a month from the day on which he arrived in London, John MacDermott began to consider his position and ended by finding it in a very unsatisfactory state. He had spent much of his time in sight-seeing, and would have spent more of it, had not Hinde informed him that the only way in which to know a city is to live in it, not as a tourist, but as an ordinary citizen. "Change your lodgings every twelve months," he said, "and go and live in a different part of the town every time you change them. Then you'll get to know London. It's no use tearing round the place like an American ... half an hour here and a couple of minutes there, and a Baedeker never out of your hands. Americans think they're getting an impression of a country when they're only getting a sick-headache; and when they go home again, they can never remember whether Mont Blanc was a picture they saw in Paris or a London chop-house where they had old English fare at modern English prices. If you want to _know_ St. Paul's Cathedral, don't go there with a guide-book in your hand. Go as one of the congregation!..."

He had sent the manuscript of his novel to a publisher who had not yet expressed any eagerness to accept it, and he had made a half-hearted effort to write a play for the Creams, but had not been very successful with it, chiefly because he felt contempt for _The Girl Gets Left_ and had little liking for Mrs. Cream. She came to the sitting-room one morning when Hinde was away and her husband was interviewing his agent, and went straight to John, nibbling a pen at the writing desk, and put her arms about his neck.

"Don't do that," he said, disengaging her arms from about him.

"I love you," she replied very intensely.

"I daresay, but I'm not in love with you, Mrs. Cream, and I never will be. I don't like you. I like your wee man, but I don't like you. I think you're an awful humbug of a woman!..."

Mrs. Cream stood still as if she had been suddenly paralysed.

"You don't like me!..." she said at last, utterly incredulous.

"No, I don't."

"Oh!"

She raised her hands, and for a few moments he imagined that she was about to strike him. Then she dropped them to her side again and laughed.

"I don't know whether to hug you or slap you," she said. "You impudent brat!"

"I wouldn't advise you to do either the one or the other," he answered.

She came nearer to him, and laid her hand on his sleeve.

"You're very cold and hard," she said, and then, in a softer voice, she added his name, "John!"

"What's cold about me? Or hard?" he asked.

"Everything. You must know that I feel more for you than for my husband!..."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing, Mrs. Cream. I want you to understand that I'm not that sort. I come from Ballyards, and we don't do things like that there. Forby, I'm not in love with you. I'm in love with somebody else ... a nice girl, not a married woman ... and I've no time to think of anybody else but her. I'm very busy the day, Mrs. Cream!..."

"Is she an Irish girl?"

"I don't know what nationality she is. I've not managed to get speaking to her yet. It'll be an advantage if she is Irish, but I'll overlook it if she isn't. I'm terrible busy, Mrs. Cream!"

She stood before him in an indecisive attitude.... "You're really a fool," she said, turning away. "I thought you were clever, but you're simply thick-headed!..."

"Because I won't start making love to you, I suppose?"

"Oh, no, Mr. MacDermott. You're thick apart from that. You're so thick that you'll never know how thick you are. I can't think why I wasted a minute's thought on you!..."

John sat down at his desk again. "_Sticks an' stones'll break my bones, but names'll never hurt me_," he quoted at her. "_When you're dead and in your grave, you'll suffer for what you called me!_"

She came behind him and put her arms tightly round his neck and forced his head back so that she could conveniently kiss him.

"There!" she exclaimed, hurrying from the room, "I've kissed you anyhow!"

He leaped up and ran to the top of the stairs and leant over the banisters.

"If you do that again," he shouted at her, "I'll give you in charge!"

"Bogie-bogie!" she mocked.

Soon after that time, the Creams had gone on tour again, and John, with a vague promise to Mr. Cream that he would try and do a play for him, let Mrs. Cream slip out of his mind altogether. She had not attempted to make love to him again, and her attitude towards him became more natural, almost, he thought, more friendly. She appeared to bear him no malice, and her friendliness caused him to shed some of his antagonism to her. When they bade goodbye to Hinde and John, she turned to her husband as they were leaving, and said, "I kissed him one morning, and do you know what he did?"

"No," her husband answered.

"He said he'd give me in charge if I tried to do it again," she exclaimed, laughing as she spoke.

"Goo' Lor'!" said Cream. "That's the first time that's ever been said to you, Dolly!" He turned to John. "You're a funny sort of a chap, you are! Fancy not letting Dolly kiss you. Goo' Lor'!"