since his visit to lilian's home, he had come to a definite decision about his marriage. it would have to be privately done, and the news kept from his aunt until they were wedded. in spite of the increasing breadth of his life, he had not yet shaken off the narrow influence of easterham; his aunt still remained as a factor to be considered in his scheme of things. if he told her, beforehand, she would ask all sorts of questions. who were the filmers? what did mr filmer do? (he winced at even this imagined question.) were they really nice people? that was the greatest quality that anybody could have in his aunt's estimation—the quality of being really nice. it was a vague, impalpable quality that defied definition, though humphrey knew that, somehow or other, his aunt would arrive at the conclusion that the filmers had not that desirable attribute, if she could by any chance visit them.
of lilian, of course, there could be no doubt.... she was rare and exquisite, so different altogether from the rest of her family. nobody could help loving her, and he knew that she would survive the easterham inquisition. but he saw at once that mrs filmer and his aunt would never, never blend. she would find out at once that mrs filmer was not "really nice."...
he and lilian talked it over, whenever they could meet. she did not share his hurry to be married. "it is sweet like this," she said once. there was an odd, wistful note in her voice. then she looked at him fondly, and, "oh! what a boy you are, humphrey," she said. he did not object to that so much now. he smiled[174] indulgently—he had not been many months in fleet street, but he seemed to have absorbed the experience of as many years.
he was changing, so gradually, that he could not note the phases of his development himself. he felt that he was leaving all his old associations far behind. it was as if some driving power were within him, rushing him forward daily, while most of the other people round him stood still. there was beaver, for instance—he seemed to have left beaver long ago, though they were still at their old guilford street lodgings. but, somehow, beaver seemed now just a milestone, marking the passage of a brief stage in his life. soon, he knew, beaver would be out of sight altogether. there was tommy pride—another milestone; he had run on and caught up with wratten and kenneth carr, and these were the people who were influencing him now....
and there was that great ambition, growing into a steady flame: ambition burning up every other desire within him; ambition leading him by ways that mattered not so long as they led at last to conquest.
lilian was to help him: she was to be a handmaiden to ambition. the picture of the journalistic homes that he had seen made him long to found one of his own. this life of lodgings and drifting was profitless—he wanted a home; permanence and peace in this life of restless insecurity. very often he dreamed of his home—where would it be?—they would have to be content with rooms at first, an upper part, perhaps, but the rooms would be their own, and they could shut the door on the world, and live monarchs of their own seclusion for a few hours, at least, every day. there were walls lined with books, too, in his picture of the home, and lilian, in an arm-chair of her own, set by the fireplace, and the blinds down, and the light glittering on the golden threads in her brown hair.
[175]
he told lilian of his dreams, and she shook her head and smiled.
"it's a nice picture, isn't it?" she said.
"don't you see it too?" he asked.
"sometimes. i used to see it quite a lot at one time. before i knew you."
he showed chagrin. "oh! wasn't i in it?"
"how could you have been when i hadn't met you? i forget who was the ideal for me at the moment. lewis waller, perhaps, or william gillette." she laughed. "silly humphrey, it's the picture you're in love with, and you can put anybody in the arm-chair."
he protested against it, yet all the while he was wondering how she could have known that! he had not considered that point of view himself, nor would he now. it was lilian he wanted; she was just as beautiful as ever, and nobody else was within his grasp.
he sighed. "i do wish we could settle about—about our marriage. let's fix it up for next week."
she pretended to be horrified. "only a week to prepare in! look at the things i've got to buy. my bottom drawer isn't half full."
"well!" he said, hopelessly, "when are we going to get married? do let's try and fix a day."
he could not understand why, sometimes, she would seem so eager and delighted with the prospect of marriage, and at other times she would be in a mood for indefinite postponement, as though she wished to keep him for ever lingering after her with all his thirst for love unquenched.
he could not know that she was beginning to realize, with that intuition which no man can fathom, that her dreams had been but dreams, and the love that they thought everlasting but the passing shadow of a moment.
when he got back to the reporters' room that evening—he[176] had been reporting the visit of a famous actress to a home for incurables—willoughby met him with a grave face.
"heard about wratten?" he asked.
"no—what is it?" humphrey said, feeling that evil news was coming.
"double pneumonia—they thought it was a chill at first ... he got it at that mine disaster last week. you were there, weren't you?"
"yes. he would insist on staying out all night ... it was raining...."
"that was wratten all over," willoughby said.
humphrey winced. "don't say 'was,'" he said, almost fiercely. "wratten's going to get better. it's impossible for him to die ... why, he is only just begun to live ... and there's his wife ... and, perhaps...."
he stopped short. nobody could quite understand what wratten meant to him. not even wratten himself.
"i didn't know you and wratten were very thick," willoughby said. "he's a good chap, but so devilish glum."
"none of you know wratten—i don't suppose i do—but i know that he's the whitest man in the street."
he went out to hampstead that night, after work, but the nurse who came to the door said that he could not see mrs wratten, she was in the sick-room—mr wratten was dangerously ill; but he was going on as well as could be expected.
