the Temple and
to burst, fully equipped, upon London. A friend in the artillery made
over the remainder of his lease, and Eric gave himself a fortnight's
holiday to order the furnishing and decoration of the six tiny rooms.
When he surveyed telephone and dictaphone, switches and presses, files
and cases, tables and lights, he felt that the ease and beauty of which
he had dreamed were dulled and stunted by the reality.

Over the dressing-table hung a framed poster of his play: "_Regency
Theatre_" in a scroll of blue lettering: "_A Divorce Has Been Arranged_"
under it; then his own name; then the cast. Eric looked affectionately
at the trophy, as he began to comb his dripping, black hair. He was
proud of the play and grateful to it; grateful for money, reputation and
the added importance of himself. As he entered the Carlton that day one
unknown woman had whispered to another, "Isn't that Eric Lane? I thought
he was older." He was boy enough to be gratified that seventeen people
had stopped him that morning between Grosvenor Street and Piccadilly.
Eight months ago no one outside Fleet Street or the Thespian Club had
heard of him. Jack Waring and O'Rane, Loring and Deganway always seemed
to regard him as a harmless eccentric who wrote unacceptable plays for
his own amusement. . . .

The hair-brushing completed, he put on a dressing-gown and crossed the
hall to his smoking-room for the sherry and cigarette. On the table lay
a pile of typewritten letters, awaiting his signature, and another pile
not yet opened and secured from the late summer breeze by a glass
paper-weight. It was shaped like a horse-shoe and had been sent him on
his first night, to be followed by a telegram: "_Best wishes for all
possible success Agnes._" He had kept it for luck and in gratitude to
Agnes Waring, who had been a sympathetic, if rather undiscriminating,
friend for many years. Until eight months ago he had never earned enough
money to think of marrying; and, at thirty-two, he told himself that he
was not a marrying man; but more than once in the early hours of triumph
he had thought of Agnes and of his own return to Lashmar; they had often
talked jestingly of the day when he would come back famous, and behind
the jest lay a hint of romance and sentiment which told him that she was
waiting for him and believed in his success when he himself doubted it.

Next to the letters lay an album in which his secretary had at last
finished pasting his p