South America and started on an aimless and endless holiday in Japan. While he was in Tokio, he heard that Barbara was married. At a time when the German armies were pouring down on Paris, the news was telegraphed all over the world; and the press of Tokio, New York, Ottawa, Sydney and Calcutta gave her a column of description. Eric was dining with two men from the Embassy, and throughout the evening they discussed nothing else. When he first saw the headline: “Marriage of Lady Barbara Neave,” he fought for breath as though his heart had stopped; then, with slowly returning composure, he realized for the first time that finality had been achieved and that, in all the months when he was philosophizing and hardening his heart, he had been waiting for a fantastic miracle to happen, hoping to see Barbara, breathless and dusty from the train, coming into his hotel. The London telegram killed his faith in romance.

And the excited column of small type killed his faith in women, for Barbara had apparently walked into the street and married the first man that she saw....

“Who’s this Oakleigh?,” asked his host, squeezing the last drop of relish out of the story. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s a very nice fellow,” Eric found himself answering. Oakleigh henceforth was to have the stolen intoxication of glorying in Barbara when she was well and comforting her when she was ill, of seeing her great eyes change from mockery to tenderness and from tenderness to ecstasy; but Oakleigh could never have from her those fifteen fevered months when their hearts had beaten together... “I’ve known him ever since I was at Oxford. He used to be in the House; and then he ran a paper... He has a place in Ireland—”

“What they call ‘a suitable alliance’?,” suggested his host.

“Oh, very.”

“It’s rather a disappointing finish to her career...”

The gossiping discussion rambled on, introducing name after name of the men whom Lady Barbara had been expected to marry. Eric waited for his own and, when it was not cited, relapsed into reverie. He had received a letter that morning from his sister, telling him that she was engaged and asking whether he would be home in time for the wedding. If he had ever doubted, there was now no question of returning to England; he was too well known to be left in peace. The Oakleighs and Neaves, the Knightriders and Lorings, the Pentyres and Carstairs, the Maitlands and Poynters all moved in the same little set of three or four hundred people. Fifteen years before he had dreamed at Oxford of the day when he would burst upon their startled world and hold it captive; the dream had sustained him through the mortification of neglect and the despair of ill-health until of a sudden the reality threw his dream into shadow. In London, in Boston, in Tokio he was recognized in the street; to escape the fulfilment of his own prayers he had to travel by unfamiliar lines and hide himself in unknown hotels; for ultimate and enduring sanctuary he must retire to a land untouched by books and theatres.

After three months’ desultory wandering he returned to Tokio and booked a passage to China. Already his health was improving; and, if he could lose all touch with English ways of thought, he might begin to lose touch with himself, to shed his personality, almost to change his identity; upcountry it must be possible to find a civilization and scenery so strange that it would absorb him. As he left his hotel for the shipping office, he was handed a cable from his American agent:

“Following from Lane Lashmar Hampshire England for you care of me despatched fourteenth your father seriously ill think you should return as soon as possible.”

Eric studied the time of despatch and retransmission with stupid deliberation, giving himself time to recover from the shock. This meant, of course, that his father was dying, was perhaps already dead; and it was his duty to be shocked. Lashmar on the fourteenth, New York on the sixteenth, Tokio on the eighteenth;—the war had made cabling a slow business... He was a selfish brute not to have told his mother where he was going instead of leaving her to track him through his American agent and, before that, through his London agent. His father had never been ill since he was a child, but he had overworked for years; this probably meant a stroke....

Eric discovered that he was quite dispassionate; perhaps he was too much numbed to feel. He must of course return immediately; if anything happened, the eldest son must be at hand. Once in England, he must let the future take care of itself.

Three weeks later he landed at San Francisco and arrived in New York two days before the armistice was signed. “Mother’s Son” was still running at the Grafton; he was met unexpectedly at the station, and, before the day was out, two reporters had called at the Majestic and sought an interview. He tried to dine by himself and was instantly caught up by a group of friends who set about organizing a banquet in his honour. A private party of twelve swept within twenty-four hours far beyond the organizer’s control. Half New York had been to one or other of the plays; scores of people had already met him, hundreds more wanted to meet him.

“Look at it this way,” said his agent, Justus Grant, defensively. “Every one knows you’re here. Well, if it gets out that we’ve given you a dinner and cornered you, they’ll all ask why in Hell they weren’t invited. I’ve got to live in New York, and you haven’t. It’s only one speech, whether we’re twelve or twelve hundred. And you’ve only to stand and shake a few more hands.”

“I’ll do my best,” Eric promised with ebbing patience. “It’s a tremendous honour....”

Then he began reading the letters which he had brought from his agent’s. Lady Lane wrote to confirm her cable and to say that his father had indeed had a stroke. His life was no longer in danger, though for some days his speech had been affected and many months must go by before he could resume work. There was no immediate urgency for Eric to return; he must decide for himself. Of course, he had been terribly missed, and every one was looking forward to seeing him.

After resolving never to go back to England, Eric felt that nothing would now keep him away. There was almost everything to be said against it, and, in its favour, only that he had secured a cabin where others had tried and failed. The reason was frivolous, his mind was aimless; and he accepted the reason, because it chimed with his mood of aimlessness. Moreover—a reason yet more frivolous!—Justus Grant was arranging a farewell dinner for him, and, after being bidden God-speed, he could not decently loiter in New York any longer. Of such stuff were made the cardinal decisions of a man’s life. Three years earlier, on the night of his first meeting with Barbara Neave, she had asked him to wait till the end of her rubber and to take her home.

The crowd in the winter garden was thinning, and Eric could study in peace the notes which he had jotted down for his speech. Though Carstairs’ chatter had set his nerves jangling, he must face a graver ordeal when he was welcomed to the midst of Barbara’s friends in London; if for the moment he could not abdicate, he must sit his throne worthily; but he felt contempt for this servile herd which abased itself before him. For two years he had lived in isolation; and, if he was now flung face to face with his public, he would shew that he could preserve his isolation in their