"No, it's my profession. I'm a sporting prophet."

Gobion suddenly remembered that he had heard nothing about the ma.s.s of copy that had been sent out some days before.

"Has Mr. Sturtevant been in to-night?" he asked the barmaid.

"No, I haven't seen him for two or three days," she said.

Gobion went quickly out into the Strand and walked to Sturtevant's rooms. The gas flamed on the dingy staircase, making a hissing noise in the silence, and shining on the white paint of the names above the door--Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, Mr. Thompson Jones, Mr. Gordon.

The "oak" was open, so Gobion went in, pushing aside the swing door at the end of the little pa.s.sage.

A strong smell of brandy struck him in the face. He walked in, and looked round the screen by the fire, starting back for a moment with a sick horror of what he saw.

The candles were alight before the looking-gla.s.s over the mantelpiece.

In front of it stood Sturtevant, with his back to Gobion. His thumbs were in the corners of his mouth, and with his first fingers he was pulling down the loose skin under his eyes, making the most ghastly grimaces at his image in the mirror.

Gobion stood still, petrified, and mechanically pressed the spring of his opera hat, which flew out with a loud pop. Sturtevant wheeled round like a shot, shaking with fear. When he saw who was there he gave a great sob of relief and fell into a chair.

"O G.o.d, how you startled me!" he said.

"What on earth's the matter with you?" said Gobion; "you look as if you were dying."

The man was not good to look at. His skin was a uniform tint of discoloured ivory, with red wrinkles round the eyes. His lips were dark purple and swollen, his hands shook.

"I'm so glad you've come; I've had a slight touch of D.T., and if you hadn't come in I should have broken out again to-night."

Gobion calmed him as well as he could, and in about an hour got him into something like ordinary condition.

"And now," he said, "how about our copy?"

"By George, I've forgotten all about it; there are probably a lot of letters in the box."

They got them out. The first one they opened was a collection of personal paragraphs sent in by Gobion, "Declined with thanks." The next was a cheque from the _Resounder_ for four guineas, in payment of the "Gambling at Oxford" article. They went on opening one after the other, and at the end found that they had netted twenty-six pounds.

Sturtevant got excited about it, and wanted to have some more brandy, but Gobion managed to get him to bed, and locked the door, putting the key in his pocket. He built up the fire, took Daudet's _Sappho_ from a shelf, and pa.s.sed the night on the sofa alternately reading and dozing.

It took him three or four days to bring Sturtevant round to something like form, most of which he spent in the Temple, occupying himself by writing the attack on Heath for _The Spy_.

It was the cleverest piece of work he had done, and when it was finished it was with all the pride of an artist that he read it to Sturtevant, and sent it to Blanche Huntley to be typed.

Meanwhile he became at times horribly bored and low-spirited, and each new attack accentuated the next, for he would rush into the lowest forms of amus.e.m.e.nt to find oblivion. In the intervals of coa.r.s.eness he called on Mrs. Picton.

Such society as was open to him soon began to pall, and he spent more and more time at the "copy shop" or with Sturtevant in the Temple.

These two men, who a few years ago were freshmen at Oxford, sat night after night cursing and blaspheming all that most men hold sacred.

They were colossal in their bitterness.

Sturtevant said once, "Life is a disease; as soon as we are born we begin to die. I shall die soon from D.T., and you'll write a realistic study for _The Pilgrim_. Perhaps my life was ordained for that end."

Which, considering the degree the man had taken, and what his mental abilities were, was about the bitterest thing he could have said.

One night Sturtevant went to bed about two, leaving Gobion in the room not much inclined for sleep. After an inspection of the bookcase, he took down a Swinburne, and turned to "Dolores."

"Come down and redeem us from virtue, Our Lady of Pain,"

he read in the utter stillness of the night.

Then he put the book down and sat staring into the fire, thinking quietly of the literary merit of the poem, while its pa.s.sion throbbed through and through him--a strange dual action of mind and sense.

Suddenly he looked up and saw a silver streak in the dull sky, the earliest messenger of dawn pressing its sad face against the window.

"I will go abroad," he said, "and see the day come to London." He went out in the ancient echoing courts through the darkness, till he came to the Embankment, and looked over the river. Far away in the east the sky was faintly streaked with grey, the curtain of the dark seemed shaken by the birth-pangs of the morning. He stood quite still, looking towards a great bar of crimson which flashed up from over St. Paul's, showing the purple dome floating in the mist. The western sky over the archbishop's palace was all aglow with a red reflected light. Dark bars of cloud stretched out half over heaven, turning to brightness as the sun rushed on them. The deepening glow spread wider and wider, on and up, till the silver greys and greens faded into blue, and the glory of the morning in a great arch suffused the Abbey, the Tower, and all the palaces of London. The sparrows began to twitter in the little trees on the Embankment.

CHAPTER VI.

_THE COUP._

"He was one of those earnest people who feel that life ought to have some meaning if they could only find it out," said Sturtevant, "and he came in with my little brochure, _The Harmonies of Sin_, in his paw. He was a sort of wrinkled romance. 'Sir,' he said, 'may I ask if you are Mordaunt Sturtevant?' 'At your service,' I answered. Then he said, 'I must tell you that I have felt it my duty to come and remonstrate with you about this 'ere dreadful book.' I asked him to sit down, and pushed over the decanter. He waved it away, tapping my book with his umbrella.

'You have unpaved h.e.l.l to build your book with,' he said. 'Then my book is made up of good intentions,' I answered, but he didn't see it. 'Think of your pore soul,' he said. I told him I didn't know its address.

'Sir, you have exalted harlotry into a social force.' I told him the harlot was the earthworm of society. He got up and retreated to the door. 'Any _man_ would 'ate it,' he said. I asked him quite politely if he considered himself a man. He remarked that he _was_ a man, 'made in G.o.d's image, sir! in G.o.d's image!' 'The mould must have leaked,' I said.

"At this he grew angry, pointing his umbrella at me and snorting. 'You 'ave all the vices, and aspire to all the crimes,' he shouted. When he began to shout I'd had about enough, so I kicked him downstairs."

"When did this episode occur?"

"Oh, just before you came in."

"What's the book about, I haven't read it."

"Merely a little psychological a.n.a.lysis of a young girl's misdoings."

"There's a sort of naked indecency about a young girl's soul, so I don't think I'll read it. Pa.s.s the whiskey, will you? You've had enough. I suppose you hurt your visitor considerably?"

"Oh, he didn't really come, I only said that for the sake of saying something, and because I thought how amusing such a man would be if he did turn up."

Gobion yawned. Both of them were very dull and miserable.

The afternoon was all blind with rain swirling against the window in sudden gusts. Footsteps echoed on the flags below with a monotonous clank, while, more faintly, London poured into their ears a dreary hum, a suggestion of wet cold streets. It was about four in the afternoon, and Gobion having done some work in the morning was now in the Temple, sitting in front of the fire, without any present interest. Restless and miserable, he tried to think of Scott, of Father Gray, of the people who cared for him, hoping for vague thrillings, little tender luxuries of regret, but it was of no use. A short time ago he could have induced the pleasing grief-bubble easily with a good fire and a little whiskey, and at its bursting, enjoy a music-hall with its lights and laughter; but now something seemed to have snapped. The curtain was down, the gas was out, the house was cold and empty. He was no longer able to put on a sentimental halo and act at himself as an approving audience.

Sturtevant too was dull and lethargic. He was not emotional like the other, but though a man of less charm, his attainments were greater, he knew more, and now he also was struggling to think--to work.

They were both silent for some time while the darkness closed in, the rain outside pattering with an added weariness and the wind wailing up from the river. At last Sturtevant took up a gla.s.s from the table and threw it into the fire with an oath.

"Laugh, you devil!" he said, "shout! be merry! be brilliant!"