The Foolish Lovers Part 56

They walked down Tottenham Court Road and caught a 'bus going along Oxford Street.

"You don't seem very pleased now that I've said I'll marry you," she murmured, as they sat together on the back seat on top of the 'bus.

"I believe you're only marrying me to get away from that club you're living in!" he replied.

"That's one reason, but it isn't the only reason. I _do_ like you, John. Really, I do!"

"I want you to love me, love me desperately, the way I love you."

"But you've no right to expect that. Women don't love men for a long time after men love them ... and sometimes they never love them.

There's a girl in our club ... well, she's not a girl, but she's unmarried, so, of course we call her a girl ... and she says that most of us can live fairly happily with quite a number of people. She says that a person has one supreme love affair ... which may not come to anything ... and enough liking for about a hundred people to be able to marry and live happily with anyone of them. I think that's true. I've known plenty of men that I think I could have married and been happy enough with. You're one of them!..."

"This is a nice thing to be telling me when my heart's bursting for you. I tell you, Eleanor, I love you till I don't know what I'm doing or thinking, and all you tell me is that I'm one out of a hundred and you like me well enough to put up with me!..."

"You don't want me to tell you that I'm in love with you ... like that ... when I'm not?"

"No, of course not ... only!..."

"Perhaps you don't want to marry me now!"

He put his arm round her and pressed her so tightly that she gave a little cry of rebuke. "I love you so much," he said, "that I'm thankful glad for the least bit of liking you have for me. I wish I'd known sooner. I'd have told my mother before she went back to Ballyards!"

"I'll write and tell her myself," said Eleanor. "I'd like to tell her myself!"

V

"I'm going to be married," John said to Hinde that night.

"I thought as much," Hinde replied.

"Why?"

"Well, when a man does one dam-fool thing, he generally follows it up with another. You lose your job on the _Sensation,_ and then you get engaged to be married. I daresay your wife'll have a child just about the time you've spent every ha'penny you possess. I suppose that was her at the station to-night?" John nodded his head. "Well, you're a lucky man!"

"Thank you," said John.

"I don't know whether she's a lucky woman or not!"

"_Thank_ you," said John. "If you've no more compliments to pay, I'll go to my bed!"

"Good-night. Cream's coming back to-morrow. Miss Squibb had a letter from him this evening!"

But John took no interest in the Creams.

"If I were you, I wouldn't fall out with the Creams," said Hinde. "Now that you're going to get married, the money he'll pay you for a sketch will be useful. I suppose you'll begin to be serious when you're married?"

"I'm serious now," John replied.

"At present, Mac, you're merely b.u.mptious. I was like that when I first came to London. I had n.o.ble ideals, but I very soon discovered that the other high-minded men were not quite so idealistic as I was. I know one high-souled fellow who went into a newspaper office and asked to be allowed to review a novel with the express intention of d.a.m.ning it because he had some grudge against the author. Half the exalted scribblers in London are busily employed scratching each other's backs, and if you aren't in their little gang, you either are not noticed at all in their papers or you are unfairly judged or very, very faintly praised. You've either got to be in a gang in London or to be so immeasurably great or lucky that you can disregard gangs ... otherwise there's very little likelihood of you getting a foothold in what you call good papers. I know these papers. Mr. n.o.blemind is editor of one paper and Mr. Greatfellow is a regular contributor to another and Mr.

PraisemeandI'llpraiseyou is the literary editor of a third, and they employ each other; and Mr. n.o.blemind calls attention to the beauty of his pals' work in his paper, and they call attention to the beauty of his in theirs. My dear Mac, if you really want to know what dishonesty in journalism is, worm yourself into the secrets of the highbrow Press and the n.o.ble poets. I'm a Yellow Journalist and a failure, but by heaven, I'm an honest Yellow Journalist and an honest failure. I'm not an indifferent journalist pretending to be a poet!..."

"I don't see what all this has got to do with me," John said.

"No," Hinde replied in a quieter tone. "No, I suppose it hasn't anything to do with you. You're quite right. I'm in a bad temper to-night. I'm glad you're engaged to that girl. She looks a sensible sort of woman. Heard any more about your book?"

"Yes. It's been returned to me!..."

"Oh, my dear chap, I'm very sorry!"

"I've sent it out again. It's sure to be printed by someone," John said.

"I hope so. I wish you'd let me read it!"

"Yes, I'd like you to read it. I wish I'd kept it back a while. But you'll see it some day. Good-night!"

"Good-night, Mac!"

VI

The Creams returned to Miss Squibb's on the following evening, and Cream came to see Hinde and John soon after they arrived. Dolly, he said, was too tired after her journey to do more than send a friendly greeting to them.

"I wanted to have a talk to you about that sketch," he said to John.

"It's very good, of course, quite cla.s.sy, in fact, but it wants tightening up. Snap! That's what it wants. And a little bit of vulgarity. Oh, not too much. Of course not. But it doesn't do to overlook vulgarity, Mac. We've all got a bit of it in us, and pers'nally, I see no harm in it, _pro_-vided ... _pro-vided_, mind you ... that it's comic. That's the only excuse for vulgarity ...

that it's comic. Now, the first thing is the t.i.tle!"

Mr. Cream took the MS. of John's sketch from his pocket and spread it on the table. "This won't do at all," he said, pointing to the t.i.tle-page of the play. "_Love's Tribute!_ My dear old Mac, what the h.e.l.l's the good of a t.i.tle like that? Where's the snap in it? Where's the attraction, the allurement? Nowhere. A t.i.tle like that wouldn't draw twopence into a theatre. _Love's Tribute!_ I ask you!..." His feelings made him inarticulate and he gazed round the room in a helpless manner.

"Well, what would you call it?" John demanded.

"Something snappy. I often say a t.i.tle's half the play. Now, take a piece like _The Girl Who Lost Her Character_ or _The Man With Two Wives_ ... there's a bit of snap about that. t.i.tles like those simply haul 'em into the theatre. _Snap! Go! Ginger!_ Something that sounds 'ot, but isn't ... that's the stuff to give the British public. You make 'em think they're going to see something ... well, _you_ know ... and they'll stand four deep in the snow waiting to get into the theatre. If you were to put the Book of Genesis on the stage and call it _The Girl Who Took The Wrong Turning_, people 'ud think they'd seen something they oughtn't to ... and they'd tell all their friends. Now, how about _The Guilty Woman_ for your sketch, Mac?"

John looked at him in astonishment. "But the woman in it isn't guilty of anything," he protested.

"That doesn't matter. The t.i.tle needn't have anything to do with it.

Very few t.i.tles have anything to do with the piece. So long as they're snappy, that's all you need think about. Pers'nally, I like _The Guilty Woman_ myself; but Dolly's keen on _The Sinful Woman_.

And that just reminds me, Mac! Here's a tip for you. Always have _Woman_ in your t.i.tle if you can. _A Sinful Woman_'ll draw better than _A Sinful Man_. People seem to expect women to be more sinful than men when they are sinful ... or p'raps they're more used to men being sinful than women. I dunno. But it's a fact ... _Woman_ in the t.i.tle is a bigger draw than _Man_. And you got to think of these little things. If you want to make a fortune out of a piece, take my advice and think of a snappy adjective to put in front of _Woman_ or _Girl!_ Really, you know, play-writing's very simple, if you only remember a few tips like that!..."

"But my play isn't about sin at all," John protested.

"Well, what's the good of it then?" Cream demanded. "All plays are about sin of some sort, aren't they? If people aren't breaking a rule or a commandment, there's no plot, and if there's no plot, there's no play. Of course, Bernard Shaw and all these chaps, they don't believe in plots or climaxes or anything, and they turn out pieces that sound as if they'd wrote the first half in their Oxford days and the second half when they were blind drunk. You've got to have a plot, Mac, and if you've got to have a plot, you've got to have sin. What 'ud Hamlet be without the sin in it? Nothing! Why, there wasn't any drama in the world 'til Adam and Eve fell! You take it from me, Mac, there'll be no drama in heaven. Why? Because there'll be no sin there. But there'll be a h.e.l.l of a lot in h.e.l.l! Now, I like _The Guilty Woman_. It's not quite so bare-faced as _The Sinful Woman_, but as Dolly likes it better ... she's more intense than I am ... we'll have to have it, I expect!"

"I don't like either of those t.i.tles," John said, gulping as he spoke, for he felt that there was a difference of view between Cream and him that could not be overcome.

"Well, think of a better one then," Cream good-naturedly answered.

"There's another thing. As I said, the piece wants overhauling, but you can leave that to me. When I've had a good go at it!..."