nd His Wife_.' There's a rather broad
hint at our engagement, and I'm receiving congratulations. Isn't this a
golden opportunity for publishing the news?_"

Barbara's reply was tuned to an uncompromising note which Eric had met
but once before--at the beginning of his last illness, when he had
threatened to go away from her and the threat had misfired; when, too,
he--"one of our conquerors"--had broken down and cringed to her; and
she, with drawn cheeks and leaden eyes, had laid his head on her bosom
and caressed him, not as a conqueror or a lover, but as a tired, sick
child.

"_I am so very miserable_," she wrote. "_Sometimes I could almost wish
to die--just to get us all out of this terrible tangle. You'd be
happier--after a time, when you'd got over the first feeling of loss and
loneliness; and, however lonely and unhappy you'd be without me, it
would be nothing to the misery I should bring you, if we were foolish
enough to marry. Let me be your devoted, your very loving, very grateful
friend! If you try to marry me, you'll be marrying my name, my voice, my
clothes, my body; you won't be marrying me; you'll waste your divine
love on a woman whose soul is at the other end of the world. Whatever
happens, I must do you a hideous wrong._"

Eric read the letter three times and left it unanswered.

A very little more of this erotic battledore-and-shuttlecock would send
them both out of their minds. It was a mistake to write, when both
needed a holiday. He telephoned to his agent and walked to Covent Garden
for a consultation about the lecturing-tour in America.

"I'm worn out, I must have a complete change," said Eric. "And I want to
start at once."

Grierson was surprised out of his habitual placidity by the nervous
vehemence of Eric's manner.

"You'll need a month or two to prepare your lectures," he pointed out.

"You can begin making the arrangements immediately. London's getting on
my nerves rather. Three months in the country, three months out
there--oh, the war may be over by then. . . . I'm sick of England. . . .
If the war's still going on, I shall stay away and go on to Japan.
You'll fix that, Grierson?"

He jumped up restlessly and was starting for the door when his agent
recalled him.

"Are you in a hurry?" he asked. "There are one or two things I want to
talk to you about. Rather good news," he added. "Staines have accepted
your novel on our terms. I had a fight over the advance, but your name
car