Page:The Collector by May Sinclair.djvu/3

Drawn by Hairy Raleigb "IF ONLY, HE MOANED, HE COULD CURL UP AND CREEP BACK INTO OBSCURITY AGAIN"" And there was some truth ixi it. I do not tli ink that, except at the very last, he was ever able to forget that Mrs. FoJyat- Raikes was a daughter of Lord Brain tree. But he had his moments of terrible lu- cidity. What was the matter vvith him, he would say, was simply his damned celebrity. He could n't get rid of it. If only, he moaned, he could curl up and creep back into obscurity again. But he could n't. It was, he said, as if a rose should shut and be a hud again. And so the rose went on expanding till it began to fade, and its leaves fell one by one on Mrs, Folyat-Raikes's drawing-room floor. His publishers saw nothing wrong with the novel he brought out in his third year. It sold all right; but he was thoroughly frightened. As if it had been the first symptom of a retributive malady, that novel sobered him. You see, he was not a snob at bottom, only at the top. At bottom he was a very serious artist, and he had realized his appalling danger. And then the great fight began. It lasted two years, and was made hideous by an element of personal virulence on both sides, secret, but profound, Secret, that is, at first. At first Mrs, Folyat- Raikes was merely unscrupulous, arid Watt Gunn merely evasive. He lied f but with no hope of really deceiving her. He would refuse three invitations running on the pica that lie was out of town. He was n't, and she knew it, and he knew that she knew it, and that she would for- give him anything. Then because he was a kind little chap at heart and hated to hurt people, he would dine with her twice running to make up. And their mutual fear and hostility would smolder. Then her clutches would tighten, and he would break loose again madly. His excuses be- came disgraceful, preposterous, fantastic. A child could have seen through them. So I was n't in the least surprised when he came to me one day and told me that he 'd got appendicitis. He was going into a nursing home, he said, on the fourteenth, "You mean," I said, "that Mrs. RaJkes has a dinner-party on the fifteenth to which you are invited." J le said he meant that he was going. He said it in that rather hoarse, rather squeaky voice of his thai carried convic- tion. There was about him a morbid ex- altation and excitement. I was to tell everybody that he was going. And he went. I called to see him three days after. His nursing home — I 'm not going to tell you exactly where it was, but it was in a beautiful green square, with lots of trees in it. I found him estab- lished in a lofty room on the first floor. He was sitting up in bed by the window, flushed and bright-eyed, looking at the trees, simply looking at them.