Those streets at Singapore where the harlots of East and West sit at their doors and in their verandahs, stretching out their whitened arms towards the passers-by, were investigated and discussed by the Gunroom. They are investigated and discussed by most Europeans who pass through Singapore, and they remain and will remain. Cunwell thought them funny; Dyce was curious, and desired information; Sentley, who had entered them inadvertently, left them in haste, fearful and embarrassed. John and Hugh, who drove through them together in rickshaws, were glad when they were clear of them.

“My God!” John said, “isn’t it amazing how beastliness spreads?”

“The women?” Hugh asked.

“No; at the moment I was thinking of Krame. But the women, too, if you like.”

“Oh, be damned to Krame! We are free of him.”

“Yes, we are, but others are not.”

“I’d forgotten them.”

“One does forget.”

Hugh looked at him. “Cheer up, John,” he said, “the sight of the women has made you miserable. It’s no good being miserable about them. There’s nothing to be done.”

“I’m not miserable about them only. I’m angry because they are helpless, and we are helpless. I’m angry for all helpless things. They would probably tell you that they would never have come to this if they had had plenty of money. Sweated labour would tell you that what it wants is higher wages. And—though my reason tells me it’s all a lie—I myself think that if only I had more money I could do the work I want to do and be happy. We all look to money for help—that’s why we are helpless.”

“Then it’s our own fault.”

“Oh, it starts higher than that. It’s older than we are. The Golden Calf is the established creed. Put it wider than just money; call it gain—any material gain: temporal power, private land, national territory, influence; and those nights we had in the King Arthur, and what other snotties are going through now, and the streets with their harlots—they are just fragments of the result.... I’m looking forward to seeing your sister again. She is the only person I have met who, in her heart of hearts, seems not to care for wealth.”

“But she has always had everything she wants,” Hugh said.

II

Later in April they made Hong-Kong, where they joined the squadron. Being in time for the Japanese summer cruise, they sailed a fortnight later for Yokohama, whither the squadron had preceded them. Throughout the voyage the Pathshire was active in preparation for the time when she would be called upon to compete with other ships in Fleet Evolutions; and General Quarters, Fire and Collision Stations, and other exercises were continually practised.

The whole of May was spent out of China. In Tokio a party from the fleet was officially received and entertained. Each British officer was assigned to a Japanese officer of corresponding rank who remained close to him always, providing him with food, drink, and information. The arrangements were perfect, and mathematically precise. The motor-cars were filled but not crowded. Much was shown, but not too much. The programme, of which every officer was given a copy typed in English, was accurately followed. Not a moment was lost. Dinner was taken between the acts at the Imperial Theatre.

Though, after the official reception, John went often to Tokio, and found that the Japanese citizen was peaceful enough, he could never shake off his first impression of a nation essentially military, encouraged by its recent victories over Russia, ready for further wars should they come. Far inland such an impression might have been contradicted; but in Tokio, the centre of official life, it was continually reinforced. It was remarkable and terrible that the Japanese military mind was not even choked, as were the minds of Western nations, by official pomposity. It seemed faultless. Salaries were small, offices unpretentious. The nation was as an athlete stripped.

“Just as well these fellows are our allies,” said Aggett in the Wardroom.

Nick Ordith had much leave in Japan; indeed, from the day of the ship’s arrival to the day of her departure his messmates saw little of him, save when he came on board for a few hours to deposit one bag of papers and to carry off another. Sometimes Aggett accompanied him; but Aggett, not being supernumerary, and having ship’s duties, could not take all the leave he desired. Nick called at many important offices, and in all of them was amicably received. It was to be understood, of course, that he represented no one; but, nevertheless, the Japanese were aware of the existence of Ibble’s and of Ordith’s. In those days, Mr. Fane-Herbert being as yet far away, perhaps Nick allowed Ordith’s to eclipse Ibble’s, telling himself that, the understanding between the two firms being so cordial and complete, he could do so with an easy conscience. Further, he had prospects, sprung from his own inventive mind, which were but indirectly connected with either firm. He wanted experiments made, but these must be unofficial. He had ideas to sell, but, realizing the prior claims of his own nation’s firms, he could not part with them unreservedly. All his negotiations, which involved so many conflicting interests, were complicated and slow, but before the Pathshire put to sea he felt that he had made preliminary progress, some of which he would report to Mr. Fane-Herbert.

III

Sailing by way of Nagasaki, the squadron reached Wei-hai-wei on the first morning of June. The Fane-Herberts, who had travelled overland, were already established there, having taken a small house and equipped it with Chinese servants. Mr. Fane-Herbert had urged his wife not to settle down in a place so deserted. In the absence of the squadron, he told her, there would be little company but that of the somewhat distant regiment. But she had made up her mind, and was not to be dissuaded. The squadron would be at Wei-hai during a part of the summer at least, and, if rumour spoke truly, the Pathshire was to winter there alone. Both she and Margaret wanted to be near Hugh, and taking into consideration the probabilities of the squadron’s ever uncertain movements, they seemed likely to see more of him at Wei-hai than elsewhere.... But he couldn’t do his business at Wei-hai, Mr. Fane-Herbert remonstrated; the boy was quite capable of looking after himself.

“You are quite free,” Mrs. Fane-Herbert had said, “to move about independently of us. If the Pathshire leaves Wei-hai for long we will come anywhere you like, and return when the Pathshire returns. We shall have enough time in her absence to see Japan, and Hong-Kong, and Shanghai, or any other places you feel we ought to see. At present I want to see my son. Wild horses shall not move me.”

She had had enough of travelling. She liked to be settled in a home, and did not intend to trail about the seas at her husband’s heels.

Nick invited himself to dine, and John and Hugh, who would not ask for late leave that night, went ashore in the afternoon.

“Mr. Alter is always talking of you,” Margaret told him when, after tea, he had her alone. “He wants more of your work, and he has given me this letter for you.”

“I have done no more work,” he confessed.

“None?”

“None.”

“Didn’t you get my letter. I addressed it to Colombo.”

“Yes, I got that. I took it up to Kandi with me to read. I made wonderful resolutions that night.”

“And haven’t kept them?”

“No.”

“John, you are hopeless.”

He defended himself as best he could. “I can’t help it,” he said; “I have tried to write and I have tried to read. I have read spasmodically. But it seems useless. I started this naval business too early. My education has been a naval education, and—what is more important—my life is a naval life. If you can’t be alone you can’t think; if you can’t think you are a fool to try to write. Besides, to write you must read and read and read. You must see life from a thousand angles—not from one professional standpoint. And you must feel that, for better or for worse, you are master of yourself—not necessarily of your actions, but of your thinking.”

“But you have written in these very circumstances. Why can’t you write more?”

“For the same reason that a man who chances upon an occasional phrase can’t write an epic. Literature isn’t luck; it’s the result of substantial effort.”

“Others have written who had other things to do than write.”

He wondered if, after all, he was overrating difficulties in order to shield a lack of courage. “Yes,” he said, “but out of their office, or shop, or factory, their life was their own. They went home—to some kind of home. At any rate, it was theirs. A snotty’s life is never his own. He lives in his office the whole twenty-four hours. He never ‘goes home.’”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“So you give up?” she asked.

“Yes. What can I do?”

“And you are not nineteen yet. What’s your life going to be?”

“I may get to like it. Perhaps in the senior ranks it will be better.”

“It won’t.”

“I know. Of course it won’t.”

She was tempted to be angry because he had so early abandoned hope, because he was not putting up a fight; but she saw that he was opposed to forces so much stronger than any he could command that by no courage could he unaided stand against them. Then she remembered a source whence help might come.

“John,” she said, “I want you to fight this out.”

“Fight?”

“Because I believe it’s worth the fighting. You feel hopeless now, partly, I dare say, because your other work prevents your writing, but chiefly—isn’t that true?—chiefly because you don’t feel sure that you could ever write.... You can write, you know.”

“What guarantee have you of that?” he asked, in a tone that was unusually hard, because he did not feel hard. Her presence, her voice, her repose above all, affected his uneasy mind profoundly. It was amazing that anyone should care two damns whether he wasted his life or not.

“I think I had better tell you,” she said. “I didn’t intend to. There’s a sort of convention that you mustn’t tell people good of themselves, but I shall tell you this now. I have Mr. Alter’s guarantee.”

“Because he said he liked my work? It’s so easy to say that.”

“No—more than that. He said you were an example of godless waste.”

“Good heavens!” John exclaimed with a laugh.

“And he said,” she went on, “that he believed you could, if you would, be a great man. I asked him at once what reasons he had for saying that. He gave me certain points in your work: I shan’t repeat them or you will strain after them and exaggerate them. But he thought them decisive. He showed your work to other men whose opinions confirmed his own.... What now?”

“It’s wonderfully good to hear,” John said unsteadily. “Margaret, tell me the special points he hit on. I don’t see how it is possible to be sure at this stage.”

“I’ll tell you one point—too general for you to exaggerate and spoil. He said that you wrote naturally, established a curious intimacy with your audience, and that yet what you said was momentous—the rarest of combinations. And he repeated what you heard him say that night at dinner—that your images were chosen with the eyes tight shut or wide open—the full vision, inward or outward. He gave instances.”

“What instances?”

“Those I can’t tell you. If I did you would be bound to imitate them.”

He thought over this in silence. “Margaret,” he said, “may not this be mere talk? You know how great men love an occasional enthusiasm. Mr. Alter is in no way bound by what he says.”

“He acts on it, at any rate. He went to see your mother about it.”

“She wrote that he had called.”

“He has called often,” Margaret said. She smiled as she remembered his words, spoken after one of those expeditions to the country. “Mrs. Lynwood is delightful,” he had said. “She understands everything except her son. She wishes he would settle down to the Navy—a fixed income and an open-air life. She smiles at his poetry, and says, ‘Yes, I dare say it is good, Wing, and I’m glad he does it so well; but there’s no money in it. And we are dreadfully poor, you know.’”

Margaret told John nothing of this. If Mrs. Lynwood did not see fit to mention to her son that she had known Wingfield Alter long enough and intimately enough to call him “Wing,” she had probably good reasons for concealing the fact.

“I must think over all this,” John said. “I want to tell Hartington about it. Hartington is the Sub.”

“The Sub?” she said in surprise. “Does the Sub listen kindly to poetry?”

“Yes, thank Heaven. You must meet him soon.... And I’ll try to write to-night, Margaret.”

“No; don’t try.”

“But I want to write now. I am so suddenly happy. I have been longing and longing to see you. And when you come you bring this wonderful news.”

Near at hand the gulls were crying, and sampan men crooning to themselves as they rocked their bodies over their stern oars.

“Come and tell me about England,” he said; “the Thames, the bridges, the lights, the trains; and pictures and music, and books and plays, and carpets and rugs; and little narrow country lanes, and hills, and being free, and——”

“But I can’t tell you everything at once!”

“Oh, splendid!” he exclaimed. “I guessed you would say that. I have guessed it every night for weeks and weeks. ‘But I can’t tell you everything at once!’ Now it’s coming true. You see,” he explained, “I have been looking forward to this.”

A tremor of joy passed through her because she had made him happy. She began to talk eagerly, so that, for a time at least, he might forget the ship, and might not remember, what she understood now, that “for weeks and weeks” there had been nothing but this meeting to which he might look forward.

From the bridge of the Pathshire Nick Ordith was surveying the shore through a telescope.

“Dull spot, Yeoman,” he said.

The Yeoman of Signals rubbed his hands. “Precious cold in the winter, sir.”

IV

John returned to the ship in a spirit of exultation, intoxicated, not so much by the heady wine of praise as by the discovery that he was not altogether alone in his difficult world. Margaret cared what became of him; apparently Mr. Alter also cared. But it was Margaret’s interest and her personality that filled his thoughts to the exclusion of the colder critic. He sought out Hartington, and laid the matter before him, reading aloud Mr. Alter’s letter, and repeating the passages in it which seemed to him unusually important.

Hartington who thought that by this time he had a fairly accurate understanding of the working of John’s mind, was at first astonished by the extraordinary elation of which this letter was the only apparent cause. It was natural that John should be pleased by the approval and interest of a man of Alter’s standing, but his changed mood, the laughter, the quickened speech, the heightened colour, called for an explanation more personal. John spoke of Margaret as “Fane-Herbert’s sister” when he spoke of her at all.

“So Alter advises you to talk to Miss Fane-Herbert when you can?” Hartington said. “What’s the exact meaning of that?”

“She knows a good deal of books,” said John easily.

“But he doesn’t suggest that you should be tutored by her?”

“Oh, no.”

“Then it’s her talk that’s to do you good?”

“Yes.”

“Because it is her talk—not for the sake of her knowledge?”

“I suppose so.”

Hartington smiled. Between them as they sat in the small cabin hung a large red-paper lantern, lighted by an electric lead. Hartington touched it with his foot, and set the light and shadows chasing each other round the Fiesole paintings and DÜrer’s Hare.

“Do you think I might ask you an extremely rude question?” he said. “It’s important. I think it’s relevant.”

“I know what you are going to ask,” John answered. “About Fane-Herbert’s sister? I suppose you think I am a fool to be in love with her.”

“It makes the whole business more complicated. It means that half the time when you think you are wanting one thing you are really wanting another. Now any consideration of the future will be hopelessly entangled with consideration of her.”

John explained that, in truth, Margaret simplified the issue, because, as he said, her own ideas were so very like his own. He elaborated this theory until he could elaborate it no more. Then he stopped suddenly.

“It’s so exciting,” he said, after a pause. “Everything is so exciting.”

The excitement of it took his breath away. He steadied the red lamp, and watched its light glow through the tips of his fingers. Obviously he had forgotten that his life did not consist entirely in Margaret and literature. Of what use was it to remind him now that he was a midshipman, very young and altogether unknown, who earned one shilling and ninepence a day? of what use to speak of Ibble’s and Ibble’s wealth? Hartington decided not to trouble him that night, to leave unshattered so long as they would endure his vain, happy dreams.

“Do you think,” John said, “that Mr. Alter would put in a word with a publisher about a novel?”

“Probably. Have you written one? Have you a great work stored away secretly underneath your private till?”

“No,” said John seriously; “but I could write one. A hundred thousand words. Suppose I did a thousand a day—or even five hundred—a couple of quarto pages.... There might be money in that.”

He turned into his hammock that night to lie long awake, dreaming of title pages, bindings, and press-cuttings, and calculating royalties. He was generous to himself in the matter of royalties, for so much money would be needed before—perhaps a play would be better, after all.... Very carefully, mindful of Hartington’s warning, he excluded Margaret from his consideration of these practical matters. But when at last he fell asleep and could no longer deceive himself, he dreamed of Margaret only. He dreamed that she kissed him, not that he kissed her; of a hundred tendernesses of word and deed that were outside his experience. They had a house in Westminster.... She looked down from behind the grille on to the floor of the House of Commons.

V

Margaret sat very still on the edge of her bed. The last word she had heard her father speak that evening came back to her like a tawdry tune.

“The most steel-like mind I know.”

That was Mr. Ordith’s. Steel-like: strong, supple, elastic, highly finished. He had, too, some of the splendour, even the poetry, of machinery: accurate, clean, with no uncertain edges, without misgiving. And he had power.

He was a man to whom one might go confidently in any worldly difficulty. He would know what ought to be done, and would do it at once. He would see quite clearly one side of every question. In a way, she supposed, it was a compliment that one who had so wide a field of choice should have chosen her.

Then she remembered how he had watched her. She saw again, as if they were watching her now, those large dark eyes, with their lower lids slightly raised and puckered. It gave one a sense of being a specimen, of being exposed. She shivered, stood up, walked to the window and closed it. The night was hot, so she opened the window again.

“Anyhow,” she said, “he doesn’t want help from anyone.” She blew out the candle and got into bed. There were so many people who wanted help—John among them; so many, that one might as well give up trying to help them. With Ordith it would be an easy passage in a comfortable ship that he would steer.

The bedclothes were tucked into place with a little jerk. She pushed back a wisp of hair from her face as if she were angry with it. Then she shut her eyes—tight. No need to think. No need to worry yet. Sleep.

But she opened her eyes again, and stared at the little white mountain of her pillow.