The Secret Victory — Key Ideas to Explore

g for a fantastic miracle to happen, hoping to see Barbara, breathless and dusty from the train, coming into his hotel. The London telegram killed his faith in romance.

And the excited column of small type killed his faith in women, for Barbara had apparently walked into the street and married the first man that she saw....

“Who’s this Oakleigh?,” asked his host, squeezing the last drop of relish out of the story. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s a very nice fellow,” Eric found himself answering. Oakleigh henceforth was to have the stolen intoxication of glorying in Barbara when she was well and comforting her when she was ill, of seeing her great eyes change from mockery to tenderness and from tenderness to ecstasy; but Oakleigh could never have from her those fifteen fevered months when their hearts had beaten together... “I’ve known him ever since I was at Oxford. He used to be in the House; and then he ran a paper... He has a place in Ireland—”

“What they call ‘a suitable alliance’?,” suggested his host.

“It’s rather a disappointing finish to her career...”

The gossiping discussion rambled on, introducing name after name of the men whom Lady Barbara had been expected to marry. Eric waited for his own and, when it was not cited, relapsed into reverie. He had received a letter that morning from his sister, telling him that she was engaged and asking whether he would be home in time for the wedding. If he had ever doubted, there was now no question of returning to England; he was too well known to be left in peace. The Oakleighs and Neaves, the Knightriders and Lorings, the Pentyres and Carstairs, the Maitlands and Poynters all moved in the same little set of three or four hundred people. Fifteen years before he had dreamed at Oxford of the day when he would burst upon their startled world and hold it captive; the dream had sustained him through the mortification of neglect and the despair of ill-health until of a sudden the reality threw his dream into shadow. In London, in Boston, in Tokio he was recognized in the street; to escape the fulfilment of his own prayers he had to travel by unfamiliar lines and hide himself in unknown hotels; for ultimate and enduring sanctuary he must retire to a land untouched by books and theatres.

After three months’ desultory wandering he returned to Tokio and booked a passage to China. Already his health was improving; and, if he could lose all touch with English ways of thought, he might begin to lose touch with himself, to shed his personality, almost to change his identity; upcountry it must be possible to find a civilization and scenery so strange that it would absorb him. As he left his hotel for the shipping office, he was handed a cable from his American agent:

“_Following from Lane Lashmar Hampshire England for you care of me despatched fourteenth your father seriously ill think you should return as soon as possible._”

Eric studied the time of despatch and retransmission with stupid deliberation, giving himself time to recover from the shock. This meant, of course, that his father was dying, was perhaps already dead; and it was his duty to be shocked. Lashmar on the fourteenth, New York on the sixteenth, Tokio on the eighteenth;—the war had made cabling a slow business... He was a selfish brute not to have told his mother where he was going instead of leaving her to track him through his American agent and, before that, through his London agent. His father had never been ill since he was a child, but he had overworked for years; this probably meant a stroke....

Eric discovered that he was quite dispassionate; perhaps he was too much numbed to feel. He must of course return immediately; if anything happened, the eldest son must be at hand. Once in England, he must let the future take care of itself.

Three weeks later he landed at San Francisco and arrived in New York two days before the armistice was signed. “Mother’s Son” was still running at the Grafton; he was met unexpectedly at the station, and, before the day was out, two reporters had called at the Majestic and sought an interview. He tried to dine by himself and was instantly caught up by a group of friends who set about organizing a banquet in his honour. A private party of twelve swept within twenty-four hours far beyond the organizer’s control. Half New York had been to one or other of the plays; scores of people had already met him, hundreds more wanted to meet him.