there happened to be a room to let on the same floor as richard's own. the rent was only five shillings per week, and he arranged to take it and use it as a bedroom, transforming the other and larger room into a study. mrs. rowbotham was asked to remove all her tables, chairs, carpets, pictures, ornaments, and accessories from both rooms, as he proposed to furnish them entirely anew at his own cost. this did not indicate that a sudden increase of revenue had, as once on a previous occasion, engendered in him a propensity to squander. on the contrary, his determination to live economically was well established, and he hoped to save a hundred pounds per annum with ease. but the influence of an æsthetic environment upon his literary work would, he argued, probably be valuable enough to justify the moderate expenditure involved, and so all the leisure of the last days of the year was given to the realisation of certain theories in regard to the furnishing of a study and a bedroom. unfortunately the time at his disposal was very limited—- was it not essential that the place should be set in order by the 31st of december, that work might commence on the 1st of january?—but he did not spare himself, and the result, when he contemplated it on new year's eve, filled him with pleasure and pride. he felt that he could write worthily in that study, with its four autotype reproductions of celebrated pictures on the self-coloured walls, its square of indian carpet over indian matting, its long, low bookshelves, its quaint table with the elm top, its plain rush-bottomed chairs, and its broad luxurious divan. he marvelled that he had contrived so long to exist in the room as it was before, and complacently attributed his ill-success as a writer to the lack of harmonious surroundings. by the last post arrived a new year's card from mrs. clayton vernon. twelve months ago she had sent a similar kind token of remembrance, and he had ignored it; in the summer she had written inviting him to spend a few days at bursley, and he had somewhat too briefly asked to be excused. to-night, however, he went out, bought a new year's card, and despatched it to her at once. he flowed over with benevolence, viewing the world through the rosy spectacles of high resolve. mrs. clayton vernon was an excellent woman, and he would prove to her and to bursley that they had not estimated too highly the possibilities of richard larch. he was, in truth, prodigiously uplifted. the old sense of absolute power over himself for good or evil returned. a consciousness of exceptional ability possessed him. the future, splendid in dreams, was wholly his; and yet again—perhaps more thoroughly than ever before—the ineffectual past was effaced. to-morrow was the new year, and to-morrow the new heaven and the new earth were to begin.
he had decided to write a novel. having failed in short stories and in essays, it seemed to him likely that the novel, a form which he had not so far seriously attempted, might suit his idiosyncrasy better. he had once sketched out the plot of a short novel, a tale of adventure in modern london, and on examination this struck him as ingenious and promising. moreover, it would appeal—like stevenson's "new arabian nights," which in richard's mind it distantly resembled—both to the general and to the literary public. he determined to write five hundred words of it a day, five days a week; at this rate of progress he calculated that the book would be finished in four months; allowing two months further for revision, it ought to be ready for a publisher at the end of june.
he drew his chair up to the blazing fire, and looked down the vista of those long, lamplit evenings during which the novel was to grow under his hands. how different he from the average clerk, who with similar opportunities was content to fritter away those hours which would lead himself, perhaps, to fame! he thought of adeline, and smiled. what, after all, did such as he want with women? he was in a position to marry, and if he met a clever girl of sympathetic temperament, he emphatically would marry (it did not occur to him to add the clause, "provided she will have me"); but otherwise he would wait. he could afford to wait,—to wait till he had made a reputation, and half a score of women, elegant and refined, were only too willing to envelop him in an atmosphere of adoration.
it was part of his plan for economy to dine always at the crabtree, where one shilling was the price of an elaborate repast, and he went there on new year's day. as he walked up charing cross road, his thoughts turned naturally to miss roberts. would she be as cordial as when he had met her on the omnibus, or would she wear the polite mask of the cashier, treating him merely as a frequenter of the establishment? she was engaged when he entered the dining-room, but she noticed him and nodded. he looked towards her several times during his meal, and once her eyes caught his and she smiled, not withdrawing them for a few moments; then she bent over her account book.
his fellow-diners seemed curiously to have degenerated, to have grown still narrower in their sympathies, still more careless in their eating, still more peculiar or shabbier in their dress. the young women of masculine aspect set their elbows on the table more uncompromisingly than ever, and the young men with soiled wristbands or no wristbands at all were more than ever tedious in their murmured conversations. it was, indeed, a bizarre company that surrounded him! then he reflected that these people had not altered. the change was in himself. he had outgrown them; he surveyed them now as from a tower. he was a man with a future, using this restaurant because it suited him temporarily to do so, while they would use it till the end, never deviating, never leaving the rut.
"so you have come at last!" miss roberts said to him when he presented his check. "i was beginning to think you had deserted us."
"but it's barely a week since i saw you," he protested. "let me wish you a happy new year."
"the same to you." she flushed a little, and then: "what do you think of our new decorations? aren't they pretty?"
he praised them perfunctorily, even without glancing round. his eyes were on her face. he remembered the reiterated insinuations of jenkins, and wondered whether they had any ground of fact.
"by the way, has jenkins been here to-day?" he inquired, by way of introducing the name.
"is that the young man who used to come with you sometimes? no."
there was no trace of self-consciousness in her bearing, and richard resolved to handle jenkins with severity. another customer approached the pay-desk.
"well, good afternoon." he lingered.
"good afternoon." her gaze rested on him softly. "i suppose you'll be here again some time." she spoke low, so that the other customer should not hear.
"i'm coming every day now, i think," he answered in the same tone, with a smothered laugh. "ta-ta."
that night at half-past seven he began his novel. the opening chapter was introductory, and the words came without much effort. this being only a draft, there was no need for polish; so that when a sentence refused to run smoothly at the first trial, he was content to make it grammatical and leave it. he seemed to have been working for hours when a desire took him to count up what was already written. six hundred words! he sighed the sigh of satisfaction, and looked at his watch, to find that it was exactly half-past eight. the discovery somewhat damped his felicity. he began to doubt whether stuff composed at the rate of ten words a minute could have any real value. pooh! sometimes one wrote quickly, and sometimes slowly. the number of minutes occupied was no index of quality. should he continue writing? yes, he would.... no.... why should he? he had performed the task self-allotted for the day, and more; and now he was entitled to rest. true, the actual time of labour had been very short; but then, another day the same amount of work might consume three or four hours. he put away his writing-things, and searched about for something to read, finally lighting on "paradise lost." but "paradise lost" wanted actuality. he laid it aside. was there any valid reason why he should not conclude the evening at the theatre? none. the frost had returned with power, and the reverberation of the streets sounded invitingly through his curtained windows. he went out, and walked briskly up park side. at hyde park corner he jumped on an omnibus.
it was the first night of a new ballet at the ottoman. "standing-room only," said the man at the ticket-office. "all right," said richard, and, entering, was greeted with soft music, which came to him like a fitful zephyr over a sea of heads.