Gerald, who never spoke but he swore, was the cleanest-mouthed man I ever met with; while from his book one had gathered that there was one main idea in Gerald’s mind; this was purity. It was to do with that one brilliant-childish romance of his that, about seven years before the coming of the green hat, I had first met Gerald. Then, for more than five years, I had not seen nor heard of him, had forgotten him, when one day a lean, dangerous hawk of a young man coming out of the Hammam Baths in Jermyn Street suddenly stopped me. I knew later that he must have been in an agony of shyness, but at the time he merely looked intensely furious. I, not recognising him, thought he was going to hit me, and gaped at him.
Bitterly and darkly he told me that someone had told him there was a flat to be let above me in Shepherd’s Market. “I’m staying here at the moment,” he muttered, looking indignantly at the Hammam Baths. Several minutes passed before I could place him, for he had been in uniform that first time, in that transfiguring long-waisted grey coat of the Brigade of Guards.
Gerald appeared suddenly, in the winter of 1915, at the office of Horton’s New Voice. Now that Horton has left England on his adventure in un-individualism one does not hear much of The New Voice, but at that time and for long before The New Voice was, of course, a power, and Horton was a Power. Quite apart from Horton’s personal quality, you knew he was a Power because several of the greatest of the intelligent writers of our time kept on bitterly pointing out to their million readers what a futile man Horton was. Quite a number of the men whose names you can “conjure with” now—it would be fun to meet that man who is always in the street conjuring with names!—had begun by writing for Horton’s paper; but they had always gotten on his nerves by the time they had become the greatest of the intelligent writers of our time, and, since Horton was an honest man, he told them so, and he told them why, and he told them off, and they were furious. But the most inspired among the greatest of the intelligent writers of our time revenged themselves by republishing their New Voice stuff in book-form and omitting to mention The New Voice as the first medium of publication. That was discourteous of them.
We were correcting proofs when Gerald appeared. It was a Monday afternoon, and on Monday afternoons any of Horton’s writers who wished could turn up and correct either his own or someone else’s proofs and then go and have tea at the A.B.C. And Talk.
“Hello!” said Horton. “Hello!”
“Defence of the Realm,” murmured Home.
We were not prepared for Gerald. We had, of course, seen soldiers before; indeed, there was one in the room at the moment, the philosopher Home, who was to be killed a year or so later. But Gerald was a Figure, he was martial. The herald of the dominion of hell upon earth, that was Gerald. Take one small, frowsty room, the staff (Miss Veale) addressing wrappers at a desk by the window, Horton blue-pencilling at the other desk by the door, four of us sitting cramped round correcting proofs on bound annuals of The New Voice on our knees, smoking, muttering—enter six-foot-two of the Brigade of Guards with a face as dark as night and the nose of a hawk and the eyes of one who has seen Christ crucified in vain. The panoply of war sat superbly on Gerald. He looked a soldier in the real rather than in the technical sense of the word: he looked, you know, as though he had accepted death and was just living anyhow in the meanwhile. Ah, see him then! Not even Gerald’s malevolent slackness in attire could make that long-waisted grey coat with the red-silk lining sit on him but imperially. Not Gerald’s the common-or-garden chubby face of a Guard’s subaltern. Gerald was no chap. He glowered at us.
“Eh,” he stammered. “I say … I’ve been told you people. …”
“He’s heard about us,” said Home sympathetically. “Sit down, boy. On the floor, I’m afraid.”
Gerald began a fierce scowl at him—then grinned. Dear Gerald!
“Well?” smiled Horton. Always courteous was Horton, in manner.
“Heard,” muttered Gerald, “that you didn’t care what you published. …”
“Oh!” said Horton. “Well, we don’t care how good it is, if that’s what you mean.”
You couldn’t guess that Gerald was so shy that he could scarcely speak. You thought he stammered just because he stammered, not because he was so shy that he could scarcely get a word out. A man had no right to look like Gerald, an ensign of the fallen Prince of Light, and be shy; but that was always Gerald’s trouble, he never was given the credit for being shy, he put himself between you and any sympathy with him, he made it clear that he didn’t want your infernal sympathy. Just then, for instance, he looked as though he had strayed into The New Voice to send us all to blazes on general principles. And Horton looked as though he was quite prepared to go. Horton preferred bad-tempered men.
“There’s this,” Gerald muttered, and lugged out an enormous
