At dinner I watched the distinguished visitor with interest. That he was very much of a celebrity was obvious at once. He it was to whom the unaccountable pauses in talk were left, and something in his carefully modulated voice, his neatness, his air of entire impregnability, gave him a fascination felt even by so unemotional a man as I. He differed with Lawerdale on a political question, and his attitude of mingled deference and certainty was as engaging to witness as it must have been irritating to encounter. But the event of the meal was his treatment of Lady Afflint, a lady (it is only too well known) who is the hidden reef on which so many a brilliant talker shipwrecks. Her questions give a fatal chance for an easy and unpleasing smartness; she leads her unhappy companion into a morass of “shop” from which there is no escape, and, worst of all, she has the shrewdness to ask those questions which can only be met by a long explanation and which leave their nervous and short-winded victim the centre of a confusing silence. I have no hesitation in calling Layden’s treatment of this estimable woman a miracle of art. Her own devices were returned upon her, until we had the extraordinary experience of seeing Lady Afflint reduced to an aggrieved peace.
But the man’s appearance surprised me. There was nothing of the flush of enthusiasm, the ready delight in his own powers, which are supposed to mark the popular idol. His glance seemed wandering and vacant, his face drawn and lined with worry, and his whole figure had the look of a man prematurely aging. Rogerson, that eminent lawyer, remarked on the fact in his vigorous style. “Layden has chosen a damned hard profession. I never cared much for the fellow, but I admit he can work. Why, add my work to that of a first-class journalist, and you have an idea of what the man gets through every day of his life. And then think of the amount he does merely for show: the magazine articles, the lecturing, the occasional political speaking. All that has got to be kept up as well as his reputation in society. It would kill me in a week, and, mark my words, he can’t live long at that pitch.”
I saw him no more that night, but every paper I picked up was full of him. It was “Mr. Layden interviewed” here, and “Arnold Layden, an Appreciation” there, together with paragraphs innumerable, and the inscrutable allusions in his own particular journal. The thing disgusted me, and yet the remembrance of that worn-out face held me from condemning him. I am one whose interest lies very little in the minute problems of human conduct, finding enough to attract me in the breathing, living world. But here was something which demanded recognition, and in my own incapable way I drew his character.
I saw little of him during that week at Heston, for he was eternally in the train of some woman or other, when he was not shut up in the library turning out his tale of bricks. With amazing industry he contrived to pass a considerable portion of each day in serious labour, and then turned with weary eyes to the frivolity in which he was currently supposed to delight. We were the barest acquaintances, a brief nod, a chance good morning, being the limits of our intimacy; indeed, it was a common saying that Layden had a vast acquaintance, but scarcely a friend.
But on the Sunday I happened to be sitting with Wratislaw on an abrupt furze-clad knoll which looks over the park to meadow and sea. We had fallen to serious talking, or the random moralising which does duty for such among most of us. Wratislaw in his usual jerky fashion was commenting on the bundle of perplexities which made up his life, when to us there entered a third in the person of Layden himself. He had a languid gait, partly assumed no doubt for purposes of distinction, but partly the result of an almost incessant physical weariness. But today there seemed to be something more in his manner. His whole face was listless and dreary; his eyes seemed blank as a stone wall.
As I said before, I scarcely knew him, but he and Wratislaw were old acquaintances. At any rate he now ignored me wholly, and flinging himself on the ground by my companion’s side, leaned forward, burying his face in his hands.
“Oh, Tommy, Tommy, old man, I am a hopeless wreck,” he groaned.
“You are overworking, my dear fellow,” said Wratislaw; “you should hold back a little.”
Layden turned a vacant face toward the speaker. “Do you think that is all?” he said. “Why, work never killed a soul. I could work night and day if I were sure of my standing-ground.”
Wratislaw looked at him long and solemnly. Then he took out a pipe and lit it. “You’d better smoke,” he said. “I get these fits of the blues sometimes myself, and they go off as suddenly as they come. But I thought you were beyond that sort of thing.”
“Beyond it!” Layden cried. “If I had had them years ago it might have saved me. When the Devil has designs on a man, be sure that the first thing he does is to make him contented with himself.”
I saw Wratislaw’s eyebrows go up. This was strange talk to hear from one of Layden’s life.
“I would give the world to be in your place. You have chosen solid work, and you have left yourself leisure to live. And I—oh, I am a sort of ineffectual busy person running about on my little errands and missing everything.”
Wratislaw winced; he disliked all mention of himself, but he detested praise.
“It’s many years since I left Oxford; I don’t remember how long, and all this time I have been doing nothing. Who
