The Simpkins Plot | Page 7

be trouble about my ticket."
There was--considerable trouble. But Meldon emerged from it
victoriously. He flatly refused to move from the carriage in which he
sat. The guard, the station-master, a ticket-collector, and four porters
gathered round the door and argued with him. Meldon argued fluently
with them. In the end they took his name and address, threatening him
with prosecution. Then, because the train was a mail train and obliged
to go on, the guard blew his whistle and Meldon was left in peace.
"It's a nuisance," he said to Miss King, "being worried by those men. I
wanted to send a telegram, but I couldn't. If I'd ventured out of the
carriage they'd never have let me back again. The Major won't be
expecting me till the next train. I only caught this one by accident."
"By accident?"
"Yes. The fact is I was up early this morning, wakened by my little
daughter, a baby not quite two years old yet. I told you I was married,
didn't I? The poor child was upset by the journey from England, and
didn't sleep properly. When she had me wakened I thought I might as
well get up. I intended to stroll up towards the station quietly. I walked
rather faster than I meant to, and when I got within about three hundred
yards of the station I discovered that I might just catch this train by
running; so, of course, I ran. I'm very glad I did now. If I hadn't I
shouldn't have met you."
"What did you do with the baby?"

"I didn't drop her on the way, if that's what you're thinking of. I'm not
that kind of man at all, and I am particularly fond of the child. I
scarcely ever complain when she keeps me awake at night, though
many men I know would want to smother her. She and my wife are
stopping with my mother-in-law in Rathmines. I'm going down for a
fortnight's yachting with the Major. I might persuade him to give you a
day's sailing, perhaps, if he doesn't find out who you are, and we
succeed in keeping it dark about your going on with your work. I
daresay it would cheer you up to go out on the bay. I expect you find
your work pretty trying."
"It is very trying. I often feel completely exhausted at the end of the
day."
"Nerve strain," said Meldon. "I don't wonder. It's a marvel how you
stand it."
"Then I can't sleep," said Miss King. "Often I can't sleep for two or
three nights together."
"It surprises me to hear that you ever sleep at all. Don't they haunt you?
I've always heard--"
"My people?"
"Yes, your people, if that's what you call them. I'd have thought they'd
never have let you alone."
"Some of them do haunt me. I often cry when I think of them. It's very
foolish, of course; but in spite of myself I cry."
"Then why on earth do you go on with it?"
"It's my art," said Miss King.
"I'm not an artist myself," said Meldon, "in any sense of the word, so I
can't exactly enter into your feelings; but I should say, speaking as a
complete outsider, that the proper thing for you would be to drop the

whole thing, take to smoking a pipe instead of those horrid scented
cigarettes, drink a bottle of porter before you go to bed, and then sleep
sound."
Miss King sighed. There was something in the ideal which Meldon set
before her which was very attractive. The details she ignored. Bottled
porter was not a drink she cared for, and no woman, however
emancipated, likes a pipe. In spite of the satisfaction she found in her
literary success, there was in her a desire for quiet and restful ways of
life. There was no doubt that she would sleep sounder at night if she
lived simply, somewhere in the country, and forgot the excitements of
the novelist's art. Meldon, indeed, did not seem to enjoy absolutely
unbroken rest at night; but Miss King's imagination, although she wrote
improper novels, did not insist on representing a baby as an inevitable
part of domesticated life. She got no further than the dream of a
peaceful house, with the figure of an inoffensive husband somewhere in
the background.
CHAPTER III.
Meldon stretched himself in a deep chair and lit his pipe. He had dined
to his own satisfaction, eating with an appetite whetted by the long
drive from the railway station. He had before him a clear fortnight's
holiday, and intended to enjoy it to the full. Major Kent's house was
comfortable; his tobacco, which Meldon smoked, was good; his yacht,
the Spindrift, lay ready for a cruise.
"To-morrow," he