The Upas Tree | Page 4

account of other men's travels could do this for me. Besides, one might get all the main things correct, yet make a slip in some little unimportant detail. Then, by-and-by, some Johnny would come along, who could no more have written a page of your book than he could fly, but who happens to be intimately acquainted with the locality. He ignores the plot, the character-study, all the careful work on the essentials; but he spots your trivial error concerning some completely unimportant detail. So off he writes to the papers, triumphantly airing his little tit-bit of superior information; other mediocre people take it up--and you never hear the end of it."
Helen laughed, tender amusement in her eyes.
"Ronnie dear, I admit that not many Johnnies could write your books. But most Johnnies can fly, now-a-days! You must be more up-to-date in your similes, old boy; or you will have your wife writing to the papers, remarking that you are behind the times! But, seriously, Ronnie, you should be grateful to anybody who takes the trouble to point out an error, however small, in one of your books. You are keen that your work should be perfect; and if a mistake is mentioned, it can be set right. Why, surely you remember, when you read me the scene in the manuscript you wrote just after our marriage, in which a good lady could not sit down upon a small chair, owing to her toupet, I--your admiring and awestruck wife--ventured to point out that a toupet was not a crinoline; and you were quite grateful, Ronnie. You did not consider me an unappreciative Johnny, nor even a mediocre person! Who has, unknown to me, been trampling on your susceptibilities?"
"Nobody, thank goodness! I have never written a scene yet, of which I had not carefully verified every detail of the setting. But it has happened lots of times to people I know. Unimportant slips never seem to me to matter in another fellow's work, but they would matter desperately, horribly, appallingly in one's own. Therefore, nothing will ever induce me to place the plot of a novel of mine, in surroundings with which I am not completely familiar. Helen--I must go to Central Africa."
CHAPTER II
THE SOB OF THE WOMAN
Helen took off her riding-hat, and passed her fingers through the abundant waves of her hair.
"How long would it take you, Ronnie?" "Well--including the journey out, and the journey back, I ought to have a clear seven months. If we could get off in a fortnight, we might be back early in November; anyway, in plenty of time for Christmas."
"Why do you say 'we,' darling?"
"Why not say 'we'? We always do, don't we?"
"Yes, dear. For three happy years it has always been 'we,' in everything. We have not been parted for longer than twelve hours at a time, Ronnie. But I fear Central Africa cannot be 'we.' I do not feel that I could go out there with you."
"Helen! Why not? I thought you would be keen on it. I thought you were game to go anywhere!" Amazement and dismay were in his eyes.
She rose slowly, went over to the mantel-piece, moved some little porcelain figures, then put them back again.
When at length she spoke, she steadied her voice with an effort.
"Ronnie dear, Central Africa is not a place for a woman."
"But, my dearest girl, a woman arrives there in my story! She crawls into the long grass with the man she loves, and disappears. Our missionary's bride did it. Where a woman could not go, I must not go for my local colour. Oh, I say, Helen! You won't fail me?"
He walked over to the window, and drummed again, with restless, nervous fingers, upon the In hoc vince pane.
She came behind him, laying her hand on his shoulder.
"Darling, it will break my heart if you think I am failing you. But, while you have been talking, I have faced the matter out, and--I must tell you at once--I cannot feel it either right or possible to go. I could not be away just now, for seven months. This place must be looked after. Think of the little church we are building in the village; the farms changing tenants this summer; the hundred and one things I, and I only, must settle and arrange. You never see the bailiff; you hardly know the tenants; you do not oversee the workpeople. So you can scarcely judge, dear Ronnie, how important is my presence here; how almost impossible it would be for me suddenly to go completely out of reach. My darling--if you keep to it, if you really intend to go, we must face the fact that it will mean, for us, a long parting."
The tension of suspense held the stillness of the room.
Then: "It is