His new book had been written under the
spur of an external stimulus; it had not written itself, like all the
more reputable members of the large but short-lived family to which it
belonged. Langholm had not felt lonely in the breathing spaces between
the later chapters. On the contrary, he would walk up and down among his
roses with the animated face of one on the happy heights of intercourse
with a kindred spirit, when in reality he was quite alone. But the man
wrote novels, and withal believed in them at the time of writing. It
was true that on one occasion, when the Steels came to tea, the novelist
walked his garden with the self-same radiant face with which he had
lately taken to walking it alone; but that also was natural enough.
The change came on the very day he finished his book, when Langholm made
himself presentable and rode off to the garden-party at Hornby Manor in
spirits worthy of the occasion. About seven of the same evening he
dismounted heavily in the by-lane outside the cottage, and pushed his
machine through the wicket, a different man. A detail declared his
depression to the woman next door, who was preparing him a more
substantial meal than Langholm ever thought of ordering for himself: he
went straight through to his roses without changing his party coat for
the out-at-elbow Norfolk jacket in which he had spent that summer and
the last.
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