Free Fate Cannot Harm Me by J. C. Masterman

seem to be spoiling the Egyptians pretty successfully. If you go to half those functions you won’t have time for much else.”
    Robin Hedley looked more serious, and he spoke with the obvious intention that his words should carry conviction.
    â€œBut I don’t go to half of them, nor yet a quarter. Look here, Monty, I don’t know why I confide in you, except that every one does. Don’t go away with a false idea about me. I’ve always put my work first, and I do now more than ever. If I go to a party, quite candidly, it’s because I think that it’ll help to boost my work. If I dine out and go to a couple of dances you can be pretty sure that I’ve done six or seven hours work earlier in the day; if I spend the afternoon playing tennis or golf—well, I put in my morning first, and get down to work again after dinner. Luckily I’m methodical, and I do know how to concentrate.”
    Monty nodded. “I don’t think any one ever questioned that,” he said drily. “And what about the golf and tennis—handicaps shrinking every month?”
    â€œWell, I like winning, and it pays in life to do things well. Yes, I play better than I did at both of them.”
    Monty stirred uneasily. Games formed a large part of his life, and the thought that they should be played as part of a programme of self-advancement or as an advertisement offended him. But he refrained from comment.
    â€œPlayed much with Basil Paraday-Royne lately?” he hazarded.
    Robin Hedley’s face clouded over again, and he knocked out the ashes of his pipe with unnecessary vigour.
    â€œOh, a good deal,” he replied. “I always have, you know, and it’s become a sort of habit. But I’m not tookeen on it. Since I began to beat him he’s always ringing up at the last minute to say that he’s got two other fellows and wants to change our single into a foursome. And somehow he always contrives to get the better partner. I enjoy beating him, and I don’t like playing with him. He doesn’t seem to realize that application and steadiness are just as important as brilliance. If I’d got his natural skill at games, I’d be a champion, but he wastes it all. And the—oh, dash it all—I do hate being patronized.”
    The truth was out, thought Monty to himself, but, talkative though he was, he knew when to refrain from comment, and he had no wish to mix himself in what he felt to be a potential quarrel. So he switched the conversation back to safer topics.
    â€œAnd what’s the big work just now—another novel?” His host nodded. “Yes, and I really think it’s something miles beyond anything I’ve done before. Monty, I’m sick of the superficial stuff, and the fine words, and all that. This time I’ve really tried to write a book that’s true, and that goes right down to the things that matter. Something that is solid and that will count in literature.” He hesitated, and then continued. “Something that Paraday-Royne and all his fine friends with all their grace and skill and charm and virtuosity could never do; something that will make that elegant gentleman realize that we compete in different classes.”
    Monty got up rather hastily. The last thing which he could endure was to hear one of his friends criticising another, and, though he had no special liking for either of these two, he regarded them both as “friends.”
    â€œI must push on,” he said. “What’s the great work going to be called?”
    â€œPertinacity”
said Robin Hedley, picking up his pen.

Chapter V
    â€œOne touch of ill-nature marks—or several touches of ill-nature mark the whole world kin.”
    SAMUEL BUTLER
    From Ebury Street to Wilton Crescent Monty walked. It did not cross his mind to hail a taxi—partly because the morning was one of sunshine, partly because it was an article of his creed