He might really be backing a foreign, philanthropic ruler and State-founder, and a British Foreign Minister, against the rather sinister Chancellor of the Exchequer that Mr. Gurnard undoubtedly was.  It might suit him; perhaps he had shares in something or other that depended on the success of the Duc de Mersch’s Greenland Protectorate.  I knew well enough, you must remember, that Fox was a big man—­one of those big men that remain permanently behind the curtain, perhaps because they have a certain lack of comeliness of one sort or another and don’t look well on the stage itself.  And I understood now that if he had abandoned—­as he had done—­half a dozen enterprises of his own for the sake of the Hour, it must be because it was very well worth his while.  It was not merely a question of the editorship of a paper; there was something very much bigger in the background.  My Dimensionist young lady, again, might have other shares that depended on the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s blocking the way.  In that way she might very well talk allegorically of herself as in alliance with Gurnard against Fox and Churchill.  I was at sea in that sort of thing—­but I understood vaguely that something of the sort was remotely possible.

I didn’t feel called upon to back out of it on that account, yet I very decidedly wished that the thing could have been otherwise.  For myself, I came into the matter with clean hands—­and I was going to keep my hands clean; otherwise, I was at Fox’s disposal.

“I understand,” I said, the speech marking my decision, “I shall have dealings with a good many of the proprietors—­I am the scratcher, in fact, and you don’t want me to make a fool of myself.”

“Well,” he answered, gauging me with his blue, gimlet eyes, “it’s just as well to know.”

“It’s just as well to know,” I echoed.  It was just as well to know.

CHAPTER FIVE

I had gone out into the blackness of the night with a firmer step, with a new assurance.  I had had my interview, the thing was definitely settled; the first thing in my life that had ever been definitely settled; and I felt I must tell Lea before I slept.  Lea had helped me a good deal in the old days—­he had helped everybody, for that matter.  You would probably find traces of Lea’s influence in the beginnings of every writer of about my decade; of everybody who ever did anything decent, and of some who never got beyond the stage of burgeoning decently.  He had given me the material help that a publisher’s reader could give, until his professional reputation was endangered, and he had given me the more valuable help that so few can give.  I had grown ashamed of this one-sided friendship.  It was, indeed, partly because of that that I had taken to the wilds—­to a hut near a wood, and all the rest of what now seemed youthful foolishness.  I had desired to live alone, not to be helped any more, until I could make some return.  As a natural result I had lost nearly all my friends and found myself standing there as naked as on the day I was born.