Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/140

114 stalemate by interposing. He forces her to break from her people. They marry, they honeymoon in Italy, they set up house in Chelsea. These chapters are pure gold. Released from its lofty task of destructive criticism, Mr. Wells's genius is now free to tackle its true hodman's work of positive creation. The account of the fitting up of the little London house, a cunning nest of bright colours and deft shapes, is a catalogue as delectable as a carol.

But titles are titles, and in the midst of this spontaneous exposition of how life really can be lived in these glorious modern days the superior demonstrator remembers his mission, hastily quashes the rebellious brightness. Marjorie's business is to make Trafford miserable—that is why she is here. The typical trick is employed. Trafford is tripped up by an overdrawn passbook. Her Oxbridge training acting on a mind eager for beauty makes Marjorie an extravagant housewife. In addition, she so far forgets herself as to make Trafford a father. Nothing for it, plainly, under these circumstances, for a brilliant young scientist with a brain like a lamp, with a professorship and a private income, but to take to penny-a-lining and cheap lecturing in order to keep the child in food. His research work, the priceless research work that was placing his hands on the keys of existence, must be thrown tragically aside. From which you will see what a muddle your twentieth century must be in. Q.E.D., page 280.

And then, for a second time, the genuine Wells intercedes. This time he tosses us an Oriental magician with a palace in the sky; or at any rate a Jewish financier, Sir Rupert Solomonson, with a pleasure-house in the Alps. This powerful genie (one of the best bits of portraiture in the book, by the way) offers to equip Trafford with laboratories and apparatus and funds without end if he will only consent to apply