He discarded the theory as repellent. And yet there must be a
reason for his depression. Today of all days, as Mac had pointed
out, he had everything to make him happy. Popular as he was in
America, this was the first piece of his to be produced in London,
and there was no doubt that it was a success of unusual dimensions.
And yet he felt no elation.
He reached Piccadilly and turned westwards. And then, as he passed
the gates of the In and Out Club, he had a moment of clear vision
and understood everything. He was depressed because he was bored,
and he was bored because he was lonely. Mac, that solid thinker,
had been right. The solution of the problem of life was to get hold
of the right girl and have a home to go back to at night. He was
mildly surprised that he had tried in any other direction for an
explanation of his gloom. It was all the more inexplicable in that
fully 80 per cent of the lyrics which he had set in the course of
his musical comedy career had had that thought at the back of them.
George gave himself up to an orgy of sentimentality. He seemed to
be alone in the world which had paired itself off into a sort of
seething welter of happy couples. Taxicabs full of happy couples
rolled by every minute. Passing omnibuses creaked beneath the
weight of happy couples. The very policeman across the Street had
just grinned at a flitting shop girl, and she had smiled back at
him. The only female in London who did not appear to be attached
was a girl in brown who was coming along the sidewalk at a
leisurely pace, looking about her in a manner that suggested that
she found Piccadilly a new and stimulating spectacle.
As far as George could see she was an extremely pretty girl, small
and dainty, with a proud little tilt to her head and the jaunty
walk that spoke of perfect health. She was, in fact, precisely the
sort of girl that George felt he could love with all the stored-up
devotion of an old buffer of twenty-seven who had squandered none
of his rich nature in foolish flirtations. He had just begun to
weave a rose-tinted romance about their two selves, when a cold
reaction set in. Even as he paused to watch the girl threading her
way through the crowd, the east wind jabbed an icy finger down the
back of his neck, and the chill of it sobered him. After all, he
reflected bitterly, this girl was only alone because she was on her
way somewhere to meet some confounded man. Besides there was no
earthly chance of getting to know her. You can't rush up to pretty
girls in the street and tell them you are lonely. At least, you
can, but it doesn't get you anywhere except the police station.
George's gloom deepened--a thing he would not have believed
possible a moment before. He felt that he had been born too late.
The restraints of modern civilization irked him. It was not, he
told himself, like this in the good old days.