Nick invited himself to dine, and John and Hugh, who would not ask for late leave that night, went ashore in the afternoon. “Mr. Alter is always talking of you,” Margaret told him when, after tea, he had her alone. “He wants more of your work, and he has given me this letter for you.” “I have done no more work,” he confessed. “None?” “None.” “Didn’t you get my letter. I addressed it to Colombo.” “Yes, I got that. I took it up to Kandi with me to read. I made wonderful resolutions that night.” “And haven’t kept them?” “No.” “John, you are hopeless.” He defended himself as best he could. “I can’t help it,” he said; “I have tried to write and I have tried to read. I have read spasmodically. But it seems useless. I started this naval business too early. My education has been a naval education, and--what is more important--my life is a naval life. If you can’t be alone you can’t think; if you can’t think you are a fool to try to write. Besides, to write you must read and read and read. You must see life from a thousand angles--not from one professional standpoint. And you must feel that, for better or for worse, you are master of yourself--not necessarily of your actions, but of your thinking.” “But you have written in these very circumstances. Why can’t you write more?” “For the same reason that a man who chances upon an occasional phrase can’t write an epic. Literature isn’t luck; it’s the result of substantial effort.” “Others have written who had other things to do than write.” He wondered if, after all, he was overrating difficulties in order to shield a lack of courage. “Yes,” he said, “but out of their office, or shop, or factory, their life was their own. They went home--to some kind of home. At any rate, it was theirs. A snotty’s life is never his own. He lives in his office the whole twenty-four hours. He never ‘goes home.’” “Then what are you going to do?” “Nothing.” “So you give up?” she asked. “Yes. What can I do?” “And you are not nineteen yet. What’s your life going to be?” “I may get to like it. Perhaps in the senior ranks it will be better.” “It won’t.” “I know. Of course it won’t.” She was tempted to be angry because he had so early abandoned hope, because he was not putting up a fight; but she saw that he was opposed to forces so much stronger than any he could command that by no courage could he unaided stand against them. Then she remembered a source whence help might come. “John,” she said, “I want you to fight this out.” “Fight?” “Because I believe it’s worth the fighting. You feel hopeless now, partly, I dare say, because your other work prevents your writing, but chiefly--isn’t that true?--chiefly because you don’t feel sure that you could ever write.... You can write, you know.”