But now Robert balked. He sat down in the Brazilian jungle to which Herrick had led him and refused to move. Hour after hour Herrick struggled and honestly tried to wake him from the permanent sleep into which he had fallen without warning. But Robert would not wake. Herrick's nerves tightened. He wanted and did not want to consult Jean. He had never asked her advice about the psychology of his people, only about the arrangement of incidents, or the vividness with which he had succeeded in portraying them. To ask help in this was a confession of his inability and Herrick's vanity refused.
And deep in Herrick's consciousness, beyond the point of self-acknowledgment, was the fear that Robert was not asleep. Robert was dead, dead beyond the power of revivifying. Until now Robert's reactions had been Herrick's own. But from now on Robert must be himself, and Herrick could not flesh the skeleton of this strenuous young engineer, toiling away alone in his jungle, with no nearer stimulus than a board of directors fifteen thousand miles away.
Evening after evening Herrick sat at the machine and covered pages with useless words. His fingers moved mechanically, although he tried to focus his attention on Robert. But the thoughts running at the back of his brain pushed Robert further and further beyond the border of his interest, and, finally, one evening in the middle of November, Robert dropped over the horizon altogether and Herrick knew that he had finished with him forever. His fingers lay idle on the keys and he stared into space.
In the dressing-room Jean was changing into a house-dress. Herrick did not like her to curl up on the couch in her working clothes and she always changed to please him. In a few moments she would come through the door quietly, take a book and make herself comfortable among the pillows. She had done this for four months now. Every evening they had sat so, Jean beyond touch across the room, but where he could look up and see her. Every evening for four months he had sat almost the whole distance of the room away from this big, calm, gray-eyed woman. Herrick smiled. Soon the real winter would set in. The rain would beat on the attic roof and the wood-fire crackle in the grate. There would be long Sundays impossible out of doors. Would Jean expect him to sit through these too, driving that mummy forward in his senseless progress? Herrick's smile deepened.
Coming through the door, Jean caught the smile, and answered it. Then, passing the work-table without speaking, she took a book and dropped among the pillows. It was Hunter's "Poverty." She did not open it immediately, but lay back against the cushions and closed her eyes, stretching her arms above her head in a way she had when she was tired. Completely relaxed she lay there, her throat and bare arms white on the dark blue background of the cushions. The smile withered on Herrick's face, and his fingers closed tightly, but he did not move. At last Jean drew a long breath that swelled the deep breast, stretched, and reached for her book. Herrick rose, ripped the paper from the machine, tore it into fragments and threw them in the waste-basket. Then he covered the typewriter and came towards the couch. Jean sat up.
"Why, Begee, what's the matter?"
It was the name that they had evolved from one of Herrick's little games. It stood for a contraction of baby and genius. Jean had hit on it accidentally and Herrick had insisted on keeping it.
He came over to the couch and sat down. He did not sit very near Jean, because in a little while Jean was going to move of her own accord. Now that he had so suddenly murdered his pretense he knew exactly what he wanted.
"Jean, we're all wrong about Robert. He isn't a man at all. He's a machine."
Jean laughed. "He is not. He's nothing of the kind. He's not the least bit mechanical. You've fleshed and blooded him beautifully."