‘But that poor little book isn’t me,’ I answered. ‘I shall never write another like it. I only—’
‘Shall you not?’ Mr. Ispenlove interjected. ‘I hope you will, though.’
I smiled.
‘I only did it to see what I could do. I am going to begin something quite different.’
‘It appears to me,’ said Mrs. Ispenlove—‘and I must again ask you to excuse my freedom, but I feel as if I had known you a long time—it appears to me that what you want immediately is a complete rest.’
‘Why do you say that?’ I demanded.
‘You do not look well. You look exhausted and worn out.’
I blushed as she gazed at me. Could she—? No. Those simple gray eyes could not imagine evil. Nevertheless, I saw too plainly how foolish I had been. I, with my secret fear, that was becoming less a fear than a dreadful certainty, to permit myself to venture into that house! I might have to fly ignominiously before long, to practise elaborate falsehood, to disappear.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ I agreed.
The conversation grew fragmentary, and less and less formal. Mrs. Ispenlove was the chief talker. I remember she said that she was always being thrown among clever people, people who could do things, and that her own inability to do anything at all was getting to be an obsession with her; and that people like me could have no idea of the tortures of self-depreciation which she suffered. Her voice was strangely wistful during this confession. She also spoke—once only, and quite shortly, but with what naïve enthusiasm!—of the high mission and influence of the novelist who wrote purely and conscientiously. After this, though my liking for her was undiminished, I had summed her up. Mr. Ispenlove offered no commentary on his wife’s sentiments. He struck me as being a reserved man, whose inner life was intense and sufficient to him.