"Ah, it's all very well to explain it away like that, but don't ever ask me to sympathize with you again. I believe you're a replica of my poor mother. Her tyranny is deeply rooted in consideration for others. Why do you suppose she is always trying to make me give up working for you? For her sake? Oh, dear no! For mine."
"But you don't forge my name and expect her to pay me back. You don't arrive suddenly and deposit children upon her doorstep."
"I dare say I don't, but for my mother Ida Merritt represents all the excesses of your relations combined in one person. I'm convinced that if you and she were to compare notes you would find that you were both suffering from acute ingratitude and thoroughly enjoying it. But come, come, this is not a serious conversation. What about the fourth act?"
"The fourth act of what?" he asked, vaguely.
"The fourth act of Joan of Arc."
"Oh, Joan of Arc. I think I must give her a rest. I don't seem at all in the mood for writing at present. The truth is that I find Joan rather lacking in humanity and I'm beginning to think I made a mistake in choosing such an abnormal creature for the central figure of a play."
"Then what have I come down to Hampshire for?" she demanded.
"Well, it's very jolly down here, isn't it?" John retorted in an offended voice. "And anyway you can't expect me to burst into blank verse the moment you arrive, like a canary that's been uncovered by the housemaid. It would be an affectation to pretend I feel poetical this afternoon. I feel like a jolly good tramp before tea. I can't stand writers who always want to be literary. I have the temperament of a country squire, and if I had more money and fewer relations I should hardly write at all."
"Which would be a great pity," said his secretary.
"Would it?" John replied in the voice of one who has found an unexpected grievance and is determined to make the most of it. "I doubt if it would. What is my work, after all? I don't deceive myself. There was more in my six novels than in anything I've written since. I'm a failure to myself. In the eyes of the public I may be a success, but in the depths of my own heart—" he finished the sentence in a long sigh, all the longer because he was a little out of breath with climbing.