"Has anything happened, Gareth? Aren't you feeling well?"
He gazed at and through her, as if she were not there.
"Gareth, did you hear me? Has anything happened?"
After a long pause, her presence seemed to penetrate to him, as a buzzing element of which he must at all costs be quit.
"Go to bed, Kathleen. I'm quite all right." His voice was dull and toneless.
She could not be bothered with him that night of nights; he, of the old order of things.... Kathleen closed the door; went happily upstairs.
And Gareth was left with his pile of other people's books, and the one among them that contained his idea.
"The Reverse of the Medal," by Pat O'Neill.
Who was Pat O'Neill? He neither knew nor cared. Obviously a new writer, since the name was unfamiliar. For that reason, Gareth had selected it for reading first of the number, in the hope of striking something original.... Well, he had succeeded; Gareth had long since been convinced of the originality of his own inspiration.
The perusal of the opening chapters evoked a keen scholarly pleasure in the masterly handling of phrases, for the unmistakable genius displayed in character and thought.... And all the while, a curious unreal sensation, as if he were being dragged along unfamiliar paths towards a spot of which he was perfectly cognizant, would recognize the instant he set eyes on it; only the way thither was not known to him.... The nightmare feeling grew and grew—he was stifling truth in a blurred rapid horror of leading—on and on—unmistakably aware now to what summit of inspiration each phrase, each situation, was leading....