"I do not think that I told you that I have sketched out a trilogy on the life of Christ. The first play John, the second Christ, the third Peter. Of course I introduce Christ into the third play. You know the legend. When Peter is flying from Rome to escape crucifixion, he meets Christ carrying His cross."
"Damn your trilogy—who cares! You have behaved abominably. I want you to understand that I cannot—that I do not hold with your practice of making love to every woman you meet. In the first place it is beastly, in the second it is not gentlemanly. Look at the result!"
"But I assure you I am in no wise to blame in this affair. I never was her lover."
"But you made love to her."
"No, I didn't; we talked of love, that was all. I could see she was excited, and hardly knew what she was saying. You are most unjust. I think it quite as horrible as you do; it preys upon my mind, and if I talk of other things it is because I would save myself the pain of thinking of it. Can't you understand that?"
The conversation fell, and Mike thrust both hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
At the end of a long silence, Frank said—
"We must have an article on this—or, I don't know—I think I should like a poem. Could you write a poem on her death?"
"I think so. A prose poem. I was penetrated with the modern picturesqueness of the room—the Venetian blinds."
"If that's the way you are going to treat it, I would sooner not have it—the face in the glass, a lot of repetitions of words, sentences beginning with 'And,' then a mention of shoes and silk stockings. If you can't write feelingly about her, you had better not write at all."