Anne wished that he would write the poem and have done with it. She had never for a moment demanded that he should sacrifice his career to her, and during the past months, having admired as much as she loved him, she had dismissed as a mere legend the belief held by his friends that he could not write without stimulant. And she loved the poet as much as she loved the man. Indeed it was the poet she had loved first, to whom she had owed a happiness during many lonely years almost as perfect as the man had given her. That he had no weakness for spirits was indubious. There were always cognac and Madeira on the table in the living room where they received the convivial planters, and she drank Canary herself at table. It was patent to her that he refrained from writing because he had voluntarily given her his word he would write no more, and that he had but to take pen in hand for the flood to burst. She did not broach the subject for some days, waiting for him to make an appeal of some sort, no matter how subtle, but toward the end of this stormy week when he was looking more forlorn and haunted every moment, she suddenly determined to wait no longer.
They were standing at the window watching the moon fight its way amidst torn black clouds and flinging glittering doles upon the black and swollen waters. She put her hand on his shoulder as a man might have done and said in a matter-of-fact tone:
“You want to write. You are quick with a new poem. That must be patent even to the servants. I wish you would write it.”
He jerked up his shoulders as if to dislodge her hand, then recollected himself and put his arm about her.
“I never intend to write another poem,” he said.
“That is nonsense. A poem must be much like a baby. If it is conceived it must be born. Do you deny it is there?” tapping his forehead.
“When the devil takes possession it is better to stifle him before he grows to his full strength.”
“You are unjust to speak in that fashion of the most divine of all gifts. You are not intimating that your poem is too wicked to publish?”
“No!” He flung out his hands, striking the window. His eyes expanded and flashed. “I believe it to be the most beautiful poem ever conceived!” he cried. “I never before knew much about any of my poems until I had pen in hand, but although I could not recite a line of this I can see it all. I can feel it. I can hear it. It calls me in my dreams and whispers when I am closest to you. And you—you—are its inspiration. You have liberated all that was locked from my imagination before. I lived in an unreal world until I knew, lived with you. Knowing that so well, I believed that my deserted muse would either take herself off in disdain, or be smothered dead. Art has always been jealous of mortal happiness. But the emotions I have experienced in the past six months—despair, hope, despair, hope, superlative happiness, mere content, the very madness of terror, and its equally violent reaction when I experienced the profoundest religious emotion—all this has enriched my nature, my mind, that abnormal patch in my brain that creates. Ever since I took pen in hand I have dreamed of a poetic meridian that I have never approached—until now!”
“What must it be?” cried Anne, quivering with excitement and delight. “You have done more than other men already.”