"My view exactly," Fleetwood put in gently.
"I'll go crazy! I'll go to pieces right here in front of you! I'll shatter like a crystal! Would you like that?"
"No," Fleetwood said. "Doesn't sound pleasant at all." He looked at Dermitt with speculation. "Do you mean you actually could disintegrate right here at my feet? Is it really possible for people to do that sort of thing?"
"Oh, Lord!" Dermitt shrieked. "Tell me who sent you. Please, please!"
"I really don't know what to say," Fleetwood sympathized. "I'd love to tell you this is only a joke, since it seems to mean so much to you, but I honestly can't. I'm strapped by the facts, if you see what I mean."
Fleetwood's tone seemed to soothe Dermitt a trifle, for he returned to his chair and fell limply into it. For a space, he sat staring down at the carpet in a markedly haunted way, his hands twitching in his lap. Finally he looked up.
"I don't believe you," he murmured, and if he had anything more to say he was obviously quite beyond saying it for the moment. There was a prolonged silence in which Fleetwood became restive. He cleared his throat. Dermitt jumped.
"Look," Fleetwood said, seeing that any further negotiations were entirely up to him, "we've got to settle this business one way or the other. I want to get out of this fiction racket. In fact, I must. That's why I came here. But, obviously, if I'm going to quit successfully you're going to have to extend a certain amount of cooperation. At least you're going to have to stop using me in your stories. Along those lines I can't see any possibility of an agreeable settlement until you are convinced beyond any doubt that I am actually me. I suppose I'm going to have to prove it to you."
Dermitt rallied a bit at this. "And you'll never do that," he said, "not to my satisfaction. I just won't believe it. I refuse."