"It's no good protesting. I know it all sounds incredible. But it's true enough.... When I got here yesterday he was different—utterly different; I knew something had happened the moment I saw him. I thought he was hysterical at first.... Then I found he was absolutely wild with delight."
"Delight?"
"Yes; and I mean it. He thinks—oh, it's so difficult to tell you what he thinks. But—somehow or other—he regards Karelsky's speech as a sort of justification of all the work he's done. He says it shows he's been working on the right lines."
"He recognizes his own work in Karelsky's announcements, then?"
"Oh, yes.... That's the queer part of it. Maybe he thinks Karelsky was entitled to do what he did.... I don't know. He doesn't talk about that. He's just pleased (he says) because his work's been worth doing."
"Worth stealing, anyhow."
"Yes, I know.... It's easy to be sarcastic. I tell you—it hasn't occurred to him that he's been let down at all. On the contrary, he thinks it's great that his seven years of hard labour should have led to such a magnificent result."
"Now you're being sarcastic."
She shrugged her shoulder. "I'm trying not to be. I'm trying to look at it from his point of view. He really is sincere. I'm certain of that, because of the difference in him. You'll notice that. And he's working again like mad—trying, he says, to make up for a wasted year."
"But surely, when you put it to him, he could see what had happened?"