Prattle: Well, you're quite right. I'm going to see "The Girl from Bedlam." So long. I must push off now. It's getting late. You take a rest. Don't add another line to that sonnet; fourteen's quite enough. You take a rest. Don't have any dinner to-night, just rest. I was like that once myself. So long.
de Reves: So long.
[Exit Prattle. de Reves returns to his table and sits down.
Good old Dick! He's the same as ever. Lord, how time passes.
He takes his pen and his sonnet and makes a few alterations.
Well, that's finished. I can't do any more to it.
[He rises and goes to the screen; he draws back part of it and goes up to the altar. He is about to place his sonnet reverently at the foot of the altar amongst his other verses.
No, I will not put it there. This one is worthy of the altar.
[He places the sonnet upon the altar itself.
If that sonnet does not give me fame, nothing that I have done before will give it to me, nothing that I ever will do.