“I think you had better go to bed, Gerald,” she said steadily. Nothing about him seemed to touch her now, neither the sight of him nor his shameless misery.
“What's the use? Can't sleep. No good. Couldn't sleep. Sally, you don't know how worried I am. I see what a fool I've been.”
Sally made a quick gesture, to check what she supposed was about to develop into a belated expression of regret for his treatment of herself. She did not want to stand there listening to Gerald apologizing with tears for having done his best to wreck her life. But it seemed that it was not this that was weighing upon his soul.
“I was a fool ever to try writing plays,” he went on. “Got a winner first time, but can't repeat. It's no good. Ought to have stuck to newspaper work. I'm good at that. Shall have to go back to it. Had another frost to-night. No good trying any more. Shall have to go back to the old grind, damn it.”
He wept softly, full of pity for his hard case.
“Very miserable,” he murmured.
He came forward a step into the room, lurched, and retreated to the safe support of the door. For an instant Sally's artificial calm was shot through by a swift stab of contempt. It passed, and she was back again in her armour of indifference.
“Go to bed, Gerald,” she said. “You'll feel better in the morning.”
Perhaps some inkling of how he was going to feel in the morning worked through to Gerald's muddled intelligence, for he winced, and his manner took on a deeper melancholy.
“May not be alive in the morning,” he said solemnly. “Good mind to end it all. End it all!” he repeated with the beginning of a sweeping gesture which was cut off abruptly as he clutched at the friendly door.