“Ah, the man! that is my great idea. As she laughs his heart is changed. His love for her suddenly dies. Its place is taken by hatred. He realizes then, for the first time, while he hears her laugh, what she has done to him. He knows that she has ruined him, and that she is proud of it—that she is rejoicing in having won him to destruction. He sees that his perdition is merely a feather in her cap. He hates her. Oh, how he hates her!—hates her!”
The expression on Andrew’s face became terrible as he spoke—cruel, malignant, almost fiendish. Henley turned cold, and shook off his hand abruptly.
“That is horrible!” he said. “I object to that. The book will be one of unrelieved gloom.”
“The book!” said Andrew.
“Yes. You behave really as if the story were true, as if everything in it were ordained—inevitable.”
“It seems so to me; it is so. What must be, must be. If you are afraid of tragedy, you ought never to have joined me in starting upon such a story. Even what has never happened must be made to seem actual to be successful. The art of fiction is to imitate truth with absolute fidelity, not to travesty it. In such circumstances the man’s love would be changed to hatred.”
“Yes, if the woman’s demeanour were such as you have described. But why should she be so callous? I do not think that is natural.”
“You do not know the woman,” began Andrew harshly. Then he stopped speaking abruptly, and a violent flush swept over his face.
“I know her as well as you do, my dear fellow,” rejoined Henley, laughing. “How you manage to live in your dreams! You certainly do create an atmosphere for yourself with a vengeance, and for me too. I believe you have an abnormal quantity of electricity concealed about you somewhere, and sometimes you give me a shock and carry me out of myself. If this is collaboration, it is really a farce. From the very first you have had things all your own way. You have talked me over to your view upon every single occasion; but now I am going to strike. I object to the conduct you have devised for Olive. It will alienate all sympathy from her; it is the behaviour of a devil.”
“It is the behaviour of a woman,” said Andrew, with a cold cynicism that seemed to cut like a knife.