“Gilbert Murray’s translation of ‘The Bacchae.’ My legal mentors had a lapse of dry-as-dustness and sent it to me.”
“‘To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait,’” murmured the girl. “That is what I’ve been doing here. How good it is! But not for you,” she added, her tone changing from dreamy to practical. “Ban, I suspect there’s too much poetry in your cosmos.”
“Very probably. Poetry isn’t success, is it?”
Her face grew eager. “It might be. The very highest. But you’ve got to make yourself known and felt among people.”
“Do you think I could? And how does one get that kind of desire?” he asked lazily.
“How? I’ve known men to do it for love; and I’ve known them to do it for hate; and I’ve known them to do it for money. Yes; and there’s another cause.”
“What is it?”
“Restlessness.”
“That’s ambition with its nerves gone bad, isn’t it?”
Again she smiled. “You’ll know what it is some day.”