“What do you mean?”
“I mean a man is mad when he is doing a book. He may call it happiness, but it is a kind of devil’s madness. He is open for anything to rush in.... I am a common man. I do not belong to that visionary thing——”
“You are caught in your emotions. I know your work——”
He drew her to the door, saying excitedly:
“Compassion threatens to fail. My book has come back,” he said triumphantly. “Look at this——”
He gave her the publisher’s letter.
“Your play has not failed,” she said.... “And this—why, this is just a bit of the world. John Morning at thirty-three—talks of failure. Let us talk over this day, when you are fifty-three.... What an empty victory for her—if you failed now——”
She was looking back at the cot. Morning whispered his reiteration:
“I love her. I shall have her here. I shall make her see that I love her. That is my service. You are all mad conspirators against us. We are man and woman. Our world is each other. She shall see and believe this—if I write drivel——”
Helen did not seem quite to hear him. She drew away from him as if called in a trance to the bedside.