"Yes, but I'm not so important to him as he is to me. He's the best I can do for the present. It's a compromise all the way through—a cursed spite from beginning to end. Your own words don't represent your ideas, and the more conscience you put into the work the further you get from what you thought it would be. Then comes the actor with the infernal chemistry of his personality. He imagines the thing perfectly, not as you imagined it, but as you wrote it, and then he is no more able to play it as he imagined it than you were to write it as you imagined it. What the public finally gets is something three times removed from the truth that was first in the dramatist's mind. But I'm very lucky to have Godolphin back again."
"I hope you're not going to let him see that you think so."
"Oh, no! I'm going to keep him in a suppliant attitude throughout, and I'm going to let you come in and tame his spirit, if he—kicks."
"Don't be vulgar, Brice," said Louise, and she laughed rather forlornly. "I don't see how you have the heart to joke, if you think it's so bad as you say."
"I haven't. I'm joking without any heart." He stood up. "Let us go and take a bath."
She glanced at him with a swift inventory of his fagged looks, and said, "Indeed, you shall not take a bath this morning. You couldn't react against it. You won't, will you?"
"No, I'll only lie on the sand, if you can pick me out a good warm spot, and watch you."
"I shall not bathe, either."
"Well, then, I'll watch the other women." He put out his hand and took hers.
She felt his touch very cold. "You are excited I can see. I wish—"