For some unaccountable reason Adrian's pale face flushed scarlet. He broke out vexedly:
"I don't see what my imaginative work has got to do with the trivialities of ordinary life. As a matter of fact," he added, after a pause, "the psychology in a novel is all imagination, and it's the same imaginative faculty that has been amusing itself with Jaffery and this unqualifiable lady."
"All right, my dear man," said I, pacifically. "Probably you're right and I'm wrong. I was only talking lightly. And speaking of imagination—what about your next book?"
"Oh, damn the next book," said he, flicking the ash off his cigarette. "I've got an idea, of course. A jolly good idea. But I'm not worrying about it yet."
"Why?" I asked.
He threw his cigarette into the grate. How, in the name of common sense, could he settle down to work? Wasn't his head full of his approaching marriage? Could he see at present anything beyond the thing of dream and wonder that was to be his wife? I was a cold-blooded fish to talk of novel-writing.
"But you'll have to get into it sometime or other," said I.
"Of course. As soon as we come back from Venice, and settle down to a normal life in the flat."
"What does Doria think of the new idea?"
Thousands who knew him not were looking forward to Adrian Boldero's new book. We, who loved him, were peculiarly interested. Somehow or other we had not touched before so intimately on the subject. To my surprise he frowned and snapped impatient fingers.