A look of pain and perplexity came upon his face; he remembered the lodging
at seven shillings a week in the Tottenham Court Road. He had suffered
there; but it seemed to him that he was suffering more here. He had changed
his surroundings, but he had not changed himself. Success and failure,
despair and hope, joy and sorrow, lie within and not without us. His pain
lay at his heart's root; he could not pluck it forth, and its gratification
seemed more than ever impossible. He changed his position on the couch.
Suddenly his thoughts said, 'Perhaps I am mistaken in the subject. Perhaps
that is the reason. Perhaps there is no play to be extracted from it;
perhaps it would be better to abandon it and choose another.' For a few
seconds he scanned the literary horizon of his mind. 'No, no!' he said
bitterly, 'this is the play I was born to write. No other subject is
possible; I can think of nothing else. This is all I can feel or see.' It
was the second act that now defied his efforts. It had once seemed clear
and of exquisite proportions; now no second act seemed possible: the
subject did not seem to admit of a second act; and, clasping his forehead
with his hands, he strove to think it out.

Any distraction from the haunting pain, now become chronic, is welcome, and
he answers with a glad 'Come in!' the knock at the door.

'I'm sorry,' said Mrs. Bentley, 'for disturbing you, but I should like to
know what fish you would like for your dinner--soles, turbot, or whiting?
Immersed in literary problems as you are, I daresay these details are very
prosaic; but I notice that later in the day----'

Hubert laughed. 'I find such details far more agreeable than literature. I
can do nothing with my play.'