"It's going to be called Leontina--that's you. But all depends on the
treatment. You know it doesn't matter much what you say so long as you
say it well. That's what counts. At any rate, any indication of the plot
at this stage would be decidedly inadequate."

"I think you are right," she ventured. "By all means choose your own
time to tell me. Let's talk of something else. Have you written
anything since your delightful book of verse last spring? Surely now is
your singing season. By the time we are thirty the springs of pure lyric
passion are usually exhausted."

Ethel's inquiry somehow startled him. In truth, he could find no
satisfactory answer. A remark relative to his play--Clarke's play--rose
to the threshold of his lips, but he almost bit his tongue as soon as he
realised that the strange delusion which had possessed him that night
still dominated the undercurrents of his cerebration. No, he had
accomplished but little during the last few months--at least, by way of
creative literature. So he replied that he had made money. "That is
something," he said. "Besides, who can turn out a masterpiece every
week? An artist's brain is not a machine, and in the respite from
creative work I have gathered strength for the future. But," he added,
slightly annoyed, "you are not listening."

His exclamation brought her back from the train of thoughts that his
words had suggested. For in his reasoning she had recognised the same
arguments that she had hourly repeated to herself in defence of her
inactivity when she was living under the baneful influence of Reginald
Clarke. Yes, baneful; for the first time she dared to confess it to
herself. In a flash the truth dawned upon her that it was not her love
alone, but something else, something irresistable and very mysterious,