"I read it in a book."

"Then it must be literary. All right. I'm agreeable. But at present-
-"

"At present," firmly, "the main thing is to go on."

"This morning?"

"Certainly."

"But I don't want to go on this morning. That is the flaw in your
literary method. It makes me go on whether I want to or not. Now the
really top-notchers never do that. They are as full of stoppages as
a freight train. Fact. They only create when the spirit moves them."

"Aren't you thinking of Quakers?" suggested Desire sweetly. "Besides
you are not creating. You are compiling--a very different thing."

"But what is the use of compiling an off chapter when I know it is
going to be an off one?"

Desire threw down her pencil.

"Oh, Benis," she said. "I don't like this. Don't let us play with
words. Surely you are not getting tired--you can't be."

Her eyes, urgent and truth-compelling, forced an answer.

"I don't quite know," he said. "But I am certainly off work at