the expression 'crazy with joy'?
Well, I'm crazy with the joy of relief from pain, that's all. Can't a
chap babble a bit to his own wife without being threatened with a
doctor? Come-- I suppose I _am_ talking a bit too much. Tell me a story,
as the children say--and I'll keep quiet. By the way--talking of
children--I sent for you chiefly to tell you that you were right about
the boy. He's a devil of a little individual, that's all. I'm rather an
individual myself. Naturally we clash. Relationship doesn't alter such
things. Relationship is a big farce. There aren't any true relationships
except those of the spirit. You're Queen of Bobs from this time forward.
There-- I _am_ forgiven now, ain't I!"

"Yes; truly--from my heart," said Sophy, quite melted. She put her face
down against his hand. "If only...."

"If only what?"

"If only you could always be your true self--_this_ self."

Chesney said nothing. He was lighting another cigarette--leaning over
and holding it to the lamp clumsily.

"Oh, poor dear! You can't do it that way; here's your other hand," she
said, smiling and releasing the hand she held. Chesney closed his eyes
for a moment. Dreamily he said:

"Won't you tell me that story? You tell such lovely stories when you're
in the mood."

"I can't think of one somehow. _You_ tell _me_ one."

In that thick dreamy voice, his dry lips cleaving together now and then,
he began to speak.

"Once there was a man who was shut by his arch enemy into a dark
dungeon. This enemy's name was Bios." (Sophy knew no Greek, and somehow
it pleased him to fling out to her this clue to the parable that he was
inventing, knowing that she could not use it.) "Bios shut the man up in
his foul dungeon. But worse than the darkness and the stone walls was
the legend of the place. It was told that out of the crevices there came
a horrid Thing like a winged scorpion, with steely horns and a sting of
living fire. And in the darkness this Thing would dart upon the prisoner
in that dungeon, and drive him round and round. By the light of its
fiery sting he could see just enough to run from it but not to escape.
This man thought: 'I will not run from this Thing until I die from
exhaustion. I will bare my breast to it and die at once, from its
sting.' Pour me out a bit more champagne, there's a dear girl."

"Did--did Gaynor say that champagne was good to take with that
medicine?"

"Yes--yes"--impatiently. "Don't you want to hear the end