seen her playing, half wakes her, asks her if she loves
him, to which, still barely conscious, she answers "Yes!" with a
half-formed kiss on her lips. Then he stabs her dead with a single blow,
leaving the house quietly, and giving himself up to the police at dawn.

[Sidenote: Criticism of it and of its author's work generally.]

If anybody asks me, "Is this well done?" expecting me to enter on the
discussion of the _lex non scripta_, I shall reply that this is not my
trade. But if the question refers to the merits of the handling, I can
reply as confidently as the dying Charmian, "It is well done, and
fitting for a novelist." In no book, as it seems to me, has the author
obtained such a complete command of his subject or reeled out his story
with such steady confidence and fluency. No doubt he sometimes preaches
too much.[383] The elder Ritz's advice against suicide, for instance, if
sound is superfluous. But this is not a very serious evil, and the
steady _crescendo_ of interest which prevails throughout the story
carries it off. There are also numerous separate passages of real
distinction, the fateful bathing-scene being, as it should be, the best,
except the finale; but others, such as the history of Pierre's first
modelling from the life, being excellent. The satire on the literary
coteries of the Restoration is about the best thing of the kind that the
author has done; and many of the "interiors"--always a strong point with
him--are admirable. It is on the point of character that the chief
questions may arise; but here also there seems to me to be only one of
these--it is true it is the most important of all--on which there should
be much debate. The succumbing of Constantin seems perhaps a little more
justifiable by its importance to the story than by its intrinsic
probability.[384] Clemenceau seems to me "constant to himself," or in
the "good childlikeness" of his character, throughout; and to ask
whether it was necessary to make him smash the bust that he finds in
Serge's possession seems to be equivalent to asking whether it was
necessary to put the Vice-Consul of Tetuan in petticoats.[385] It is
only about Iza herself that there can be much dispute. Has that process
synthetic which is spoken of elsewhere been carried too far with her?
Have doses of childlikeness, beauty, charm, ill-nature, sensual
appetite, etc., been taken too "boldly" (in technical doctors' sense)
and mixed too crudely to measure? A word