His glorification of certain modern impressionists in music
depressed Heath, almost as much as his abuse of the dead who had been
popular, and who were still appreciated by some thousands, perhaps
millions, of nobodies. He made Heath, in his discontented condition,
feel as if all art were futile.

"Why give up everything," he thought, "merely to earn in the end the
active contempt of men who have given up nothing? What is it that drives
me on? A sort of madness, perhaps, something to be rooted out."

He almost shivered as the conviction came to him that he must have been
composing for posterity, since he did not desire present publicity. No
doubt he had tried to trick himself into the belief that he had toiled
for himself alone, paid the tribute of ardent work to his own soul. Now
he asked himself, with bitter scepticism: "Does any man really ever do
that?" And his world seemed to fall about him like shadows dropping down
into a void.

Then came his five minutes of talk with Susan Fleet.

When Heath spoke of it to Mrs. Mansfield he said:

"I was a cripple when we began. When we stopped I felt as if I could
climb to a peak. And she said nothing memorable. But I had been in her
atmosphere."

"And you are very susceptible to atmosphere."

"Too susceptible. That's why I keep so much to myself."

"I know--the cloister."

She looked at him earnestly, even searchingly. He slightly reddened,
looked down, said slowly:

"It's not a natural life, the life of the cloister."

"Perhaps you mean to come out."

"I don't know what I mean. I am all at a loose end lately."

"Since when?"

Her eyes were still on him.

"I hardly know. Perhaps hearing about Africa, of that voyage I might
have made, unsettled me. I'm a weakling, I'm afraid."

"Very strong in one way."

"Very weak in another, perhaps. It would have been better to go and have
done with it, than to brood over not having gone."

"You are envying Charmian?"

"Some days I envy everyone who isn't Claude Heath," he answered
evasively, with a little covering laugh. "Of one thing I am quite sure,
that I wish I were a male Miss Fleet. She knows what few people know."

"What is that?"

"What is small and what is great."

"And you found that out in five minutes at a concert?"

"Elgar's is music that helps the perceptions."

Mrs. Mansfield's perceptions were very keen. Yet she was puzzled by
Heath. She realized that he was disturbed and attributed that
distu