--now round
upon us."

The pallor deepened a shade in Doria's ivory cheek.

"You have put me in the wrong, I admit it. But I think it would have
been better to let us know."

What could one do with such people? I was inclined to let them work out
their salvation in their own eccentric fashion; but Barbara decided
otherwise. When one's friends reached such a degree of lunacy as
warranted confinement in an asylum, it was one's plain duty to look
after them. So we continued to look after our genius and his worshipper,
and we did it so successfully that before he left us he recovered his
sleep in some measure, and lost the squinting look of strain in his
eyes.

On the morning of their departure I mildly counselled him to temper his
fine frenzy with common-sense.

"Knock off the night work," said I.

He frowned, fidgeted with his feet.

"I wish to God I hadn't to work at all," said he. "I hate it! I'd sooner
be a coal-heaver."

"Bosh!" said I. "I know that you're an essentially idle beggar; but
you're as proud as Punch of your fame and success and all that it means
to you."

"What does it mean after all?"

"If you talk in that pessimistic way," I said, "you'll make me cry.
Don't. It means every blessed thing in the world to you. At any rate it
has meant Doria."

"I suppose that's true," he grunted. "And I suppose I am essentially
idle. But I wish the damned thing would get written of its own accord.
It's having to sit down at that infernal desk that gets on my nerves. I
have the same horrible apprehension of it--always have--as one has
before a visit to the dentist, when you know he's going to drill hell
into you."

"Why do you work in such a depressing room?" I asked. "If I were shut up
alone in it, I would stick my nose in the air and howl like a dog."

"Oh, the room's all right," said he. Then he looked away absently and
murmured as if to himself, "It isn't the room."

"Then what is it?" I persisted.

He turned with a dreary sort of smile. "It's the born butterfly being
condemned to do the work of the busy bee."

A short while afterwards we saw them drive off and watched the car
disappear round the bend of the drive.

"Well, my dear," said I, "thank goodness I'm not a man of genius."

"Amen!" said Barbara, fervently.

As soon as they had settled down in their flat, Adrian began to work
again, in the same unremitting fashion. The only concession he made to
consideration of health was to go to bed