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for his neck to bear.
    They sat in uneasy silence. The strong succulent smells of coffee and frying rashers seemed an affront to his mood. Dorothy buttered her toast and took a bite, laboring to chew as softly as possible. She set it down on her plate again. Her heavy knot of hair was pulling at the back of her neck; her fringe prickled her forehead disagreeably.
    There was a completely different side to him, she realized. The sparkling charm had vanished. Underneath his success and his intellect and marriage to Jane, he was unhappy and lost and needing solace. Dorothy experienced a keen urge to comfort him. She had woken up full of resolve to be sensible, yet his pain and complexity only drew her to him more strongly.
    Jane walked into the room, looking fresh and pretty in a dark green gown with white lace at the collar and cuffs. “I feel so much better for a good night’s rest,” she said, as she sat down. “Did you sleep well?”
    “Like a baby,” Dorothy told her.
    “I had an awful night,” Bertie said, irritably.
    Jane’s face fell, but her voice was even as she said, “I’m sorry to hear it, my love. What happened?”
    “I had the most horrifying dream.”
    “Would it help to tell us about it?”
    Jane poured a fresh cup of tea and passed it to him; he waved it away. He was making the small grunts in the back of his nose: hnc hnc. They seemed to say: Don’t bother me; can’t you see I am trying to think?
    “I was wandering in some godforsaken and noxious slum,” he said at last, “completely displaced and confused. It was grotesque, and yet horribly familiar. I couldn’t find my way out of the cramped, twisting streets that went endlessly on and on, framed by small and squalid houses. Nauseating smells rose from open sewers. Hungry, grimy, insufficiently clothed children came to the doors and stared. I passed an emaciated girl with a grey face, who peered at me dimly, her cloudy eyes struggling to focus. She had no front teeth, nothing but rotten stumps. She caught my arm in a grip that was surprisingly powerful for one so slight, and refused to let go. ‘Not unless you take me with you…’”
    “What happened then?” Dorothy asked softly.
    “In trying to shake her off, I woke myself up. With the horror of my dream still fresh I got up and made a cup of strong, sweet tea. Going back to sleep was out of the question. I passed the time til morning trying to write. I like working in the middle of the night. It’s so peaceful, so focused.”
    “You always work well in the still hours,” Jane said.
    “I didn’t last night. It’s maddening, really, when it’s all been going so smoothly … I became locked in a battle with my own style. The words and phrases seemed to develop unruly minds of their own; each one marched an independent association and inference onto the page, and choked off what I wanted to use it for…”
    “When one has a great deal to say, style is a constant problem.” Jane spoke with quiet authority, as though she was used to soothing his doubts.
    “I feel as though I’m always on the brink of producing clear and eloquent prose. Yet what I set down on paper is insufficient; it fails miserably to live up to the purity of my intentions.”
    “You’re a wonderful writer,” Dorothy said. “Nobody else sees life so clearly; you’re like a pathfinder in a new world. Your voice is fresh and vivid, your presence leaps out from every page.”
    Bertie shook his head. “My work is poor and unsatisfactory in every way. When I started this novel, I could see the plot with utter clarity. But on rereading it, I was horrified. It was thin and pathetic; completely lacking in sparkle or profundity. Bits of it didn’t even sound like me; it appears I’ve been plagiarizing, half consciously, from Henry James.”
    No amount of reassurance from Jane or Dorothy could convince him otherwise.
    *   *   *
    AFTER BREAKFAST, BERTIE shut himself into his study, and Dorothy did not see