It had worn off even for us to whom he came each time with a comparative freshness.  And if it hadn’t worn off for his public and for the confraternity, it was simply because as an engineer of literature he was inexhaustible.  He had so perfected his machinery that the turning out of novels and of plays had become with him a sort of automatic habit, and if there was any falling off in his quality he was right when he said that nobody but himself would find it out.  He had got an infinite capacity for plagiarizing himself; and in his worst things he imitated his best so closely that he might well defy you to tell the difference.

But you cannot work as he had worked for five years at a stretch and not suffer for it.  And you cannot aim at material success as he had aimed, deliberately and continuously, for five years without becoming yourself a bit material.  And you cannot be immersed and wallow in it as he wallowed without corruption.

There’s no doubt that for the next, two—­three—­four years he wallowed.  He was so deep in that, even after Viola’s illness that came in nineteen-thirteen and purged him somewhat, he continued to wallow.  And we had to stand by while he was doing it and pretend that we weren’t shocked.  There was no good trying to give him a hand to help him out, he was so happy wallowing.

I am far from blaming him.  Personally, if it hadn’t been for Viola, I should have liked to think that he was able to get all that ecstasy out of his sordid triumph.  For it was sordid.  If it wasn’t for Viola you could tick off each year with a note of his preposterously increasing income, and say that was all there was in it.

I muddle up the first years of it.  I know that in nineteen-eleven he brought out his fifth novel and his third play and that the run and the returns of both were astounding, even for him.  I know that in nineteen-twelve he brought out two novels and two new plays that ran at the same time, and that he roped in Europe and the Colonies; and that his income rose into five figures.  He couldn’t help it.  His business was a thing that had passed beyond his control.  With infinite exertions he had set it spinning, and now it looked as if he had only to touch it now and then with his finger to keep it going.  And if he did get a bit excited is it any wonder?  There was the dreadful fascination of the thing that compelled him to watch it till its perpetual gyrations went to his head and made it reel.

His figure seems to me to reel slightly as it moves through those rooms in the house in Green Street, and before the footlights as he answered calls, and across the banquet-halls of the “Ritz” or the “Criterion” or the “Savoy,” when—­about three times a year—­he celebrated his triumphs.  I see those years as a succession of banquets running indistinguishably into each other.  I see him buying more and more furniture and superintending its disposal with excitement.