“It is you that don’t quite understand,” I protested.  “My admiration for Adrian’s genius is second to none but yours.  But I repeat that no human brain since the beginning of time has been capable of spinning cobwebs of fancy for twelve hours a day, day in and day out for months at a time.  Look at your husband.  He has tried it.  Does he sleep well?”

“No.”

“Has he a hearty appetite?”

“No.”

“Is he a light-hearted, cheery sort of chap to have about the place?”

“He’s naturally tired, after his winter’s work,” said Doria.

“He’s played out,” said I, “and if you are a wise woman, you’ll take him away for a couple of months’ rest, and when he gets back, see that he works at lower pressure.”

Doria promised to do her best; but she sighed.

“You don’t realise Adrian’s iron will.”

Once more I recognised with a shock that I did not know my Adrian.  I used to think one could blow the thistledown fellow about whithersoever one pleased.  Of the two, Doria seemed to have unquestionably the stronger will-power.

“Surely,” said I, “you can twist him round your little finger.”

Doria sighed again—­and a wanly indulgent smile played about her lips.

“You two dear people are so sensible, that it makes me almost angry to see how you can’t begin to understand Adrian.  As a man, of course I have a certain influence over him.  But as an artist—­how can I?  He’s a thing apart from me altogether.  I know perfectly well that thousands of artists’ wives wreck their happiness through sheer, stupid jealousy of their husbands’ art.  I’m not such a narrow-minded, contemptible woman.”  She threw her little head up proudly.  “I should loathe myself if I grudged one hour that Adrian gave to his work instead of to me.”

This time Barbara and I sighed, for we realised how vain had been our arguments.  Our considerably greater knowledge of life, our stark common-sense, our deep affection for Adrian counted as naught beside the fact that we had no experience whatever in the rearing of a genius.

That word “genius” came too often from Doria’s lips.  At first it irritated me; then I heard it with morbid detestation.  In the course of a more or less intimate conversation with Adrian, I let slip a mild expression of my feelings.  He groaned sympathetically.

“I wish to heaven she wouldn’t do it,” said he.  “It puts a man into such a horrible false position towards himself.  It’s beautiful of her, of course—­it’s her love for me.  But it gets on my nerves.  Instead of sitting down at my desk with nothing in my mind but my day’s work to slog through, I hear her voice and I have to say to myself, ’Go to.  I am a genius.  I mustn’t write like any common fellow.  I must produce the work of a genius.’  It really plays the devil with me.”

He walked excitedly about the library, flourishing a cigar and scattering the ash about the carpet.  I am pernicketty in a few ways and hate tobacco ash on my carpet; every room in the house is an arsenal of ash trays.  In normal mood Adrian punctiliously observed the little laws of the establishment.  This scattering of cigar ash was a sign of spiritual convulsion.