She felt raked up and nervous, too.  Since they had been married she had found such delight in preparing Louis’s meals that she was miserable in not doing it to-day.  She felt that she was to blame, that she had been remiss somewhere, though she could not see where.  But she answered him crossly and impatiently, and he began to fidget about the room again.

“I’ve been reading ‘Parsifal’ again and again, doctor,” she wrote.  “Do read it, and tell me what you think of my theory.  I see humanity as Amfortas, the wounded king, who, if he hadn’t let himself so wantonly get wounded, would still have been the keeper of God’s Presence on earth.  I see the Spear as humanity’s weakness, which, by being turned to strength, becomes a spear of Deliverance.  Ingenious, isn’t it?  You’ll say ‘More dreams, Marcella?’ But they’re not dreams, doctor, any more.  I’m a man of action now, and I like it.”

“I say, old girl,” broke in Louis’s voice.  “It’s nearly one o’clock and I’ve only three left.  I’ve smoked them faster than usual simply because I’ve been worrying so.  What the devil am I to do when these are through?”

“Play ring o’ roses on the roof and forget it,” she said, with a laugh.  “Ration those—­one each hour when the church clock strikes.  Then we’ll go to bed and go to sleep and make to-morrow come quicker.”

“You know I never sleep if I haven’t a smoke,” he said impatiently “I wish it wasn’t Sunday.  I’d go out and get drunk.”

She made tea, which he swallowed in huge gulps.  He refused food, but she ate large, thick slices of bread and jam with relish.  The heat of the day came down like an impalpable curtain, making her tired and gasping.  Twice she stood under the cold douche in the bathroom, but the exertion of dressing made her blaze again.  In the afternoon they both tried to read, but he was too restless to be held by a book and she found “L’Assommoir” which Dr. Angus had sent out among a collection in answer to her request for “every book about drink,” depressing.  It told her nothing; all these books seemed to her to hold a policy of despair that indicated lunacy or suicide as Louis’s only possible end.  E.F.  Benson’s “House of Defence” was the most hopeful book she read.  In the tormented morphia-maniac she saw Louis vividly.  But she knew that he was too innately untrustful, unloving, to be saved by an act of faith.  She had put that book down an hour ago, and turned again to the real pessimism of Zola, longing for the cool of the evening to come.

“Marcella,” said Louis at last.  “There’s only one now.”

She put the book down impatiently and, going across to him, sat on the cool, draughty floor, taking one of his limp, damp hands in hers.

“You know, little boy, if you really were a little boy, I could smack you and put you to bed for being such a worry.  Didn’t your mother ever stop you worrying for things when you were a kiddy?  If I ever wanted things father made me go without them on principle.”