So strong was the impulse—­so alluring the picture—­that he took up the comic opera and walked towards the fire, his finger itching to throw it in.  But he sat down again after a moment and went on with his work.  It was imperative he should make progress with it; he could not afford to waste his time—­which was money—­because another person—­Mary Ann to wit—­had come into a superfluity of both.  In spite of which the comic opera refused to advance; somehow he did not feel in the mood for gaiety; he threw down his pen in despair and disgust.  But the idea of not being able to work rankled in him.  Every hour seemed suddenly precious—­now that he had resolved to make money in earnest—­now that for a year or two he could have no other aim or interest in life.  Perhaps it was that he wished to overpower the din of contending thoughts.  Then a happy thought came to him.  He rummaged out Peter’s ballad.  He would write a song on the model of that, as Peter had recommended—­something tawdry and sentimental, with a cheap accompaniment.  He placed the ballad on the rest and started going through it to get himself in the vein.  But to-night the air seemed to breathe an ineffable melancholy, the words—­no longer mawkish—­had grown infinitely pathetic:—­

  “Kiss me, good-night, dear love,
     Dream of the old delight;
   My spirit is summoned above,
     Kiss me, dear love, good-night!”

The hot tears ran down his cheeks, as he touched the keys softly and lingeringly.  He could go no farther than the refrain; he leant his elbows on the keyboard, and dropped his head upon his arms.  The clashing notes jarred like a hoarse cry, then vibrated slowly away into a silence that was broken only by his sobs.

He rose late the next day, after a sleep that was one prolonged nightmare, full of agonised, abortive striving after something that always eluded him, he knew not what.  And when he woke—­after a momentary breath of relief at the thought of the unreality of these vague horrors—­he woke to the heavier nightmare of reality.  Oh, those terrible dollars!

He drew the blind, and saw with a dull acquiescence that the brightness of May had fled.  The wind was high—­he heard it fly past, moaning.  In the watery sky, the round sun loomed silver-pale and blurred.  To his fevered eye it looked like a worn dollar.

He turned away, shivering, and began to dress.  He opened the door a little, and pulled in his lace-up boots, which were polished in the highest style of art.  But when he tried to put one on, his toes stuck fast in the opening, and refused to advance.  Annoyed, he put his hand in, and drew out a pair of tan gloves, perfectly new.  Astonished, he inserted his hand again and drew out another pair, then another.  Reddening uncomfortably, for he divined something of the meaning, he examined the left boot, and drew out three more pairs of gloves, two new and one slightly soiled.

He sank down, half dressed, on the bed with his head on his breast, leaving his boots and Mary Ann’s gloves scattered about the floor.  He was angry, humiliated; he felt like laughing, and he felt like sobbing.