What had given such men and women this respect for themselves? It was apparent respect for self must be at the bottom of the matter. Perhaps they hadn't at all the sense of guilt and shame that had made of the slender girl he had once married the heavy inarticulate woman now squatted so grotesquely on the floor at his feet. One could imagine some such person as he had in mind saying to himself, "Well, here I am, you see, in the world. I have this long or short body, this brown or yellow hair. My eyes are of a certain colour. I eat food, I sleep at night. I shall have to spend the whole of my life going about among people in this body of mine. Shall I crawl before them or shall I walk upright like a king? Shall I hate and fear my own body, this house in which I must live, or shall I respect and care for it? Well, the devil! The question is not worth answering. I shall take life as it offers itself. For me the birds shall sing, the green spread itself over the earth in the spring, for me the cherry tree in the orchard shall blossom."

John Webster had a fanciful picture of the man of his fancy going into a room. He closed the door. A row of candles stood on a mantel above a fire-place. The man opened a box and took from it a silver crown. Then he laughed softly and put the crown on his own head. "I crown myself a man," he said.

It was amazing. One was in a room looking at a woman who had been one's wife, and one was about to set out on a journey and would not see her again. Of a sudden there was this blinding rush of thoughts. One's fancy played far and wide. One seemed to have been standing in one spot thinking thoughts for hours, but in reality only a few seconds had passed since the voice of his wife, calling out that word, "don't" had interrupted his own voice telling a tale of an ordinary unsuccessful marriage.

The thing now was to keep his daughter in mind. He had better get her out of the room now. She was moving towards the door to her own room and in a moment would be gone. He turned away from the white-faced woman on the floor and watched his daughter. Now his own body was thrust between the bodies of the two women. They could not see each other.

There was a story of a marriage he had not finished, would never finish telling now, but in time his daughter would come to understand what the end of the story must inevitably be.

There was something that should be thought of now. His daughter was going out of his presence. Perhaps he would never see her again. One continually dramatized life, made a play of it. That was inevitable. Every day of one's life consisted of a series of little dramas for which one was always casting oneself for an important part in the performance. It was annoying to forget one's lines, not to walk out upon the stage when one had got one's cue. Nero fiddled when Rome was burning. He had forgotten what part he had assigned to himself and so fiddled in order not to give himself away.