"Well, don't, then. And don't wake up as blue as paint tomorrow morning. Reaction is the price we all have to pay for keeping the brain too long at a pitch so high above the normal. It's the downwash of blood from the organ it has kept at fever heat. And it's a long sight less commonplace than reaction from too much love-making. Especially when love-making has begun to pall--which it does sooner in artists than in ordinary men. . . . Writers begin life all over again with each new release of the creative faculty; and each new work is as enthralling as the last. But love!" She sighed. "You don't look as if I had made the slightest impression on you." "You haven't. A man can combine both if a woman cannot. You forget that we return here after two or three months in Austria, and here we remain for at least two years." "Why are you so sure of that? Have you her actual promise?" "It is understood. I told her we should return and she knew that I meant what I said." "It is quite likely that she knew you meant it! But I'd like you to promise me that you will ask her to tell you exactly what she does intend to do--when the honeymoon is over." "What do you mean?" Clavering asked sharply. "I mean, that although she told me nothing of her plans, it was perfectly evident from her conversation that she intends to live her life in Europe and play a great role there. I infer that she is in constant correspondence with political friends in Austria. Do you mean that she has never told you this?" Clavering sat forward, frowning. "No. We--have had little time together and have not wasted it on politics. Did she tell you this?" "Not she. But I 'got' it. I can't tell you just how, but my intuitions are pretty good." "Intuitions be hanged. Your creative tract is prepared for action and has been doing a little stunt all by itself. Better get to work on it and plough up a new book. I don't doubt Mary has political friends in Austria, and corresponds with them. Why shouldn't she? But she's not committed to any definite date or action. I'll swear to that. She'd have told me so honestly." "Very well. I've said my say. But I wish----" She fell silent and sat very still for several moments regarding the point of her slipper. Then she looked up and said brightly: "Don't you think it's time to let the rest of them know what's going to happen? It's hardly fair to your other friends--and they are your friends, Clavey. Of course they are practically certain of it." "I don't think she'll mind, particularly as the first sensation has pretty well run its course--she thought she'd spare her own friends two shocks at once. But I fancy she intends to go out among them less and less. I'll ask her, and if she agrees, suppose you announce it?" Miss Dwight bent down and removed a pinch of ashes from her slipper. "Do--persuade her. It would be a tremendous feather in my cap. I'll give you both a dinner and announce it then."