"Yes. I should go to London. I might starve in the beginning, but I'd be a great man in the end. I'd play Shakespeare. Don't you love Shakespeare?" "I've never read any of his plays." "I'd like to read you some. I know some of the speeches by heart." And he delivered himself of the oration of Henry V before Harfleur. When that was done he plunged into the address of Othello to the most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, warmed to the words, lost himself, and came to a triumphant close with: "This was the only witchcraft that I used." "Who was she?" "Desdemona. And in the end he smothered her because a beast called Iago told lies about her." "You do recite well." "I couldn't recite badly to you." "But what will . . . ?" She was going to ask what Gertrude would do while he starved in London, but she could not force Gertrude's name to her lips and she broke off the question, and covered her awkwardness by throwing a twig into the water and watching it float down the stream. Bennett seemed to know what she was going to say, for he became suddenly embarrassed and his excited confidence oozed from him. He threw her back on herself by asking: "What are you going to do?" "I--I don't know. Just go on." "I couldn't do that. Anything's better than just going on." "But it's different for you. You're a man." "Yes," said Bennett, pleased by the reflection that, after all, he was a man. "Yes, I suppose it is more difficult for a woman. But I shan't run away. I shall just go on and on being a clerk all the rest of my life." He was appealing to her for pity; in vain. Annette said, cheerfully: "There must be thousands of men who are clerks, and they can't all be so wretched." "Some people don't mind, and the rest get used to it. I'm not like that. I want to do things. It isn't enough just to earn your living. A navvy can do that. A horse does that, or a pony down in a mine." "What else can you do?" "You can fight against darkness, and ugliness, and cruelty, and everything that makes life horrible and ugly and terrifying for children." "Oh! for children!" "Yes. You don't know what my childhood has been like . . ." And he drew a rapid picture of the loneliness of an imaginative child in a dark unhappy house where no love was. "Even now I'm often afraid of the dark stairs up to the attic where I sleep." "Please, please," said Annette, "don't talk of it any more. It has all been so dark, and it is so lovely here." "It's odd, but I've never talked like that to . . ." He, like Annette, could not force Gertrude's name to his lips. She began to gather the knives and forks. Then she stopped and looked at him. Their eyes met for a second, then his turned away. "Well?" he said. Annette was a little troubled as she gave him her answer: "I do so want you to be happy."