“Ha ha! Ha ha! _Sacré farceur_, where are you leading us?” They were vociferous. “You have kept us fooling in this neighbourhood so long, and now you are pledging us to your idiotic fancy for ever. Ha ha! Ha ha!” “Be reasonable! What are you doing, master of our destiny? We shall all be lost!” A faction clamoured, “Anastasya!” Certain sense-sections attacked him in vulnerable spots with Anastasya’s voluptuous banner unfurled and fragrant. He buffeted his way along, as though spray were dashing in his face, watchful behind his glasses. He met his thoughts with a contemptuous stiff veteran smile. This capricious and dangerous master had an offensive stylistic coolness, similar to Wellington breakfasting at Salamanca while Marmont hurried exultingly into traps; although he resembled his great countryman in no other way. Those thoughts that bellowed, “Anastasya!” however, worried him. He answered them. “Anastasya! Anastasya!! I know all about that! What do you take me for? You will still have your Anastasya. I am not selling myself or you. A man such as I does not dispose of himself in a case like this. I am going to marry Bertha Lunken. Well? Shall I be any the less my own master for that reason? If I want to sleep with Anastasya, I shall do so. Why marry Bertha Lunken, and shoulder all that semi-contagious muck? Because it is only the points or movements in life that matter, and one of those points indicates that course, namely, to keep faith with another person: and secretly to show my contempt for the world by choosing the _premier venu_ to be my body-servant and body-companion; my contempt for my body too.” He sought to overcome his reasons by appeals to their corporate vanity. He had experienced rather a wrench as regards Anastasya. The swanky sex with which he had ornamented his future could not be dismissed so easily. He was astonished that it could be dismissed at all, and asked himself the reason. He sacrificed Anastasya with a comparatively light heart. It was chiefly his vanity that gave trouble. He came back to his earlier conclusions. Such successful people as Anastasya and himself were by themselves. It was as impossible to combine or _wed_ them as to compound the genius of two great artists. If you mixed together into one whole Gainsborough and Goya you would get _nothing_, for they would be mutually destructive. Beyond a certain point of perfection individual instinct was its own law. A subtle lyrical wail would gain nothing from living with a rough and powerful talent, or vice versa. Success is always personal. Co-operation, group-genius was, he was convinced, a slavish pretence and absurdity. Only when the group was so big that it became a person again, as with a nation, did you get mob-talent or popular art. This big, diffuse, vehement giant was the next best thing to the great artist; Patchin Tcherana coming just below.