On an equally sudden impulse I decided I wouldn't tell anyone about it--not even Severn. Secrecy seemed the only way to escape a constant battery of worrying and perhaps embarrassing questions; it would also give me freedom to throw up the business if at any moment I chose to. A secret, therefore, it had to be, and when Severn asked me about it, I lied to him quite emphatically. I told him (and his hero Machiavelli, at any rate, would have condoned the falsehood) that I was really so busy that for the present I couldn't possibly undertake any additional work. He laughed and protested and told me I was missing a grand opportunity. And I laughed and said I didn't think so, and all the time went on (in secret) adding to the pile of manuscript in my bureau drawer. But I had to lie to Helen as well. It was at the End House one evening, when I arrived and found her playing the piano alone in the drawing-room. That, in itself, surprised me, for since our talk in mid-Channel she had carefully avoided any sort of tête-à-tête. But she began, more surprisingly still: "Is it true that you are going to write a novel about Terry?" I shook my head and asked her (rather weakly, no doubt) who had been spreading false rumours. She answered: "It isn't a rumour. Geoffrey says he's been persuading you to do it, and I know how clever he is at persuasion." "But not clever enough to persuade an innocent journalist into attempting what is utterly beyond him." She struck a harsh random chord with her left hand. "I'm glad you think that. It _is_ utterly beyond you." Then suddenly, swinging round on the stool to face me, she asked me how he was and whether he were getting on well. I said that physically he was recuperating splendidly though, owing to the slowness of his mental recovery, it would be a long while before he could resume work. "And then he'll go back again to Vienna?" "I don't know. He hasn't any definite plans." "Do you think he wants--he would like--to be invited here?" "I'm rather afraid he doesn't want to go anywhere." "Or to see anybody?" "Not at present." I suppose my answers gave her an impression of hostility, for she said, bitterly smiling: "You don't particularly want him to see me, do you?" "I'm not very keen, I admit." "Why not?" "Need you ask?" She laughed and retorted: "Don't be afraid.... I haven't the slightest desire to see him. There are some things I can't forgive." "Neither can he." "What do you mean? What are the things he can't forgive?" "The things he has done himself." "Such as?" "I don't think I can tell you. As you said just now, I don't know enough about him." "Is he sorry he ever met me?" "Maybe," I said hastily, as the entrance of Severn in his wheeled chair put an abrupt end to our conversation. Heaven knows where and how it would have ended but for that.