“Olivier will be a little late,” she said; “he has a lesson; we will begin lunch without him. But I’ve just heard George come in, I’ll call him.” And going to the door of the adjoining room, “George,” she said, “come and say ‘how-do-you-do’ to your uncle.” The boy came up and held out his hand. I kissed him ... children’s power of dissembling fills me with amazement--he showed no surprise; one would have supposed he did not recognize me. He simply blushed deeply; but his mother must have thought it was from shyness. I suspected he was embarrassed at this meeting with the morning’s ‘_tec_,’ for he left us almost immediately and went back to the next room--the dining-room, which I understood is used by the boys as a schoolroom between meals. He reappeared, however, shortly after, when his father came into the room, and took advantage of the moment when we were going into the dining-room, to come up to me and seize hold of my hand without his parents’ seeing. At first I thought it was a sign of good fellowship which amused me, but no! He opened my hand as I was clasping his, slipped into it a little note which he had obviously just written, then closed my fingers over it and gave them a tight squeeze. Needless to say I played up to him; I hid the little note in my pocket and it was not till after lunch that I was able to take it out. This is what I read: “_If you tell my parents the story of the book, I shall_” (he had crossed out “_detest you_”) “_say that you solicited me_.” And at the bottom of the page: “_I come out of school every morning at 10 o’clock._” Interrupted yesterday by a visit from X. His conversation upset me considerably. Have been reflecting a great deal on what X. said. He knows nothing about my life, but I gave him a long account of the plan of my _Counterfeiters_. His advice is always salutary, because his point of view is different from mine. He is afraid that my work may be too factitious, that I am in danger of letting go the real subject for the shadow of the subject in my brain. What makes me uneasy is to feel that life (my life) at this juncture is parting company from my work, and my work moving away from my life. But I couldn’t say that to him. Up till now--as is right--my tastes, my feelings, my personal experiences have all gone to feed my writings; in my best contrived phrases I still felt the beating of my heart. But henceforth the link is broken between what I think and what I feel. And I wonder whether this impediment which prevents my heart from speaking is not the real cause that is driving my work into abstraction and artificiality. As I was reflecting on this, the meaning of the fable of Apollo and Daphne suddenly flashed upon me: happy, thought I, the man who can clasp in one and the same embrace the laurel and the object of his love.