I drove home with a sense of blankness upon me. Suppose she never came again? Suppose the episode was ended? Not even freedom from the Thing could compensate for the baffled adventure. Think of the lame feller with an Adventure! CHAPTER X "Plato expresses four kinds of Mania--Firstly, the musical; secondly, the telestic or mystic; thirdly, the prophetic; and fourthly, that which belongs to Love."--PREFACE TO ZANONI. For myself, I have always found that excitement stimulates imagination. There are others, I know, who can do no creative work except when all within and without is lulled and calm. Perhaps I have too much calm as an ordinary thing! That evening, when I went to my room, lighted my lamps and closed my door, I stood alone for awhile breathing the mingled sweetness of the country air and the pomander ball. In that interval, there came to me, complete and whole as a gift thrust into my hand, the melody which an enthusiastic publisher since assured me has reached every ear in America. As to that extravagant statement, I can only measure by the preposterous amount of money the melody has brought me. Perhaps there is a magic about it. For myself, I cannot hear it--ground on a street-organ, given on the stage, played on a phonograph record or delicately rendered by an orchestra--without feeling again the exaltation and enchantment of that night. I flung myself down at my writing-table, tossing my former work right and left to make room for this. If it should escape before I could set it down! If the least of those airy cadences should be lost! At three o'clock in the morning I came back to realization of time and place. The composition was finished; it stood up before me like a flower raised over-night. Eight hours had passed since I sat down to the work, after dinner. I was tired. As I began to draw into a pile the sheets of paper I had covered with notes, weariness gripped me like a hand. Eight hours? If I had shoveled in a ditch twice that long I could have felt no more exhausted. Yielding to drained fatigue of mind and body, I dropped my head upon the arms I folded upon the table. My hot, strained eyes closed with relief, my stiff fingers relaxed. Rest and content flowed over me; my work was done, and good. Rest passed into sleep, no doubt. The sleep could not have been long, for not many hours remained before dawn. When I started awake and lifted my head, I found the room in darkness. A perfume was in the air, and the sense of a presence scarcely more tangible than the perfume. Even in the first dazed moment, I knew my lady had come again. "Do not rise!" her murmuring voice cautioned me. "Unless you wish me to go?" "No!" "I am here because I promised to come. It was not wise of you to ask that of me." "Then I prefer folly to wisdom," I answered, steadying myself to full wakefulness. "Or, rather, I am not sure that you can decide for me which is which!" "Why? After all, why? Just--curiosity?"