"You haven't. Let me help you. And I'll put it as much in your favour as I can. I'll assume you're standing still for the present. I'll even assume the other possibility, or impossibility, whichever it is--that you might actually turn round again. Even then what would it mean? It would mean that I, a guest of my old friends, was lending my countenance to something against every conception of mental--decency let us say. I think I know your dates and figures pretty well by this time. You were born in '75. Now, in 1920, we'll say you're eighteen. It's taken you forty-five years to live to eighteen, and if you're to live to forty-five again it will have taken you--how long?--seventy-two years. It will then be getting on for 1950. Jennie was born in 1903. You're now forty-five to her seventeen. If this thing comes off you'll be in the early forties together. But at the same time you'll be over seventy. Look at it, Derry--look at it." "Look at it? I have looked at it. I'll look at it again if you like.... Now I've looked at it again. Only you and I know it. And anyway there's nothing in it." "Julia Oliphant knows it." "Then only you and I and Julia Oliphant know it, and there's nothing in it." "Then tell me if there's anything in this. What guarantee have you that exactly the same thing won't happen to you again? Take the maddest view of all--that you actually might go forward. If indications are anything you're repeating your experiences already." "How so?" he demanded. "In this painting of yours. I heard your explanations to Mrs Aird this afternoon. You're starting with exactly the same ideas as before--complete dissociation from everything else that's ever been done. You're going to be the First Man again instead of the Millionth Man. How do you know it won't land you in the same mess? It used to be words; now it's paint, and that's all the difference I see." There was a long pause; then I heard his soft, almost indulgent laugh. "Look here, George," he said slowly. "I'll make you a fair offer. Can't you and I come to terms if I swear to you that I'll never touch another canvas or brush or pen or sheet of paper as long as I live? Will _that_ satisfy you?" "I'm afraid not." "But doesn't that meet your objection, old fellow?" "No. Because you'd be the same man whether you wrote or painted or not!" "But how on earth can I alter that?" I seized on his words. "Exactly. That's my whole meaning. You can't alter it. Whether you do the same or not, you _are_ the same. For all I know you'll go on being it till the crack of doom. It's yourself that's been visited, not your books. And that's why things can't go on between you and Jennie Aird." "Then you're going to stand between us as long as I am I?" "That's about the size of it." "Doesn't it strike you as a little--hard, George?" he asked slowly. "Yes," I admitted doggedly. "But you'll be bearing it, not she."