She spoke again. “Don't you see, Henry, that's what makes this miserable business worth while, that's what justifies it--all this posing before those camera people, working with hired actors that don't for a moment know what it's all about and don't understand my being in it or my relations with Peter or the friendly feeling I have for Zanin--it's getting so I have to fight it out with myself all over again every morning to get through it at all. But when I'm almost hopelessly stale all I have to do is come home here and shut the door and curl up on the couch and read the thing as Peter wrote it--it brings the vision back, Henry!--and then I think of him staking all his savings to make it a success--Oh, I know that's personal, just for me...” Sue was having some trouble with sentences today. This one didn't get finished either. She stood there brooding; started another one: “Henry, Zanin couldn't do it--with all his intelligence and drive--it took Peter to phrase Zanin's own ideas and then add the real quality to them and form and human feeling--Zanin is cold, an intellectualist not an artist.” Suddenly she broke out with this--“Of course this marriage means a long series of adjustments. Do you suppose I don't know that? Doesn't every marriage?” The Worm was silent; smoking slowly and watching her. He was thinking very soberly. “Whom among women the gods would destroy they first make honest.” Sue felt his gaze and raised her chin with a little jerk; tried to smile; finally caught up the box of roses and buried her face in them. “Peter oughtn't to spend the money,” she cried, not unhumorously, “but it is dear of him. Every time I come into the room the flowers sing to me.” “After all,” said he, helping her out, “it's a relief, in these parts, to see some one taking marriage seriously. Date set yet?” She nodded. “Not telling?” She shook her head. “Soon?” She nodded. “That's all. No more questions.” “Religious ceremony?” “Hardly, Henry.” She was a thought grim about this. “You can be as rationalistic as you like,” said he, musing, “but marriage _is_ a fairy story. Like the old-fashioned Christmas with tree and candles and red bells--yes, and Santa Claus. You can't rationalise love, and you can't casualize it. Not without debasing it. Love isn't rational. It is exclusive, exacting, mysterious. It isn't even wholly selfish.” His tone lightened. “All of which is highly heterodox, here on Tenth Street.” She smiled faintly and busied herself over the teakettle. “I'm glad to see that Zanin keeps friendly, Sue.” She sobered, and said: “There, it's boiling.” The bell sounded again--two short rings, a pause, one long ring. She started, bit her lip. “That's Zanin now,” she said. “He hasn't been here since--” She moved toward the door, then hesitated. “I wish you would--” She bit her lip again, then suddenly went. He heard the door open and heard her saying: “Henry Bates is here. Come in.”