With a pang of alarm he knew that now it was too late to go back. He had begun to speak. Now he must try to explain the pillar of smoke and fire that had moved so long before the lonely track of his mind. Greatly as he feared her rigid spirit, he must divide the weight of this heavy fragile burden, like a crystal globe that might contain either ecstasy or horror. He could not know which until it lay broken about him in shining scraps and curves. But oh, why was she so difficult to tell things to? “Don’t laugh,” he mumbled. “It’s terribly----” He wriggled forward earnestly. The other end of the metal spring slid from its joist, the head and foot of the bed toppled inward. With a clanking brassy crash the whole thing collapsed about him. He lay there, covered with bed, in a furious silence which was merely the final expression of his disgust. For an instant, in the stillness following that ridiculous clamour, she thought he was hurt. She bent down, dropping the dolls, and one of these again shrilled its whining protest. His angry face reassured her, and she burst into a peal of laughter. He crawled out from under the wreck. He was thinking savagely, yet with relief also, how close he had been to telling her. But that was his fate. Even noble tragedy, if it came near him, would be marred by titters. He didn’t blame her for laughing. Even in an agony he could never be more than grotesque. “I was just thinking,” she said, “how awful if the bed did that when Ben’s in it.” “Don’t worry. It probably will.”