“I believe I am.  I gained thirteen pounds in the nursing home, and slept like a greengrocer.  In fact, the Weir-Mitchell treatment, with modern improvements of course, enjoyed a marvellous triumph in my case.  But that’s not the point.  G.J., I know you think I behaved very childishly yesterday, and that I deserved to be ill to-day for what I did yesterday.  And I admit you’re a saint for not saying so.  But I wasn’t really childish, and I haven’t really been ill to-day.  I’ve only been in a devil of a dilemma.  I wanted to tell you something.  I telegraphed for you so that I could tell you.  But as soon as I saw you I was afraid to tell you.  Not afraid, but I couldn’t make up my mind whether I ought to tell you or not.  I’ve lain in bed all day trying to decide the point.  To-night I decided I oughtn’t, and then all of a sudden, just now, I became an automaton and put on some things, and here I am telling you.”

She paused.  G.J. kept silence.  Then she continued, in a voice in which persuasiveness was added to calm, engaging reasonableness: 

“Now you must get rid of all your conventional ideas, G.J.  Because you’re rather conventional.  You must be completely straight—­I mean intellectually—­otherwise I can’t treat you as an intellectual equal, and I want to.  You must be a realist—­if any man can be.”  She spoke almost with tenderness.

He felt mysteriously shy, and with a brusque movement of the head shifted his glance from her to the river.

“Well?” he questioned, his gaze fixed on the water that continually slipped in large, swirling, glinting sheets under the bridge.

“I’m going to kill myself.”

At first the words made no impression on him.  He replied: 

“You were right when you said this place was an illusion.  It is.”

And then he began to be afraid.  Did she mean it?  She was capable of anything.  And he was involved in her, inescapably.  Yes, he was afraid.  Nevertheless, as she kept silence he went on—­with bravado: 

“And how do you intend to do it?”

“That will be my affair.  But I venture to say that my way of doing it will make Wrikton historic,” she said, curiously gentle.

“Trust you!” he exclaimed, suddenly looking at her.  “Con, why will you always be so theatrical?”

She changed her posture for an easier one, half reclining.  Her face and demeanour seemed to have the benign masculinity of a man’s.

“I’m sorry,” she answered.  “I oughtn’t to have said that.  At any rate, to you.  I ought to have had more respect for your feelings.”

He said: 

“You aren’t cured.  That’s evident.  All this is physical.”

“Of course it’s physical, G.J.,” she agreed, with an intonation of astonishment that he should be guilty of an utterance so obvious and banal.  “Did you ever know anything that wasn’t?  Did you ever even conceive anything that wasn’t?  If you can show me how to conceive spirit except in terms of matter, I’d like to listen to you.”