Anyhow, her behaviour amounted to an evasion of Jimmy, and this
particular evasion was sad enough when you consider that in the beginning
it had been Jimmy who had taken her to look at the Belfry--who was the
one man who could be trusted to take her, and that she would never have
dreamed of setting off on such an adventure by herself, and that she
wasn't fitted for it. In fact, I can't think of anybody less fit.

It showed more than anything how the glamour must have worn off him.

It had worn off even for us to whom he came each time with a comparative
freshness. And if it hadn't worn off for his public and for the
confraternity, it was simply because as an engineer of literature he was
inexhaustible. He had so perfected his machinery that the turning out
of novels and of plays had become with him a sort of automatic habit, and
if there was any falling off in his quality he was right when he said
that nobody but himself would find it out. He had got an infinite
capacity for plagiarizing himself; and in his worst things he imitated
his best so closely that he might well defy you to tell the difference.

But you cannot work as he had worked for five years at a stretch and not
suffer for it. And you cannot aim at material success as he had aimed,
deliberately and continuously, for five years without becoming yourself a
bit material. And you cannot be immersed and wallow in it as he wallowed
without corruption.

There's no doubt that for the next, two--three--four years he wallowed.
He was so deep in that, even after Viola's illness that came in
nineteen-thirteen and purged him somewhat, he continued to wallow. And we
had to stand by while he was doing it and pretend that we weren't
shocked. There was no good trying to give him a hand to help him out, he
was so happy wallowing.

I am far from blaming him. Personally, if it hadn't been for Viola, I
should have liked to think that he was able to get all that ecstasy out
of his sordid triumph. For it _was_ sordid. If it wasn't for Viola you
could tick off each year with a note of his preposterously increasing
income, and say that was all there was in it.

I muddle up the first years of it. I know that in nineteen-eleven he
brought out his fifth novel and his third play and that the run and
the returns of both were astounding, even for him. I know that in
nineteen-twelve he brought out two novels and two new plays that ran at
the same time, and that he roped in Europe a