all you'd see. To me it's exactly as palpable as the
marble of this chimney. Besides, the critic just _isn't_ a plain man: if
he were, pray, what would he be doing in his neighbour's garden? You're
anything but a plain man yourself, and the very _raison d'etre_ of you
all is that you're little demons of subtlety. If my great affair's
a secret, that's only because it's a secret in spite of itself--the
amazing event has made it one. I not only never took the smallest
precaution to do so, but never dreamed of any such accident. If I had
I shouldn't in advance have had the heart to go on. As it was I only
became aware little by little, and meanwhile I had done my work."

"And now you quite like it?" I risked.

"My work?"

"Your secret. It's the same thing."

"Your guessing that," Vereker replied, "is a proof that you're as clever
as I say!" I was encouraged by this to remark that he would clearly be
pained to part with it, and he confessed that it was indeed with him now
the great amusement of life. "I live almost to see if it will ever be
detected." He looked at me for a jesting challenge; something at the
back of his eyes seemed to peep out. "But I needn't worry--it won't!"

"You fire me as I've never been fired," I returned; "you make me
determined to do or die." Then I asked: "Is it a kind of esoteric
message?"

His countenance fell at this--he put out his hand as if to bid me
good-night. "Ah, my dear fellow, it can't be described in cheap
journalese!"

I knew of course he would be awfully fastidious, but our talk had made
me feel how much his nerves were exposed. I was unsatisfied--I kept hold
of his hand. "I won't make use of the expression then," I said, "in
the article in which I shall eventually announce my discovery, though I
daresay I shall have hard work to do without it. But meanwhile, just
to hasten that difficult birth, can't you give a fellow a clue?" I felt
much more at my ease.

"My whole lucid effort gives him a clue--every page and line and letter.
The thing's as concrete there as a bird in a cage, a bait on a hook, a
piece of cheese in a mouse-trap. It's stuck into every volume as your
foot is stuck into your shoe. It governs every line, it chooses every
word, it dots every i, it places every comma."

I scratched my head. "Is it something in the style or something in the
thought? An element of form or an element of feeling?"

He indulgently shook my hand again, and I felt my questions to be