Now, in the
hour of her enfeeblement, and in the hour of the bitterness of her
heart, she still prided herself upon wanting so little.
"It seems so little to ask," she cried to herself time after time.
"I only want to be able to do a few strokes of work. I would be content
now to do so little, if only I might do some. The laziest day-labourer
on the road would laugh at the small amount of work which would content
me now."
She told the Disagreeable Man that one day.
"So you think you are moderate in your demands," he said to her. "You
are a most amusing young woman. You are so perfectly unconscious how
exacting you really are. For, after all, what is it you want? You want
to have that wonderful brain of yours restored, so that you may begin
to teach, and, perhaps, write a book. Well, to repeat my former words:
you are still at phase one, and you are longing to be strong enough to
fulfil your ambitions and write a book. When you arrive at I phase four,
you will be quite content to dust one of your uncle's books instead:
far more useful work and far more worthy of encouragement. If every one
who wrote books now would be satisfied to dust books already written,
what a regenerated world it would become!"
She laughed good-temperedly.
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