It was in the days of his golden dreams that he first saw her, and she
immediately became one of them--made them glow with a new rosy fire. The
first night, on leaving the theatre in his breathless ecstasy, he could
scarce compose himself to go home: he wandered over the town, murmuring
to himself "I want, oh I want to write something for her!" He went again
and again to see her--he was always there, and after each occasion, and
even as the months and years rolled by, kept repeating to himself, and
even to others, what he _did_ want to. Now one of these others was his
great friend, who irritated and probably jealous, coldly and cynically
replied: "You may want to, but you won't. No, you will never write
anything."
"I will!" he vehemently insisted. And he added in presumptuous
confidence: "Just wait till she asks me!" And so they kept it up, and he
said _that_ too often for the G.F., who, exasperated, ended by
retorting:
"She never will!"
"Well, you see if she doesn't!"
"You must think--" said the G.F. scathingly.
"Well, what?"
"Why, that she thinks you're somebody."
"She'll find out in time that I _am_. _Then_ she'll ask me."
"Ask _who_ you are?"
"No"--with majesty. "To write something."
"Then I shall be sorry for her. Because you won't."
"Why not?"
"Because you _can't_!"
"Oh!" But the months and years revolved and at last his dream came true;
also it befell that, just at the same moment, the G.F. reappeared; to
whom he broke out ecstatically: "I told you so! She _has_ found out! She
_has_ asked me."