And when he had recaptured that consoling invigorating mood, the great contradiction would smite him with a fresh and glorious force, the contradiction of his personal vileness and the beauty and nobility of the work which he was doing. Then as he sat down in the bright island of light at his table, he would think again, with a kind of conceited malice, of the blind and stupid world which judged a man by his work⁠—which would slobber over a murderer and a liar and a betrayer of friends simply because he could write good verse about good men.

And sometimes he even formed this thought into an arrogant phrase, “They think they know me, the damned fools⁠—but they don’t!”

Then he would go on with the noble poem. And Margery Byrne lay silent alone in the cool bedroom, thinking of Stephen.