He had let Christie become a spirit to him. He himself, with his Pharisaic chatter about “Platonic,” had turned her into a spirit. Men of his type make their girls into anything. He had made her what he wanted her. He had satisfied his sensuality with the other one and gone to Christie for mental sympathy. He hadn’t considered her side of it at all. But now⁠—tomorrow night⁠—he would be a magician! He would turn this Ariel, this Elemental, into a living girl! His mind reverted to Gerda. “How pitiful that she should have lost her blackbird-song! That’s what I’ve done to her ! I’ve become too solemn. I’ve wearied her with my pedantic, ponderous thoughts. She’s come to feel that I’m ‘heavy weather,’ a fellow without humour, without gaiety, a lumbering schoolmaster. That’s what it is. She’s turned to Weevil, for the simplest of all reasons⁠—for pleasant camaraderie!”