Why should he put himself under lock and key?
Why should he not allow human eye to fall, even from the distance prescribed by good manners, upon his precious manuscript?
Why need he use care so scrupulous as not to expose even torn up bits of rough draft to the ancillary publicity of a waste-paper basket?
Soundness of mind did not lie that way.

The terms in which he alluded to his book were not those of a sane man filled with the joy of his creation.

None of us, not even Doria, knew how the story was progressing.

He had signed a contract with an American editor for serialisation to begin in July.

Here we were in the middle of May, and not a page of manuscript had been delivered.
Doria told Barbara that the editor had been cabling frenziedly.