"So," said Raven, meditatively, "you don't like it."
"It's no matter whether I like it or not," said Nan, in a chilly way he interpreted as pride. "I'm in it. And I'm going to play the game."
They went on for a while without speaking, and then Raven looked round at her, a whimsical look.
"So you give notice," he said, "you're grown up."
"I give notice," said Nan tersely. "I'm a very old lady really, older than you are, Rookie." Then she judged the moment had come for setting him right on a point that might be debatable. "If you think I was a little girl when I sat there and loved you the other night, you might as well know I wasn't. And I wasn't a woman either: not then. I was just a person, a creatur', Charlotte would say, that wanted you to get under your tough lonesome old hide there's somebody that loves you to death and believes in you and knows everything you feel."
"Am I lonesome, Nan?" he asked quickly, picking out the word that struck him deepest. "I don't know."
"I do," said Nan. "You haven't had any of the things men ought to have to keep them from growing into those queer he-birds stuck all over with ridiculous little habits like pin feathers that make you want to laugh—and cry, too. Old bachelors. Lord!"
"Look out," said Raven. "You'll get me interested in myself. I've gone too far that way already. The end of that road is Milly and psycho-analysis and my breaking everybody's head because they won't let me alone."
"Break 'em then," said Nan concisely. "And run away. Take this Tira with you and run off to the Malay Peninsula or somewhere. That sounds further away than most places. Or an island: there must be an island left somewhere, for a homesick old dear like you."
"Now, in God's name," said Raven, "what do you say that for?"