Val crossed his legs and withdrew his cigar to laugh.
"Ah! I apologize." Clowes shrugged his shoulders. "'Eunuch' is the wrong word for you—as a breed they're a cowardly lot. But I used the term in the sense of a Palace favourite who swallows all the slop that's pumped into him. 'Lloyd George for ever and Britannia rules the waves.' Dare say I should sing it myself if I'd come out covered with glory like you did."
"I met Gainsford today. He says the longacre fences ought to be renewed before winter. Parts of them are so rotten that the first gale will bring them down."
"Damn Gainsford and damn the fences and damn you."
"Really, really!" Val stretched himself out and put his feet up.
"You're very monotonous tonight."
"And you, you're tired: I wear you both out, you and Laura—and yet you're the only people on earth. . . . Why can't I die? Sometimes I wonder if it's anything but cowardice that prevents me from cutting my throat. But my life is infernally strong in me, I don't want to die: what I want is to get on my legs again and kick that fellow Hyde down the steps. What does he stop on here for?"
"Well, you're always pressing him to stay, aren't you? Why do you do it, if this is the way you feel towards him?"
"Because I've always sworn I'd give Laura all the rope she wanted," said Clowes between his teeth. "If she wants to hang herself, let her. I should score in the long run. Hyde would chuck her away like an old shoe when he got sick of her." There was a fire not far from madness burning now in the wide, dilated eyes. "Afterwards she'd have to come back, because those Selincourts haven't got twopence between the lot of them, and if she did she'd be mine for good and all. Hyde would break her in for me."
"You don't realize what you're saying, Berns, old man. You can't," said Val gently, "or you wouldn't say it. It is too unutterably beastly."
"Ah! perhaps the point of view is a bit warped," Bernard returned carelessly to sanity. "It shocks you, does it? But the fact is Laura has the whip hand of me and I can't forgive her for it. She's the saint and I'm the sinner. She's a bit too good. If Hyde broke her in and sent her home on her knees, I should have the whip hand of her, and I'd like to reverse the positions. Can you follow that? Yes! A bit warped, I own. But I am warped— bound to be. Give the body such a wrench as the Saxons gave mine and you're bound to get some corresponding wrench in the mind."