“How—?” she said, with a sudden grunting, unhappy laugh. Then she lit a cigarette.
“No,” she said. “What I should really like more than anything would be an end of the world. I wish the world would come to an end.”
He laughed, and poured his drops of brandy down his throat.
“It won't, for wishing,” he said.
“No, that's the awful part of it. It'll just go on and on— Doesn't it make you feel you'd go mad?”
He looked at her and shook his head.
“You see it doesn't concern me,” he said. “So long as I can float by myself.”
“But ARE you SATISFIED!” she cried.
“I like being by myself—I hate feeling and caring, and being forced into it. I want to be left alone—”
“You aren't very polite to your hostess of the evening,” she said, laughing a bit miserably.