"Why should I believe you, Clifford, when I feel that whatever God there is has at last wakened up in my guts, as you call them, and is rippling so happily there, like dawn. Why should I believe you, when I feel so very much the contrary?"
"Oh, exactly! And what has caused this extraordinary change in you? Running out stark naked in the rain, and playing Bacchante? Desire for sensation, or the anticipation of going to Venice?"
"Both! Do you think it is horrid of me to be so thrilled at going off?" she said.
"Rather horrid to show it so plainly."
"Then I'll hide it."
"Oh, don't trouble! You almost communicate a thrill to me. I almost feel that it is I who am going off."
"Well, why don't you come?"
"We've gone over all that. And as a matter of fact, I suppose your greatest thrill comes from being able to say a temporary farewell to all this. Nothing so thrilling, for the moment, as Good-bye-to-it-all! But every parting means a meeting elsewhere. And every meeting is a new bondage."
"I'm not going to enter any new bondages."
"Don't boast, while the gods are listening," he said.