“Everybody. I should love to be pensioned.”
“And remain in idleness and dependence? Oh, no.”
“Not dependence. Interdependence. No compulsion.”
“What would you do?”
“Spend several years staring; and then go round the world.”
“You are delightful! I am not sure that I approve of the years of staring. But to go round the world would, of course, be most enchanting.”
“Yes: but I should not want to improve my mind. I should still stare. If I went. Probably I shouldn’t go. Nothing short of dynamite will shift me. I am astounded to find myself shifted here.”
“I fear at the moment you must be wishing yourself safely back again.”
She had no realisation of the adventure it was to be anywhere at all. To her it was not a strange, strange adventure that their two voices should be sounding together in the night, a double thread of sound in a private darkness, making a pattern with all the other sounds in the world. But she had accepted the compliment. There was a vibration in her voice: joyful.
Again and again they were awakened for battle, until their slumber was too deep to be disturbed.