"Perhaps drink leads the drunkard there," she said, "and music the musician. Doesn't one develop, daddy, through one's passions, and not through one's renunciations? I can't see how starving your desires can possibly help one."
"My dear, there are desires and desires," he said.
"And where do they all come from? Surely from the search."
He was silent a moment, and at that moment anything short of enthusiastic acceptance of her illumination was a coldness, a hand of ice to Elizabeth.
"Daddy, you don't understand," she said. "As long as we want, it doesn't much matter what we want. Isn't it half the battle to be eager?"
He shook his head.
"Again I should talk nonsense if I agreed with you," he said. "Eagerness is a sword, my dear; but it is not armour."
"I don't want armour," she said quickly. "I am not afraid of being hurt."
"Ah, don't get hurt, my darling!" he said.
"Not I. And if I do get hurt, daddy, I shall come crying to you, and you will have to comfort me. Oh, oh—look at all those tired men, with no beds to lie on, and no pillows and no tooth powder or sponges! Don't you envy them? They will wake up in the morning, and find themselves there, and, after all, nothing else can matter. I don't want to be bothered with possessions. I want to be——" Elizabeth suddenly broke off, interrupting her speech and thought alike.