“What’s the great thing?”
“Why, living. I never feel sure that working is not a sort of drug that makes us dream we are living. To be really alive matters so much more than anything.”
Peggy looked at her in some alarm.
“Pray say none of those dangerous things to Hugh,” she said, “or we shall certainly never hear him in Tristan!”
“I am afraid he thinks of them for himself,” said she. “But the mistake he makes is in thinking that working interferes with living. It doesn’t. People who can’t live only get a substitute for it in work which will make them happy, but people who are really alive are not less so by working.”
“Ah, that is much sounder!” said Peggy. “Here we are in the queue already. It appears to extend from the Circus to Hyde Park Corner.”
Edith gave a little groan; something, either the discussion at dinner, or those with whom she had discussed, had completely taken her mind off what was coming. The sight of the queue, however, recalled her.
“Aren’t you hugely excited?” continued Peggy. “How can you help being? And yet you look as if you were going out for a drive in the country to see the place where Izaak Walton was born.”
“I feel as if I were going to see the place where Edith Allbutt was buried,” remarked that lady, “and it appears to me to be gruesomely interesting. And the whole world seems to be coming to the funeral service.”
“Ah, but not a soul guesses who Andrew Robb is!” said Peggy. “I feel sure of that.”