“Their rejected skins shall go to make your pathway to Hell. And the whole way ye shall slip ignominiously.”
“Rather say I shall slide gloriously.”
“And bump at the bottom?”
“There are great virtues, even in a bump at the bottom, to those who understand the art of swift recovery.”
Peter mused on this, while remarking idly that the pale glint of Chartreuse held much more of evil than the frank winking serpent-green of crême-de-menthe.
“Are you never natural?” she queried suddenly, recalling the man to joyous sparring, from his tender admiration of Merle’s side-face, which, one among a thousand, really merited the higher appellation of profile.
“No, I don’t think so. What am I, natural? or you, or anyone else? something that sleeps and eats and walks, and never enquires. Not of such stuff are born the Orange-Suckers, the Hairpin-Visionists.”
“Hairpin-Visionists?” chorus of attracted femininity.
He explained: “If, whatever you are doing, you are able to project yourself into the future, and from that point look back again to the present, you can get your outlines clear, see where each step is leading you, obtain a sense of proportion and values on the incident. And that mental process follows the curves of an ordinary hairpin, starting at one of the points—then forward—and back again. D’you see?” he traced the diagram with his fingers on the table-cloth.
“Then you always live your life backwards, from some imaginary spot seven or eight months hence? What a grotesque looking-glass existence!”