My dear!
“Not so young. Not so actually young,” cried Christina Alberta.
“If I live to be eighty,” said Christina Alberta, “shall I ever be able to feel more than I am feeling now? Why will you always treat me like a child nowadays?”
“Feeling isn’t the only measure,” said Devizes. “Even now, to-night, you are talking below your beliefs. You are not an egoistic adventurer. You take sides on a score of matters. You insist you are a Communist for example.”
“Oh! just to smash up things,” said Christina Alberta. “Just to smash up everything.”
“No. You say that to-night, but you have told me differently before. You have a care for the world. You want to help forward the common interest. You develop a passion for scientific truth. Well—there’s no way of fencing in your individuality from other minds in science or in public affairs. You’re a part by necessity; you can’t be a complete whole. You find already you can’t keep away from these things. They will take you more and more, whether you like it or not, because it is the spirit of the time. That is what is happening to us all. You can’t escape. Our work, our part, is the first thing in our lives. To that, pride must bow now and passion and romance. We have to slam and lock and bar the door against all personal passion that might wreck our work. Bar it and put it out of your mind. As a secondary thing. Work. Give the greater things a chance to keep you.”
“That’s all very well.”
“It’s everything.”
“Why should they keep me?” came from Christina Alberta, sullenly and resolutely.
“I know that this is your faith,” she said. “You told me all about it. You’ve always told me about it.” Bobby’s quick ear detected a change in her voice “Do you remember our first talk together? Do you remember our talk in Lonsdale Mews? When we dined together at that Italian place? That night. Just after we had found each other.”