"I didn't say that."
"'An untested hypothesis,'" he quoted teasingly, but with a stirring anger.
"I don't know about that, either. We're both bound by our profession to admit an empirical test. And if we human beings can't survive without God——"
"But we can—we do."
"I can't."
He threw up his head.
"Why do women always become personal when they argue?"
"And why do rationalists always become irrational?"
They walked on slowly, apart, vaguely afraid. He wanted to change the subject, to take her by the arm and hold her fast. For she was drifting away from him. Her voice sounded remote and troubling, like a little old tune that he could not quite remember. Its emotion fretted his overstrained nerves. He wanted to close his ears against it. It was a trivial tune which might become a torment.
"It's not only me. It's everyone. Most of us are frightfully unhappy. Don't you realize that? And the more we understand life the more desperate we get. Savages and children may do without a god, but we can't. We know too much. Even the stupidest—the most careless of us. Think of Howard and Gertie and all that lot. Every second word is 'What's the good? What's it all about?' They make a great deal of noise to cover up their unhappiness. They're terrified of loneliness and silence. And one day it'll have to be faced."