“Oh yes—fine phrases! The height of womanhood!” She drew a comb fiercely through her hair. “To hang on a man’s lips, to feel a foolish sense of blankness when he isn’t there, and a great wave of joyful pain when he heaves in sight again. To kiss his every little note! To think of him and your trivial self as the centre of the universe, and to want the planets to spin for your joint happiness—oh!” She pulled the comb viciously through a knot.
“You describe it very accurately, Olive,” said her friend, maliciously.
“I’m quoting the novels. This passion that they crack up so much seems nothing more than selfishness at compound interest.”
“Selfishness! When you yourself say it makes you yearn for the other person’s happiness.”
“So that it may subserve yours.”
“You are a cynic.”
“What is a cynic? An accurate observer of life. Oh, you needn’t smile. I know I’m quoting, but one can’t put quotation marks into one’s conversation. You can’t face the facts of life, Nor. You like dull people without insight.”
“I like you.”
“That’s too cheap. You like socialists and spiritualists and poets and painters—the whole spawn of idealists. Bah! They ought to have a month’s experience of a hospital.”
“The world isn’t a hospital ward, Olive. The people I like have the truer insight.”