MARION. What questions has it been asking you?
DAN. Many—and so many of them have no answer. Why am I a useless, drifting log upon the world’s tide? Why have all the young men passed me? Why am I, at thirty-nine, let us say, with brain, with power, with strength—nobody thinks I am worth anything, but I am—I know it. I might have been an able editor, devoting every morning from ten till three to arranging the affairs of the Universe, or a popular politician, trying to understand what I was talking about, and to believe it. And what am I? A newspaper reporter, at three-ha’pence a line—I beg their pardon, its occasionally twopence.
MARION. Does it matter?
DAN. Does it matter! Does it matter whether a Union Jack or a Tricolor floats over the turrets of Badajoz? yet we pour our blood into its ditches to decide the argument. Does it matter whether one star more or less is marked upon our charts? yet we grow blind peering into their depths. Does it matter that one keel should slip through the grip of the Polar ice? yet nearer, nearer to it, we pile our whitening bones. And it’s worth playing, the game of life. And there’s a meaning in it. It’s worth playing, if only that it strengthens the muscles of our souls. I’d like to have taken a hand in it.
MARION. Why didn’t you?
DAN. No partner. Dull playing by oneself. No object.
MARION [after a silence]. What was she like?
DAN. So like you that there are times when I almost wish I had never met you. You set me thinking about myself, and that is a subject I find it pleasanter to forget.
MARION. And this woman that was like me—she could have made a man’s life?
DAN. Ay!