“Yes,” he replied, “that also is true. Ah, if it were only possible to escape from the bewildering system into the clean fields and the rain-washed heather——”
“To evade the ever-present Self, and to take refuge in the great unhewn passions?” I queried gently.
“Exactly,” he replied, again carefully contemplating his nails, “to know again the crude and volcanic life. Everything is tertiary in these days—we have no primaries. Nothing rude or red.”
I forbore to challenge the remark as to rudeness, and agreed that from my observation it hardly appeared to be an age of epics. He approved, passing his hand over his sleek, clean hair.
“And yet,” he continued, judicially weighing each word, and turning to the nails of the other hand, “and yet—why? Why should we, the heirs of the centuries, be in reality the slaves of them? Why should we not love, for instance, as the rugged, forgotten ones loved? Why should we love through the post-office and by chaperonage—through engagements and marriages? Why should we not——”
He forbore to say what, and sighed, apparently for the days when he might have loved with a stone axe in untracked forests and through rivers in flood. I offered him a cigarette.
He lighted it, and gazing before him as though he were culling a nascent thought from the smoke, went on slowly and prophetically.
“Nevertheless,” he said, more softly than ever, “the strong man shall come; and when he shall appear—the man for whom we are waiting—the man who shall break the bonds and go back—back——”
It was a characteristic of most of his sentences that he finished them by watching the films of smoke before him. This time he made a remarkably perfect smoke ring. I thought of Caroline, and wondered what she was doing in such a milieu.
I was fain to speak.