“We’ve got to go away from all this, but let us carry it with us; you know, as one can carry things that one has really gathered up, really got hold of. It will mean a lot to us afterwards in England, in our regular humdrum life. Not that life’s ever humdrum. We must take Drouva to England, and Marathon, and the view from the Acropolis, and the columns of the Parthenon above all those, and the tombs.”
“But they’re sad.”
“We must take them. I’m quite sure the way to make life splendid, noble, what it is meant to be to each of us, is to press close against one’s heart all that is sent to one, the sorrows as well as the joys. Everything one tries to keep at arm’s length hurts one.”
“Sins?”
“Sins, Dion? I said what is sent to us.”
“Don’t you think——?”
“Sins are never sent to us, we always have to go and fetch them. It’s like that poor old chemist going round the corner in the fog with a jug for what is ruining his life.”
“What poor old chemist?” he asked.
“A great friend of mine in London—Mr. Thrush. You shall know him some day. Oh—but London! Now, Dion, can we, you and I, live perpetually in London after all this?”
“Well, dearest, I must stick close to business.”