“When we are tired,” I assented. “Perhaps that is the truest definition of virtue, not to run any race with excesses we are not equal to.”
“I say, that means a pretty long rope for young people, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, the rope will give out with youth, and then they can conveniently hang themselves.”
“I say, for goodness sake don’t talk like that. I shan’t dare to walk home.”
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
“Yes, I believe everybody is more or less.”
“You are frank, at any rate. What a time primeval man must have had of it! I should say that when night fell these woods were alive with ghosts. I suppose the man with muscle was the only possible romanticist in those days. It was romance under its most healthy aspect.”
“You mean that men had to fight for their women?”
“Exactly; so much muscle, so many women.”
“The women must have feasted on the sight they love best—men at each other’s throats.”