believe in love, don't you?” said Jim, sitting down near Aaron, and grinning at him.
“Love!” said Aaron.
“LOVE! he says,” mocked Jim, grinning at the company.
“What about it, then?” asked Aaron.
“It's life! Love is life,” said Jim fiercely.
“It's a vice, like drink,” said Lilly.
“Eh? A vice!” said Jim. “May be for you, old bird.”
“More so still for you,” said Lilly.
“It's life. It's life!” reiterated Jim. “Don't you agree?” He turned wolfishly to Clariss.
“Oh, yes—every time—” she drawled, nonchalant.
“Here, let's write it down,” said Lilly. He found a blue pencil and printed in large letters on the old creamy marble of the mantel-piece panel:—LOVE IS LIFE.
Julia suddenly rose and flung her arms asunder wildly.
“Oh, I hate love. I hate it,” she protested.
Jim watched her sardonically.
“Look at her!” he said. “Look at Lesbia who hates love.”
“No, but perhaps it is a disease. Perhaps we are all wrong, and we can't love properly,” put in Josephine.
“Have another try,” said Jim—“I know what love is. I've thought about it. Love is the soul's respiration.”
“Let's have that down,” said Lilly.
LOVE IS THE SOUL'S RESPIRATION. He printed it on the old mantel-piece.
Jim eyed the letters.
“It's right,” he said. “Quite right. When you love, your soul breathes in. If you don't breathe in, you suffocate.”
“What about breathing out?” said Robert. “If you don't breathe out, you asphyxiate.”
“Right you are, Mock Turtle—” said Jim maliciously.
“Breathing out is a bloody revolution,” said Lilly.
“You've hit the nail on the head,” said Jim solemnly.
“Let's record it then,” said Lilly. And with the blue pencil he printed:
WHEN YOU LOVE, YOUR SOUL BREATHES IN—WHEN YOUR SOUL BREATHES OUT, IT'S A BLOODY REVOLUTION.
“I say Jim,” he said. “You must be busting yourself, trying to breathe in.”
“Don't you be too clever. I've thought about it,” said Jim. “When I'm in love, I get a great inrush of energy. I actually feel it rush in—here!” He poked his finger on the pit of his stomach. “It's the soul's expansion. And if I can't get these rushes of energy, I'M DYING, AND I KNOW I AM.”
He spoke the last words with sudden ferocity and desperation.
“All I know is,” said Tanny, “you don't look it.”
“I AM. I am.” Jim protested. “I'm dying. Life's leaving me.”
“Maybe you're choking with love,” said Robert. “Perhaps you have breathed in so much, you don't know how to let it go again. Perhaps your soul's got a crick in it, with expanding so much.”
“You're a bloody young sucking pig, you are,” said Jim.
“Even at that age, I've learned my manners,” replied Robert.
Jim looked round the party. Then he turned to Aaron Sisson.
“What do you make of 'em, eh?” he said.
Aaron shook his head, and laughed.
“Me?” he said.
But Jim did not wait for an answer.
“I've had enough,” said Tanny suddenly rising. “I think you're all silly. Besides, it's getting late.”
“She!” said Jim, rising and pointing luridly to Clariss. “She's Love. And HE's the Working People. The hope is these two—” He jerked a thumb at Aaron Sisson, after having indicated Mrs. Browning.
“Oh, how awfully interesting. It's quite a long time since I've been a personification.—I suppose you've never been one before?” said Clariss, turning to Aaron in conclusion.
“No, I don't think I have,” he answered.
“I hope personification is right.—Ought to be allegory or something else?” This from Clariss to Robert.
“Or a parable, Clariss,” laughed the young lieutenant.
“Goodbye,” said Tanny. “I've been awfully bored.”
“Have you?” grinned Jim. “Goodbye! Better luck next time.”
“We'd better look sharp,” said Robert, “if we want to get the tube.”
The party hurried through the rainy narrow streets down to the Embankment station. Robert and Julia and Clariss were going west, Lilly and his wife were going to Hampstead, Josephine and Aaron Sisson were going both to Bloomsbury.
“I suppose,” said Robert, on the stairs—“Mr. Sisson will see you to your door, Josephine. He lives your way.”
“There's no need at all,” said Josephine.
The four who were going north went down to the low tube level. It was nearly the last train. The station was half deserted, half rowdy, several fellows were drunk, shouting and crowing. Down there in the bowels of London, after midnight, everything seemed horrible and unnatural.
“How I hate this London,” said Tanny. She was half Norwegian, and had spent a large part of her life in Norway, before she married Lilly.
“Yes, so do I,” said Josephine. “But if one must earn one's living one must stay here. I wish I could get back to Paris. But there's nothing doing for me in France.—When do you go back into the country, both of you?”
“Friday,” said Lilly.
“How lovely for you!—And when will you go to Norway, Tanny?”
“In about a month,” said Tanny.
“You must be awfully pleased.”
“Oh—thankful—THANKFUL to get out of England—”
“I know. That's how I feel. Everything is so awful—so dismal and dreary, I find it—”
They
