down his throat.
"It won't, for wishing," he said.
"No, that's the awful part of it. It'll just go on and on—Doesn't it make you feel you'd go mad?"
He looked at her and shook his head.
"You see it doesn't concern me," he said. "So long as I can float by myself."
"But are you satisfied!" she cried.
"I like being by myself—I hate feeling and caring, and being forced into it. I want to be left alone—"
"You aren't very polite to your hostess of the evening," she said, laughing a bit miserably.
"Oh, we're all right," he said. "You know what I mean—"
"You like your own company? Do you?—Sometimes I think I'm nothing when I'm alone. Sometimes I think I surely must be nothing—nothingness."
He shook his head.
"No," he said. "No. I only want to left alone."
"Not to have anything to do with anybody?" she queried ironically.
"Not to any extent."
She watched him—and then she bubbled with a laugh.
"I think you're funny," she said. "You don't mind?"
"No—why—It's just as you see it.—Jim Bricknell's a rare comic, to my eye."
"Oh, him!—no, not actually. He's self-conscious and selfish and hysterical. It isn't a bit funny after a while."
"I only know what I've seen," said Aaron. "You'd both of you like a bloody revolution, though."
"Yes. Only when it came he wouldn't be there."
"Would you?"
"Yes, indeed I would. I would give everything to be in it. I'd give heaven and earth for a great big upheaval—and then darkness."
"Perhaps you'll get it, when you die," said Aaron.
"Oh, but I don't want to die and leave all this standing. I hate it so."
"Why do you?"
"But don't you?"
"No, it doesn't really bother me."
"It makes me feel I can't live."
"I can't see that."
"But you always disagree with one!" said Josephine. "How do you like Lilly? What do you think of him?"
"He seems sharp," said Aaron.
"But he's more than sharp."
"Oh, yes! He's got his finger in most pies."
"And doesn't like the plums in any of them," said Josephine tartly.
"What does he do?"
"Writes—stories and plays."
"And makes it pay?"
"Hardly at all.—They want us to go. Shall we?" She rose from the table. The waiter handed her her cloak, and they went out into the blowy dark night. She folded her wrap round her, and hurried forward with short, sharp steps. There was a certain Parisian chic and mincingness about her, even in her walk: but underneath, a striding, savage suggestion as if she could leg it in great strides, like some savage squaw.
Aaron pressed his bowler hat down on his brow.
"Would you rather take a bus?" she said in a high voice, because of the wind.
"I'd rather walk."
"So would I."
They hurried across the Charing Cross Road, where great buses rolled and rocked, crammed with people. Her heels clicked sharply on the pavement, as they walked east. They crossed Holborn, and passed the Museum. And neither of them said anything.
When they came to the corner, she held out her hand.
"Look!" she said. "Don't come any further: don't trouble."
"I'll walk round with you: unless you'd rather not."
"No—But do you want to bother?"
"It's no bother."
So they pursued their way through the high wind, and turned at last into the old, beautiful square. It seemed dark and deserted, dark like a savage wilderness in the heart of London. The wind was roaring in the great bare trees of the centre, as if it were some wild dark grove deep in a forgotten land.
Josephine opened the gate of the square garden with her key, and let it slam to behind him.
"How wonderful the wind is!" she shrilled. "Shall we listen to it for a minute?"
She led him across the grass past the shrubs to the big tree in the centre. There she climbed up to a seat. He sat beside her. They sat in silence, looking at the darkness. Rain was blowing in the wind. They huddled against the big tree-trunk, for shelter, and watched the scene.
Beyond the tall shrubs and the high, heavy railings the wet street gleamed silently. The houses of the Square rose like a cliff on this inner dark sea, dimly lighted at occasional windows. Boughs swayed and sang. A taxi-cab swirled round a corner like a cat, and purred to a standstill. There was a light of an open hall door. But all far away, it seemed, unthinkably far away. Aaron sat still and watched. He was frightened, it all seemed so sinister, this dark, bristling heart of London. Wind boomed and tore like waves ripping a shingle beach. The two white lights of the taxi stared round and departed, leaving the coast at the foot of the cliffs deserted, faintly spilled with light from the high lamp. Beyond there, on the outer rim, a policeman passed solidly.
Josephine was weeping steadily all the time, but inaudibly. Occasionally she blew her nose and wiped her face. But he had not realized. She hardly realized herself. She sat near the strange man. He seemed so still and remote—so fascinating.
"Give me your hand," she said to him, subduedly.
He took her cold hand in his warm, living grasp. She wept more bitterly. He noticed at last.
"Why are you crying?" he said.
"I don't know," she replied, rather matter-of-fact, through her tears.
So he let her cry, and said no more, but sat with her cold hand in his warm, easy clasp.
"You'll think me a fool," she said. "I don't know why I cry."
"You can cry for nothing, can't you?" he said.
"Why, yes, but it's not very sensible."
He laughed shortly.
"Sensible!"
