A man was born to be either an egoist and
parcel out the earth according to his tastes, or to develop like Dartrey
into a dreamer.--Curse you!" he added, suddenly shaking his fist at the
tall towers of the Houses of Parliament. "You're like an infernal
boarding-school, with your detentions and impositions and castigations.
There must be something beyond."
"A Cabinet Minister--" she began.
"The sixth form," he interrupted. "There's just one aspiration of life
to be granted under that roof and to win it you are asked to stifle all
the rest. It isn't worth it."
"It's the greatest game at which men can play," she declared.
"And also the narrowest because it is the most absorbing," he answered.
"We have our triumphs there and they end in a chuckle. Don't you love
sunshine in winter, strange cities, pictures, pictures of another age,
pictures which take your thoughts back into another world, architecture
that is not utilitarian, the faces of human beings on whom the strain of
life has never fallen? And women--women whose eyes will laugh into
yours, who haven't a single view in life, who don't care a fig about
improving their race, who want just love, to give and to take?"
She gazed at him in astonishment, a little carried away, her eyes soft,
her lips parted.
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