on a school-bench. I'm sick, sick, sick of women! Soft corners and
seduction!--Narcotics--when what a man needs is a tonic. Miserable,
soft, uncourageous things. I want the courage of you."

"Can't you see that you're all wrong about me?" she said at last. "I'm
not hard, really--only a bit crusted, I think. See what I've done to
Louis!"

"Louis!" he cried contemptuously. "You're not going to be wasted on that
half thing any longer. I'm not saying it isn't fine to save a man's
life. It is. It's very fine and splendid. But you've to be honest with
yourself, Marcella, and think if it's worth while. He's not worth it. If
you save him from drinking there's very little to him, you know."

"Don't tell me that, because what you say I believe," she cried in a
stricken voice. "It's all my life you're turning to ashes."

"I shall give you beauty for ashes, Marcella. You and I together, we can
go marching on in seven-league boots! There's a kingliness about you.
Listen to the things I say to you unconsciously! I can't say the pretty,
graceful, soft things we say to women! There's a kingliness,
Marcella--not only about you, but about me too. We're not the common
ruck. You're not happy, are you?"

"Sometimes," she said softly.

"No, you're not--not honourably! Kings can't be happy with commoners!
They don't speak the same language. If you're happy it's because you let
yourself consciously come down. And--wallow. As I have--"

Her face flamed to think how he had seen through her. He saw it, and
cried triumphantly:

"I knew it! In the higher parts of you you're always adventuring, always
lonely, always hungry. As I am. You never find a harbour, a friend, a
feast. Do you? No, I don't need you to tell me. I know all about it. I
have known it for more years than you have lived yet."

"But really, I am happy sometimes," she protested. He caught her hands
and held them so that she had to look at him.

"With Louis? Is your brain happy with Louis? Do you ever come within
touching distance of each other? Is your spirit happy with Louis? Isn't
it always hungry, holding out begging hands? Are your brain and your
spirit not always calling you back and scorning you when you let your
body wallow--slacken and take cheap thrills?"

"Oh, it's wicked that you should know these things about me," she cried.

"No. It isn't wicked at all. I know the same about myself. I've taken
cheap things. Biology got me on the wrong tack at first; with a