ee his weird accordingly, as the best thing for everybody
concerned, as the only honest thing, as the only thing that would put
any bed-rock under him, as what Marise would want him to do. If it meant
tramp-steamers, why it had to be tramp-steamers. Something could be
managed for Marise and the children.

This was what he had asked. And what answer had he got? Why, of course,
he hankered for the double-jointed, lawless freedom that the
tramp-steamer stood for. He guessed everybody wanted that, more or less.
But he wanted Marise and the children a damn sight more. And not only
Marise and the children. He hadn't let himself lay it all on their
backs, and play the martyr's role of the forcibly domesticated wild
male. No, he wanted the life he had, outside the family, his own line of
work; he wanted the sureness of it, the coherence of it, the permanence
of it, the clear conscience he had about what he was doing in the world,
the knowledge that he was creating something, helping men to use the
natural resources of the world without exploiting either the natural
resources or the men; he wanted the sense of deserved power over other
human beings. That was what he really wanted most of all. You could
call it smug and safe and bourgeois if you liked. But the plain fact
remained that it had more of what really counted for him than any other
life he could see possible. And when he looked at it, hard, with his
eyes open, why the tramp-steamer to China sailed out of school-boy
theatrical clouds and showed herself for the shabby, sordid little
substitute for a real life she would have been to him.

He'd have liked to have that too, of course. You'd _like_ to have
everything! But you can't. And it is only immature boys who whimper
because you can't have your cake and eat it too. That was all there was
to that.

What he had dug for was to find his deepest and most permanent desires,
and when he had found them, he'd come home with a happy heart.

It even seemed to him that he had been happier and quieter than before.
Well, maybe Marise's metaphor had something in it, for all it was so
flowery and high-falutin. Maybe she would say that what he had done was
exactly what she'd described, to dig it under the ground and let it
fertilize and enrich his life.

Oh Lord! how a figure of speech always wound you up in knots if you
tried to use it to say anything definite!

He relighted his pipe, this time with a steady hand, and a cool eye;