Oscar Wilde, Synge, Yeats, Lafcadio Hearn, Ambrose Bierce, Nietzsche, Turgenief, Dostoievsky, oh, hosts of men. And I’ve just read your article there on Masefield. You know, you’ve kindled fierce fires in my brain. You’ve filled me with a glorious discontent. You’ve made New Zealand too small for me. You’ve made me want to write, to travel, to get to London and Paris and see the world. See what you’ve done! Made a raving fever out of a perfectly good lotus eater.”
He had turned to look at her as she talked, and thought again she was the most vivid thing he had ever seen.
“Good God! I apologize. How little one realizes the devastating effects of one’s work.”
She laughed out again. She was becoming a little excited at seeing she could interest him. He took up the Bulletin and began idly turning the pages.
“I haven’t this number myself yet,” he said. “I suppose it is in my mail.” He came to a clever cartoon and showed it to her. “The chap who does those is a friend of mine, a cripple, but one of the jolliest fellows I ever knew.” Her face clouded. “Oh, don’t pity him. He hasn’t missed much. After all it’s what goes on in your mind that matters, not what goes on in your legs.”
She agreed with her eyes, and then got him talking about Sydney and the men he knew there till the sun was down glaring in their faces across the sea.
She took out her watch.
“Do you have to go?” She was only too disposed to hear regret in his tone.
“Well, no—but I’m awfully hungry.”
He looked into her eyes and fell for her intention as he had so often fallen for women’s intentions.
“I say, will you come along and have tea with me in the tent? There is nobody about now.”
