You can get behind humanity anywhere in the world. Every man in earnest wherever you go has the illusion that his particular ism or place is running the world. Each believes in the final dominancy of his set of ideas. Nothing gives you such a sickening sense of monotony as going about this world listening to men talk of their ideas. It makes you long for the good old days when nobody had any ideas beyond getting a meal and chasing a woman. In the course of a week’s travelling you will meet twenty varieties of truths, each of which is the only thing that will save the world morally and industrially. And the fanatics talking these various truths are being pandered to and used everywhere by the same political and capitalist forces for the same old ends.”
“But good heavens,” she protested, “isn’t there something more in the world than people talking about their ideas? Don’t tell me you did not get a great deal more than that from travelling. You saw beautiful places, beautiful things.”
“Yes, I know, and places are wonderful.”
“Why, of course. Oh dear, you’ve had everything, just everything I want.” She leaned forward staring hard into the fire.
“Well, you are going to get it, aren’t you? You certainly will if you want it.”
“Yes, I am,” but she did not say it with her usual positiveness, and she felt a little chill that he should himself so cheerfully contemplate the idea of her going away.
Dane got up and went down to the fire and poked the straggling ends into the centre and put on another log. He stood there a minute beside it, a rather drooping figure vividly projected against a panel of darkness between the trunks of trees. She felt a swift clutch upon her heart as she looked at him. And she saw him against
