She changed her posture for an easier one, half reclining. Her face
and demeanour seemed to have the benign masculinity of a man's.

"I'm sorry," she answered. "I oughtn't to have said that. At any rate,
to you. I ought to have had more respect for your feelings."

He said:

"You aren't cured. That's evident. All this is physical."

"Of course it's physical, G.J.," she agreed, with an intonation of
astonishment that he should be guilty of an utterance so obvious and
banal. "Did you ever know anything that wasn't? Did you ever even
conceive anything that wasn't? If you can show me how to conceive
spirit except in terms of matter, I'd like to listen to you."

"It's against nature--to kill yourself."

"Oh!" she murmured. "I'm quite used to that charge. You aren't by any
means the first to accuse me of being against nature. But can you tell
me where nature ends? That's another thing I'd like to know....
My dear friend, you're being conventional, and you aren't being
realistic. You must know perfectly well in your heart that there's no
reason why I shouldn't kill myself if I want to. You aren't going to
talk to me about the Ten Commandments, I suppose, are you? There's
a risk, of course, on the other side--shore--but perhaps it's worth
taking. You aren't in a position to say it isn't worth taking. And at
worst the other shore must be marvellous. It may possibly be terrible,
if you arrive too soon and without being asked, but it must be