'Yes! What comes then? We've both shirked that.'

'One awful shock--not palpitation, but shock, shock, shock!'

'As though your soul were being stopped--as you'd stop a finger-bowl
humming?' he said.

'Just that,' she answered. 'One's very soul--the soul that one lives
by--stopped. So!'

She drove her thumb deep into the arm-rest. 'And now,' she whined to
him, 'now that we've stirred each other up this way, mightn't we have
just one?'

'No,' said Conroy, shaking. 'Let's hold on. We're past'--he peered out
of the black windows--'Woking. There's the Necropolis. How long
till dawn?'

'Oh, cruel long yet. If one dozes for a minute, it catches one.'

'And how d'you find that this'--he tapped the palm of his glove--'helps
you?'

'It covers up the thing from being too real--if one takes enough--you
know. Only--only--one loses everything else. I've been no more than a
bogie-girl for two years. What would you give to be real again? This
lying's such a nuisance.'

'One must protect oneself--and there's one's mother to think of,' he