since you went away, but making money and playing tennis. Existence,
as I look back upon it, is connoted by a varying margin of profit and a
vast sward."

She looked at him with eyes in which sympathy stood remotely,
considering the advisability of returning. "It's a pity you can't act,"
she said; "then you could come away and let it all go."

Lindsay smiled at her across the gulf he saw fixed. "How simple life is
to you!" he said. "But anyway I couldn't act."

"Oh no, you couldn't, you couldn't! You are too intensely absorbent, you
are too rigidly individual. The flame in you would never consent even
for an instant to be the flame in anybody else--any of those people who,
for the purpose of the state, are called imaginary. Never!"

It seemed a punishment, but all Lindsay said was: "I wish you would go
on. You can't think how gratifying it is--after the tennis."

"If I went on I have an idea that I might be disagreeable."

"Oh then, stop. We can't quarrel yet--I've hardly seen you. Are you
comfortable here? Would you like some French novels?"

"Yes, thank you. Yes, please!" She grew before him into a light and
conventional person, apparently on her guard against freedom of speech.
He moved a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the spring she had
detached herself from, and after failing for a quarter of an hour he got
up to go.