of its deadly art poisoning. I'm in revolt."

"That's right, everybody who is anybody is in revolt against something
nowadays, because our knowledge of the truth is too great for our existing
conditions, and it bursts--"

"Like poor Betsy Binn, who was so very pure within,
She burst this outer shell of sin,
And hatched herself a cherubim!"

Warble interrupted.

"Yes, or as Gertrude Stein puts it: 'It is a gnarled division, that which
is not any obstruction, and the forgotten swelling is certainly attracting.
It is attracting the whiter division, it is not sinking to be growing, it
is not darkening to be disappearing, it is not aged to be annoying. There
cannot be sighing. This, is bliss.' There you see how art is greater than
life--how--"

"Do you think I'm too fat?" Warble again interrupted him.

"I do, my dear. You weren't, I think you are, I know you will be."

"Would you love me more if I were--didn't weigh so much?"

"Yes, in exact inverse ratio."

Warble made an awful face at him, and then she went quietly around behind
him, and dropped down his back a little fuzzy caterpillar, which she had
tied in her handkerchief for that very purpose.