'But you've got to-or something near it!'

Siegmund looked at the other with frightened, horrified eyes.

'What of yourself?' he said, resentfully.

'I've funked-ran away from my leper, and now am eating my heart out, and
staring from the window at the dark.'

'But can't you _do_ something?' said Siegmund.

The other man laughed with amusement, throwing his head back and showing
his teeth.

'I won't ask you what _your_ intentions are,' he said, with delicate
irony in his tone. 'You know, I am a tremendously busy man. I earn five
hundred a year by hard work; but it's no good. If you have acquired a
liking for intensity in life, you can't do without it. I mean vivid soul
experience. It takes the place, with us, of the old adventure, and
physical excitement.'

Siegmund looked at the other man with baffled, anxious eyes.

'Well, and what then?' he said.

'What then? A craving for intense life is nearly as deadly as any other
craving. You become a _concentre_, you feed your normal flame with
oxygen, and it devours your tissue. The soulful ladies of romance are
always semi-transparent.'