“Not really. They must have wanted it. It’s all part of people’s amazing cowardice, their panic terror of life. It’s a device of governments, an official cheat.” George was off again. “All states are founded on the obligation of a man to provide for the child he begets and the woman who produces it. The State wants children, wants more and more ‘citizens’ for various reasons. The State exploits the love of a man for a woman and his tenderness towards her children—even she may not know whether they’re his or not. And so she’s taught to say: ‘Be careful, step warily, don’t offend any one, remember your first duty is to provide for me and the children, you mustn’t let us starve, oh, do be careful,’ with the result that the poor man very soon becomes a member of the infinite army of respectable commuters....” “Oh! Oh!” Elizabeth laughed again, “why are you so full of moral indignation?” “I’m not. Most of my brilliant acquaintances, like Upjohn, have so much to say about themselves that I never seem to get a chance of discussing anything else. And my non-brilliant acquaintances are simply shocked and reproving. They think I’m utterly damned because I read Baudelaire, for instance. Have you noticed the British middle-class superstition that anything they can label ‘Gallic’ must necessarily be libidinous and depraved? I get tired of telling them that the beauty of Baudelaire’s verse is infinitely more spiritual and ‘uplifting’—to use their damned cant—than all the confounded nonconformist-baptist-cum-Salvation Army....” But the end of George’s denunciation was never uttered, for at that moment they were interrupted by the gentle Mrs. Shobbe. “Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Winterbourne. Elizabeth dear, do you know how late it is? I’m afraid you’ll miss the last bus, and you know I promised your dear mother I would look after you....” Both George and Elizabeth saw with surprise and some embarrassment that the studio was nearly empty. Almost every one else had gone and they hadn’t noticed it, absorbed in their delightful exploration of each other. Of course, in these cases it isn’t what is said that matters, but all that remains unsaid. The talk is mere “parade,” a rustling out of the peacock’s tail, a kind of antennæ delicately fumbling. Lovers are like mirrors—each gazes rapturously at himself reflected in the other. How delicious the first flashes of recognition! Elizabeth jumped nervously to her feet, almost upsetting a small table. “Oh, my! I’d no idea it was so late. I must go. Good-bye, Mr.—Mr.—” “Winterbourne,” said George. “But if you’re going to Hampstead, let me take you back as far as Tottenham Court Road and put you on the Hampstead bus. It’s not out of my way at all.” “Yes, do, Elizabeth. I feel so nervous at your being alone in London at night like this. Whatever should we do if anything happened to you?”