Harriet would look at him sometimes wistfully, as he sat with his brow clouded. She had a real instinctive mistrust of other people--all other people. In her heart of hearts she said she wanted to live alone with Somers, and know nobody, all the rest of her life. In Australia, where one can be lonely, and where the land almost calls to one to be lonely--and then drives one back again on one’s fellow-men in a kind of frenzy. Harriet would be quite happy, by the sea, with a house and a little garden and as much space to herself as possible, knowing nobody, but having Lovat always there. And he could write, and it would be perfect. But he wouldn’t be happy--and he said so--and she knew it. She saw it like a doom on his brow. “And why couldn’t we be happy in this wonderful new country, living to ourselves. We could have a cow, and chickens--and then the Pacific, and this marvellous new country. Surely that is enough for any man. Why must you have more?” “Because I feel I _must_ fight out something with mankind yet. I haven’t finished with my fellow-men. I’ve got a struggle with them yet.” “But what struggle? What’s the good? What’s the point of your struggle? And what’s your struggle for?” “I don’t know. But it’s inside me, and I haven’t finished yet. To make some kind of an opening--some kind of a way for the afterwards.” “Ha, the afterwards will make its own way, it won’t wait for you. It’s a kind of nervous obstinacy and self-importance in you. You _don’t_ like people. You always turn away from them and hate them. Yet like a dog to his vomit you always turn back. And it will be the same old game here again as everywhere else. What are these people after all? Quite nice, but just common and--and not in your line at all. But there you are. You stick your head into a bush like an ostrich, and think you’re doing wonders.” “I intend to move with men and get men to move with me before I die,” he said. Then he added hastily: “Or at any rate I’ll try a bit longer yet. When I make up my mind that it’s really no good, I’ll go with you and we’ll live alone somewhere together, and forget the world. And in Australia too. Just like a business man retiring. I’ll retire away from the world, and forget it. But not yet. Not till I feel I’ve finished. I’ve got to struggle with men and the world of men for a time yet. When it’s over I’ll do as you say.” “Ah, you and your men, men! What do these Callcotts and these little Trewhella people mean to you after all? Are they men? They are only something you delude yourself about. And then you’ll come a cropper, and fall back on me. Just as it always is. You fall back on me, and I’m expected to like it. I’m good enough to fall back on, when you’ve made a fool of yourself with a lot of tuppenny little people, imagining you’re doing something in the world of _men_. Much men there is about it. Common little street-people, that’s all.”