"Think," said Trafford, "while we sit here in this dark hut--think of the surplus life that wastes itself in the world for sheer lack of direction. Away there in England--I suppose that is westward"--he pointed--"there are thousands of men going out to-day to shoot. Think of the beautifully made guns, the perfected ammunition, the excellent clothes, the army of beaters, the carefully preserved woodland, the admirable science of it--all for that idiot massacre of half-tame birds! Just because man once had need to be a hunter! Think of the others again--golfing. Think of the big, elaborate houses from which they come, the furnishings, the service. And the women--dressing! Perpetually dressing. _You_, Marjorie--you've done nothing but dress since we married. No, let me abuse you, dear! It's insane, you know! You dress your minds a little to talk amusingly, you spread your minds out to backgrounds, to households, picturesque and delightful gardens, nurseries. Those nurseries! Think of our tremendously cherished and educated children! And when they grow up, what have we got for them? A feast of futility...." § 14 On the evening of the day when Trafford first tried to stand upon his leg, they talked far into the night. It had been a great and eventful day for them, full of laughter and exultation. He had been at first ridiculously afraid; he had clung to her almost childishly, and she had held him about the body with his weight on her strong right arm and his right arm in her left hand, concealing her own dread of a collapse under a mask of taunting courage. The crutch had proved admirable. "It's my silly knees!" Trafford kept on saying. "The leg's all right, but I get put out by my silly knees." They made the day a feast, a dinner of two whole day's rations and a special soup instead of supper. "The birds will come," they explained to each other, "ducks and geese, long before May. May, you know, is the latest." Marjorie confessed the habit of sharing his pipe was growing on her. "What shall we do in Tyburnia!" she said, and left it to the imagination. "If ever we get back there," he said. "I don't much fancy kicking a skirt before my shins again--and I'll be a black, coarse woman down to my neck at dinner for years to come!..." Then, as he lay back in his bunk and she crammed the stove with fresh boughs and twigs of balsam that filled the little space about them with warmth and with a faint, sweet smell of burning and with flitting red reflections, he took up a talk about religion they had begun some days before.