“I can’t tell you yet. I don’t know. I’m going to think about it.” For though he still knew that all of them were right, he knew also that he was going to make a choice, a series of choices, and he didn’t know yet what in each case he would choose. The party broke up at midnight. When the rest had dispersed, Eddy went home with Billy to Chelsea. He had given up the rooms he had shared with Arnold in Soho, and was staying with Billy till his marriage. They walked to Chelsea by way of the Embankment. By the time they got to Battersea Bridge (Billy lived at the river end of Beaufort Street) the beginnings of the dawn were paling the river. They stood for a little and watched it; watched London sprawling east and west in murmuring sleep, vast and golden-eyed. “One must,” speculated Eddy aloud, after a long silence, “be content, then, to shut one’s eyes to all of it--to all of everything--except one little piece. One has got to be deaf and blind--a bigot, seeing only one thing at once. That, it seems, is the only way to get to work in this extraordinary world. One’s got to turn one’s back on nearly all truth. One leaves it, I suppose, to the philosophers and artists and poets. Truth is for them. Truth, Billy, is perhaps for you. But it’s not for the common person like me. For us it is a choice between truth and life; they’re not compatible. Well, one’s got to live; that seems certain.... What do _you_ think?” “I’m not aware,” said Billy, drowsily watching the grey dream-city, “of the incompatibility you mention.” “I didn’t suppose you were,” said Eddy. “Your business is to see and record. You can look at all life at once--all of it you can manage, that is. My job isn’t to see or talk, but (I am told) to ‘take a business tour through Munster, shoot a landlord, be of use.’ ... Well, I suppose truth can look after itself without my help; that’s one comfort. The synthesis is there all right, even if we all say it isn’t.... After to-night I am going to talk, not of Truth but of _the_ Truth; my own particular brand of it.” Billy looked sceptical. “And which is your own particular brand?” “I’m not sure yet. But I’m going to find out before morning. I must know before to-morrow. Molly must have a bigot to marry.” “I take it your marriage is upsetting your mental balance,” said Billy tranquilly, with the common sense of the poet. “You’d better go to bed.” Eddy laughed. “Upsetting my balance! Well, it reasonably might. What should, if not marriage? After all, it has its importance. Come in, Billy, and while you sleep I will decide on my future opinions. It will be much more exciting than choosing a new suit of clothes, because I’m going to wear them for always.” Billy murmured some poetry as they turned up Beaufort Street. “The brute, untroubled by gifts of soul, Sees life single and sees it whole. Man, the better of brutes by wit, Sees life double and sees it split.”