He was silenced for a moment. “But the result matters,” he said. “It matters whether we settle the Mahdi or not.” “Not to you—nor me—we don’t care about Khartoum.” “You want to have room to live in: and somebody has to make room.” “But I don’t want to live in the desert of Sahara—do you?” she replied, laughing with antagonism. “_I_ don’t—but we’ve got to back up those who do. “Why have we?” “Where is the nation if we don’t?” “But we aren’t the nation. There are heaps of other people who are the nation.” “They might say _they_ weren’t either.” “Well, if everybody said it, there wouldn’t be a nation. But I should still be myself,” she asserted brilliantly. “You wouldn’t be yourself if there were no nation.” “Why not?” “Because you’d just be a prey to everybody and anybody.” “How a prey?” “They’d come and take everything you’d got.” “Well, they couldn’t take much even then. I don’t care what they take. I’d rather have a robber who carried me off than a millionaire who gave me everything you can buy.” “That’s because you are a romanticist.” “Yes, I am. I want to be romantic. I hate houses that never go away, and people just living in the houses. It’s all so stiff and stupid. I hate soldiers, they are stiff and wooden. What do you fight for, really?” “I would fight for the nation.” “For all that, you aren’t the nation. What would you do for yourself?” “I belong to the nation and must do my duty by the nation.” “But when it didn’t need your services in particular—when there is no fighting? What would you do then?” He was irritated. “I would do what everybody else does.” “What?” “Nothing. I would be in readiness for when I was needed.” The answer came in exasperation. “It seems to me,” she answered, “as if you weren’t anybody—as if there weren’t anybody there, where you are. Are you anybody, really? You seem like nothing to me.” They had walked till they had reached a wharf, just above a lock. There an empty barge, painted with a red and yellow cabin hood, but with a long, coal-black hold, was lying moored. A man, lean and grimy, was sitting on a box against the cabin-side by the door, smoking, and nursing a baby that was wrapped in a drab shawl, and looking into the glow of evening. A woman bustled out, sent a pail dashing into the canal, drew her water, and bustled in again. Children’s voices were heard. A thin blue smoke ascended from the cabin chimney, there was a smell of cooking. Ursula, white as a moth, lingered to look. Skrebensky lingered by her. The man glanced up. “Good evening,” he called, half impudent, half attracted. He had blue eyes which glanced impudently from his grimy face. “Good evening,” said Ursula, delighted. “_Isn’t_ it nice now?” “Ay,” said the man, “very nice.” His mouth was red under his ragged, sandy moustache. His teeth were white as he laughed. “Oh, but—” stammered Ursula, laughing, “it _is_. Why do you say it as if it weren’t?”