“No, I’m not. Anyway, they’ll most likely fork out with a cigarette-case instead. And I’ve got three already. Teddy darling, I solemnly swear I want to be cured. I _mean_ to be cured. I owe you that. We’ll be all-in-all to each other, down in the country. Pretty desolate in winter, I expect ... all the better, cold and rain sharpen you up like blazes. I’m fed up with town people and their sallow, dingy faces. They’re helpless; they’re afraid, they’re hemmed in----” His voice became resonant; and the old couple in the adjoining bedroom thumped the wall in peevish protest. “Right!” said Doug, glaring at them through the paper and plaster and match-boarding, and highly pleased at this timely illustration to his arguments. “Right! Thump away! We’re off! We’ve done with being herded and packed. We’re going to where a fellow can bellow his lungs inside out at whatever time of night he pleases. You know, Teddy, the root of the trouble is, that living in town has made us too complex. If that old hag and her husband loved us, in the simple country fashion--love is really a very simple thing, Teddy,” and Doug’s voice was a little deeper than usual as he came to this conclusion. “But surely it _is_ a fairly simple thing, to bang at the wall when your neighbours are noisy at midnight. Mr. and Mrs. Cox would be far more complex if they loved us for it!” Mr. and Mrs. Cox thumped again, urgently. “Oh, be---- Teddy, why have we put up so long with this slummy dosshouse, that’s what I want to know?” But Ursula was silent, thinking that enough had been said about Doreen, who had only left that day. She did not sleep at once, but persistently chased the wheeling thought: “Will it be any good?” It was not that she wanted Doug to feel their future isolation as punishment--discipline--not with any such priggish quality attached to it. But his innocently chubby view of the idea as a jolly, buccaneering adventure, with shouts and banners--it was so exasperatingly like putting a naughty child to bed, only to see him at once rig up a tent with the sheets, and begin to play. “Doug----” “Wha’?” Ursula recognized that he was too nearly asleep for further psychological discussion. And, after all, if she was cast for heroine of his latest muscular romance, was it not better than the grimmer rôle of chastiser to a penitent. So---- “Doug, I _am_ longing for ... Arcadia.” His arm strayed out at random, and lay heavily, possessively across her throat.... “Darling ... so glad ... thought you’d come round to the idea.... And we’ll be able to keep a dog in the country....” PART III “ARCADIA--MORE OR LESS” [I]