"Mrs. Gray,--and her husband Martin.... But what have I got to say,--I, who refused to be his wife? It only seemed half true when I found them together before, although that was bad enough. But this time, now that my love for Martin has broken through all those days of pretending to pretend and that girl is openly in that cottage, nothing could be truer. It isn't Martin who has taken off his armor. It's I who have cut the straps and made it fall from his shoulders Oh, my God, if only I hadn't wanted to finish being a kid." She moved away, at last, from the place where Alice had left her and without looking to the right or left walked slowly down to the edge of the sea. Vaguely, as though it was something that had happened in a former life, she remembered the angry but neat figure of Alice and a few of the fierce words that had got through to her. "Rank weeds ... driven Martin ... too late.... Who Cares?" Only these had stuck. But why should Alice have said them? It was all unnecessary. She knew them. She had said them all on the way back from Devon, all and many more, seated beside that nice boy, Harry, in his car.... She had died a few feet from the stoop of the cottage, in the scent of honeysuckle and Come back to something that wasn't life to be tortured with regrets. All the way back she had said things to herself that Alice, angry and bitter as she had seemed to be, never could have invented. But they too were unnecessary. Saying things now was of no more use than throwing stones into the sea at any time. Rank weeds ... driven Martin ... too late ... who cares--only who cares should have come first because everything else was the result. And for a little while, with the feeling that she was on an island, deserted and forgotten, she stood on the edge of the sea, looking at a horizon that was utterly blank. What was she to do? Where was she to go? ... Not yet a woman, and all the future lay about her in chaos.... Once more she went back in spirit to that room of Martin's which had been made the very sanctum of Romance by young blood and moonlight and listened to the plans they had made together for the discovery of a world out of which so many similar explorers had crept with wounds and bitterness. "I'm going to make my mark," she heard Martin cry. "I'm going to make something that will last. My father's name was Martin Gray, and I'll make it mean something out here for his sake." "And I," she heard herself say, "will go joy-riding on that huge Round-about. I've seen what it is to be old and useless, and so I shall make the most of every day and hour while I'm young. I can live only once, and I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go. If I can get anybody to pay my whack, good. If not, I'll pay it myself,--whatever it costs. My motto's going to be a good time as long as I can get it and who cares for the price!" Young fool, you young fool! The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon them both.