"And Linda would never have written her plays. That would have been a pity." "How absurd you are, Kurt. But you seem able to sift experience before it comes to you. You seem to be able to do the right thing at the right time." "I never worry about it. Life seems so simple to me. Directly it looks like being complicated, I switch off and try again. The only thing that worries me is that it looks horribly as though I should never marry. I fall in love all right and somehow that always complicates things, so then I fall out of love. I can't love a complicated woman, and I haven't met an uncomplicated one. They all want to feel more than they do. Play-acting, I call it." Kilner came in then. He greeted Kurt morosely, for his clothes showed that he came from the brilliant world, the object of the painter's particular detestation, and Kurt's manner might easily be taken for that affability which puts you at your ease and so disconcertingly leaves you there. René produced beer and tobacco, made room for Kilner by the fireplace, and carried on the discussion: "Kurt says women want to feel more than they do." "I don't know about that," replied Kilner, "but my experience is that they generally feel more than the occasion demands. They won't leave anything to the future. I don't think it means anything except that they are not particular. They get so precious little out of men that they grab what they can and let consequences take their chance. I don't blame them either. They begin by taking love seriously, so seriously that they frighten men and make them run away. I keep clear of that, not because I'm frightened, but because I can't find a woman who hasn't been unbalanced by having had some idiot run away from her." "That's like Kurt," René threw in. "I expect it is because you both have a passion for what you are doing. It gives you a standard. Now I don't pretend to have a passion for taxi-driving, and I suppose that is why I take seriously things that you two are able to ignore." "H'm," growled Kilner, stretching his long legs. "Not much in that. We're both keen on something which demands health and nerve and self-confidence, a steady hand and a clear head. We can't afford to throw our minds and passions into the common stock. I starve. Your friend has the world at his feet. But we're both outside the world, and have as little truck with it as possible." "Both," said René, "outside the hypnotic circle." He had to explain that to Kilner, who was excited by the idea.