"It wouldn't bore me," she said, manifestly surprised at his question. "But are you sure? ... It is more likely to bore you afterwards to feel constrained to keep that resolve. Is it necessary to promise-- anything?" "Not necessary, perhaps. It would be a satisfaction to me." He looked up at her with a swift smile. "I believe that's what I inveigled you here for--to force you into the position of custodian of my conscience-- to listen to confidences. I'm lonely. I've no one belonging to me out here--no one I can talk intimately with. I've knocked around. That sort of life doesn't lend itself to intimacies. I want to talk--oh! about things one doesn't talk about generally... I wonder whether I am making myself intelligible?" "Yes," she said. "Though possibly if I didn't have those same feelings I might not follow you altogether. I'm lonely too. I often want a sympathetic listener; and there's no one; so I moon about alone, and--" Her voice trailed off on a thoughtful pause. "Want to kick yourself?" he suggested. "No. I don't think it's ever been quite so bad as that." "It is with me," he said--"often. But I have few resources. I don't sweat things out like some men in violent exercise. I've tried that, but it doesn't give me any sort of relief. My beastly muscles develop and keep hard without that Sometimes I think they are the only part of me to develop and harden; the rest is non-resistant." "A man has his work," she interjected. "There's ambition..." He looked away across the dark waste of waters and answered indifferently. "I never had any. All that talk about a career--what does it amount to? One man makes a bit of a splash, another doesn't; but they are both heading the same way, both making for the open sea, which eventually engulfs them. It's only while they are inshore that the splash is visible; farther out the sea is deep and tranquil; and sometimes it is the man who hasn't made a splash inshore who keeps up longest and sees well ahead. Those early splashes don't count for much when the swimmer is done. Death beats us all in the end. It isn't worth it... ambition... no." "Without ambition nothing would be achieved ever," she said. "Some one's got to do the things--that are worth doing." "Why?" he asked, and smiled at her lazily. She looked down at him, puzzled and hesitating, a little uncertain of her ground. "What are the things worth doing?" "Don't you believe that there is a purpose in life?" she asked. The smile on his face broadened.