and so on, on Jane's health, because she had a baby coming. But
somehow that didn't really meet the situation. I remembered Arthur's
voice when he said, 'There's more to it than you know.... It _is_ a mess.
A ghastly mess.'

And another rather queer thing I remembered was that, all through the
evening, he hadn't once met my eyes. An odd thing in Arthur, for he has a
habit of looking at the people he is talking to very straight and hard,
as if to hold their minds to his by his eyes.

Well, I supposed that in about a year those two would marry, anyhow. And
then they would talk, and talk, and talk.... And Arthur would look at
Jane not only because he was talking to her, but because he liked to look
at her.... They would be all right then, so why should I bother?

3

I went to see Jane, but found Lady Pinkerton in possession. I saw Jane
for five minutes alone. She was much as I had expected, calm and rather
silent. I asked her to come round to the flat any evening she could. She
came next week, and after that got into the way of dropping in pretty
often, both in the evenings, when I was at home, and during the day, when
I was at the laboratory. She said, 'You see, old thing, mother has got it
into her head that I need company. The only way I can get out of it is to
say I shall be here.... Mother's rather much just now. She's got the
Other Side on the brain, and is trying to put me in touch with it. She
reads me books called _Letters from the Other Side_, and _Hands Across
the Grave_, and so on. And she talks ...'

Jane pushed back her hair from her forehead and leant her head on her
hand.

'In what mother calls "my condition,"' she went on, 'I don't think I
ought to be worried, do you? I wish baby would come at once, so that I
shouldn't be in a condition any more.... I'm really awfully fond of baby,
but I shall get to hate it if I'm reminded of it much more.... What a
rotten system it is, K. Why haven't we evolved a better one, all these
centuries?'

I couldn't imagine why, except for the general principle that as the
mental equipment of the human race improves, its physical qualities
apparently deteriorate.

'And where will that land us in the end?' Jane speculated. 'Shall we be a
race of clever crocks, or shall we give up civilisation and education and
be robust imbeciles?'

'Either,' I said, 'will be an improvement on the present regime, of
crocky imbeciles.'

We would talk like that, of things in general,