"We ought to be perched on a place like this," he said, "because we are
to the rest of the world, in mind and in happiness, as we are here in
body too."

"Only the sea gulls can go higher, and I always feel they're more like
spirits than birds," she answered.

"I've got no use for spirits," he told her. "The splendid thing about us
is that we're flesh and blood and spirit too. That's the really
magnificent combination for happy creatures. A spirit at best can only
be an unfinished thing. People make such a fuss about escaping from the
flesh. What the deuce do you want to escape from your flesh for, if it's
healthy and tough and fine?"

"When they get old, they feel like that."

"Let the old comfort the old then," he said. "I'm proud of my flesh and
bones, and so are you, and so we ought to be; and if I had to give them
up and die, I should hate it. And if I found myself in another world, a
poor shivering idea and nothing else, without flesh and bones to cover
me, or clothes to cover them, I should feel ashamed of myself. And they
might call it Paradise as much as they liked, but it would be Hades to
me. Of course many of the ghosts would pretend that they liked it; but I
bet none would really--so jolly undignified to be nothing but an idea."

She laughed.

"That's just what I feel too; and of course it's utterly wrong of us,"
she said. "It shows we have got a lot to learn. We only feel like this
because we're young. Perhaps young ghosts begin like that; but I expect
they soon get past it."

"I should never want to get past it," he said.

He rolled over on the grass and played with her hand.

"How could you love and cuddle a ghost?"

"No doubt you could love it. I don't suppose you could cuddle it. You
wouldn't want to."

"No--that's true, Sabina. If this cliff carried away this moment, and we
were both smashed to pulp and arrived together in another world without
any clothes and both horribly down on our luck--but it's too ghastly a
picture. I should howl all through eternity--to think what I'd missed."

They talked nonsense, played with their thoughts and came nearer and
nearer together. One tremendous and masterful impulse drew them on--a
raging hunger and thirst on his part and something not widely different
on hers. Again and again they caught themselves in each other's arms,
then broke off, grew serious and strove to steady the trend of their
desires.

Golden Cap was a lonely spot and few visited