d to pierce this amiable aloofness of his.

She ordered coffee and brandies.

"But you don't want to get away from EVERYTHING, do you? I myself feel
so LOST sometimes--so dreadfully alone: not in a silly sentimental
fashion, because men keep telling me they love me, don't you know. But
my LIFE seems alone, for some reason--"

"Haven't you got relations?" he said.

"No one, now mother is dead. Nothing nearer than aunts and cousins in
America. I suppose I shall see them all again one day. But they hardly
count over here."

"Why don't you get married?" he said. "How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-five. How old are you?"

"Thirty-three."

"You might almost be any age.--I don't know why I don't get married. In
a way, I hate earning my own living--yet I go on--and I like my work--"

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm painting scenery for a new play--rather fun--I enjoy it. But I
often wonder what will become of me."

"In what way?"

She was almost affronted.

"What becomes of me? Oh, I don't know. And it doesn't matter, not to
anybody but myself."

"What becomes of anybody, anyhow? We live till we die. What do you
want?"

"Why, I keep saying I want to get married and feel sure of something.
But I don't know--I feel dreadful sometimes--as if every minute would
be the last. I keep going on and on--I don't know what for--and IT keeps
going on and on--goodness knows what it's all for."

"You shouldn't bother yourself," he said. "You should just let it go on
and on--"

"But I MUST bother," she said. "I must think and feel--"

"You've no occasion," he said.

"How--?" she said, with a sudden grunting, unhappy laugh. Then she lit a
cigarette.

"No," she said. "What I should really like more than anything would be
an end of the world. I wish the world would come to an end."

He laughed, and poured his drops of brandy down his throat.

"It won't, for wishing," he said.

"No, that's the awful part of it. It'll just go on and on-- Doesn't it
make you feel you'd go mad?"

He looked at her and shook his head.

"You see it doesn't concern me," he said. "So long as I can float by
myself."

"But ARE you SATISFIED!" she cried.

"I like being by myself--I hate feeling and caring, and being forced
into it. I want to be left alone--"

"You aren't very polite to your hostess of the evening," she said,
laughing a bit miserably.

"Oh, we're all right," he said. "You know what I mean--"

"You like your own company?