for a good two hours."

"I believe I have," said Aaron.

"Would you like a little tea?"

"Ay--and a bit of toast."

"You're not supposed to have solid food. Let me take your temperature."

The temperature was down to a hundred, and Lilly, in spite of the
doctor, gave Aaron a piece of toast with his tea, enjoining him not to
mention it to the nurse.

In the evening the two men talked.

"You do everything for yourself, then?" said Aaron.

"Yes, I prefer it."

"You like living all alone?"

"I don't know about that. I never have lived alone. Tanny and I have
been very much alone in various countries: but that's two, not one."

"You miss her then?"

"Yes, of course. I missed her horribly in the cottage, when she'd first
gone. I felt my heart was broken. But here, where we've never been
together, I don't notice it so much."

"She'll come back," said Aaron.

"Yes, she'll come back. But I'd rather meet her abroad than here--and
get on a different footing."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. There's something with marriage altogether, I think.
_Egoisme a deux_--"

"What's that mean?"

"_Egoisme a deux_? Two people, one egoism. Marriage is a self-conscious
egoistic state, it seems to me."

"You've got no children?" said Aaron.

"No. Tanny wants children badly. I don't. I'm thankful we have none."

"Why?"

"I can't quite say. I think of them as a burden. Besides, there ARE such
millions and billions of children in the world. And we know well enough
what sort of millions and billions of people they'll grow up into. I
don't want to add my quota to the mass--it's against my instinct--"

"Ay!" laughed Aaron, with a curt acquiescence.

"Tanny's furious. But then, when a woman has got children, she thinks
the world wags only for them and her. Nothing else. The whole world wags
for the sake of the children--and their sacred mother."

"Ay, that's DAMNED true," said Aaron.

"And myself, I'm sick of the children stunt. Children are all right, so
long as you just take them for what they are: young immature things like
kittens and half-grown dogs, nuisances, sometimes very charming. But
I'll be hanged if I can see anything high and holy about children. I
should be sorry, too, it would be so bad for the children. Young brats,
tiresome and amusing in turns."

"When they don't give themselves airs," said Aaron.

"Yes, indeed. Which they do half the time. Sacred children, and sacred
motherhood, I'm absolutely fed s