ut--don't you think all the time he was just getting his education?
Like I am? A month ago I'd have been horrified at the thought of kissing
you. Now I like it. A few months ago I loathed the thought of having a
body--and just everything connected with it. Now, ever since that day I
was getting my nice frock ready to go with you to Pompeii I've not
minded it a bit. All the time, now, I wish I was nicer."

"Because you've fallen in love, my child," he said, smiling in supreme
superiority. "And falling in love instructs even fools."

"It's taught me some very lovely things the last few days, Louis," she
said dreamily. "It's taught me that I've to be very shining, for you.
And it's taught me that I'd die for you very happily. But what you've
just said--about kissing--has suddenly taught me something very beastly.
I wanted to love you with my soul and my mind. And now you say it's the
hot weather!"

"Well, so it is, dearie. Love's not a spiritual nor a mental thing. It's
purely physical. A love affair is always a thousand times swifter under
the Southern Cross than under the Great Bear. And it's a million times
swifter on board ship than anywhere else because people are thrown into
such close contact. They've nothing to do and their bodies get slack and
pampered, and they eat heaps too much. It's like the Romans in the dying
days of Pompeii--eating, drinking and physical love-making. One day I
heard Kraill say in a lecture that men and women can't work together, in
offices or anything, or scientific laboratories because
they--well--they'd get in each other's light and make each other
jumpy."

"And do you believe it?"

"Course I do," he said. "Even if you had the brains or the knowledge
for--say research work, I couldn't work with you. I'd be thinking of the
way your lips look when they're getting ready to kiss me; and of your
white shoulders that I can just catch a peep of when you sit a little
way behind me, in that white blouse with little fleur-de-lys on the
collar. Naturally if I tried to work then, the work would go to pot."

"But--" she tried to control her voice, which shook in spite of herself,
"do you--think of those things--about me?"

"Of course. All men do about their women."

"It's horrible," she gasped, frowning at the Southern Cross. "And
doesn't it mean that men are specialized, too?"

"Not a bit of it! Men have to do the work of the world. Women are just
the softness of life."

"Cushions for men