"
He mused darkly.
"How much was there of it?"
He made no answer.
"How many days?"
His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He
took no heed of my curiosity.
I tried to draw him back to his story with questions.
"Where did you go?" I said.
"When?"
"When you left Capri."
"South-west," he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We
went in a boat."
"But I should have thought an aeroplane?"
"They had been seized."
I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning
again. He broke out in an argumentative monotone:
"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this
slaughter and stress is life, why have we this craving for pleasure
and beauty? If there is no refuge, if there is no place of peace,
and if all our dreams of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why
have we such dreams? Surely it was no ignoble cravings, no base
intentions, had brought us to this; it was Love had isolated us.
Love had come to me with her eyes and robed in her beauty, more
glorious than all else in life, in the very shape and colour of
life, and summoned me away. I had silenced all the voices, I had
answered all the questions--I had come to her. And suddenly there
was nothing but War and Death!"
I had an inspiration. " After all," I said, "it could have
been only a dream.
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