‘Just men?  Do they speak?’

‘They try to.  Their faces are all mildewy—­eaten away,’ and she hid her face for an instant with her left hand.  ‘It’s the Faces—­the Faces!’

‘Yes.  Like my two hoots.  I know.’

’Ah!  But the place itself—­the bareness—­and the glitter and the salt smells, and the wind blowing the sand!  The Men run after me and I run....  I know what’s coming too.  One of them touches me.’

‘Yes!  What comes then?  We’ve both shirked that.’

‘One awful shock—­not palpitation, but shock, shock, shock!’

’As though your soul were being stopped—­as you’d stop a finger-bowl humming?’ he said.

‘Just that,’ she answered.  ’One’s very soul—­the soul that one lives by—­stopped.  So!’

She drove her thumb deep into the arm-rest.  ‘And now,’ she whined to him, ’now that we’ve stirred each other up this way, mightn’t we have just one?’

‘No,’ said Conroy, shaking.  ’Let’s hold on.  We’re past’—­he peered out of the black windows—­’Woking.  There’s the Necropolis.  How long till dawn?’

‘Oh, cruel long yet.  If one dozes for a minute, it catches one.’

’And how d’you find that this’—­he tapped the palm of his glove—­’helps you?’

’It covers up the thing from being too real—­if one takes enough—­you know.  Only—­only—­one loses everything else.  I’ve been no more than a bogie-girl for two years.  What would you give to be real again?  This lying’s such a nuisance.’

‘One must protect oneself—­and there’s one’s mother to think of,’ he answered.

’True.  I hope allowances are made for us somewhere.  Our burden—­can you hear?—­our burden is heavy enough.’

She rose, towering into the roof of the carriage.  Conroy’s ungentle grip pulled her back.

‘Now you are foolish.  Sit down,’ said he.

’But the cruelty of it!  Can’t you see it?  Don’t you feel it?  Let’s take one now—­before I—­’

‘Sit down!’ cried Conroy, and the sweat stood again on his forehead.  He had fought through a few nights, and had been defeated on more, and he knew the rebellion that flares beyond control to exhaustion.

She smoothed her hair and dropped back, but for a while her head and throat moved with the sickening motion of a captured wry-neck.

‘Once,’ she said, spreading out her hands, ’I ripped my counterpane from end to end.  That takes strength.  I had it then.  I’ve little now.  “All dorn,” as my little niece says.  And you, lad?’

‘"All dorn”!  Let me keep your case for you till the morning.’

‘But the cold feeling is beginning.’

‘Lend it me, then.’

‘And the drag down my right side.  I shan’t be able to move in a minute.’

‘I can scarcely lift my arm myself,’ said Conroy.  ‘We’re in for it.’

’Then why are you so foolish?  You know it’ll be easier if we have only one—­only one apiece.’