“It does seem worth while now.  That’s what’s so extraordinary.  I feel I can stick anything—­even being a Government clerk all my life.  I don’t even seem to mind home like I did.  I’m in love.  That’s what it is.  You’ve never been in love, have you, Stonehouse?”

“No.”

“You’re such a cast-iron fellow.  I don’t know how I have the nerve to tell you things.  Sometimes I think you don’t care a snap for anything in the world, except just getting on.”

Robert Stonehouse hunched his shoulders against the wind.  There was more than physical discomfort in the movement—­a kind of secret distress and resentment.

“You do talk a lot of sentimental rubbish,” he said.  “It seems to me it’s only a hindrance—­this caring so much for people.  It gets in a man’s way.  Not that it matters to you just now.  You’ve got a slack time.  You can afford to fool around.”

“You think I’m a milksop,” Cosgrave said patiently, “I don’t mind.  I dare say it’s true.  There’s not much fight in me.  I don’t seem able to do without people like you can.  I think, sometimes, if I hadn’t had you to back me up I’d never have been able to stick things.  Of course, I’m not clever, either.  But you’re wrong about being in love.  It doesn’t get in one’s way.  It helps.  Everything seems different.”

Stonehouse was silent, his fair, straight brows contracted.  When he spoke at last it was dispassionately and impersonally, as one giving a considered judgment.  But his voice was rather absurdly young.

“You may be right.  I hadn’t thought about it before.  It didn’t seem important enough.  There was a woman I knew when I was a kid—­a common creature—­who was fond of saying that ’it was love that made the world go round.’ (My father married her for her money, which didn’t go round at all.) Still, in her way, she was stating a kind of biological fact.  If people without much hold on life didn’t fall in love they’d become extinct.  They wouldn’t have the guts to push on or the cheek to perpetuate themselves.  But they do fall in love, and I suppose, as you say, things seem different. They seem different—­worth while.  So they marry and have children, which seems worth while too—­different from other people’s children, at any rate, or they wouldn’t be able to bear the sight of them.  What you call love is just a sort of trick played on you.  If crowds are of any use I suppose it’s justified.  It’s a big ‘if,’ though.”

Cosgrave smiled into the dark.

“It sounds perfectly beastly.  Not a bit encouraging.  But I don’t care, somehow.  Do you mind if I tell you about her?  I’ve got to talk to somebody.”

“I don’t mind.  But I don’t want to stand here any longer.  It’s cold, and, besides, I’ve got to be up west by six.”

They turned and strolled on toward Westminster.  Robert Stonehouse still kept his hands thrust into his pockets, and the position, gave his heavy-shouldered figure a hunched fighting look, as though he had set himself to stride out against a tearing storm.  He took no notice of Cosgrave, who talked on rapidly, stammering a little and scrambling for his words.  The wind blew his hair on end, and he walked with his small wistful nose lifted to the invisible stars.