“I am not violent.”

“Ain’t you?  I am.”  He flung out his arm.  “Give me your hand.”  Val complied, amused or touched:  as often happened when they were alone, he remained on the borderline.  But it was taken in no affectionate clasp.  Bernard’s grip closed on him, tighter and tighter, till the nails were driven into his palm.  “Is that painful?” Clowes asked with his Satanic grin.  “Glad of it.  I’m in pain too.  I’ve got neuritis in my spine and I can’t sleep for it.  I haven’t had any proper sleep for a week.—­Oh my God, my God, my God! do you think I’d grumble if that were all?  I can’t, I can’t lie on my back all my life playing patience or fiddling over secondhand penknives!  I was born for action.  Action, Val!  I’m not a curate.  I’d like to smash something—­crush it to a jelly.”  Val mincingly pointed out that such a consummation was not far off, but he was ignored.  “Oh damn the war! and damn England too—­what did we go to fight for?  What asses we were!  Did we ever believe in a reason?  Give me these ten years over again and I wouldn’t be such a fool.  Who cares whether we lick Germany or Germany licks England?  I don’t.”

“I do.”

Bernard stared at him, incredulous.  “What—­’freedom and honour’ and all the rest of it?”

“In a defensive war—­”

“Oh for God’s sake!  I’ve just had my supper.”

“—­any man who won’t fight for his country deserves to be shot.”

“You combine the brains of a rabbit with the morals of a eunuch.”

Val crossed his legs and withdrew his cigar to laugh.

“Ah!  I apologize.”  Clowes shrugged his shoulders. “‘Eunuch’ is the wrong word for you—­as a breed they’re a cowardly lot.  But I used the term in the sense of a Palace favourite who swallows all the slop that’s pumped into him.  ’Lloyd George for ever and Britannia rules the waves.’  Dare say I should sing it myself if I’d come out covered with glory like you did.”

“I met Gainsford today.  He says the longacre fences ought to be renewed before winter.  Parts of them are so rotten that the first gale will bring them down.”

“Damn Gainsford and damn the fences and damn you.”

“Really, really!” Val stretched himself out and put his feet up.  “You’re very monotonous tonight.”

“And you, you’re tired:  I wear you both out, you and Laura—­and yet you’re the only people on earth. . . .  Why can’t I die?  Sometimes I wonder if it’s anything but cowardice that prevents me from cutting my throat.  But my life is infernally strong in me, I don’t want to die:  what I want is to get on my legs again and kick that fellow Hyde down the steps.  What does he stop on here for?”

“Well, you’re always pressing him to stay, aren’t you?  Why do you do it, if this is the way you feel towards him?”