“But why not? What’s the good of being alive at all if you’ve got to do everything whether you want to do it or not? It’s not sense!”
“It’s fact, though. From the king to the miner—all a part of a big complicated machine that’s grinding us slowly to bits, making us all more and more wretched.”
“But who makes it like that, Keith?” cried Jenny. “Who says it’s to be so?”
Keith laughed grimly.
“Don’t let’s talk about it,” he urged. “No good talking about it. The only thing to do is to fight it—get out of the machine ...”
“But there’s nowhere to go, is there?” asked Jenny. “I was thinking about it this evening. ‘They’ve’ got every bit of the earth. Wherever you go ‘they’re’ there ... with laws and police and things all ready for you. You’ve got to give in.”
“I’m not going to,” said Keith. “I’ll tell you that, Jenny.”
“But Keith! Who is it that makes it so? There must be somebody to start it. Is it God?”
Keith laughed again, still more drily and grimly.
ii
Jenny was not yet satisfied. She still continued to revolve the matter in her mind.
“You said nobody was free, Keith. But then you said you were free—when you got married.”
"Till I got married. Then I wasn’t. I fell into the machine and got badly chawed then.”
“Don’t you want to get married?” Jenny asked. “Ever again?”
“Not that way.” Keith’s jaw was set. “I’ve been there; and to me that’s what hell is.”
How Jenny wished she could understand! She did not want to get married herself—that way. But she wanted to serve. She wanted Keith to be her husband; she wanted to make him happy, and to make his home comfortable. She felt that to work for the man she loved was the way to be truly happy. Did he not think that he could be happy in working for her? She couldn’t understand. It was all so hard that she sometimes felt that her brain was clamped with iron bolts and chains.
“What way d’you want to get married?” Jenny asked.
“I want to marry you. Any old way. And I want to take you to the other end of the world—where there aren’t any laws and neighbours and rates and duties and politicians and imitations of life.... And I want to set you down on virgin soil and make a real life for you. In Labrador or Alaska ...” He glowed with enthusiasm. Jenny glowed too, infected by his enthusiasm.
“Sounds fine!” she said. Keith exclaimed eagerly. He was alive with joy at her welcome.
“Would you come?” he cried. “Really?”
“To the end of the world?” Jenny said. “Rather!”